Discrimination Against Neurodivergent People: Lessons for Canada from the Netherlands
NCF spoke with Hans Bruintjes LLB, a Dutch legal researcher and neurodivergent lived-experience expert, about the policy blind spots, legal gaps, and advocacy strategies shaping neurodivergent rights in Europe — and what Canada can learn.
Hans’s work connects law, policy, practice, and lived experience. He translates research into concrete recommendations for policymakers, legal professionals, educational institutions, and employers, with an emphasis on stronger legal protection, genuine accessibility, and practical systems change.
At NCF, we ask how change actually happens: how lived experience, research, legal analysis, education, and advocacy can come together to shift systems. In this interview, Hans shares lessons from his work in the Netherlands and reflects on why neurodivergent discrimination must be understood as a systems issue, not only an individual accommodation issue.
1. From your perspective, what are the most significant policy blind spots affecting neurodivergent people in the Netherlands or Europe right now?
I started researching discrimination against neurodivergent people and advising local and national politicians. Each time, it struck me that whenever I read a report on discrimination or a policy document on inclusion that was communicated to the municipal council or the House of Representatives, there was never any attention paid to neurodivergent people and the injustice we experience.
I wrote a debate contribution about it every time, calling for attention to this. However, I did discover that more is needed for this than just writing debate contributions. This is partly because the precise implementation is difficult to communicate from a debate perspective, and their absence in all those reports and policy documents doesn't exactly help either.
One recurring theme in Hans’s work is that legal protection is not enough if public institutions do not understand how neurodivergent discrimination actually occurs.
2. In general, where do you see the strongest gap between legal protections against discrimination and the lived reality of neurodivergent people?
There is widespread ignorance, particularly among civil servants and policymakers, and little is being done about it. For my research, I sent a letter to all municipalities in the Netherlands, among others, asking whether they have civil servants with knowledge of neurodivergence, civil servants who are neurodivergent themselves, and whether the municipality is consciously working to ensure that cases involving neurodivergent residents are handled by civil servants who have knowledge of the subject. And that last question was answered with "no" by approximately three-quarters of the municipalities that responded. This also touches upon another problem:
while we do have multiple laws in the Netherlands to combat discrimination and promote accessibility, practice often shows that there is still much uncertainty regarding when something is sufficiently accessible and when it is discriminatory enough to justify intervention by a judge or an inspectorate. Discrimination is often insufficiently recognized.
Fortunately, there have been positive developments in the Netherlands in recent years: judges are scrutinizing the perspective of institutions much more effectively. Whereas until the previous decade it was common for judges to exercise restraint in their assessments because institutions have a great deal of policy discretion, judges are now increasingly critically questioning institutions regarding what they have done to prevent problems (such as absenteeism due to burnout) and whether they have complied with due diligence requirements. In doing so, it is also taken into more explicit consideration that the actions of institutions have a major impact on the lives of neurodivergent people and that this justifies strict scrutiny.
3. What promising models, tools, legal strategies, policy proposals, or advocacy approaches in Europe that could inform our work in Canada?
On 4 October 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that devoted extensive attention to the problems experienced by autistic people. This resolution called for the harmonisation of the rights of autistic people within the European Union and the improvement of legal protection.
On March 20, 2026, the Parliament in Scotland published the report Neurodivergence in Scotland. In this report, the Scottish Parliament has made concrete calls to the next government to better protect the rights of neurodivergent people.
In the Netherlands, I am involved in the Development Approach to Neurodiversity in Education, which is implemented by an advocacy organization for children in special education and the Department of Education.
4. For Canadian advocates, this raises an important question on the kids of evidence that help shift decision-makers from individual accommodation thinking toward systems change. Are there specific Dutch or European approaches to neurodivergence, disability rights, inclusion, or equality law that you think may be relevant to Canada?
They exist, and I am referring to international human rights treaties that I consulted for my research and that have also been ratified by Canada.
Those treaties are listed below:
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1970)
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976)
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976)
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1981)
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1987)
Convention on the Rights of the Child (1991)
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2010)
These treaties concern human rights in general and also offer answers to problems faced by many neurodivergent people. Furthermore, these treaties have monitoring committees that hold the countries that have ratified the treaty accountable every few years for what they have done to strengthen citizens' rights.
For instance, in the Netherlands, children are sometimes placed in care institutions that have been deemed torture by a monitoring committee. In addition to the treaty articles themselves, I am aware that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has issued general comments on a number of articles, in which the committee's intentions regarding those articles are explained more concretely. And in a number of those general comments, neurodivergence was explicitly addressed.
5. What kinds of evidence, stories, or data have been most effective for you in helping policymakers understand neurodivergent discrimination as a systems issue rather than an individual accommodation issue?
My own research work. In addition to my research, I have also published a book titled The Voice of the Neurodivergent. In this book, I have explored the nature of discrimination, and have also included material that various types of policymakers can use to take concrete action.
I also give presentations about it. I have already given one at a university of applied sciences, as well as several to politicians. I show figures, which I combine with telling short, concrete stories, such as that the most common form of discrimination is that needs are not respected, and I substantiate this with an example that noise-canceling devices are not accepted.
I also tailor those presentations as much as possible to the target audience. When I give a presentation to politicians, I focus much more on the process behind the creation of new laws. I explain that laws intended to promote inclusive education have been passed in the past, but that during the consideration of that bill, an advisory body that examines every bill had already issued extensive warnings about implementation problems, and Parliament passed the Bill without these problems being resolved in the Bill. But when I speak about it at schools, it is precisely personal stories that come up more.
6. Your work is very important and exciting. Can you tell us more about yourself?
I am 27 years old and from the Netherlands. I am currently studying public law, and I am also actively conducting research at a Dutch university into discrimination against neurodivergent people. I started this while writing my bachelor's thesis on the extent to which Dutch education laws comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I conducted a survey on the subject, and I received so many responses that I feel I should do more with it.
Additionally, I am the founder of the SpectrumAssist app (which is coming online soon), an app for neurodivergent people and mental healthcare providers, in which I have implemented features to increase self-knowledge for the neurodivergent individual themselves, easily store important data, and make requests for help and finding the right care provider easier. I also founded the job board NeuroVacant.com, a platform intended for neurodivergent-friendly vacancies, in which I have implemented tools to improve communication and make the search for suitable workplaces easier.
What this means for Canada
Hans’s work points to several lessons for Canada.
First, neurodivergent people must be explicitly included in discrimination, accessibility, education, employment, and human rights policy.
Second, legal protections need implementation infrastructure: trained public servants, clearer standards, accountability mechanisms, and better recognition of neurodivergent discrimination in practice.
Third, lived experience should not be treated as anecdotal or secondary. When combined with legal analysis, data, and concrete examples, it becomes essential evidence, material, and powerful expertise and a driving force for systems change.
For NCF, this conversation reinforces the need to move beyond awareness toward practical, accountable, neuroinclusive system design.
NCF is grateful to Hans for sharing his research, expertise, and perspective with the NCF community. His work strongly aligns with NCF’s focus on moving beyond awareness toward practical systems change, stronger accountability, and the meaningful inclusion of neurodivergent lived experience in policy, education, employment, and public systems.
