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A woman who uses a wheelchair filed a lawsuit Thursday against a southern Indiana school district because the venue for her child’s Christmas show isn’t wheelchair accessible.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Mycal L. Ashby against the Warrick County School Corporation. The lawsuit claims Ashby couldn’t attend her son’s Christmas show because the venue doesn’t accommodate her wheelchair.
Warrick County School Superintendent Brad Schneider said Thursday in a phone interview that the situation is a misunderstanding and that the school district doesn’t “want to exclude or limit anyone.”
“This was not a school event,” Schneider said. “This was simply something the school was invited to participate in.”
Ashby’s son attends Loge Elementary School in Boonville and was a member of the choir, which performs during the holidays. The past two years the performance was held at the Warrick County museum, which the ACLU says isn’t wheelchair accessible.
The ACLU said the principal told the Ashby family in 2015 that the museum had been made wheelchair accessible. But Ashby said she was forced to leave because she couldn’t enter the building in her wheelchair. She said this upset her and her son.
“It is so important to be at your children’s school events,” Ashby said in an ACLU news release. “I feel it is inexcusable that I was excluded for the simple reason that I am in a wheelchair.”
The case, Mycal L. Ashby v. Warrick County School Corporation, 3:16-cv-190,was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Evansville Division.
