Since our knowledge of the law is not the real issue here, I couldn't agree more with Ralph's statement:
"My point is that there is a much broader set of stakeholders that is involved in these decisions than the legal office. There have been recent CHAS symposia and publications on ADA compliance which have demonstrated that productive discussions and reasonable accomodations are possible in many situations that appear challenging at first. But getting to those accomodations requires significant outreach from the chemistry department and the EHS office to other stakeholders to address their preconceived notions of "hazardous materials" and the risk they present. Perhaps a course in "RAMP for non-science adminstrators" could be developed - the UCLA pregnancy policies Craig pointed to recently start down that path."
However, learning how to accommodate both pregnancy and various disabilities is not something you can leave up to PIs as an additional individual responsibility. The school MUST have an active, on-going process involving time, experts, and regularly sessions for PI. Izzat happening? Bet not. That still leaves you PI guys in a bind. Who is going to be blamed for the accident caused by someone who couldn't do the task safely? My guess is it will be the PI as usual.
My lawyer tells me that at the very least, write a letter or an email (that is acknowledged) to whoever is supervising or above you in the food chain expressing your concern about this issue so the responsibility for not knowing who is unable to perform tasks safely due to disabilities is clearly transferred upstairs. Keep a copy of this document so if there is an incident, you are somewhat protected.
1. This is very technical issue involving multiple solutions depending on the type of disability and the tasks. It should be addressed by ACS and other organizations that actually care about the ADA chemistry student and the PI.
2. But every chemist on this safety forum is enough of an "expert" to understand that this is an unaddressed safety risk.
Monona
-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Stuart <ralph**At_Symbol_Here**RSTUARTCIH.ORG>
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Sent: Mon, Feb 14, 2022 6:42 pm
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature Comment Pregnancy in Lab
> >I would really like to hear from legal experts on this entire issue. We in the safety profession can make a case for needing the information, but it is up to our legal colleagues to determine if we can legally get the information.
It has not been my experience that the legal staff in academic institutions get involved in operational decisions within the institution. Rather offices that are assigned responsibility to understand and implement ADA (i.e. facility design groups), FERPA (the registrar), HIPPA (the medical clinic) and other requirements develop an interpretation based on their professional understanding of the situation, which may not include any experience inside a laboratory or consideration of teaching issues there. I once took an internal auditor on a tour of a chemistry department I worked with to show her the safety progress we had made and she was aghast at the situations we saw; I considered those situations close to normal.
My point is that there is a much broader set of stakeholders that is involved in these decisions than the legal office. There have been recent CHAS symposia and publications on ADA compliance which have demonstrated that productive discussions and reasonable accomodations are possible in many situations that appear challenging at first. But getting to those accomodations requires significant outreach from the chemistry department and the EHS office to other stakeholders to address their preconceived notions of "hazardous materials" and the risk they present. Perhaps a course in "RAMP for non-science adminstrators" could be developed - the UCLA pregnancy policies Craig pointed to recently start down that path.
