Jury Box Disabled: Accommodate or Not?


Winifred Owens-Hart worked at Howard University as a professor of ceramics for 37 years. Throughout her tenure at the university, Ms. Owens-Hart taught and worked in the university’s ceramics studio, which contained her office. The process of creating ceramic art involves the use of hazardous chemicals, including silica. Such chemicals, if not properly mopped up, causes dust to accumulate on the floor. This dust can become airborne if circulated through an improperly filtered ventilation system.


During Ms. Owens-Hart’s time at the university, she developed occupational asthma, apparently as a result of hazardous conditions caused by inadequate cleaning and ventilation in the ceramics studios. The occupational asthma prevented her from engaging in athletic activities she used to enjoy, and she had to curtail her basic everyday activities. In turn, her overall physical condition declined.


Ms. Owens-Hart first requested an accommodation for her asthma on March 12, 2009, when she notified then-chair of the art department of her disability and requested the studio be properly cleaned and maintained. She was unsatisfied with the university’s response, and by mid-April 2009, concluded that they had denied her request. A second request was made for accommodation in April 2010, including a letter from her treating physician, specifically asking that the studio receive daily wet mopping and that high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters be installed and maintained. Over the next five months, additional requests were made with no results.


Two years later, on June 20 and July 6, 2012, Ms. Owens-Hart submitted requests that the studio be appropriately cleaned and supported her requests with a letter from her treating pulmonologist, who recommended that the university install air purification systems with HEPA filters in both the studio and office. Requests continued through the fall semester of 2012. On October 4, 2012, the plaintiff notified the chair of the art department, the former chair, and others that the studio was still not being properly cleaned: the filters for the HVAC system were dirty and had to be regularly changed; and the floor was covered in a film of silica dust, which could only be remedied by daily mopping. Although the university acknowledged that it was necessary to mop the floors in order to properly clear the studio of silica dust, daily mopping still had not begun one month later. She repeated her request that the studio be mopped daily on November 3, 2012, again without successful response.


Ms. Owens-Hart remained persistent in her requests for accommodation. On December 7, 2012, she submitted a comprehensive list of “observations and suggestions” to properly clean and ventilate the studio. On December 20, 2012, an administrative director at Howard University wrote that he would not authorize monthly replacement of the HEPA filters, but he would replace filters that had not been changed in several years.


In a letter to her immediate supervisor, in January of 2013, Ms. Owens-Hart began to request that she work from home and teach


© 2017 by the Association of Christian Schools International 27.3 | 65


remotely. She again supported her request with a letter from her pulmonologist stating that it was medically necessary for her to work from home due to the conditions of the studio. Later that month, she submitted a second request and provided additional letters from her doctors, and also submitted a proposal for teaching her ceramics course online, using her home studio. By mid-February, she had received no responses from the university. For the next several months, she submitted additional requests, and in May she made the same request through her attorney. She also made a formal complaint to OSHA.


OSHA investigated and concluded, among other things, that employees working in the ceramics studio were exposed to hazardous chemicals, including “silica and products that contain lead, chromium, and other hazardous ingredients”; employees were not provided the “proper personal protective equipment” because they were using masks intended “for common household dirt”; and housekeeping in the studio was inadequate because “debris from products being used in the studio was observed throughout floor, work, chairs, and shelf surfaces.” OSHA issued the university several citations as a result of its findings and imposed $33,000 in penalties.


Finally, Ms. Owens-Hart filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in July of 2013, alleging that she “suffered discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because Howard University continued to deny her the reasonable accommodation of a safe work environment.”


In August of 2013, she requested leave to teach a “hybrid” course with a colleague, in which part of the course would be taught online and part would be taught in her home studio. That fall she began to teach the hybrid course, even though she had never received a response to her request from the university. Midway through the semester, the university finally responded to advise her that she should seek disability or medical leave. Again, no assurance was given that the studio would be cleaned. Near the end of the semester, she received a denial letter regarding teaching the hybrid course.


Ms. Owens-Hart eventually resigned at the end of the semester from her position “due to the university’s longstanding history of repeated unwillingness to maintain a clean and safe teaching and office facility and to acknowledge her multiple requests to make reasonable accommodations due to her occupational asthma,” particularly given that her “asthma was verified to be causally connected to her employment at Howard University’s art department ceramics studio.”


In late January of 2014, Ms. Owens-Hart received a right to sue letter from the EEOC; she filed suit in April of 2014. Did the university fail to reasonably accommodate her? The university filed for summary judgment and to have the case dismissed. What did the court say? You be the judge!


See The Verdict on page 68.


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