Column: IU's Memorial Stadium needs to evaluate its ADA compliance

To all whom it should concern,

Ignorance is NOT an excuse. Actions and words matter.

Yesterday, Sept. 2, I visited the Indiana University campus alongside my 15-year-old daughter and 74-year-old father-in-law for the Ohio St. v. Indiana football game. This was our first time in Bloomington together to witness an athletics event.

Embarrassing.

Deplorable.

Shameful.

IU is a Big 10 program with proud alums, renowned academics, and excellent facilities. I should know; I participated in a multiple-day overnight IU soccer camp in 1998 as a high school junior, and earned post-baccalaureate online credits towards my teaching certification via Indiana University in 2009.

Over the course of our time at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, my father-in-law, Greg, who has incurred multiple sclerosis (MS), was treated as if he were a second-rate citizen. One staff member immediately took a look at Greg’s wheelchair and asked us how he expected to gain entrance, since there wasn’t appropriate space to accommodate for his chair.

Greg's chair could not fit through the metal detector, which had tables set up on both sides that were covered in abandoned beverages. The staff member made a big production about moving a table, in order to meet his needs, spilling a bunch of beer and soda on his leg from cans atop the table.

I did not see anyway when purchasing our tickets to indicate our need for accommodations, so I called before we arrived and was told we would need to exchange our tickets when we got there. Once inside, we were directed towards will-call to exchange our tickets, but were pointed in the wrong direction. I stopped to ask for assistance again — the staff member used her phone to call a supervisor and directed us to a different, similarly confused employee. This process of being passed-along continued for awhile until we finally made it 15 minutes later to will-call outside of the stadium (staff stated that we needed our tickets scanned again to leave and eventually re-enter).

While at will-call, we waited 20-25 minutes as workers frantically searched for seating. An attendant finally informed us we could only sit in the middle of IU’s student section and assigned us three new tickets. We arrived at the new seats in section 25 only to be guided towards seating up a tiered platform.

This obviously wasn’t realistic, as Greg could not scale a platform in his wheelchair, but modestly attempted to anyhow, subsequently stumbling, all in an effort not to draw further attention to himself. I eventually just made an executive decision and wheeled Greg towards individual chairs in the other direction, as this particular staff member was perplexed with why we would require ADA-compliant seating for Greg.

I wish I could say this was the end of our humiliation at IU, but it wasn’t. My daughter, Abbey, who happened to be assisting Greg at the moment, was harangued by IU students for not immediately standing for the national anthem. Subsequently, we were harassed throughout the game; the three of us were taunted by students and told to “hang ourselves because we’re from Columbus” and I was personally ridiculed by a student on his way out, sticking a middle finger in my face and stating that “you sit there like a (homophobic slur)."

The only coordinated cheer from the student section throughout the game was “f--- Ohio.” Unfortunately, numerous staff did very little to diffuse some of the conduct from students, although there were, admittedly, a few staff who stood next to us and literally protected our backs from flying objects.

As a side note, my daughter, Abbey, is a high school sophomore, STEM scholar, and a star soccer player/ state-ranked wrestler. Abbey was interested in visiting the IU campus and taking in some of the sights. I’ve been inspired by my father-in-law and he is the reason why I’ve become a Special Education teacher of 15+ years.

Thank you for your attention to these matters. Please do not provide me with a generic apology or say that you are sorry for our experience. Fix these situations.

Matt Enders is a Buckeye alum, 2003, who lives in Galena, Ohio, who has taken classes at Indiana University for his special education licensure.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist: IU's Memorial Stadium should have better ADA policies