The Great Shain Neumeier, Esq.

Remember the Autism Wars post Mother's Day? I mentioned people who everyone should know. One of them is Shain Neumeier, an eloquent attorney, writer, and speaker on topics of autism and social justice. Shain is one of my personal heros. So here's a brief introduction to Shain, with the hope that more people will get to know more about this outstanding attorney and champion of social justice.

Shain Neumeier giving a presentation on restraint, seclusion
and aversives in schools and programs for Education Law.
Rocking the T-shirt version of the white polo shirt worn by my son,
and designed by autistic disability rights activist Lydia Brown. 

Shain Neumeier is a disabled attorney living in Portland, Oregon. Shain has researched issues involving institutional abuse of youth and disabled people for a number of years and currently works with the law firm of O'Donnell, Clark & Crew in seeking damages from a notorious "emotional growth" boarding school for decades of abuse. Both as part of a research assistant position and out of interest, Shain attended last year's trial over the Judge Rotenberg Center's abuse of Andre McCollins.

During the trial, the Judge Rotenberg Center and its representatives, faced with having to explain video evidence of their abuse to a jury and to the public at large, attempted to paint Andre McCollins both as irrationally and almost untreatably dangerous and as able to work with and learn from a program that punished him for doing so much as tensing in fear. On the other hand, Andre's mother Cheryl and her lawyer Benjamin Novotny presented a compelling case that showed this "treatment" to be as senseless and cruel as the video footage would suggest. The outcome of the trial and its media coverage went beyond the undisclosed settlement between the parties, leading thousands worldwide who viewed what happened to Andre to demand an end to the torture. That end, with continued efforts, may well soon be achieved.

Shain's seven part series on the Andre McCollins trial was published on the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's site and can be read here.

This is the second segment in a series on people who need to be recognized for the work they continue to do for the betterment of the autism community.








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Mother's Day

Today finds me going back to why I felt the need to write a blog in the first place, and where I want to take the blog from here. It is sometimes a good thing to hit the brakes on what I'm doing, look to see where I am going and decide if I really am in such a hurry to get there.

My original purpose in writing this blog was to have a body of work for my son and my immediate family. This body of work was to be a clear statement of how I felt about my son being autistic. It was to make it apparent how much I loved him.  It was meant as a vehicle for everyone to know my wish that he be as autonomous as he is capable of being.  This body of work should make it clear to any reader:

• Our son is loved unconditionally. He is not loved despite his autism diagnosis.
• I have faith in our son and presume he is competent even when others do not.
• Whatever advocacy work I do is done to gain acceptance, inclusion, and accommodation for our son and those like him.
• That my purpose is to stand by my son and not have anything I do, including advocacy, overshadow that critical purpose.

This blog was to be proof of how proud I am to be his mother, and what an amazing person I believe he is. Mustafa has great creativity, determination, and strength of purpose. These qualities are laudable in any human being, but in him they are opening the way for him to succeed in a world where he is seen as less than the least of God's children, because he is a minority even among his peers. So as he fights for mastery over his environment, it is my task as his mother to fight for a rightful place in society for him.

I decided to set the direction of The Autism Wars blogs back on that course. To that end, I am choosing topics I think are important to him, and people I think are role models for him and examples of what we all can be as advocates ourselves.

 Today I decided to talk about people who fit that criteria; those who quietly wage war against great odds for neurodiverse adults and children, and continue to speak out and fight for all people on the autism spectrum while seeking justice for their own children and loved ones. Since it is Mother's Day, let's start this new journey with two amazing Autism Moms who don't blog.

Andre McCollins and Mom Cheryl in happier times

Cheryl McCollins fought for 10 years to have the video of her son Andre’s torture at the Judge Rotenberg Center released to the press. She continues to fight to close the ‘school’. Cheryl sued the JRC for the funding Andre will need for his care the rest of his life. Andre has never recovered. Cheryl joined protesters outside the JRC and continues to use her voice to speak out against JRC and the torture of young Autistic people in the name of discipline. Cheryl even created a petition on Change.org asking for support in demanding the State of New York cease sending students to this center.

Emily Holcomb and Mom Jenny Parker Holcomb,
photo courtesy of the Holcomb Family

Jenny Parker Holcomb was completing an IEP meeting for her daughter Emily when the sheriff's department appeared with a police complaint against her daughter, accusing Emily of slapping a teacher. Jenny had to explain that Emily was on the profound ray of the autism spectrum, nonspeaking, with intellectual disability. Emily had been so mistreated at her school placement that at one point she was restrained for 55 minutes by staff. With the help of special education attorney, activist, and father of a child with autism James Gallini, Jenny began the fight for Emily's future. Lydia Brown, who read about Emily's situation on Landon Bryce's ThAutcast blog, offered to write a petition on Change.org and that petition began a social media crisis that no one was prepared for. Assault charges against Emily were dropped. Emily has since thrived in an appropriate educational placement and community activities that give her the life skills training she needs to transition to adulthood and autonomy. Jenny realized from Emily's own horrific experience that this should never happen to anyone else. She has since led parent support groups and online action groups, empowering other parents to stand with their children and take on whoever abuses them.

Happy Mother's Day

This is the first segment in a series on people who need to be recognized for the work they continue to do for the betterment of the autism community.

Note: James Gallini, Landon Bryce, Emily Titon, Shain Neumeir are names you should know. They play very important roles in these stories, as you'll see later.

White Polo Shirts, Autistic Eyes

Multiracial boy whistling, sitting on brown leather chair  wearing a white polo shirt

 with the words "stand against restraints, seclusion, and bullying by teachers" 
© Kerima Cevik

About a week ago I was looking for a recent picture of my son stimming as my annual contribution to Paula Durbin-Westby's Autism Acceptance Year site, and came across one of my favorite recent photos of him. I decided that this would be his official Autism Acceptance Month photo this year. But why I made this decision requires the story of how he came to be the proud owner of what I believe is the only white polo shirt with the provocative words "Stand Against Restraint, Seclusion, and Bullying by Teachers" manufactured anywhere, to date.  That slogan was emblazoned on t-shirts and is now part of the history of the protests brought to the very door of the Judge Rotenberg Center in the course of a valiant war to release one of the few tapes of sustained torture that survived the purging of evidence related to charges brought against the center over  the many years of its existence. So here is the story.

Mustafa was one of the first customers to order a t-shirt created by autistic activist Lydia Brown, for those of us who were families fighting against the maltreatment of autistic children in school placements of all kinds. By this time Emily Holcomb was safe and Chris Baker's petition letter was being passed through all internet social networking channels. No one knew that  Cheryl McCollins would come down like the wrath of the Lord on the JRC in court and request the court release the video of the hours of torture her son Andre suffered at the hands of staff to the media. Everyone got their new t-shirts and was happy. The problem was, once the shirt was on him, Mu would not take it off. As happens with some children, he liked the shirt and wanted that shirt on every day. Of course, it began to fade from frequent washing. And there was no guarantee that he would like a new identical t-shirt as much. More importantly, he needed to dress more formally for some of the places we were going and that t-shirt was too casual. I posed the problem to Lydia and asked if they could do me a favor that might make both Mu and me happy.  The result is the white polo shirt in the photo above. Even though the writing beautifully stitched on the right breast area makes special needs service professionals wince, they regularly compliment him on the how great the white shirt looks against his dark tan complexion.

The magnitude of what this photograph means to me becomes clear when it is realized that although Mu did not choose to stop whistling while I was taking the photo, he did look right at the camera. He is, by nature, someone who does not look directly at anyone, so when he does it means you have been given a gift. This is also the first photo in which he is beginning to look like the man he will become. And that small sign of a different operating system, his autistic eyes, look for a brief instant directly into mine. If you have spent any time around autistic adults and they graced you with those eyes you will recognize the eyes of your children and catch your breath. The feeling is one of finding a long lost cousin of your child at a family reunion. You see the eyes, even in complete strangers, and you don't have to ask. Even when they don't say "I am autistic", you know.

 It came to me recently that one of the many reasons I care so much for all of these activists, and all those autistic children and adults they fight for,  is because they have, regardless of color, my son's eyes.  When they are able to look directly at me for an instant, it is a gift and a surprise, and at that instant, I remember my son and how much we love him.  I "see" my autistic son is growing up.