HHS, NIH and other federal agencies should hire more employees with autism and other disabilities

Special Comment

The federal government’s Schedule A Program intended to facilitate the hiring of people with disabilities is severely underutilized. The hiring authority has rarely been used to hire people with cognitive, developmental or psychiatric disabilities. The federal government should develop and implement policies that ensure that people with autism and other disabilities are given an equal opportunity to contribute to the missions of government agencies.

Background

The unemployment rate of people with disabilities is approximately 70 percent. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) created the Schedule A hiring authority to allow for greater recruitment and hiring of individuals with disabilities. Schedule A allows federal agencies to “provide disabled individuals a unique opportunity to demonstrate their ability to successfully perform the essential duties of a position with or without reasonable accommodation.” 

OPM states that the Schedule A certification is used to "appoint persons who are certified that they are at a severe disadvantage in obtaining employment…Certification also ensures that they are capable of functioning in the position for which they will be appointed.”

The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health

Unfortunately, the government’s record on hiring employees with disabilities through the Schedule A program has been abysmal. The agencies that should be leading the government are among the worst offenders, starting with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), its Operating Divisions including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

NIMH, an organization whose mission is to "work to improve mental health through biomedical research on mind, brain, and behavior," does not seem to have an equivalent program aligned with that mission to ensure that those disadvantaged with disabilities can fairly contribute to advancing that mission.

As the steward of medical and behavioral research for the U.S., the NIH aims to "reduce the burdens of illness and disability" and "exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science." In addition, the NIH Policy on Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Management (January 26, 2005) states, "the process is designed to improve the full participation of minorities, women and individuals with disabilities."

Given its position as the "steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation," NIH should be particularly sensitive to attracting and retaining people who are traditionally underrepresented, including those with disabilities. A failure to proactively include employees from all segments of society in the hiring process threatens to leave these individuals languishing with difficulties and frustrations.

Special Report: Federal Hiring of People with Disabilities through Schedule A

A 2008 report published after Freedom of Information Act requests were sent to federal government agencies asking how many times the Schedule A authority was used to hire people with disabilities showed that most federal agencies underutilized the Schedule A program or did not use it at all. In almost all cases in which the hiring authority was used, hires of people with physical disabilities outnumbered those with cognitive disabilities and psychiatric disabilities by an extremely wide margin. Noteworthy results from the survey include the following:

• DHHS reported that it hired 213 people with disabilities through the Schedule A program from 2000 to 2008. Of those, 198 had physical disabilities; 15 had cognitive disabilities, and not one had a psychiatric disability (After the survey, one HHS agency hired a person with a psychiatric disability).

• From 2003 to 2008 the Department of Commerce hired 36 employees with disabilities under Schedule A. All were in the physical category except for one in the psychiatric category (none were hired with cognitive disabilities). The Department of Commerce has approximately 36,000 employees.
   
• Of the 89 people the Department of Homeland Security hired with disabilities through the Schedule A program, 81 had physical disabilities, 4 had cognitive disabilities, and 1 had a psychiatric disability (3 were not specified). 

• The Department of the Interior, which has approximately 75,000 employees, used the Schedule A program for people with disabilities to hire exactly three of its employees as of 2008.

Even years after the federal government was notified of the lack of progress in hiring people with disabilities through the Schedule A hiring authority, the government continues to show a reckless disregard for this issue.

Recommendations

Federal agencies should not only develop policy on making the hiring process as inclusive as possible, but should also be accountable to those claims by ensuring that the policies are effectively implemented in a way that will mutually benefit the agencies, the public whom they represent and work for, and the employees who conduct work for these agencies.

In order for the federal government to have an adequately diverse workforce, agencies should hire people from all segments of society, including those representing all disabilities. People with disabilities are not only inadequately represented in the federal government, but government agencies are not implementing the programs that have been created to help decrease this disparity.

The federal government should recruit more people with disabilities into their workforce by utilizing the Schedule A hiring authority. Congress should enact laws to ensure that the federal government’s workforce is representative of society as a whole. Finally, categories of disabilities should be reworked to ensure that people with all disabilities are fairly represented.

The federal government should increase recruitment of job candidates with disabilities, especially those in non-physical categories.

The federal government should recruit more people with disabilities, especially those with cognitive, developmental, and psychiatric disabilities. According to the data provided by federal agencies, the total number of Schedule A hires between 2000 and 2008 was as follows: 4069 hires with physical disabilities (73% of all Schedule A hires with disabilities), 124 hires with cognitive disabilities (2% of all Schedule A hires with disabilities), and 229 hires with psychiatric disabilities (4% of all Schedule A hires with disabilities). The remaining 21% were unspecified. Counting statistics from all agencies except the Department of the Navy and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Schedule A hires of people with psychiatric disabilities accounted for just 1% of all people hired with disabilities through Schedule A.

Based on the data, the federal government seems to give preference to people with physical disabilities over those with other disabilities, and may discriminate against those with other disabilities, if a lack of recruitment can be considered discrimination. The scarcity of Schedule A hires in the cognitive and psychiatric categories is staggering, disappointing, and shameful.

People with cognitive disabilities can perform certain jobs very effectively and people with psychiatric disabilities often have a very high intellect. As with people with developmental disabilities, these potential employees may simply require reasonable accommodations.

The federal government should revise classifications of disabilities to include those with autism and developmental disabilities.

The federal government should change the current classifications to include developmental disabilities. This would include people on the autism spectrum. In the hundreds of pages of responses federal agencies sent in response to FOIA requests, not once was there a mention of someone hired who had autism. While there must have been cases in which autistic people have been hired using the Schedule A certification or otherwise, in the descriptions of the types of disabilities listed by federal agencies in their FOIA responses, the term "autism" never came up, though some agencies did not go into detail other than listing the three major categories.

The categorization of disabilities under the Schedule A Program seems to exclude most people on the autism spectrum. The Schedule A authority lists people with disabilities in three broad categories. The first category, "severe physical disability," would only sometimes apply to a person with autism. The second category, "mental retardation," may apply to a percentage of people on the autism spectrum, but it is now believed by many experts that far fewer people with autism than previously believed have mental retardation, a term, which incidentally, is being phased out in favor of "intellectual disability" or "cognitive disability." Finally, the third category, "psychiatric disability" does not cover those with autism, which should be classified as a "developmental disability," a term that would be much more accurate and inclusive.

Regarding psychiatric disabilities, it is important to note that the federal government states that this third category is only for "hiring people who have recovered from mental illness."  Unfortunately, most mental illnesses are chronic, so this wording discriminates against those who retain a diagnosis of a mental illness or psychiatric disability. People with psychiatric disabilities should be given a fair chance to work and contribute to the missions of federal agencies rather than being explicitly discriminated against through government policies.

The federal government should also not restrict employment of those on the autism spectrum to those who have "recovered," because while some people on the spectrum make remarkable progress and some eventually become indistinguishable from the general population, most people with autism do not become completely "recovered."

Federal agencies should exercise due diligence in hiring people with disabilities through the Schedule A hiring authority by proactively recruiting employees with not only physical disabilities, but also cognitive disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and developmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorders.

Autism and other developmental disabilities are not included in the three disability categories under Schedule A nor are they included in “targeted” disabilities, and this excludes a large part of the disabled population. This was not the intention of the guidance. Though that guidance was written by the Office of Personnel Management and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, HHS and NIH, because of their missions, should take the lead in implementing guidance in the most inclusive way possible. Potential employees with developmental disabilities such as autism spectrum disorders deserve an equal opportunity to work.

Federal agencies should offer part-time jobs on USAJobs.gov and encourage people with disabilities to apply.

Many people with disabilities are unable to work full-time, and one of the most common reasonable accommodations would be to work part-time. If federal agencies claim that it is not possible to get a job except through USA Jobs, as its human resources employees often do, a failure to offer any part-time positions is tantamount to discrimination against people who can only work part-time schedules.

Federal agencies should ensure their Selective Placement Coordinators have the authority, in conjunction with hiring officials, to create positions that can be filled non-competitively.

A common response from HR officials is that it is the managers who make the hiring decisions. Meanwhile, the managers usually pass the buck to the HR officials. The Selective Placement Coordinator apparently has very little authority other than forwarding emails.

Agencies should empower Special Placement Coordinators with more authority to recruit and hire people with disabilities. Although the OPM website states that this is currently the case, in fact, they often do not have the leeway or the incentive to do so.

Congress should pass laws that require agencies to hire people with disabilities.

Congress should pass laws that require agencies to hire people with disabilities or provide incentives for doing so. Those with psychiatric, cognitive, or developmental disabilities should be adequately represented. For the past 20 years, the Schedule A program has been severely underutilized and often ignored by many agencies. The vast majority of Schedule A hires have come from the physical disability category. It has been proven that most agencies will not do what is right in this area; they will only do what they are required to do. Therefore strong laws need to be enacted.

Unfortunately, lobbyist groups for disabled people do not exist in the way that they do for high-powered, money-making special interest groups such as the oil and pharmaceutical industries. Still, lawmakers should pass laws that will facilitate the hiring of people with disabilities because the costs of not doing so in the long-term are certainly more than the short-term costs. Legislation requiring the federal government ensure that people with various disabilities are adequately represented would help prevent institutional, systematic discrimination against people with disabilities. People with disabilities face enough problems without being discriminated against.

The vast majority of the research and services devoted to people with autism and other disabilities goes toward children and not adults. But someday those children become adults, and they should have a fair opportunity to work.

If the government fails to give people with disabilities a fair chance at employment, the private sector certainly won’t. Some say we can't afford to hire people with autism and other disabilities.  In fact, we can't afford not to hire them.

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