Iowa State settles, separates from disabled worker two weeks after hire

AMES — Iowa State University has agreed to settle and part ways with an employee just two weeks after hiring him to work as a manager in its University Library.

JJ Pionke, 46, started as a unit lead for business and social science in the library on Feb. 5 and officially left Feb. 19, according to Iowa State spokeswoman Angie Hunt. He was making a $70,000 salary but received upon separation just $2,201.

The university also paid Pionke $7,798.98 to move from Urbana-Champaign, where he worked as an applied health science librarian and assistant professor at the University of Illinois for nearly a decade.

“The university agrees that it will not seek reimbursement from Pionke for relocation expenses paid by the university,” according to the settlement, signed Feb. 22.

As part of the deal, neither side admitted any wrongdoing and both agreed not to sue.

In a phone conversation with The Gazette, Pionke said the disagreement had to do with his mobility-restricting disability, a miscommunication about job requirements, and a “loophole” in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I have mobility disabilities and they’ve gotten significantly worse,” he said.

While his doctor advised he work entirely from home, Pionke said, Iowa State required him to be “100 percent on site” — given his role as a manager of two employees.

“They said that was an essential job function, which means I didn’t have any room — in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” he said. “So we talked it over and basically agreed to go our separate ways.”

Pionke said he did go to work on the Ames campus for a week but strained a muscle and took the second week off to recover.

“It was a workman’s comp thing,” he said.

Although Pionke said he didn’t hide his disabilities when being interviewed, he also didn’t understand he would need to be 100 percent in-person for the job.

“I'm not looking to blame anybody,” he said. "There was just miscommunication. I did try, and it was too much for me, physically.“

Before coming to Ames, Pionke accrued decades of experience in academia and the library sciences — serving most recently as an applied health science librarian and assistant professor at the University of Illinois and an instructor at Syracuse University.

His research has focused on disabilities and accessibility in libraries and in 2017 he published a study titled, “Beyond ADA Compliance: The Library as a Place for All.”

“This paper argues that libraries are falling far short of true accessibility and that there needs to be a serious mental shift in how we think about access to our services and spaces,” Pionke wrote in 2017.

Now in Ames, Pionke said he’d like to stay — but has learned his capacity for flexibility is limited.

“If there's a lesson here it’s I need to be a remote worker.”

Employees can seek ‘reasonable accommodations’ for disabilities

Like many of Iowa’s colleges and universities during the pandemic, Iowa State employees were encouraged in some cases and allowed in others to work from home in 2020. But the Board of Regents in May 2021 directed employees to return to their normal workspaces by July.

Today, the campus allows employees to seek “reasonable accommodations” for a disability.

“The process includes the requesting employee or applicant, the employee’s or applicant’s health care provider’s recommendations, the manager, appropriate departmental or university personnel, and (human resources) working together through an individualized assessment to identify and implement reasonable accommodations that are effective and do not impose undue hardship upon the university,” according to ISU policy.

Not all requests are granted.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com