And, even in Finland (not the most advanced-thinking country on the bloody planet!), we have autistic people on the governing body of the autism association … and a number of autistic people have jobs within the organisation. The current regional secretary for South-East Finland has Asperger syndrome, as do the two main workers on the Empowerment Project.

As for Autism Speaks’ displayed attitude on the matter of discrimination, none of gadfly’s arguments can hold up: the precedent for having autistic people on committees and holding posts in organisations relating to our disability issues is there, and Autism Speaks should be bloody-well following it. The fact that they are not suggests that they do not give a rat’s arse about what autistics actually have to say for ourselves.

NAAR did not respond to email, so I phoned them. I was shunted to NAAR’s PR person, who did not know why autistics were excluded. I was not allowed to speak with anyone else.

I’ve spoken with several Autism Speaks officials about their exclusion of autistics, without Autism Speaks providing any actual reason. The only answer I’ve been given is that Autism Speaks is pleased and satisfied that Autism Speaks excludes autistics. They are happy with this situation.

I’ve also approached the problem through INSAR and CIHR, because of Autism Speaks’ huge influence on both. Again, no answer.

Mr Mitchell often makes claims about the characteristics, statements, and actions of others. Many of these claims are false. Virtually everything he’s written about me is false (he has this in common with Harold Doherty).

Mr Mitchell has also taken the position (on the TMoB board) that Autism Speaks, as an autism research funding body, must abandon established scientific standards (e.g., a credible peer-review process) and instead make funding decisions according to political considerations (e.g., whether Mr Mitchell approves of various researchers).

I wouldn’t be so sure that Autism Speaks would appoint enough people to their board if enough people called and e-mailed. People have been contacting them, for several years now. There have been petitions signed by many people.

Most of the “excuses” you speculated about seem rather unconvincing. For instance, is it absolutely necessary that everyone on the board be someone of money and influence? Is that the case currently? I don’t know, but that would be rather odd and atypical, as others have said. Your idea that autistic members’ disabilities would prevent them from being effective board members is even more appalling. (Never mind that autistic people have been board members for other organizations.) Shouldn’t they, as an autism organization, be willing to accommodate an autistic board member’s non-standard communication style? If the answer is ‘no,’ then it’s even more clear that they are in fact perpetuating discrimination.

All the excuses you gave could be used by those organisations too, but they don’t use them (although that’s not to say people didn’t when the idea was quite new back in the 80’s).

As an aside, if they’re having THAT much trouble finding a pro-cure autistic person to sit on the board (or even just a panel, comittee or consultancy group) then that should give them massive pause for thought.

Copied from your own damned link:
autism’s gadfly
We don’t need no stinkin’ neurodiversity

At this point as far as I am concerned you have exposed your own Bigotted Ignorant and Uncivilized intentions.

Don’t bother replying, I’ll probably stick my fingers in my ear Just Like Your Doing.
(nyah nyah I Caaaaan’t Hear YOU!!)

I don’t recall AS having an anti-discrimination effort as part of their platform. They are basically an organization that raises capital for scientific research which is largely designed to cure and prevent autism a goal that neurodiversity opposes, though they have gotten into other things such as insurnce lobbying the united states congress and other things.

I would really like to hear your theories as I simply can’t imagine what they might be. There are people with autism on the board of NAS, there are people with Down’s Syndrome on several DS boards. People with mental illness such as manic depression, OCD, schizophrenia all serve on the boards of orgs. What is special about the major org’s in the US? How can they possibly preach an end to discrimination when they are discriminating themselves? Its simply not logical.

I realise that you are not of the ND persuasion yourself but surely, as an autistic person you must feel curious and slightly disenfranchised by their silence on the issue. You and I disagree on lots of things but I would love to see you on the board of AS - irrespective of our mutual positions on issues you have a legitimate reason for being on the board of an org called Autism Speaks .

So, I believe the onus is on those who frequently raise the point publically on the internet, to dig deeper for some answers.

No Sir. I think its up to AS to explain why they are actively discriminating against autistic people.

I wasn’t really discussing ND as a whole so much as noting that the existince of a powerful message spreading organization with one message (cure autism) seems to have much more funding, and thus message broadcasting capacity than a group of people with another message (whatever ND is, whatever my take on that is, is seemingly wrong, I don’t want to get in any more trouble).

That’s absolutely true, and I think that’s one thing in favor of the neurodiversity movement if you think about it. Any other identifiable group in the autism community is well funded. Autism Speaks is well funded. The autism anti-vax faction is well funded; like Kev said, they can even afford ads for $100,000. (I don’t think David Kirby and Dan Olmsted do what they do for free either).

So how is neurodiversity visible and known with practically no funding at all?

Has ‘ND’ been endorsed by the United Nations? Has ‘ND’ raised massive captial through donations? Are there any prominent wealthy individuals who have dedicated large sums of dollars to the message that ND espouses? If they be stunts, what is keeping someone who dislikes the message of Autism Speaks from also performing a stunt to raise money to spread the message they find more preferrable?

Well, no. And is that strange or unexpected? No one is claiming that the neurodiversity message has become mainstream. Try asking the same thing of the gay rights movement in the 1960s.

Now, the next logical question might be; why one would a set of people with one set of ideas (cure autism) be so much more able to raise capital and consequently spread their ideas more widely than another set of people with other ideas?

One reason is simply that they have money. The Wrights have money. Handley has money.

The rest of us aren’t necessarily poor, but we just can’t throw money around. I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that people who embrace the neurodiversity ideology tend to be non-rich (although many are autistic who aren’t employed for various reasons). It could just be circumstantial. Then again, you probably can’t be filthy rich and at the same time not have an unreasonable sense of entitlement.

Another reason is that certain kinds of efforts will be better able to attract funds. “Fund the cure” is probably an effective way to raise money. “Fund a new rights movement with a new philosophy that no one really seems to grasp” probably isn’t.

I realize, that recently some people have attempted to do this and have apparently been rebuffed by AS for one reason or another and I agree that is wrong. They should give some sort of answer. I am not defending AS by any means if they refuse to answer. I don’t believe they are under any obligation to put a person with autism on the board though, but I would certainly not have any objection to it. Donna Williams, if i am remembering correctly, was on the board of CAN which was ND’s favorite whipping boy before AS was created.

I do not believe that anyone who believes in an ND philosophy should be on AS board for the reasons I described in my previous post. Therefore, I don’t know why ND keeps asking this question unless they want to raid AS’ ready made capital for their own agenda or they just want to use this as an excuse to vent their anger.

Again, this whole thing falls into the example of ND just being nothing but a very vocal small minority of persons, since they seem to be the only ones asking this question of no autistic board members and this is why AS has not been forced to address this issue. If enough people emailed them, phoned them and inquired about this issue I am failry sure they would give some sort of public response on their web page or maybe even appoint an autistic person to their board. This compels me to believe this concern is only espoused by a small handful of people who would no more assume to serve on their board, assuming AS continues to have the same ideas, than a republican would want to be on the DNC or serve in Barak Obama’s cabinet.