Update on disabled track team member
The Sun has an update on Tatyana McFadden that's a little more balanced -- well, a little less unbalanced.
The article says that the school system's policy "appears to fly in the face of accommodations made by some school systems around the country that have come up with ways to let disabled and able-bodied athletes compete in the same events." But then it goes on to cite only two, neither of which seems to describe disabled and able-bodied athletes actually competing in the same events.
I thought the word "competing" has been thrown around very loosely by the Sun, but I was surprised to find that Merriam Webster says it means "to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective (as position, profit, or a prize)", and that the idea of "[being] in a state of rivalry" with another appears after that. The definition in yourdictionary.com is the more traditional one: "To strive against (others) for victory: contend, contest, emulate, rival, vie. (See conflict.) In that sense, compete is being used very wrongly for what Tatyana wants to do on that track with her teammates, but I suppose I can't complain if Merriam Webster okays the way the Sun is using the word.
I thought this passage from the article is very telling: Not everyone agrees that such mixed events are a good idea.
Susan Oglesby, director of BlazeSports Georgia, a program of the U.S. Disabled Athletes Fund that promotes community sports, clinics and competitions for disabled athletes, opposes letting wheelchair and able-bodied athletes compete simultaneously.
"If it's not the same competition, they shouldn't be on the track at the same time," Oglesby said. "I do believe that the high schools need to offer more opportunities, meaning more distances, for wheelchairs, and we need more training for the coaches because there are certifications available." (emphasis added)
Note that it's an advocate for disabled athletes who is saying that!
The school system's lawyer says: "Wheelchair racing involves athletes using their upper body, arms, shoulders and no use of the legs. We feel it is material alteration of the sport to have a wheelchair athlete in a running event."
He noted that the county has added five wheelchair events - 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, shot-put and discus - to overall team scoring when track and field meets get under way Tuesday.
So it's not like wheelchair athletes are being shut out.
I disagree with the adjunct law professor the reporter interviewed, Marc Charmatz, who said:"The whole tenor of this is to ensure that disabled athletes have the same opportunities to participate in programs and activities as nondisabled athletes to the maximum extent appropriate," said Charmatz, who teaches a clinic on civil rights of people with disabilities.
Charmatz said he sees no reason for "separate but equal" programs for disabled athletes.
"Why can't a person participate equally?" Charmatz asked. "I think that participation is so valuable to a person with a disability. It's difficult to come up with a reason why someone shouldn't be able to have a chance."
Excuse me? Tatyana doesn't want to participate equally! She wants her own separate timing. If she wants to participate equally -- and if it's safe for the runners on the track, as deidei pointed out in her comment yesterday, then I think she should be allowed to! But then, as conuly said, "no school lets every child participate. You get onto the team by doing better than everyone else trying out. You have to compete to earn your slot, which allows you to, well, compete."
Tatyana wants to have it both ways, and I simply don't feel that's fair. One of her teammates said she can beat Tatyana in the shorter events, but "She has to build up speed. When it's the longer distance, she usually kicks our butts." If that's the case, I'd advocate allowing her to compete exactly as conuly described, with the requirement of keeping her wheelchair out of the inner lanes for safety's sake as Oregon does.
But if she wants to have her cake and eat it too, I'm opposed to it.
Fighting for the right to race with her team
By John-John Williams IV, Sun reporter
Originally published March 16, 2006
Tatyana McFadden has dusted competitors nationally and won medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. But the star wheelchair athlete can't compete alongside her Columbia high school teammates - Howard County school policy effectively requires her to take the track alone.
That policy - the subject of a federal lawsuit by the Atholton High School sophomore - appears to fly in the face of accommodations made by some school systems around the country that have come up with ways to let disabled and able-bodied athletes compete in the same events.
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In Oregon, wheelchair athletes compete in the same heats as athletes with no disabilities, without earning official scores. In Louisiana, wheelchair athletes take the track separately but their scores count toward overall team points, an approach Howard County says it will take in wheelchair events this year.
Advocates for the disabled say schools in Iowa, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington allow wheelchair athletes to compete alongside able-bodied athletes in some events.
"I think it is more common than we know," said Kevin Hansen, executive director of World Wheelchair Sports, a nonprofit group that promotes the integration of wheelchair athletes into high school and other athletic programs. "A lot of old football [and] wrestling coaches don't think it is proper. They are backward in their thinking."
For McFadden, 16, who was born with spina bifida, the lawsuit is about more than her right to share the track with teammates and competitors.
"This not only opens the door for me, it opens the doors for a couple of elementary kids," McFadden said, referring to her sister Hannah, 10, who has a prosthetic leg.
Not everyone agrees that such mixed events are a good idea.
Susan Oglesby, director of BlazeSports Georgia, a program of the U.S. Disabled Athletes Fund that promotes community sports, clinics and competitions for disabled athletes, opposes letting wheelchair and able-bodied athletes compete simultaneously.
"If it's not the same competition, they shouldn't be on the track at the same time," Oglesby said. "I do believe that the high schools need to offer more opportunities, meaning more distances, for wheelchairs, and we need more training for the coaches because there are certifications available."
Mark Blom, the Howard school system's general counsel, says McFadden is asking the system to create an athletic event that does not exist anywhere else.
"Wheelchair racing involves athletes using their upper body, arms, shoulders and no use of the legs," said Blom. "We feel it is material alteration of the sport to have a wheelchair athlete in a running event."
He noted that the county has added five wheelchair events - 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, shot-put and discus - to overall team scoring when track and field meets get under way Tuesday.
The dispute - with its echoes of the battle over workplace accommodation for the disabled and the inclusion of special education students in classrooms - centers on McFadden's complaint that the school system is not complying with the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Section 504 is essentially the equivalent of Title IX for people with disabilities, as it prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in federally funded programs and activities, said Marc Charmatz, an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.
"The whole tenor of this is to ensure that disabled athletes have the same opportunities to participate in programs and activities as nondisabled athletes to the maximum extent appropriate," said Charmatz, who teaches a clinic on civil rights of people with disabilities.
Charmatz said he sees no reason for "separate but equal" programs for disabled athletes.
"Why can't a person participate equally?" Charmatz asked. "I think that participation is so valuable to a person with a disability. It's difficult to come up with a reason why someone shouldn't be able to have a chance."
Ann Cody, chairwoman of the International Paralympics Committee's Women in Sports panel, said a common response by officials to situations such as McFadden's is that the other athletes could be at risk of injury if a wheelchair athlete races alongside them.
That's an example of "attitudinal barriers that are kind of masked by policy," said Cody, a three-time track and field Paralympian. "It's just another instance of a younger person with a disability being excluded from opportunities that are afforded to everybody else around her. People ought to be able to look at this constructively and say, 'How can we make this work?'"
McFadden, who took home wheelchair-event medals at the 2004 Paralympics, said she loves competition and the camaraderie of practicing and competing with teammates. She was embarrassed when Howard County officials told her she could race only against other wheelchair athletes - effectively by herself.
"I wanted to meet new people," McFadden said. "I didn't like being separated."
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School officials elsewhere have taken various approaches to the issue.
Oregon has had examples of wheelchair and able-bodied athletes competing in the same events as far back as the late 1980s, said Hansen, who has worked with the Oregon School Activities Association in attempts to integrate track and field.
This week, the Oregon association sent a letter to athletic directors and track coaches offering guidelines on how school systems could arrange such competitions safely.
"For the most part, they have been so wonderful working with us we have avoided getting legal," Hansen said of the Oregon association. "Tatyana seems to be up against a brick wall."
Louisiana has allowed wheelchair athletes to earn points in competition since the late 1980s, though they don't use the track at the same time as other athletes.
"This is a way for these kids that have been excluded from so many other opportunities because of being confined to the wheelchair," said Tommy Henry, commissioner of the Louisiana High School Athletics Association. "I don't feel we are doing anything special. I feel that we are doing the right thing."
Points gained by wheelchair athletes helped one Louisiana school secure a tie in a track and field team championship last year.
"To me, that's really what we wanted," Henry said. "We wanted them to contribute to their school's success."
Still, when it comes to wheelchair and able-bodied athletes sharing a track, some see safety as a consideration.
"There might be some physical contact," said Howard County's Blom. "With the wheelchair, you increase the harm."
Hansen, the 1996 U.S. Paralympics track coach, rejects such arguments. In Oregon, athletes line up against each other and race in individual lanes, he said, and wheelchair athletes are restricted from the inner four lanes when athletes merge in distance events.
McFadden's teammates, meanwhile, are more than happy to have her share the track.
"I think it's great," said Vicky Sloboda, 15, a sophomore who competes in the 200- and 400-meter events. "It's really important that she gets a chance."
It's only fair, said Elana Kukulies, 17, a junior who also competes in the 200- and 400-meter events. Kukulies, who regularly runs against McFadden in practice, said she can beat her - in the shorter events, anyway.
"She has to build up speed," Kukulies explained. "When it's the longer distance, she usually kicks our butts."
john-john.williams@baltsun.com
Sun reporters Laura Cadiz and Bill Ordine contributed to this article.
The article says that the school system's policy "appears to fly in the face of accommodations made by some school systems around the country that have come up with ways to let disabled and able-bodied athletes compete in the same events." But then it goes on to cite only two, neither of which seems to describe disabled and able-bodied athletes actually competing in the same events.
I thought the word "competing" has been thrown around very loosely by the Sun, but I was surprised to find that Merriam Webster says it means "to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective (as position, profit, or a prize)", and that the idea of "[being] in a state of rivalry" with another appears after that. The definition in yourdictionary.com is the more traditional one: "To strive against (others) for victory: contend, contest, emulate, rival, vie. (See conflict.) In that sense, compete is being used very wrongly for what Tatyana wants to do on that track with her teammates, but I suppose I can't complain if Merriam Webster okays the way the Sun is using the word.
I thought this passage from the article is very telling: Not everyone agrees that such mixed events are a good idea.
Susan Oglesby, director of BlazeSports Georgia, a program of the U.S. Disabled Athletes Fund that promotes community sports, clinics and competitions for disabled athletes, opposes letting wheelchair and able-bodied athletes compete simultaneously.
"If it's not the same competition, they shouldn't be on the track at the same time," Oglesby said. "I do believe that the high schools need to offer more opportunities, meaning more distances, for wheelchairs, and we need more training for the coaches because there are certifications available." (emphasis added)
Note that it's an advocate for disabled athletes who is saying that!
The school system's lawyer says: "Wheelchair racing involves athletes using their upper body, arms, shoulders and no use of the legs. We feel it is material alteration of the sport to have a wheelchair athlete in a running event."
He noted that the county has added five wheelchair events - 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, shot-put and discus - to overall team scoring when track and field meets get under way Tuesday.
So it's not like wheelchair athletes are being shut out.
I disagree with the adjunct law professor the reporter interviewed, Marc Charmatz, who said:"The whole tenor of this is to ensure that disabled athletes have the same opportunities to participate in programs and activities as nondisabled athletes to the maximum extent appropriate," said Charmatz, who teaches a clinic on civil rights of people with disabilities.
Charmatz said he sees no reason for "separate but equal" programs for disabled athletes.
"Why can't a person participate equally?" Charmatz asked. "I think that participation is so valuable to a person with a disability. It's difficult to come up with a reason why someone shouldn't be able to have a chance."
Excuse me? Tatyana doesn't want to participate equally! She wants her own separate timing. If she wants to participate equally -- and if it's safe for the runners on the track, as deidei pointed out in her comment yesterday, then I think she should be allowed to! But then, as conuly said, "no school lets every child participate. You get onto the team by doing better than everyone else trying out. You have to compete to earn your slot, which allows you to, well, compete."
Tatyana wants to have it both ways, and I simply don't feel that's fair. One of her teammates said she can beat Tatyana in the shorter events, but "She has to build up speed. When it's the longer distance, she usually kicks our butts." If that's the case, I'd advocate allowing her to compete exactly as conuly described, with the requirement of keeping her wheelchair out of the inner lanes for safety's sake as Oregon does.
But if she wants to have her cake and eat it too, I'm opposed to it.
Fighting for the right to race with her team
By John-John Williams IV, Sun reporter
Originally published March 16, 2006
Tatyana McFadden has dusted competitors nationally and won medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. But the star wheelchair athlete can't compete alongside her Columbia high school teammates - Howard County school policy effectively requires her to take the track alone.
That policy - the subject of a federal lawsuit by the Atholton High School sophomore - appears to fly in the face of accommodations made by some school systems around the country that have come up with ways to let disabled and able-bodied athletes compete in the same events.
Advertisement
In Oregon, wheelchair athletes compete in the same heats as athletes with no disabilities, without earning official scores. In Louisiana, wheelchair athletes take the track separately but their scores count toward overall team points, an approach Howard County says it will take in wheelchair events this year.
Advocates for the disabled say schools in Iowa, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington allow wheelchair athletes to compete alongside able-bodied athletes in some events.
"I think it is more common than we know," said Kevin Hansen, executive director of World Wheelchair Sports, a nonprofit group that promotes the integration of wheelchair athletes into high school and other athletic programs. "A lot of old football [and] wrestling coaches don't think it is proper. They are backward in their thinking."
For McFadden, 16, who was born with spina bifida, the lawsuit is about more than her right to share the track with teammates and competitors.
"This not only opens the door for me, it opens the doors for a couple of elementary kids," McFadden said, referring to her sister Hannah, 10, who has a prosthetic leg.
Not everyone agrees that such mixed events are a good idea.
Susan Oglesby, director of BlazeSports Georgia, a program of the U.S. Disabled Athletes Fund that promotes community sports, clinics and competitions for disabled athletes, opposes letting wheelchair and able-bodied athletes compete simultaneously.
"If it's not the same competition, they shouldn't be on the track at the same time," Oglesby said. "I do believe that the high schools need to offer more opportunities, meaning more distances, for wheelchairs, and we need more training for the coaches because there are certifications available."
Mark Blom, the Howard school system's general counsel, says McFadden is asking the system to create an athletic event that does not exist anywhere else.
"Wheelchair racing involves athletes using their upper body, arms, shoulders and no use of the legs," said Blom. "We feel it is material alteration of the sport to have a wheelchair athlete in a running event."
He noted that the county has added five wheelchair events - 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, shot-put and discus - to overall team scoring when track and field meets get under way Tuesday.
The dispute - with its echoes of the battle over workplace accommodation for the disabled and the inclusion of special education students in classrooms - centers on McFadden's complaint that the school system is not complying with the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Section 504 is essentially the equivalent of Title IX for people with disabilities, as it prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in federally funded programs and activities, said Marc Charmatz, an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Law.
"The whole tenor of this is to ensure that disabled athletes have the same opportunities to participate in programs and activities as nondisabled athletes to the maximum extent appropriate," said Charmatz, who teaches a clinic on civil rights of people with disabilities.
Charmatz said he sees no reason for "separate but equal" programs for disabled athletes.
"Why can't a person participate equally?" Charmatz asked. "I think that participation is so valuable to a person with a disability. It's difficult to come up with a reason why someone shouldn't be able to have a chance."
Ann Cody, chairwoman of the International Paralympics Committee's Women in Sports panel, said a common response by officials to situations such as McFadden's is that the other athletes could be at risk of injury if a wheelchair athlete races alongside them.
That's an example of "attitudinal barriers that are kind of masked by policy," said Cody, a three-time track and field Paralympian. "It's just another instance of a younger person with a disability being excluded from opportunities that are afforded to everybody else around her. People ought to be able to look at this constructively and say, 'How can we make this work?'"
McFadden, who took home wheelchair-event medals at the 2004 Paralympics, said she loves competition and the camaraderie of practicing and competing with teammates. She was embarrassed when Howard County officials told her she could race only against other wheelchair athletes - effectively by herself.
"I wanted to meet new people," McFadden said. "I didn't like being separated."
Advertisement
School officials elsewhere have taken various approaches to the issue.
Oregon has had examples of wheelchair and able-bodied athletes competing in the same events as far back as the late 1980s, said Hansen, who has worked with the Oregon School Activities Association in attempts to integrate track and field.
This week, the Oregon association sent a letter to athletic directors and track coaches offering guidelines on how school systems could arrange such competitions safely.
"For the most part, they have been so wonderful working with us we have avoided getting legal," Hansen said of the Oregon association. "Tatyana seems to be up against a brick wall."
Louisiana has allowed wheelchair athletes to earn points in competition since the late 1980s, though they don't use the track at the same time as other athletes.
"This is a way for these kids that have been excluded from so many other opportunities because of being confined to the wheelchair," said Tommy Henry, commissioner of the Louisiana High School Athletics Association. "I don't feel we are doing anything special. I feel that we are doing the right thing."
Points gained by wheelchair athletes helped one Louisiana school secure a tie in a track and field team championship last year.
"To me, that's really what we wanted," Henry said. "We wanted them to contribute to their school's success."
Still, when it comes to wheelchair and able-bodied athletes sharing a track, some see safety as a consideration.
"There might be some physical contact," said Howard County's Blom. "With the wheelchair, you increase the harm."
Hansen, the 1996 U.S. Paralympics track coach, rejects such arguments. In Oregon, athletes line up against each other and race in individual lanes, he said, and wheelchair athletes are restricted from the inner four lanes when athletes merge in distance events.
McFadden's teammates, meanwhile, are more than happy to have her share the track.
"I think it's great," said Vicky Sloboda, 15, a sophomore who competes in the 200- and 400-meter events. "It's really important that she gets a chance."
It's only fair, said Elana Kukulies, 17, a junior who also competes in the 200- and 400-meter events. Kukulies, who regularly runs against McFadden in practice, said she can beat her - in the shorter events, anyway.
"She has to build up speed," Kukulies explained. "When it's the longer distance, she usually kicks our butts."
john-john.williams@baltsun.com
Sun reporters Laura Cadiz and Bill Ordine contributed to this article.