As a poor disabled student do I really have a right to equal access in education? How do I defend that right, now that it has been clearly violated on multiple occasions?

First of all I have extreme difficulty breathing when I try to access the ADA center and other areas on campus during the middle of the day because of second hand smoke. Vocational rehab wanted a copy of my accommodation the first time I tried to go over to the ADA center I ended up having to barrow someones inhaler. I made it to the ADA center, but I was still having breathing problems and I had to return later because I wasn't getting enough air to explain what I wanted. The second time I went over there they said they would fax the document. According to vocational rehab they haven't done that yet.(of course I know to get the document from the ADA center early in the morning to reduce the risks).

I have another problem with unfair and unequal treatment. I received a Full Pell Grant, but it was not enough to pay for all the things that I needed to do my best work a. As a disabled person I am forced to live off of social security. Vocational rehab led me to believe I was going to get help buying books and a computer. It has been over a month into the school year and now I am left high and dry with no way to even take notes in class. I'm still doing much to well to drop out but I really haven't been able to complete my work to the best of my abilities because the COMM lab is not open on the weekends. I have to give a power-point presentation for the first time on the twenty-forth of February and then another one on March first, the open office.org power point would only let me use one picture and it might not even be compatible at all anyway. I have a documented learning disability and records from childhood that say "give Mary plenty of time " and that I take two or three times as long to do everything.

How equal could my access to education be? I haven't even managed to get all my books yet and there is a good chance I will go without even having my nutritional needs met because of the book I have managed to pay for myself. I want to do my best, but even my basic needs as a student are not being met.

This is my junior year and I have overcome many obstacles to get here. I got an A in ethics, but our government has failed.

District 82 failed to protect me from harassment. (It is not uncommon for children with Asperger's to have that sort of problem)

So I dropped out my senior year of high school and started collage before my senior year was over. The lumber mill near the NIC was a bit to much for my already poor health, but I survived. I was sick often and I couldn't pass that last humanities class that I needed to graduate because of the attendance policy, but I stayed in school and earned a degree after the attendance policy was changed.(Why should a student with a disability be punished twice? Once by being forced to miss school and then again by being graded on attendance?)

My health was very poor so I took time to recover. I figured I might run out of money as early as my twenty eighth birthday so I decided to become a landscaper and I talked my friend into it too. Starting out we just had a few clients, so I decided to ask my father if we could work for him even though he was an hour drive away. we were on our way to work in my hometown and my friend was pulled over for a broken license plate bracket. I'm not the sort of person who causes trouble, and I have never had a warrant issued for my arrest. I was arrested. I plead not guilty, so I forced to undergo a humiliating psychiatric evaluation. I was incontinent from the stress and I had to stay the night in Sandpoint. They kept on scheduling court dates every month and trying to convince me to plead guilty to a lesser charge or waive my right to a speedy trial. I refused but it still took them over 6 months to drop the charges.

Worse then that I was so embarrassed about the whole thing I put my best friend down as a contact person instead of me parents. She got pulled over for having a cup on her car they cited her and let her go. She told me the truth about what happened over the phone but after that it seemed like she was afraid to be honest with me. She got really sick after that, she spends a lot of time at the emergency room. I knew she was really disturbed about the incident.

Unfortunately I decided to come back to Sandpoint. The roads where icy and it was dark. My mom was driving down the center of an unmarked road we got pulled over. I refused a search from a male officer and he slammed me violently into the front of my mothers car and arrested me.

We knew that this police officer was dangerous so we reported the incident. He was put on paid administrative leave. He applied for a job at the Spirit Lake police department. I found out about it, so I called up the Spirit lake police department and asked them not to hire him.

My mother got a lawyer and we were preparing to sue, when the police came and arrested me from my own home without a warrant or any real evidence against me. I spent 2 months in jail without a lawyer. I have food allergies so I didn't eat for the first three weeks. I thought it was almost over so I decided to eat some green beans then my throat started to swell. I woke up in my own urine and feces, the next mourning I asked for a shower an hour before it was time to go to court. I didn't get one before court.

I was kept chained up under the jail well an attorney, who I had never met, requested a continuance. finally after two months I was locked in chains and transported to Blackfoot. I thought everything was going to be OK, until I met Bob Anderson. The first thing he told me was that he meets with all the new patients, that was a lie. two days latter he slipped me a piece of paper and notified me of an override hearing. I had two days to prepare. During that time period I managed to convince three other patients that the doctor wasn't trying to kill them. I finally took a pill still refusing to consent. What happened that night was terrible.

I remember holding on in the shower. I could barley even stand up. I complained endlessly as soon as I felt well enough to complain again. "I want to go back to the jail" I complained. They forced me to take more pills by threatening me with shots. Since then the pain I experience from noise is unbearable ever day I'm in pain. I 'm afraid of high pitched sounds. I can't watch movies anymore. The dentist can work on my teeth without anesthetic, but ordinary Christmas carols leave me crying in pain. My hands never worked quite right but now it's much worse.

Medicaid sent me bills for over forty thousand dollars, I refused to pay. I lost everything fighting the charges. All the charges weren't dropped till over a year after I was arrested, even though I refused to wave my right to a speedy trial. If they had just listened to me and not hired him they would not have had to railroad me or the victim he assaulted only a few months after he was hired.

I once passed calculus, but I had trouble just a balancing checkbook. When I finally got SSI I was forced to have a payee who did not pay my bills on time. I still haven't got records showing how my money was spent. The same payee let the lights get shut off on a disable veteran who has cancer, but I am still working towards the day when a person with diminished capacity can have the freedom and dignity others take for granted.

The government has spent a huge amounts of money on arrests, hospitalization, and drugs. Funding for disabled people and funding for education is being stolen. Even innocent children are still being tortured and having their lives destroyed by Risperdal and other drugs. Our funding is being cut. Medicaid still pays billions of dollars to drug people to the point that they will have to live off the system for the rest of their lives.

I could just give up and sell the addictive drugs that Medicaid pays for. Thirty pills at ten bucks a piece that is three hundred dollars for just one prescription. I could get a lot of prescription and make a lot of money, but I won't. I know what addictive drugs do and I won't sell them for all the money in the world.
WE ARE ALL BEING CHEATED!!!
I think I can change this situation and get ISU the funding it deserves, I have began a campaign called, Don't Drug Me Educate Me.

Please Help Me,

Mary Tormey