NCAA FootballWeird But True

Tailgaters Receive Preferential Treatment Over The Handicapped At Nebraska

Nebraska is a big football school. People tailgate before football games. They do it in the parking lot. There are handicap parking spaces in the parking lot. People were running out of room to tailgate. Nebraska opened up some handicap parking spots for tailgating.

See? Easy. Turns out that didn’t go over so well with one handicapped person:

Here’s more, via Omaha.com:

“Richard Norton, Jr., who has birth defects that make it difficult to walk, filed a lawsuit Thursday that claims the university not only violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, but reneged on its own pledge to rectify the problem by this year’s football season.

Norton’s attorney, Kathleen Neary of Lincoln, said her client tried to bring two children to Morrill Hall on a game day in October 2010 so they could do research for a school project. He was barred from parking at two marked handicapped parking stalls outside the museum.

A UNL employee told him the stalls had been rented by ‘donors’ for tailgating.

Norton’s lawsuit said he was harassed and ridiculed by the employee and directed to park at another parking lot some distance away.

At that lot, Norton was told he needed to pay $15 for a designated handicapped spot. Norton, the lawsuit said, informed the parking attendant that charging for such parking violated the ADA, which prompted the attendant to allow him to park there only on the condition that he could stay only two hours, and would be towed if ‘even one minute late.’”

Guy, where are all those bros going to CRUSH Natty Lights in their lax pinnies now? It’s a time-honored tradition, that of drinking and ignoring the rights and well being of humanity on Saturday mornings, and you’re really just pooh-poohing it’s sanctity.

Serious question: What if, say, Norton had been late coming back to his spot that day, the time ticking down and the attendant watching? Would he have helped Norton get back into his car on time? We’ll hazard a guess and say probably not.

It seems rather absurd that a university would literally rent out handicap spaces to non-handicapped people, but then again it doesn’t. There’s still a bowl system, after all. And it’s hard not to appreciate the irony of non-handicapped people purchasing handicapped parking to handicap their motor functioning.

[Omaha.com]

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