Penn State is at it again.
As one of the largest land owners, employers and influences in the local region, if not in the whole state of Pennsylvania, we often attribute personal and human characteristics to what is actually an institution. We hear things like “Penn State is buying up all of the land west of campus” and “Penn State decided to raise tuition.”
Penn State really stepped in it with the recent changes to the stadium parking policy for individuals with disabilities.
The American’s with Disabilities Act calls it disparate impact. Most people just call it discrimination.
Here is what happened. With campus construction and the disruption of some of the available parking spots for football, someone decided that the best way to address the shortage was to move the bulk of the accessible (AKA handicapped) parking pass holders to Innovation Park – an estimated 1-2 miles away from Beaver Stadium. The plan was then to provide shuttle service to and from that parking lot for Penn State fans and ticket holders with disabilities and their friends and family.
So, let me get this straight. The plan established policy in which a single (and protected) group of people is denied equal access to an experience and no one saw any problems with this?
While we are at it, why don’t we assign them to specific seats at the lunch counter or require people with disabilities to sit in the back of the bus?
The reports after the Akron game were not good. Although the justification to select this group of ticket holders over others may have been the parking at Innovation Park is paved and that the shuttle service that would bring people with disabilities closer to the stadium, the decision clearly back-fired. In on-line comments and in a new Facebook group entitled “Penn State Fans need ADA Parking,” people talked about feeling like second class citizens. They described shuttle buses that didn’t accommodate wheelchairs and that put people at risk for injury because those buses weren’t equipped with appropriate safety features. People shared concerns about distance from their vehicles thereby preventing emergency access to necessary medical supplies or even a place to rest. One person shared a story about a bus driver telling a fan with a disability to hurry because he or she was taking too long to exit.
Sometimes the message that we intend to send is very different than the message that we actually communicate.
The American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 mandated that through reasonable accommodations and by recognizing the civil rights of people with disabling conditions, all Americans should have equal opportunities. Although earlier legislation mandated that buildings and programs and services that received government monies had to be accessible to individuals with disabilities, the ADA extended that to private entities as well. Of note, however, is that the ADA outlines minimum access standards.
As a Penn Stater, I believe we can do much better than minimum standards.
I wish I had a dollar for every time that I have told people in customer service training sessions that inclusion of people with disabilities means more than just getting them in the door. It means offering all of our customers the same service and experience.
Consider what it means to attend a PSU football game. In anticipation of the game, fans buy tickets and make plans to visit Happy Valley. On game days, those fans load up the car or van or RV, outfit themselves in Blue and White and head to Beaver Stadium to take in the whole experience. The experience can include food and beverages outside the stadium at tailgate parties with friends and family. It means the Blue Band marching through the parking lots. It means being part of the crowd funneling into the stadium in time to see the drum major doing the flip and the team running out on the field. The experience is so much more than four quarters of amazing football with 107,000 others who are cheering on the Nittany Lions.
An inclusive experience does not mean isolated parking 2 miles from the fun and excitement of the stadium and then using school buses to shuttle people with specific access needs to the entrance of the stadium in time for the game.
Attitudes and ignorance about disabilities often present greater barriers than architectural access.
As we have seen with other PSU stumbles, reaching across campus to the subject matter experts (some of whom are within shouting distance) could have prevented this whole thing from happening. With a little bit of education, training and the desire to provide all of our paying customers with great service, accommodating people with disabilities isn’t all that hard.
One of the commenters lamented “Penn State really did it this time.” In reality, it was an uninformed person sitting at a computer or a group of misinformed managers sitting around a conference table somewhere on campus – not nameless, faceless Penn State – that made the decision to discriminate against a protected group of people by implementing the new accessible (aka handicapped) parking policies for Penn State football games. At the time that this column went to press, the latest from the athletic department was that, while reminding us that parking is tied to how much one donates to the university, 237 additional stadium parking spots for the UMASS game have been identified as ADA spots and they are addressing the need for accessible shuttle transportation from Innovation Park as well. We’ll see how it goes.
As a Penn State employee and as advocate for people with disabilities, I apologize to those alums and Penn State fans who were treated so disrespectfully. Many of the Nittany Lion faithful understand that inclusion benefits not only the individual but our community at large.
“We Are” should mean all of us.
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