HIV-Positive Man Sues Over Being Dropped From Paramedic School

More than halfway through his paramedic training at a Los Angeles vocational school, Robert M. Bender discovered that he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Within two months of telling his instructors, the Van Nuys man says he was dropped from the program and informed by school officials that he would not be allowed to graduate.

In a federal lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles, Bender accuses the Associated Technical College of violating federal, state and local laws barring discrimination against people with disabilities, including those who have AIDS or HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus.

“The school clearly violated his rights by refusing to allow him to complete his courses and denying him a career as an (emergency medical technician) even though he had paid full tuition, nearly completed his training and posed no risk to others,” contended Alan Friel, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which, along with AIDS Project Los Angeles, filed the suit on Bender’s behalf.

The school’s director referred questions to the institution’s attorney, who said he had not yet been able to review the suit.

The case was filed against a background of continuing debate over health care workers and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. While there have been public demands that medical workers undergo mandatory HIV testing and be required to tell their patients if they are HIV positive, neither the state nor federal governments have adopted such rules.

Rather, they have issued guidelines suggesting voluntary testing for the AIDS virus and advised medical workers with HIV to consult local professional boards about whether they should restrict any activities. The federal Centers for Disease Control has said that if proper precautions are taken, the risk of HIV transmission to patients is extremely low.

Los Angeles County does not bar someone with HIV from being certified as a paramedic.

Nevertheless, according to Bender’s suit, school officials told him last year to stop using training equipment and informed him that he would never be certified by the county or get a job as a paramedic.

“It was not the school’s right to decide whether or not there was a significant likelihood he would find a job,” Friel said. “That’s really not their business or concern.”

Even if he did not get a job as a paramedic, the certificate could have qualified Bender for other work, Friel said.

The ACLU said Bender was a top pupil and had been chosen to be a student instructor before he was dropped from the school.