Shriver stresses humanity of people with intellectual disabilities
March 19th, 2010
In a Washington Post profile of Tim Shriver, writer Manuel Roig-Franzia examines the Special Olympics chairman’s campaign to discourage language that makes fun at the expense of people with intellectual disabilities.
Shriver has received apologies from President Obama, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Bill O’Reilly (sort of) for “colloquial jabs about ‘retards’ or quips that equate Special Olympians with ineptitude or remarks that equate “retarded” with stupidity.”
To Shriver, the discussion is more than a mere linguistic fight, writes Roig-Franzia; it’s a welcome opportunity to have a public conversation about what Shriver terms the “humiliation” faced by this population.
The crusade has brought both admiration and derision for Shriver, who will soon be the only member of the Kennedy family serving in a high-profile position in Washington. An excerpt:
… Shriver — who wants to be a catalyst for social change — would like to further expand the mission [of Special Olympics], addressing unemployment (90 percent of people with intellectual disabilities do not work, he says, but half of Special Olympians have jobs) and taking on elite private schools in Washington, such as his alma mater, St. Albans, and Sidwell Friends because they don’t routinely admit students with intellectual disabilities, as many public schools do.
But there are only so many fights to pick at once. In Bethesda, Shriver helps organize “unified” sports contests that place young people with disabilities on the same teams as those who don’t. At the same time, he has sent his own kids to top private schools, such as Maret, that he says are not “inclusive” and guesses he “could be accused of being hypocritical. But this is a 100-front war.”
(Photo from the Washington Post; More photos here.)
Our RSS Feed