$50K Pledged to Help HIV+ Boy Rejected from School

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is launching an awareness campaign regarding a private boarding school in Hershey, Penn. that ejected a student because he is HIV-positive.

The foundation has also pledged to contribute up to $50,000 in support of the boy's lawsuit to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which is representing the 13-year-old boy, identified under the pseudonym Abraham Smith, in court. Administrators of the Milton Hershey School, a free residential school for low-income students, claimed that they were protecting the student body at large by not admitting the boy. The student and his legal team say, however, that administrators violated violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said he felt compelled to help once he and his organization learned about the case. "The ignorance displayed by the Hershey School's leadership is unacceptable and demonstrates just how much work there is still to be done to dismantle the fear and misinformation that still surrounds this disease more than 25 years after Ryan White," Weinstein said in a statement.

For more background on the story, see the AHF's report: