Opinion: One small step for Casey Martin

Casey Martin is able to compete at the highest levels of professional golf despite a grotesquely deformed leg that doctors say will soon require amputation. No other golfer with a comparable disability has ever had the talent to qualify for the PGA Tour, and there's a good chance none ever will. In ruling that Martin has a legal right to ride in a cart during PGA-sponsored tournaments, the Supreme Court reinforced the original intent of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the opinion set a narrow and concrete standard that should prevent abuses of the law in professional sports and other segments of society.

The court ruled that Martin merits the protections of the ADA because he has a serious, permanent disability, and because he asked, as the ADA dictates, for only "reasonable modifications" that do not "fundamentally alter the nature" of tour competition. A cart isn't a convenience for Martin; it is a necessity. The ruling does not, as its critics claim, invite a flood of litigation from golfers with backaches, tennis pros with tendinitis or hockey players with nasty hangovers. Nor did Martin ask the PGA to make an unreasonable accommodation, such as allowing him to play from forward tees. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens, an avid golfer, noted that the PGA Tour's walking rule is "at best peripheral" to the sport. The PGA Tour has undercut its own argument by allowing carts to be used under a variety of circumstances in its events.

Opponents of equal rights for women, minorities or the disabled often invent unreasonable scenarios in an attempt to justify their opposition to reasonable applications of equal opportunity. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Clarence Thomas, said the court might as well force Little Leagues to give four strikes to children with attention deficit disorder. Scalia's own attention must have wandered from the majority opinion. Attention deficit disorder is not a permanent disability comparable to a withered leg, and changing the number of balls and strikes would fundamentally alter the nature of baseball.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem reacted more reasonably. He called to congratulate Martin and said the ruling appears to be written so narrowly that the tour will not be affected beyond this single exception. If the PGA Tour had made that single, reasonable exception in the first place, it could have saved itself huge legal bills and untold bad publicity.

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright