Scott Badesch, President
Autism Society
4340 East-West Hwy, Suite 350
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
Autism Society
4340 East-West Hwy, Suite 350
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
July 22, 2016
Dear Mr. Badesch,
I am writing to express my alarm over the unprofessional,
divisive, and degrading behavior of San Francisco Autism Society President Jill
Escher, and to request that the Autism Society reconsider having her lead our regional
chapter.
As a fellow Bay Area parent of a high-support autistic teenager, it is extremely distressing to see Ms. Escher use her position and formal SFASA social media to openly push questionable scientific positions, belittle the needs of autistic people who can speak while making them feel excluded from the ASA community, and frame autistic people in general (and her own children specifically) as catastrophes and “damaged,” rather than deserving human beings with specific needs.
As a fellow Bay Area parent of a high-support autistic teenager, it is extremely distressing to see Ms. Escher use her position and formal SFASA social media to openly push questionable scientific positions, belittle the needs of autistic people who can speak while making them feel excluded from the ASA community, and frame autistic people in general (and her own children specifically) as catastrophes and “damaged,” rather than deserving human beings with specific needs.
Ms. Escher demonstrated all of the positions above in a recent San Francisco AutismSociety blog post, but I'd like to highlight one passage:
“Autism has degenerated into a
philosophy and personality identification rather than as the serious mental
pathology. When just about anyone with a quirky or acerbic personality can be
placed in the same simplistic diagnostic category as my catastrophically
disabled nonverbal children, we have a scientific, moral, and practical
problem.”
It is horrifying to see the president of a regional Autism
Society chapter display such ignorance and ableism about the very population
she is supposed to be serving. It is a basic autism understanding that being
able to speak does not preclude having intensive support needs in other areas of life.
It is also not Ms. Escher’s job to decide who qualifies as autistic. As a chapter president of an organization whose guiding principles include supporting “without regard to a person’s age, race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, income level or level of need on the autism spectrum,” it is her duty to support every autistic person in the Bay Area.
It is also not Ms. Escher’s job to decide who qualifies as autistic. As a chapter president of an organization whose guiding principles include supporting “without regard to a person’s age, race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, income level or level of need on the autism spectrum,” it is her duty to support every autistic person in the Bay Area.
And as Ms. Escher has described herself as a “science
junkie,” she must be aware of the research indicating that autistic people have
dramatically higher-than-non-autistic suicide rates. When an autism
organization official who is supposed to be in service to the autistic
population dismisses legitimately autistic people as merely “quirky” – when
many of those autistic people’s lives never made sense until they received an autism diagnosis, and who don’t feel like they fit anywhere except in the
autism communities – she is compounding the feelings of isolation, alienation,
and depression that contribute to those elevated suicide rates.
If the Autism Society is to properly support the San Francisco Bay Area region’s autistic people as well as their families, Ms. Escher cannot be allowed to use the SFASA platform to promote her extremely harmful personal opinions and agendas. And it is simply no longer enough for your organization to issue statements that Ms. Escher's writings "are not the positions of the Autism Society."
Thank you for your time,
If the Autism Society is to properly support the San Francisco Bay Area region’s autistic people as well as their families, Ms. Escher cannot be allowed to use the SFASA platform to promote her extremely harmful personal opinions and agendas. And it is simply no longer enough for your organization to issue statements that Ms. Escher's writings "are not the positions of the Autism Society."
Thank you for your time,
Shannon Des Roches Rosa
Redwood City, California
Redwood City, California
