| Wheelchair athlete can run with classmates | April 18, 2006
By ANN W. PARKS
Daily Record Assistant Legal Editor | | | It wasn't a script for a made-for-TV movie, but it could have been.
On one side, a world-class Paralympic wheelchair athlete wanting nothing more than to run high school track events alongside her able-bodied classmates.
On the other, a school system seeking her to prohibit her from doing so — insisting on a separate wheelchair-users event that the student, Atholton High School sophomore Tatyana McFadden, must participate in alone. |
| | And in the middle: a downright disbelieving judge, who after a 4½ hour hearing granted McFadden's motion for a preliminary injunction, allowing her to run at track events at the same time as her peers.
Perhaps no case he'd ever seen, U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis declared at the end of the day, ever deserved it more.
"The more I hear your argument, the more transparently arbitrary and capricious it becomes!" Davis thundered to attorneys P. Tyson Bennett and Mark C. Blom, representing the Howard County Board of Education and the superintendent of the Howard County Public Schools. "She's not suing for blue ribbons, gold ribbons or money — she just wants to be out there when everyone else is out there!'
The judge rejected the defense's argument that what McFadden sought would "fundamentally alter" the sport within the meaning of §504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. McFadden, through her mother, was suing under that statute, which prohibits the exclusion of persons with disabilities from programs that receive federal funds.
And although Davis seemed to be expecting a heated defense argument concerning a risk of harm or injury posed by placing a wheelchair athlete on the same track with a non-wheelchair user, the defense offered no evidence to support that theory.
Indeed, the defense's sole witness — Michael Williams, coordinator of athletics for the Howard County Public School System — stated that McFadden, who won two medals for her participation in track events at the 2004 Paralympic Summer Games in Greece, had "tremendous control of her chair."
Which left Judge Davis grasping to understand just what the problem was. No student or parent, he noted, was in court yesterday complaining about McFadden's participation.
"The defense argument seems to be that if we permit [this], there will be others who insist on a right to do so, and we won't be able to differentiate between McFadden and others of lesser skill, that there's got to be one rule because we don't want to go through the trouble of making individual assessments," Davis said. "That's not the way the Rehabilitation Act works."
And although the plaintiffs didn't ask to address it, the judge also had serious problems with the way the athlete's participation is scored in the track events. For merely running against herself, she is given a point to add to her team's score — the same as an able-bodied, last-place finisher would get.
Surely, the judge noted, there must be some scientific way to add a fair measure of a wheelchair athlete's performance to an overall score.
The judge was also troubled by the fact that McFadden, even by herself, is only allowed to run races of 400 meters or shorter, when she trains for longer distances.
"I'm sure Mr. Williams will spend the better part of the summer working on" the school's policy, the judge commented, adding that he hoped the case will open the eyes of others. People, he said, can't have an attitude of "there's this wheelchair world, and there's this other world."
Separate events?
The defense, which attempted to argue that McFadden's running by herself was a separate "wheelchair event" that should not be merged into another event, said afterwards it will consider an appeal. McFadden, it contends, was given full opportunity to participate.
"I think it's clear wheelchair racing is a full-fledged important athletic event," Blom said, adding that it was, nevertheless, distinct. "The [United States Olympic Committee] has recognized them as two separate events. To merge them would be a fundamental alteration."
But Tatyana's mother, Deborah McFadden, called yesterday's events as a landmark.
"The Rehabilitation Act has been around for 33 years," she said. "Maybe we've succeeded in a classroom setting, but there's more to a person's life."
The benefits to school athletic participation cited yesterday by Maryland Disability Law Center lawyers Lauren Young and Lucien Parsely — good health, better grades, staying out of trouble — "are not just for those whose bodies are in A-1 condition," McFadden said.
"It's what I've been waiting for," said Tatyana, who will now race with her teammates and other competitors at a meet tomorrow. "I was fortunate that the judge understood my side."
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