Ignorance Over HIV and AIDS Persists The Denver Post
By Chuck Plunkett
May 31, 2009
Robert Franke is a retired university
provost, a distinguished biologist who once served
as a dean of a college of arts and sciences. He is a
master gardener, a voracious reader, a pianist and a
retired Unitarian-Universalist minister with a
Master of Divinity degree.
He also was recently evicted from the Fox Ridge
assisted living center in North Little Rock, Ark.,
and he is suing because he claims he was tossed out
due to his HIV.
When I read about this colossal insult to my
college professor and friend, I was outraged and
shocked. This is 2009, after all. We've undergone
decades of public education about the minuscule
threat of HIV infection to those who are not sexual
partners or those foolish enough to share needles.
Dr. Franke's rights under federal and state Fair
Housing Acts, the Americans with Disabilities Act
and state-level Civil Rights Act were almost
certainly violated; several legal experts say he
stands a strong chance of prevailing in the lawsuit
he filed May 12.
But here's the surprise: After talking to experts
and social workers around the country, I learned
that cases similar to Dr. Franke's aren't isolated,
and in fact more subtle examples of discrimination
against people with HIV are widespread.
"I'm really, really sorry about what happened to
Dr. Franke," Ann Fisher, executive director of AIDS
Legal Counsel of Chicago tells me. "It's appalling,
and I wish I could say that I'm shocked, but I'm
not."
An insidious stigma continues to warp perceptions
about those with HIV. In Dr. Franke's case, the fact
that he is gay has long made him keep his HIV
infection and sexual orientation under wraps, for
fear of losing his teaching job. Beyond the
continuing struggles for rights that homosexuals
endure, HIV stigma further percolates around fear of
intravenous drug users.
In the past three years, Fisher has worked with
HIV victims denied doctor and dentist services. In
one case, a hospital sent a pregnant woman in
premature labor 30 miles away to another facility
because she has HIV.
In Colorado, the HIV Legal Project deals with
roughly 125 cases a year in which HIV victims face
discrimination from medical providers and employers.
"I can tell you clearly that it goes on on a regular
basis," says the Legal Project's Barry Glass.
In Los Angeles County, Williams Institute
researchers found policies against treating HIV
victims at 46 percent of skilled nursing facilities
and 55 percent of obstetricians between 2003 and
2005. I'm guessing that if discrimination is that
widespread in Los Angeles, it's at least as bad
elsewhere.
Dr. Franke didn't discover that he had the virus
that causes AIDS until 1987. I didn't know he had it
until I read about the eviction.
Dr. Franke played a founding role in the creation
of the Donaghey Scholars program at the University
of Arkansas at Little Rock, an honors program from
which I benefited enormously. He taught the "Science
and Society" class as part of the program's core
curriculum I took my first semester, in 1985.
At that time, homosexuality remained a
significant taboo. Growing up in a conservative
Christian house and community, I didn't know any gay
people, but I wanted to write about them for class.
Dr. Franke helped me meet and interview some
homosexual friends. It didn't take long for me to
realize that homosexuals weren't dangerous aliens
destined for the pits of hell.
I co-authored a play about young men in rural
Arkansas who were challenged by a friend's
homosexuality that premiered at UALR, and which Dr.
Franke honored me by attending.
There's no question that Dr. Franke played an
incredibly important role in my intellectual and
moral development, and for that I owe him a great
debt.
This past February, Dr. Franke, now 75, moved to
be near family. On his second day at the Fox Ridge
complex, his daughter, Sara Bowling Franke, was
called in to the administrator's office.
"They said: 'We don't accept people with HIV,' "
Sara tells me. As she and her family scrambled to
make sense of the eviction, administrators called
and insisted Dr. Franke leave the facility
immediately.
"They said, 'His things could stay, but his body
has to be out of here by tonight,' " Sara says. If
she didn't come collect her father, she says she was
told, administrators threatened to have adult
protective services take him into state custody.
Lambda Legal, which advocates for the Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community, is
seeking to return Dr. Franke to Fox Ridge. It also
wants monetary damages to send a message that such
discrimination is intolerable.
Fox Ridge officials did not respond to repeated
requests for comment.
"What I would most like to see is justice done,"
Dr. Franke tells me.
Dr. Franke no doubt helped hundreds of other
young people like me. It would be a shame for his
remarkable life to be defined by this stupid and
small-minded eviction. Instead, I'm hoping word of
his struggle can become a lesson in tolerance.
