Anthony wrote: "I'm just waiting for someone to break out Casey Martin analogies." You stole my thunder. With this sly remark, we come to one of the more fundamental issues behind this: What sort of responsibilities do tournament hosts have to accomodate special needs, and where do we draw the line? *** WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS SOLELY MY OPINION, NOT THAT OF PITT QUIZ BOWL, THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, ETC *** It certainly appears as if the circuit has been quite accomodating to the disabled or others with special needs in the past, but I believe the vast majority of these accomodations have been logistical in nature. They have not fundamentally affected the character of the game of quizbowl. I submit to the group that there are certain disabilities that cannot be accomodated without changing the nature of the games in question that they become meaningless to the overall structure of a tournament. Foremost among these is deafness and other hearing ailments. While teams such as Gallaudet may be able to play a game much resembling quizbowl, it is not "quizbowl" as we know it. I'm not against finding some way to let these teams participate in invitationals, etc, but this should be done as exhibition only. Teams eligible for championships must play under the same general set of conditions for all games; this is the crux of the Martin v. PGA case. Listening to a moderator read these questions aloud is such an inherent part of quizbowl that to display the questions visually drastically changes the conditions of the game. If hearing impared teams wish to compete for the championship, visual display must happen for every game in every room. And I think that's going to prove logistically impossible. Furthermore, I'm somewhat dismayed by reports of the team in question demanding that the host provide an interpreter at significant cost to the host. Hosts generally do not have the resources to do this, nor should they. Accomodations beyond what is normal and reasonable for the circuit as a whole should be the financial responsibility of the requester. (I'm no legal expert, but I think the Americans with Disabilities Act provides merely for "public accomodations" and businesses with more than 15 people. Would a tournament be considered a "public accomodation"? I wouldn't think so, but the legal code is so screwed up these days ...) At any rate, just to sum it up, I'm not against hosting such teams as exhibition squads. More power to them if they want to play, and I find it interesting that there's a separate deaf quizbowl competition. I'm just wary about the implications for a tournament's integrity (see the Martin case). -- eps
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