I think that I may have been discriminated against because of my Parkinson's.

This has happened twice.

I teach a nursing assistant class at a local community college. The qualifications to teach this class are mandated by the state.

The first time I was disciminated against was several years ago when my boss retired. I was the logical choice to take her place, but instead they hired someone who was no where near qualified, and the person they hired had to work all summer just to meet the minimum requirements. The head of the nursing department told me "I do not want to stress you out and make you sick again." When they saw how upset I was they created a half time position with benefits just for me. The reason why I did not file a complaint at that time was that my husband had been laid off and we needed the income (and health insurance!).

In the past year or so it has become a lot harder for me to keep up the pace, so last spring I wrote a letter (under the direction of a lawyer) asking for reasonable accomadations. The letter proposed something that I thought I could handle and I asked if we could discuss it. To make a long story short they claimed that I resigned my half time position, which means loosing the benefits. They also kept putting off the meetings to discuss it. In the end all I ended up with was 4 hours a week!

My neurologist said that the stress was making my symptoms worse and suggested that it was time to get out of there and apply for disability with the State Teachers Retirement System. I have done that and expect to hear from them within the next two months.