In a victory for athletes with learning disabilities, including a former champion high school swimmer from Naperville, the NCAA agreed Tuesday to make it easier for such students to play college sports.
Under pressure from a Justice Department lawsuit, the National Collegiate Athletic Association agreed to change its rules and count high school classes for the learning disabled toward its eligibility requirements–even if those classes have titles suggesting they are remedial.
“Now student-athletes with learning disabilities will no longer have to sit on the sidelines,” said Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. The NCAA, Lee added, has “agreed that you shouldn’t judge a class by its title.”
The Justice Department was prodded into action two years ago after being contacted by the families of about 30 learning-disabled student-athletes. The first of these was the family of Chad Ganden, a two-time state champion swimmer at Naperville North High School.
Ganden, who came to symbolize for many the struggle of learning-disabled athletes, believed he had taken a sufficient number of classes to receive NCAA eligibility. But the NCAA discounted several of those courses, which it considered remedial.
Ganden since has earned his eligibility and now swims for Michigan State. Because of Tuesday’s agreement, he will be able to swim there for a fourth year, rendering largely moot a lawsuit he had filed against the NCAA.
“I’m delighted by the decision. Now other parents won’t have to go through this,” said Ganden’s mother, Susan. “Educators and parents have to be happy, because we’re getting this back into our hands, where it belongs.”
When Chad Ganden first ran into roadblocks with the NCAA, his parents, Susan and Warren, mounted a full-scale crusade on his behalf. The case received national press coverage.
Despite her satisfaction at Tuesday’s development, Susan Ganden said, “I’m angry, because the NCAA didn’t have to put us through this.”
To play college sports or receive an athletic scholarship, the NCAA requires students to have done reasonably well in “core” high school classes. But NCAA officials were discounting many classes tailored to the learning disabled, the Justice Department said, even if those classes provided the exact same level of education as those offered other students.
Such special classes may have a lower student-teacher ratio or use computer-assisted teaching, but they convey the same information.
NCAA President Cedric Dempsey stressed Tuesday that his association had cooperated fully with the Justice Department. “One of our goals is to be a more user-friendly association for student-athletes,” he said. “This is a very positive step.”
Justine Maloney, Washington representative of the Learning Disabilities Association of America, said the student-athletes were not seeking special consideration but only to be treated like their peers.
“This sets the precedent that you can’t discriminate against kids because of their disability if they are otherwise qualified,” Maloney said of Tuesday’s announcement.
Learning disabilities are educational problems that stem from neurological disorders rather than low intelligence, poor motivation or inadequate teaching. Dyslexia accounts for about 80 percent of learning disability cases.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division began looking into the NCAA eligibility standards two years ago. Department lawyers reviewed the files of more than 100 students with learning disabilities, eventually concluding that the NCAA’s requirements were so “rigid” they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
About 1,500 learning-disabled students seek NCAA eligibility each year–compared with 140,000 non-disabled students–but only two-thirds receive it. In contrast, six of seven non-disabled students who apply for eligibility receive it.
The NCAA rule changes announced Tuesday could help hundreds more students become eligible each year, Justice Department officials said. Revising the way the NCAA evaluates high school classes will be the major change, but not the only one.
The association also will allow learning-disabled students who fail to attain eligibility for their freshman year, but who attain it as sophomores, four seasons of eligibility. Ganden is in this category.
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The NCAA also has agreed to place learning-disability experts on some of its eligibility committees. And it will pay a total of $35,000 to four student-athletes on whose behalf the Justice Department sued.
Among these is Joel Douglass, a University of Toledo football player who will now get $10,000 from the NCAA. Douglass, who played high school football, basketball and baseball near Dayton, suffers from a range of learning disabilities, from dyslexia to attention deficit disorder to short-term memory loss.
He overcame those obstacles to meet what he thought were the NCAA requirements, but the NCAA did not recognize six of his classes. Eventually, under threat of a lawsuit, the NCAA granted Douglass eligibility.
Like the Gandens, Douglass’ mother, Karol, greeted Tuesday’s announcement with relief mixed with anger at the NCAA.
“I am glad that finally they admitted publicly that they have made errors that have affected people’s lives,” Karol Douglass said.
But, she added, “I don’t think any amount of money could compensate us for what we went through. We felt it was blatant discrimination.”