AP
New federal guidelines: Schools must give disabled students a chance to compete in sports
“Participation in extracurricular athletics can be a critical part of a student’s overall educational experience,” said Seth Galanter, of the department’s civil rights office. “Schools must ensure equal access to that rewarding experience for students with disabilities,” he added.
The 1973 Rehabilitation Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by federal agencies, including public education…
Examples of reasonable modifications schools might make to meet their responsibilities included providing “visual clues” alongside a starter pistol to allow hearing disabled students to compete in track events, and waiving the “two-hand touch” finish at swim meets to allow one-armed swimmers to compete.
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Watch me pass a law that let’s me run the hurdles!
//Legless Man
Idiocracy we are here.
harlekwin15 on January 26, 2013 at 7:41 PM
Are the new Federal guidelines also going to gives schools (taxpayers) immunity from lawsuits, too?
Resist We Much on January 26, 2013 at 7:43 PM
I got to tour the Denver Broncos visitors locker-room. In order to comply with the ADA, one of the lockers has to be wheelchair accessible.
rbj on January 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM
Watch me pass a law.
// Typical, brainless politician
Resist We Much on January 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM
RWM, this, along with the recent request from the Germans, is plenty for one of your blog wonders. The vault is likely already empty. It’ll get interestiing, quickly.
Schadenfreude on January 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM
How long until this applies to front line combat too?
WisCon on January 26, 2013 at 7:49 PM
Are one armed swimmers actually competing? Or are they merely in the pool at the same time as the swimmers who are competing and we’re just calling the handicapped person’s efforts “competing”?
Flange on January 26, 2013 at 7:50 PM
Yeah, the one-armed swimmer mighta won if it weren’t for that unfair “two-hand touch” rule. By the time he touched a second time with his one hand, the two-handed guys who can unfairly two-hand touch simultaneously had already done so. And toweled off, changed, and gone home.
I tried to explain this to a lefty, but the debate just went around in circles. Kinda like …
boko fittleworth on January 26, 2013 at 7:54 PM
CNS News reports:
Resist We Much on January 26, 2013 at 7:55 PM
I can kind of see the thing for deaf track competitors, but not for the people who are not able bodied enough to compete on the team. That’s silly.
Isn’t this what PE class is for, for everyone to play and exercise? Do it in PE class, not in competitive sports.
juliesa on January 26, 2013 at 7:59 PM
Why should this even be a federal issue? Are people on the scene so incompetent that they can’t take action here?
Dack Thrombosis on January 26, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Our government is run by the mentally defective.
jawkneemusic on January 26, 2013 at 8:06 PM
How long before Jeopardy is required to have mentally retarded contestants? And celebrity tournament doesn’t count.
Mark1971 on January 26, 2013 at 8:09 PM
And what is the first thing cut when the schools budget is tight as they had to near rebuild the whole school to comply with the ADA. Extracurricular activities of everyone as they don’t and can’t pay the coach anymore.
tjexcite on January 26, 2013 at 8:11 PM
I don’t mind the ruling per se. The parents of these folks pay taxes, too. The problem I have is that the good rule is built upon a bad premise of government controlled schooling to which almost all taxpayer monies are dedicated.
The reason they have to make this rule is that government schools take all the money and there are no resources left for handicapped to participate in sports.
A better system would be to break up the monopolies and privatize all schooling, leaving the individuals the choice as to where their children go to school and play in sports.
Dusty on January 26, 2013 at 8:13 PM
I know a one legged kicker for a football team. He holds the clipboard for the punter.
VegasRick on January 26, 2013 at 8:14 PM
Indeed. Federal overreach, yet again. Red states should resist, and let Holder take ‘em to court.
petefrt on January 26, 2013 at 8:14 PM
+100
petefrt on January 26, 2013 at 8:16 PM
Public education is a state-level issue, not federal.
Further, the idea that one must be granted equal access even though he has unequal abilities is … kinda funny, in a governmental way. I guess idiots have to be allowed into AP classes, too, and they have to be given decent scores on tests – so that they can have equal access to colleges.
I friggin hate the left. Detest them. Abhor them. Curse their very existence.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 26, 2013 at 8:17 PM
On the bright side, midget wrestling will probably be a big draw. People love midget wrestling.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 26, 2013 at 8:19 PM
Why should this even be a federal issue? Are people on the scene so incompetent that they can’t take action here?
[Dack Thrombosis on January 26, 2013 at 8:04 PM]
If they could, or wanted to, take action it would have been taken already.
The problem is that the handicapped are small minority, it costs money to implement a program and once the district gets the money it eventually gets disbursed to who has the most power, so the teachers get the biggest bite after the administration skims their percentage, the regular sports programs get the next biggest bite, then the band, and so on. By the time that is over, there isn’t enough to do the program, so they throw the money at a new playground.
Dusty on January 26, 2013 at 8:23 PM
If this leads to midget basketball then I am all for it.
Rambotito on January 26, 2013 at 8:23 PM
Midget basketball without arms = soccer
VegasRick on January 26, 2013 at 8:33 PM
We’ve gone full Harrison Bergeron. Who will Obama nominate for the Handicapper General?
Firefly_76 on January 26, 2013 at 8:42 PM
America 2012.
“The shark has been jumped sir, what’s next”?
arnold ziffel on January 26, 2013 at 8:57 PM
Time to elect Ted McGinley President.
Flange on January 26, 2013 at 9:12 PM
I think you mean ‘complete,’ because someone swimming with half as many arms certainly isn’t competing.
James on January 26, 2013 at 9:17 PM
Yeah, you be the first to tackle the blind MR kid in the wheelchair.
Government schools are what they are. Form your own neighborhood leagues and be done with school sports.
Although.. I’m not qualified at all to be a bank President but I think it’s not fair. It’s discrimination. I’d like to be a lawyer too. Oh, you know what? A Federal judge. Or a celebrity.
Why do other people get all the breaks just because they are the ones qualified and got up and went out and accomplished it. Just because I’m stupid and like to stay at home and play video games should not disqualify me from being bank President. Pure freaking discrimination.
JellyToast on January 26, 2013 at 9:17 PM
the disabled deserve all the sympathy and care in the world but this is going to make things so complicated in many different ways. i do feel sorry for those who want to be in sports but they’re disabled. but this new rule just won’t work out. =(
Sachiko on January 26, 2013 at 9:25 PM
Hell, even non-disabled kids get cut from teams because they aren’t good enough. Now they want to force the weakest on the teams. The deaf runners are one thing; you don’t have to be able to hear to be fast. But things like football or basketball; highly physical and fast paced games would be extremely difficult to integrate certain disabilities into.
Big John on January 26, 2013 at 9:25 PM
i mean i feel sorry for the disabled who want to be in sports. (just changing the word order)
Sachiko on January 26, 2013 at 9:27 PM
How many years before there just won’t be any public school sports?
ctmom on January 26, 2013 at 9:53 PM
Y’all see this length of rope and just can’t seem to resist tossing it around your necks.
VerbumSap on January 26, 2013 at 10:03 PM
This will do nothing but send compliance costs through the stratosphere, make many long-cherished school teams into jokes, and spawn a whole lot of hatred for the inferior students who are being artificially elevated to something everyone knows they aren’t.
An old teacher put it thusly: “government ideas of ‘fairness’ for the ‘disabled’ are like giving a short student two-foot-high elevator shoes to make him as tall as everyone else. Nobody’s frickin’ fooled by it and he’ll get laughed at even more. And sans the stupid footwear…he’s still short.”
It is nothing but a cruel joke to force students who can run so fast they leave vapor trails to ‘compete’ with hand-flapping speds who have to be led around the track by a teacher holding a candy bar. Who will then get ribbons or medals in the name of ‘fairness’, while the students who were shafted meet behind the bleachers and start discussing the various uses of blunt objects.
MelonCollie on January 26, 2013 at 11:09 PM
This is also a very good point. Fit students will have to hold way back for fear of injuring their ‘special’ counterparts.
Imagine having to let an ‘Indigo child’ on the opposing team weave semi-randomly over the field to a touchdown because if you tackle him he’ll bawl like a baby. Or break half his ribs because his condition makes him so fragile he shouldn’t be out in public without a bubble-wrap suit. Or go berserk and require six paras to strap him to his special chair. Or all three in that order.
And this is just one of many very possible scenarios.
MelonCollie on January 26, 2013 at 11:14 PM