While accommodations for students with disabilities are widespread in classrooms, several recent cases suggest that inclusion remains a gray area when it comes to school sports.

Families across the country are challenging schools to allow athletes with disabilities to participate alongside their typically developing peers.

In Arizona, a deaf tennis player took legal action against the state athletic association after her interpreter was removed from a match. More recently, an Illinois student without use of her legs won the right to compete in state swim meets after the attorney general stepped in. Both incidents follow a Maryland case where a student sued to compete in track using a wheelchair.

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The push for inclusion on the playing field is raising questions about disability rights, safety and fairness, coaches and legal experts say, and it’s prompting the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to prepare guidance on the issue for schools, reports The New York Times. To read more click here.

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