The Big House Ain't The Big House No More

The new disability mantra at the University of Michigan should be: We’re 32.9% compliant with the ADA!

Blue laughed, shrugged, giggled and guffawed when a penniless disability rights organization, the Michigan Paralyzed Veterans of America, sued the university because the football stadium wasn’t compliant with the ADA.

Actually, to say it was non-compliant was a bit of an understatement. The Roman Coliseum is more disability-friendly than the coliseum in Ann Arbor.

Almost all of the walkways to the stadium were too steep for wheelchairs to climb, and too dangerous for wheelchairs to descend. The ones that were compliant didn’t take them to the disability seating areas, which were stuffed in each endzone, high enough where you could see the hole in the ozone. They didn’t have accessible bathrooms, and many people in wheelchairs were being physically carried down rows of seats to their season-ticket locale.

Michigan insisted - through construction sleight of hand and downright obfuscation - that the ADA didn’t apply to them. They claimed that the $280 million they were spending, including replacing the concrete in the bowl and adding luxury skyboxes, was just “maintenance” and not “renovation.”

The Office of Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Education vehemently disagreed, issuing a blistering indictment of Michigan and their complete unwillingness to comply with the law.

This settlement, of course, according to Michigan, is proof of their benevolence and commitment to accessibility for all, and in no way an admission that they were out of compliance.

The ADA requires there to be over 1,000 seats for people in wheelchairs in a stadium that size. Michigan has agreed to roughly 1/3 of that requirement. Many other schools (including Ohio State) have mammoth stadiums that are compliant with the ADA. Michigan should as well. I wish they hadn’t settled, but I’m sure resources were a factor in the decision. It is a victory nonetheless.

When I have gone to games in Ann Arbor, when the announcer gives the attendance figure, he always excited gushes that “the largest crowd in America watching college football today is right here at Michigan Stadium!”

Not any more. Adding disability seating will require the removal of some seats. That means that real “Big House” is now State College, Pennsylvania at Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State Nittany Lions. That that stadium – unlike Michigan Stadium – is accessible for people with disabilities, showing Michigan that it you can do it the right way and still be #1.