Judge Orders Return to Class for AIDS Boy

In a ruling extending federal protections to schoolchildren suffering from AIDS, a Los Angeles judge Monday ordered an Atascadero elementary school to readmit a 5-year-old AIDS victim who was banned from a kindergarten room after biting a classmate.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler in the case of Ryan Thomas was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union as the first definitive federal court ruling in the nation on the rights of AIDS victims to attend regular school classes.

“This decision will be federal precedent for any communities considering banning AIDS victims from the classroom,” ACLU attorney Paul Hoffman said. “This wipes out any efforts at imposing blanket bans on them just because they have the disease.”

Declared ‘Handicapped Student’

In a preliminary injunction ordering Ryan readmitted to class, Stotler declared the boy to be a “handicapped student” subject to the protections of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a law that imposes sharp restrictions on any attempts to “segregate” the handicapped.

She also rejected arguments of the Atascadero Unified School District that the biting incident involving Ryan was sufficient reason to make him an exception to federal law protecting the handicapped.

“The overwhelming medical evidence is that bites cannot convey this particular awful, tragic disease,” Stotler said. “As well-meaning as members of the school board have tried to be, it would appear from all the available medical evidence that there is nothing to fear from this child.”

The decision has potential influence on federal district judges throughout the nation, according to judicial sources. While opinions of district judges are not binding on their fellow judges, they serve as legal precedent until there is a dispute requiring further interpretation by the federal appellate courts.

Ryan, who slept on his mother’s lap throughout the courtroom proceedings, was banned from classes at the Santa Rosa Road Elementary School in September after a fight with another classmate in which he bit the other boy on his trousers.

School board officials maintained that the child was a potential threat to other students and that a reasonable option to keeping him in class was establishing a special tutoring program for him at the school when no other children were in the classroom.

Hoffman successfully argued before Stotler that school officials had discriminated against Ryan by isolating him from other students. The lawyer contended that it was the burden of the school district to prove that the youngster was a potential health menace and that such proof is non-existent.

He said the fight was started by a bigger boy, who had jumped on Ryan and shoved his face into the floor, at which point Ryan bit the other boy’s trousers.

‘No Evidence’

“Ryan’s not a biter, and this was a bite that didn’t even break the skin,” he said. “There is no evidence that AIDS can be transmitted through a bite of any kind. Ryan represents about as much risk as a jet engine falling on the kindergarten class.”

Urging Stotler to let school officials continue to evaluate the boy’s maturity level before returning him to class, Bakersfield attorney Frank Fekete, representing the school board, said Ryan was immature for his age and needed additional tutoring before he could safely be permitted to rejoin his classmates.

He said school officials were in a difficult position in the case, but were following non-binding federal health guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta that say schoolchildren suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome should be placed in restrictive settings if they exhibit biting tendencies.

“This is obviously a very difficult case for the school district and everybody else,” Fekete told the court. “This is a temporary placement, not an exclusion. We have an enormous responsibility not just to the other children, but to Ryan. We will welcome him back when the experts say his maturity level is up.”

‘Put in Fish Bowl’

Hoffman, dismissing the school board’s arguments for further psychological studies of Ryan as an excuse to keep him out of school, said no such studies would be made of a child not suffering from AIDS if he had bitten a schoolmate under similar circumstances.

“This kid is going to be put in a fish bowl,” the ACLU attorney said. “This poor little 5-year-old is going to be evaluated until they’ve created the problems they’re talking about.”

As Stotler delivered her opinion, she expressed sympathy for both sides in the dispute and said she was sorry that school district officials did not have as much evidence about AIDS as she had read in reaching her decision.

The boy’s parents, Judy and Robin Thomas, burst into tears as the judge announced her ruling and later told a news conference that they were “very happy that Ryan’s rights have been restored.”

Ryan contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion at birth.

Appeal ‘Unlikely’

Fekete said school board officials will decide today on whether to appeal the decision, but added that he thought that it was “unlikely” any appeal will be made. He said Ryan could be back in school by the end of the week.

While both Hoffman and the boy’s parents said they were happy at the prospect that the child might be back in school so soon, Hoffman said no final decision has actually been made on whether to return the AIDS victim to school.

“It’s possible he may not go back to class,” Hoffman said. “They haven’t made up their minds yet. They wanted him to have that right. But now they have to decide what is best for Ryan.”

Hoffman said there have now been four court rulings in this country establishing the rights of AIDS victims to attend regular school classes. But the lawyer added that the decisions in the other cases were made by state courts in California, Indiana and New York. The other California case involved Channon Phipps, 12, an Orange County hemophiliac whose blood contains AIDS antibodies. Orange County Superior Court Judge Harmon G. Scoville ordered him readmitted to classes at Rancho Canada Elementary School in El Toro in February.

School officials had barred Channon from classes, fearing he was a potential danger to other students although he does not actually have AIDS.