The Ninth Circuit recently ruled that barring a student with a disability using a wheelchair was discrimination and forced the school to allow her to be on the track team. I believe it was in the San Diego area. Does anyone know the name of the case?
Wait…whaaaa? Is this a joke that you’ve accidentally posted in the wrong forum?
That’s kind of bizarre as they do have athletic competitions for people in wheelchairs. Wouldn’t going into one of those be a little more fair?
I’m not familar with the case you mean. There was, however, in the news from Maryland, last month, this. Is it what you mean?
Tatyana McFadden, 16, leans forward and, with gloved hands, pushes her aerodynamic wheelchair lightly off and away.
McFadden, born in Russia with spina bifida and paralyzed from the waist down, works out every day after school with her team. A world-class wheelchair athlete, she loves racing. She also relishes the camaraderie of the locker room and the excitement of traveling to track meets with the other girls.
Once she’s at the meets, though, Howard County school policy requires that – for safety reasons – she split with her teammates and compete in separate wheelchair events.
Now, she has gone to federal court to seek an injunction that would allow her to race alongside runners in the same events. She doesn’t want to compete in scoring – although in her chair, with her legs tucked behind her, she flies faster than many runners in the 800-meter event.
Q.E.D
August 9, 2006, 5:21pm
5
This is probably the case the OP had in mind; it’s Baltimore, not San Diego, though.
Tatyana McFadden, 16, a sophomore at Atholton High School in Columbia, will be allowed on the track at the same time as the other competitors but will be scored separately under a preliminary injunction granted yesterday in Baltimore by U.S. District Court Judge Andre M. Davis.
That sounds like it. Could have sworn it was 9th Circuit though.