Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm absolutely hopping mad today.
My son is on the autistic spectrum, he's 21 years old. He is the smartest, most compassionate, non-judgemental person I know. He works as a special educational needs teaching assistant, he volunteers for a mental health charity, and as a cadet leader. He has his issues but he's worked so hard to manage them, in fact many people are surprised when they learn he is autistic - most just think he's a bit quirky.
So why am I hopping mad? Well he had an interview today for PCSO. He spent weeks preparing for it, put together a presentation, had to complete online psychometric tests, and then today he was interviewed.........he was interviewed on his disability, not on his ability. He was asked "as a PCSO you can be subject to a lot of name calling. How would you cope with that, being on the autistic spectrum?" "can you tell me a time when you have been criticised? How did you deal with that, being on the autistic spectrum?" So much for protected characteristic! Imagine asking someone how they would deal with something 'being a woman, being gay, being black'. They'd be sacked, and rightly so. It was a very negative experience and like they'd already made up their minds, but interviewing him ticked a box.
I shouldn't be surprised though. He went for an interview with a so called charity about a year ago. They were Disability Confident. He attended for an interview taking with him his presentation that he had spent a long time preparing and that was a required part of the interview. When he got there they said "oh, you don't have to bother with the presentation, we'll just do the interview" about 20 minutes later he was done. They had obviously just invited him for interview because they had to under Disability Confident.
Why do employers think that disabled people are just for them to use to tick boxes or get pointless little accolades like 'Disability Confident' that they can plaster all over their corporate material. Who do they think they are to waste my sons time and put him through the stress of interview knowing they have no intention of even considering him for the job?
Does anyone else have experiences like this. My son has always been open about his diagnosis, perhaps naively believing everyone is non judgemental like him. I'm thinking of advising my son to withhold this information from any future employer.
Unfortunately I think most autistic adults have had similar experiences. For me it's been particularly bad with charitable organisations who want to look inclusive but aren't, so they do the bare minimum making a show out of 'trying' before claiming they're not equipped to help me, when my needs were far less than their physically infirm service users. Sadly we do not have the advocacy of other minority groups and it's much easier for companies and charities to say our autism prevents us from doing the job or that the charity isn't equipped to serve us than to say the same thing about being black or female or queer or physically disabled/infirm. For some reason discriminating on autism and mental health is OK but not on anything else. There is no logic at all in the NT brain. It would be funny if it weren't frustrating and tragic. 'Disability Confident' is just another silly NT badge like 'Inclusive Church' - it's all about PR and image-marketing, not at all about their actual beliefs and practices. I've learnt that whenever they use words like 'disability' and 'inclusive', they mean them selectively. Their inclusiveness extends only to whom they want to include, not to whom the law says they must include. And since the Equality Act is tort not criminal law, they know that neurodiverse and mentally ill people, with our non-confrontational traits, will not initiate a legal complaint on our own and likely do not have the money to do so either. The Act is in the end just another toothless and useless NT 'badge' for the country, written by people with the loophole in mind and with no intention of enforcing it and changing the status quo. Personally I find it darkly hilarious that public drunkenness, being a crime, will bring you a swifter punishment than discriminating against the least of these our fellow human beings. I really don't know what we can do about this. It seems to me more so every day that there's nothing we can do. There seems to be not much point hoping that there's any good and justice left in this world that would scatter the proud and exalt the meek. It's just not going to happen, in this life at least.
Disclosing the diagnosis is also a Catch-22. If you do you'll face this discrimination. If you don't you won't be able to report it as discrimination to the EHRC/EASS.
Unfortunately I think most autistic adults have had similar experiences.
Totally. I am sorry to hear your son had this experience. My daughter struggles to get interviews at all so for her it would be a step forward.
But it is a good practice to prepare and come to an interview so it is not a complete waste of time. It could be a stepping stone for better experiences with more ethical employers in the future,