In this article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/education/11stutter.html, a 16 year old student at the County College of Morris, had been repeatedly discouraged from speaking in class by the teacher. Phillip Garber Jr. who had been attending Ms. Snyder’s class, had first received an e-mail from the teacher stating that he ask his questions before or after class to save the other students time, after she realized that he stuttered. If this was the extent of the teacher’s discouragements, it could be seen as somewhat understandable, extremely rude but still understandable.
However, later she tells Philip “I believe it would be better for everyone if you kept a sheet of paper on your desk and wrote down the answers.” Philip’s treatment gets even worse as Ms. Snyder states that “Your (Philips) speaking is disruptive”. It gets to the point when the teacher completely ignores and refuses to interact with Philip. Philip and other students comment on how Philip would hold his hand up the entire class, with the teacher ignoring him.
This is a clear example of intolerance for a student’s disability. For a teacher at a college to behave in this manner is unacceptable, it would be understandable if this happened to a student that was purposefully disturbing the class, but not for someone with a speech disorder. Philip does however state that up until that point in his life, he had never been bullied or discriminated against for stuttering, which can show that people are becoming much more aware and accepting of these conditions.
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