Posted on 06/21/2013 7:10:00 AM PDT by Morgana
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”
This inspirational statement has been taken to heart by many in disabled communities for its uplifting and liberating spirit. Unfortunately, Marion County’s Elgin High School is not taking it to heart.
It is to the school’s great shame that Allison Williams, a fourteen year-old student with Down Syndrome, was barred from its cheerleading squad. Rather than espousing a can-do, positive attitude, Elgin’s non-competitive squad, which doesn’t do tumbling or pyramids, told Alli’s parents that “even with accommodations she would not meet the minimum criteria to be a cheerleader.” Furthermore, even if spots remained open after try-outs were completed, Allison would still be denied a place on the squad.
Yet Allison loves cheerleading, and her mother says that it benefits Alli, allowing her to watch and learn from her peer cheerleaders.
Glee actress Lauren Potter portrays Becky, a cheerleader with Down Syndrome. (right)
In an age when a young woman with Down Syndrome portrays a high school cheerleader on the popular television show Glee (which also takes place in Ohio), it seems rather backwards and sadly ironic for an Ohio high school to deny Alli the opportunity to learn and grow while performing an activity that she loves. To the great credit of Ohio’s young people, Alli is finding plenty of support from other cheer teams.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
If a bad attitude is disabling, a positive attitude is enabling. Love and passion are the things that motivate us to achieve the unthinkable. And if Alli has a passion for cheerleading, denying her the opportunity to live out that passion on a non-competitive cheerleading team would seem to be truly disabling.
But whether Alli is eventually offered a place on the squad or not, she should keep her spirits high, maintaining strength through a positive attitude. Elgin High School needs to readjust its attitude to a positive, enabling one. It only cripples itself in assuming a bad attitude towards Alli.
Just when you think there aren’t some educators out there who can’t get even more stupid, stuff like this happens.
I blame Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg
In an age when a young woman with Down Syndrome portrays a high school cheerleader on the popular television show Glee (which also takes place in Ohio), it seems rather backwards and sadly ironic for an Ohio high school to deny Alli the opportunity to learn and grow while performing an activity that she loves.
I’m stunned that they can say something like this and think they will not take a hit to their credibility.
Yet Allison loves cheerleading...
I think Mick jaggar said it best: You can’t always get what you want.
Sorry, disability Mafia making more demands. Oh, and Glee encourages sex perversion, too. Should we applaud that?
With all due respect and agreement with Pro-Life, etc. I have a hard time equating this story with something akin to a Pro-Life argument, however loosely it is defined.
Is this story to be taken to mean that because her mother didn’t abort her or something, she should be accorded every opportunity in life to do what she wants?
The school, educator - whoever should have certain standards, physical or otherwise, that set the qualifications for cheerleading. If this girl can meet them, and can fill an opening, then more power to her. It is not one, however, of “Pro-life.”
'Hitting their credibility' is akin to someone being able to steal my Cy Young awards away from me....
Should they even have tryouts for cheerleading if there are no requirements for ability?
If she can do the routines and other aspects well enough to make the team, she earns a place regardless of her disability. If she cannot, then this is all about adults trying to one up each other with how ‘caring’ they are...
If so they could very well harm the child when she discovers all those people treated her like a movie prop for their own benefit.
Which it appears they are.
exactly.
So she can’t do it, that;s life , we don’t; get what we want all the time.
There is a girl who went to school with on of my boys and she was in a wheel chair,
This girl never had to write a paper, never did homework, never did math or anything, she had an aide who did the work for her and now she gets all A’s, goes to the front of the line for everything and gets rewards which I have never heard of.
Course say something and you get the reply of “OMG what is wrong with you she;s in a wheel chair” or “how insensitive “
I;m sick of it, there is always the victims out there, just like I heard about the dope called Hannity who had Bill Cunningham on and who told that liberal tamara to shut up and she was a stooge and now people are offended how he could talk to her like that and call her a name and yet they ignore how she first told him to shut up.
Now we’ll let millions of new unskilled uneducated this world immigrant victims in
that is one of my pet peeves.
Adults trying to one up on another adult, I frigging hate it..
If there is a death of a star, if they hear something on the news, if there is a school shooting what ever it is there is always adults , mostly women though who have t cry more than the other woman, the adult who has to boast that they were there passing the school 6 months ago because they look for a connection
Why not? We have a president with the same disability, cheering while America burns...
What’s missing from this discussion and the comments is the definition of the criteria the school used. According to the story there was no tumbling or other physical routines, so the question is ‘what couldn’t she do?’.
In most of the feel good stories of this nature the participant was welcomed by their peers, who would go out of their way to be inclusive BY THEMSELVES. For those of you in this thread who complain about not getting everything you want, just remember that another conservative concept is freedom of choice. If the peers are willing to choose to include the young lady then who are we to take the exclusion approach?
Sounds to me like the school took the legal liability way out instead of really thinking through what could be done. And funny that a disabled young lady, trying to take self-initiatives, are disdained by some on this thread. Sounds like the type of person we conservatives should be cheering on.
Yet we have to “accommodate” toilets for mentally ill ie “transgender” students. So why not Down Syndrome children???
Sigh. More cheerleader wars. Cheerleading is show business—squads discriminate for appearance all the time.
Agree. Very well stated.
Yup. But the leftists have to make everyone equal in all ways.
They don’t care a whit what emotional destruction this girl will experience when she discovers the truth. But even if she never does, she will KNOW she is different when she can’t do all the things the proficient cheerleaders can. And no one stops to think about the anger of the girls cut from the squad will feel. All to push an agends.
But you can best believe when one of those girls voices so much as a complaint, they will toss her into sensitivity training, tag them as a bully and wreck their young life...the results of which will follow them into adulthood.
And if anyone thinks I’m laying it on thick, think the course of events through as things now work in America and see if you still feel that way.
All that said, I want this girl to succeed in what ever ways her disability lets her. And to be happy and proud of what she CAN do, whatever it may be. But cheerleading is not that.
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