In other news. . . when does the pursuit of “fairness” go too far?

Last updated on: June 25, 2015 at 11:53 am by Jane the Actuary

In other news. . . when does the pursuit of “fairness” go too far? 2015-06-25T11:53:42-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Here’s a non-Obamacare, non-flag news item: the Illinois High School Association, which runs high school athletics, has now agreed, in a settlement with the attorney general, to open up athletic competition to disabled athletes, in a more comprehensive and integrated fashion. Here’s the Tribune article, and a press release, and here are the key paragraphs from the Tribune:

The settlement . . . establishes dual championships in swimming and track — one that does not count the results of athletes with disabilities, and one that does. . . .

The settlement also calls for the IHSA to establish a 5K road race, starting in 2016, that will have a wheelchair division and an open division. The IHSA is supposed to find accommodations for athletes in other sports, which Hickman said has been the organization’s longtime practice. . . .

The number of points a team can earn from a disabled athlete’s result goes up with the number of athletes who are competing. According to a table accompanying the settlement, a first place swimming finish between two competitors is worth three points, while first place is worth 16 points if 12 athletes take part.

On the face of it, this is great news for disabled athletes. But:

The reality is that there are very few disabled athletes, and within the category of “disabled-athlete competitions” I would guess* that, if two such competitors face off, there’s likely to be a significant imbalance not due to athletic ability but degree of disability, which means that competition results are likely to be skewed, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether anyone will consider the “alternate championship” as a “real” victory.

(* Yeah, I would guess that if someone did a word cloud for this blog, “I would guess” or “I would imagine” would appear frequently. Someday I’ll early retire from my day job, or get that dream alternate job offer and have the time to do more research on the topics that particularly interest me, but I’m not there yet.)

It also raises the question of the point of high school athletic competitions, and teams, and eliminations, in the first place. Look, I know this sounds cynical and unserious to say, but if the kids who have an identified, tangible disability like, say, the lack of a limb, get their own, equally recognized competition, what about the kids who get cut from teams because of a basic lack of athletic ability? Call it “low muscle tone” to give it a label — which applies to a significant degree to kids with Down Syndrome, and to a lesser, more ordinary way, to plenty of other kids (like my own). Or hand-eye coordination, or gross or fine motor skills — which pair up with lots of disabilities, such as Autism-spectrum issues.

Of course, I’d rather the German system in which physical education is there, but athletic competitions are separate from the school environment entirely, so this is just offered up for discussion.

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