U.S. Department of Education officials last week strongly urged
local educators to provide more opportunities for students with
disabilities to participate in after-school sports;
opportunities, a recent report suggests, that such students
sorely lack. But the guidance — which some advocates likened to
Title IX’s expansion of women’s athletics — also touched off
debate over whether federal officials had overstepped their
authority. “The Obama Administration invents a right to
wheelchair basketball,” blogged Mike Petrilli, executive vice
president of the conservative Fordham Institute, saying the feds
had created a burdensome, unfunded mandate for the nation’s
schools without Congressional approval. —Mike Petrilli, Fordham
Institute Federal officials told EdWeek that the new guidelines
— which urge schools to “ensure equal opportunity for
participation” — do not constitute a new mandate. “The guidance
does not say that there is a right to separate sports programs
such as wheelchair basketball,” department spok