On behalf of Plaintiff Betty Jones*, the Legal Action Center and Housing Works have filed a complaint in the Western District of New York alleging Buffalo State University violated federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws when they expelled Ms. Jones based solely on her HIV status.
Ms. Jones was just over two weeks into her first semester at SUNY Buffalo State University in 2022 when she was evicted from campus housing and suspended from school based on outdated, inaccurate, and stigmatizing assumptions about HIV.
Ms. Jones is a young woman living with HIV who, for years, has taken daily antiretroviral medication that has allowed her to achieve viral suppression. Since at least 2017, public health authorities nationwide have established that treatment with medication can fully suppress HIV. People who are “virally suppressed,” like Ms. Jones, have an “undetectable” viral load and cannot transmit the virus to others through sexual contact. Accordingly, federal as well as New York State public health officials have called for treatment, not punishment, as a key strategy to preventing HIV transmission.
When Ms. Jones disclosed her status to a person she was dating, his reaction left her fearful and led her to seek protection from Buffalo State authorities. Instead of protecting her though, Buffalo State suspended her and evicted her from campus housing claiming that she was involved in “health and safety incidents that put[] our campus at risk.”
Not only did numerous university employees and officials fail to conduct an individualized assessment regarding whether Ms. Jones posed an actual risk to anyone, but they also ignored established medical evidence presented by Ms. Jones and her legal counsel that HIV cannot be sexually transmitted by a virally suppressed individual. Buffalo State utilized emergency procedures to evict her and banish her from the campus, leaving her humiliated, afraid, and, for many weeks, homeless. Buffalo State’s discriminatory actions derailed her college education and future professional life and severely and negatively impacted her mental health and wellbeing.
"I told them I wasn’t a threat, that I couldn’t hurt anyone because I had an undetectable viral load, but they still kicked me out without any justification and left me at a bus stop just outside the campus,” says Ms. Jones. “I had worked hard to get into college. I enjoyed the classes I took in the summer before school started and had earned some credits and gotten good grades. I was devastated. I lost my belongings and had to make my way to a homeless shelter in New York City, feeling very sad and not knowing if I would ever be able to go back to school.”
“Tragically, HIV-based discrimination is not a thing of the past. Misinformation is pervasive, stigma remains severe, and this case is a painful reminder of that,” says Jen Sinton, Litigation Director at the Legal Action Center. “Despite extraordinary gains in HIV prevention and treatment, far too many people act on the basis of outdated and stigmatizing assumptions about HIV. For a college like Buffalo State to ignore science is particularly shocking. The school’s actions not only harmed our client, but they also run counter to public health strategies to eliminate HIV."
“HIV has, from the inception, been the subject of hysteria and prejudice, stereotype and stigma,” says Armen H. Merjian, Senior Staff Attorney at Housing Works. “Federal, state, and local disability laws were enacted to combat precisely these forms of discrimination, and to require that the treatment of the disabled, including those living with HIV, be based upon science and fact rather than fear and outdated misconceptions. Medical experts have long and decisively concluded that ‘U = U,’ that undetectable HIV in the blood renders HIV untransmittable. Even a cursory assessment of the facts in this case would have made this abundantly clear.”
To learn more, you can read the complaint here and/or view “10 Things to Know About HIV Suppression” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and/or the NYS Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS Basics & Other Resources website.
Ms. Jones is being represented by Jennifer Sinton and Diane Johnston for Legal Action Center; Armen H. Merjian, Robert Hupf, and RE Lunderman for Housing Works; and Anna Marie Richmond, Esq. of Buffalo, NY.
*Ms. Betty Jones is identified by pseudonym to protect her from the stigma, discrimination, emotional distress, and hardship that could result from publicly disclosing her identity and HIV status.
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Media Contact:
Arianne Keegan
Director of Communications, Legal Action Center
communications@lac.org
(212) 243-1313