Mobility is an uphill battle

Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling, was a bold attempt to end the Jim Crow era doctrine of “separate but equal.”

“Separate but equal has no place,” read the 1954 decision. “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Disabled Americans are still victimized by inferior facilities, according to a Southwestern College psychology instructor who uses a wheelchair.

“Disabled people are definitely separated and sure ain’t equal,” said Shannon Pagano. “We are the forgotten final battle of the Civil Rights Movement. The acts of inclusion and equality are divided goals that do not include people with disabilities. We talk a lot about diversity and inclusion, but that only seems to me to be about race and gender. It doesn’t seem to ever have anything to do with ability.”

Pagano said SC meets minimum American Disabilities Act guidelines, but that is not nearly good enough for staff and students with disabilities.

“We are still not reaching that whole point of inclusion,” she said. “I still have to go off separately on a separate path that’s going to take me twice as long to get to the same spot where everyone else is going.”

People who use wheelchairs have to go through dangerous places at SC, Pagano said, separated from other students and employees. Posted access pathways send people in wheelchairs out onto busy roads, dark remote areas, steep hills, and even along the football field during practice and games.

“Believe it or not, people in wheelchairs are directed through the athletic building, down the elevator and out right along the field,” she said. “There are footballs or soccer balls being thrown and kicked in every direction. If a football hits me in the head it’s all over, I’m dead.”

Disabled students’ “Devore Detour” is a disregard for their physical and emotional safety, Pagano said.

“(The message here is) I do not matter,” she said. “My safety is not important to this institution that I work for and where I was a student.”

Flying footballs are not even the most dangerous projectile facing people in wheelchairs on campus, Pagano said. “Death Hill” is the moniker disabled people at SC have given the entrance/exit to East H Street. As she climbed the hill facing traffic at dusk, Pagano was inches from cars and trucks – so close she had to duck under the mirrors of larger vehicles.

SC’s sidewalks are not safe either, she said. Many have signs posted in the middle, are broken or are dead ends with no curb cuts to allow wheelchairs to descend to street level. There are places on campus where curb cuts lead to a sidewalk without cuts, forcing the wheelchair user to roll out into the busy ring road.

“It’s kind of unbelievable that a sidewalk with a curb cut leads to one without a cut,” Pagano said. “I pointed these situations out to the college years ago, but they haven’t fixed the problem. It’s so disheartening and disrespectful. They have the resources to fix these accessibility problems, but they haven’t done it. It makes us feel like we are invisible, like the college just doesn’t care about us disabled folk.”

Potential lawsuits abound for the college, she said.

“Part of the accessible pathway takes us behind an industrial dumpster outside the football stadium,” she said. “It’s isolated and dark. It’s rape waiting to happen.”

Pagano said people in wheelchairs are reluctant to file lawsuits or speak up.

“Whenever a disabled person does file a lawsuit, they get ridiculed for it because it’s taken as us just being difficult,” she said. “I do not feel acknowledged when I’m behind those dumpsters. In fact, when I’m behind those dumpsters, I feel completely disregarded, that I do not matter.”

The ADA passed in 1990 to keep people with either physical or mental disabilities from being separated from the rest of society. It requires employers to provide people with disabilities with reasonable accommodations.

ADA guidelines were intended to create inclusion for people with a disability, Pagano said, but they often create more separation.

ADA was last amended Jan. 1, 2009.

Patricia Flores Charter, the former director of SC’s Disability Support Services, said Pagano is right – ADA does not go far enough.

“If we only comply with ADA, then people will not have full access,” she said.  “People who use wheelchairs oftentimes can’t get into the bathroom [and] can’t wash their hands.”

Pagano agreed.

“A year ago, I said they needed a lower soap dispenser (at the new gym) because it was too high,” she said. “College officials said it was being ordered and it’s still not here.”

Pagano carries hand sanitizer because she cannot wash her hands in most college restrooms, she said.

“People look at me like an uncouth slob because I don’t wash my hands,” she said. “Believe me, I want to! I wish I could.”

Dr. Malia Flood, dean of Student Services and the former director of Disability Support Services, said the college has accessibility shortcomings.

“I think there’s more to do and I think the challenge is to always keep that at the forefront,” she said.

Humberto Gurmilan, an adjunct instructor of journalism and a wheelchair user, said doors on campus present a challenge for the disabled. Gurmilan, former sports director at Telemundo who was recently elected for the San Ysidro School Board, has worked hard all his life pushing past boundaries for the disabled, but cannot push through many of the doors at SC.

“Some doors are too heavy for some people with disabilities,” he said.

Pagano agreed.

“Not only are the doors too heavy, most do not have disabled buttons to open them,” she said. “There are literally rooms Beto (Gurmilan) and I cannot enter.”

A stated goal of the original Americans with Disabilities Act was to open the nation’s institutions, businesses and recreational facilities to citizens with disabilities who had traditionally been excluded. Since 1990 the estimated percentage of California college students and staff who use wheelchairs increased by 11 percent. During the same period wheelchair use at SC increased 17.35 percent.

Data suggested the ADA helped to increase the number of people who use wheelchairs who attend college. In 1992-93 the college reported that 46 students had a mobility impairment. In 2018-19 the number grew to 64 students.

Pagano was asked if SC’s topography discouraged students from enrolling. She said she was not aware of any research exploring that question, but her “gut feeling” was yes.

“It’s hard enough for me in a motorized chair,” she said. “It’s got to be nearly impossible for someone who uses a manual chair.”

For a better visual of the “Devore Detour,” please click here.