The ACLU took what is believed to have been the first comprehensive look at AIDS discrimination in the United States and found that complaints of AIDS-related bias nearly doubled in 1988, after an 88% increase 1987 from 1986.

A Connecticut family, for example, was denied housing because an adopted son had AIDS; an Illinois man was fired after his employer learned that "someone (he) knew was HIV-positive," the report said. It also cited an incident in California in which an individual was "refused service after he informed his dentist that his brother had recently died of AIDS." Nan B. Hunter, outgoing director of the ACLU's AIDS project and principal author of the report, said it shows "how extraordinarily persistent discrimination remains in this country, even after science has proven there is no risk of casual transmission."

"In the same town a schoolteacher who has AIDS could not be fired (because public schools are covered by federal law), but his mother, who works in a bank, could lose her job, even though she is only incorrectly perceived as being HIV-infected," the report said. "In the same company, an employee with AIDS may be protected from being fired, but a customer with AIDS could be refused service."