Breaking news covered for Allergic Living.
Two Massachusetts children were barred from a youth production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, due to what their lawyer describes as discrimination related to one of the kids’ severe food allergies.
Through their parents, the children have made a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. The complaint, filed Nov. 3, 2015, alleges discrimination on the basis of disability by the theater company, and requests substantive changes to the troupe’s policies for dealing with children with disabilities.
Ten-year-old Mason Wicks-Lim says in the complaint that the organizers of the Young Shakespeare Players East (YSPE), a Massachusetts chapter of the Wisconsin-based Young Shakespeare Players (YSP), because of the accommodations his food allergies require. These include always being in the presence of an adult trained in the use of an epinephrine auto-injector.
Ishani Nath 