The Maine Human Rights Commission found Monday that there are reasonable grounds to find that two individuals have been discriminated against because of disabilities — one by a national employer and other by a community college.
Kristen Aiello, an attorney with Disability Rights Maine, represents the two people. She says Dameon Crouse, who has a developmental disability, worked at Walmart for 11 years but was taken off the schedule when the company adopted a new computerized scheduling system that will not allow him the modified schedule he needs to do his job.
“An employer certainly has the right to prove that an accommodation would be an undue burden or would cause some substantial level of difficulty, but that’s just the case here,” she says.
Aiello says, in the second case, a woman who has disabilities because of a stroke and had been accepted into Kennebec Valley Community College’s culinary arts program was refused reasonable accommodations by the school that would have allowed her to participate in the class.
Aiello says the next step is for the parties to attempt to negotiate resolutions. If that fails then her clients will have 90 days to file lawsuits.
