A New York state summer camp wouldn’t let a 10-year-old boy join a week-long basketball training in 2004 because he has HIV, according to a lawsuit filed last month by the boy’s mother. Deer Mountain Day Camp, which denies the charges, won’t give its own version of the story pending the investigation. But the plaintiffs are painting a grim picture of the 50-year-old retreat.
The unnamed family charges that the boy’s mother paid for her son to attend the Pomona, NY, camp and alerted staff to the boy’s HIV status without any trouble. They say that a few days before camp was supposed to begin, however, they were told the child wouldn’t be allowed in. “It is clear from their actions that this denial was based on outmoded and harmful stereotypes and not science,” said Howard Sherwin, senior attorney at the Legal AID Society of Rockland County, one of the family’s lawyers working on the case.
Not so, says Deer Mountain owner Roberta Katz. “We make every effort to accommodate children with special medical needs,” she told POZ. “We do expect this case to be resolved and show that Deer Mountain and its one-week basketball academy did not engage in wrongful discrimination.”
Deer Mountain is accredited by The American Camp Association, which instructs camps not to discriminate against employees or campers with HIV.
Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
