By Angela Rito
Athens NEWS Campus Reporter
One Ohio University student depends on crutches to walk, because of his cerebral palsy, but also uses them to run marathons. And, notably, he doesn’t feel he’s “disabled “any more than anybody else.
“I’ve always been active, “said Cort Schneider, 27, originally from Columbus. “I refuse to let peoples’ perceptions of me stop me from that.”
Of the 33 different types of cerebral palsy that exist, Schneider’s condition consists of an underdeveloped brain stem that has affected his coordination and ability to control muscles, namely his legs.
Schneider, who’s currently in an education doctoral program at OU, was a wrestler in junior high and high school. His high school coach introduced him to running by encouraging him to try cross-country in order to get in shape for wrestling season, and he eventually fell in love with running.
The doctoral student now runs four miles every day, usually six days a week. He participated in the Athens half-marathon last year, finishing the 13.1-mile race in just over four hours, which he considers to be one of his greatest accomplishments.
Schneider acknowledged that he cannot compete with other runners because the crutches slow him down. “I compete with myself, “he said.
Schneider hopes to be running six miles a day by February, doing 8- to 10-mile runs once a week to help train for next year’s Athens half marathon.
“It’s a big part of who I am, “Schneider said of his running. “It puts me in a good frame of mind. It’s something I do every day, and if I don’t do it I feel out of place.”
Running helped Schneider realize his lifelong goal of becoming a social-rights activist.
He said he hopes to be an advocate for those who suffer from any kind of social discrimination. “It’s something that I am very serious and very passionate about, “said Schneider. “I feel that I was put on this earth to give a voice to those who don’t have one. ”
Schneider talked about what it means to call a person “disabled.”
“Look in the thesaurus, for example, “he said. “Most of the synonyms for ‘disabled’ are words like ‘worthless,’ ‘useless,’ ‘incapable.’ So when you label somebody disabled, you label them as deficient.”
Schneider said he prefers the phrase “people with conditions “instead of “disabled “because of all the negative connotations that are attached to the latter.
Schneider said that the OU disabilities service office has done a wonderful job in providing adequate access for people on campus with physically limiting conditions. Though physical access is a recognized issue in the Athens community outside of the university, he said, the problem of discrimination goes much further beyond that.
“The other part of the issue, bigger than physical access, is what happens to people once they’re inside the buildings, “said Schneider. “It’s how those people are viewed and treated once they enter.”
Schneider said that society has been created to be inaccessible, not only physically but in the way that people with disabilities are treated. “I’m not disabled, “he said, “society is.”
He said that in our society people are trained from childhood to think that disability is a bad thing, citing several media examples. “Disabled people are the only group that it’s still OK to make fun of on television, “he said. “Our notions of disability are so ingrained that it is a bad thing.”
Schneider said that he doesn’t like it when people say what he does is “inspirational.”
“We think people are inspirational when they do things we didn’t think they were capable of, “he said. “People tend to think I’m inspirational because they don’t have high expectations of people with disabilities. They say I’ve accomplished so much on crutches, and I have to wonder, if I wasn’t on crutches, would people say what I’ve accomplished is really mediocre?”
Schneider maintained that we are all in some ways “disabled.”
“The conditions that limit us are something all humans face, so why do we attach stigmatizing labels to people? “he asked.
Schneider wants people who have disabilities to realize that they shouldn’t let what other people think of them limit what they can do and who they can be. “Disabilities are part of the human condition, “said Schneider. “They are something to be embraced, celebrated and enjoyed.”
Schneider has earned two bachelor’s degrees in history and telecommunications, and a master’s in history.
He used to announce for the OU hockey team and worked for WOUB while he was in undergraduate school. He was published in an academic online journal for Miami University at Oxford this past year.
Wrestling Gear
