[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 5 (Tuesday, February 3, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S298-S299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CASEY MARTIN

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will just take a few minutes to speak 
about an individual and a case that is now taking place in the State of 
Oregon. The individual I refer to is one Casey Martin, an outstanding 
golfer who just happens to have a disability. I am also referring to 
the PGA Tour's determination to exclude Casey from participating in a 
professional sport for which he is eminently well qualified and by 
which he has attempted to earn his living. The PGA Tour has said no, 
Casey can't play with the cart he needs to accommodate his disability. 
The Tour wants to keep Casey out because of his disability and because 
of a certain rule and tradition.
  Mr. President, Casey Martin has had the guts and the gumption not to 
back down, but to take on the PGA Tour.
  Last week, Senator Dole and I held a press conference in Washington, 
DC, with Casey Martin to show our support for him and to state for the 
record that as two of the primary sponsors of the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, it certainly was our intention, and the legislative 
intent, to cover this type of a situation. We wanted to state for the 
record that the ADA did, in fact, apply to the Casey Martin situation.
  Yesterday, Casey Martin's case started. His trial began in Oregon.
  Casey Martin has a powerful story. He has worked, he has practiced, 
he has played, he has spent an enormous amount of time and energy--a 
lot of it painful--reaching the highest levels of one of America's most 
popular professional sports. It has been for him a very difficult road. 
Now Casey stands at a roadblock, much like the roadblock that millions 
of Americans with disabilities have confronted--Americans who each and 
every day only ask for reasonable accommodations and modifications that 
will allow them to live their lives and pursue their dreams just like 
everyone else.
  We passed the Americans with Disabilities Act to give Casey Martin, 
and others with disabilities, an equal opportunity to fully participate 
in American life. That means in everything--employment, education, 
recreation, social activities and opportunities. I have often said that 
ADA really stands for the ``American Dream for All.'' That is what it 
is all about, and that is what it is about in this case, too--will 
Casey Martin have the opportunity to pursue his American dream?
  I would like to take a moment to compliment those who have already 
shown their support for Casey Martin. Particularly, I would like to 
congratulate Mr. Phil Knight and all of the folks at Nike. Their 
commercial that they are running now showcasing Casey Martin makes a 
very powerful statement about the ability of people who also happen to 
have disabilities.
  I would also like to compliment the golfers, like Greg Norman and Tom 
Latham, two outstanding golfers, who have publicly stated their support 
for Casey Martin.
  Mr. President, I am here to say that Casey Martin should have an 
opportunity to compete in the PGA Tour and to say that the ADA 
guarantees him that right. As Senator Dole said last week at our press 
conference, PGA does not stand for ``please go away,'' and the PGA Tour 
shouldn't try to send Casey Martin away from a game for which he is 
otherwise well-qualified. Casey is someone who spent his entire life 
playing golf; he played in college, along with Tiger Woods, at Stanford 
in the NCAA; he is a golfer who, with his disability, recently won one 
of the tours,

[[Page S299]]

a Nike tour in Lakeland, Florida. So this man is eminently well-
qualified to play professional golf.
  I am disappointed--I am sorely disappointed--in the PGA Tour's 
failure to reach an agreement with Casey, to come to some kind of an 
accommodation that would allow him to compete and earn his living being 
a professional golfer.
  As I understand it, the sticking point here is the PGA Tour's 
tradition and rule of no carts. Well, Mr. President, I believe there 
are values to upholding traditions and rules, but there is no merit in 
rigidly standing on tradition simply because of outmoded assumptions.
  Over the years, all kinds of traditions have scuttled the aspirations 
and limited the possibilities of millions of Americans with 
disabilities. People with disabilities just didn't do certain things. I 
always tell the story about my brother who I grew up with who had a 
disability. He became deaf at an early age. He was sent away to the 
Iowa School for the Deaf and Dumb--that is what it was called in those 
days, the School for the Deaf and Dumb. The Presiding Officer sitting 
in the Chair may be a few years younger than I am, but I remember when 
I was younger, that is what they called deaf people, they were deaf and 
dumb. As my brother said to me, ``I may be deaf, but I am not dumb.'' 
So we have done away with that tradition. We don't refer to people as 
deaf and dumb, and we don't have deaf and dumb schools any longer 
either.

  But when he went to that school, they told him he could be one of 
three things: He could be a baker, a shoe cobbler or a printer's 
assistant. That was it. There was nothing else he could do. ``That is 
it, you can pick one of those three things.''
  He said, ``I don't want to be any one of them.''
  They said, ``Fine, you are going to be a baker then.''
  Tradition and rules had it that deaf people could only do certain 
things. That has all gone by the wayside. We see deaf Americans now 
doing everything. Why, we even have a person who is deaf who is the 
president of a college. So we have done away with a lot of these old 
traditions, and the ADA is helping to change the old traditions. It is 
asking us to rethink our assumptions about people with disabilities and 
what they can do. It is asking us to look at reasonable modifications 
that would permit them, as I said, to pursue their American dream.
  The ADA is intended to include people in the mainstream of American 
life. It requires entities to make--and I quote from the law--
``reasonable modifications'' to ``policies, practices and procedures'' 
so long as those modifications do not create a ``fundamental 
alteration'' to the program or activity.
  So, Mr. President, rules and traditions that create barriers for 
people with disabilities are rules and traditions that must be changed.
  I am reminded of a recent incident here in the Senate, where we were 
asked to make a reasonable modification to a Senate policy. A staff 
person with a vision impairment was precluded from coming on to the 
Senate floor with her guide dog because we had a no-animals rule on the 
floor. Certainly, it sounded like a very reasonable rule and tradition. 
We don't want animals running all over the floor of the Senate. You 
don't want me bringing my pet dog on to the Senate floor. Well, that 
was a rule and tradition.
  So we had a debate about whether we should change the rule to 
accommodate the needs of the staff person. We talked about the history, 
the traditions of the Senate. Ultimately, we did the right thing. We 
made a reasonable modification to that rule and that tradition so the 
staff person could do her job and bring her dog on to the Senate floor.
  Allowing Casey Martin to use a golf cart is a reasonable modification 
under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The cart will help level the 
playing field a little on which Casey Martin competes without giving 
him an undo advantage. What we are talking about here goes to the heart 
of the principles and the foundation of the Americans with Disabilities 
Act.
  The PGA Tour can say all they want, that a cart somehow alters the 
fundamental operation of the golf game. Yet, if that is so, then why do 
they allow carts to be used on the Senior Tour? Why do they allow carts 
to be used in the qualifying rounds for the younger people?
  When the court enjoined the PGA Tour and said, yes, the Tour must 
allow Casey to use a cart, and he used a cart, the Tour said, ``We will 
let everybody use carts.'' I am told that out of 168 golfers, only 15 
decided to use a golf cart. I thought to myself, if a golf cart gives 
players that much of an advantage, why wouldn't everyone use them?
  So I consulted some of my golfing friends. I am not a golfer, but I 
have friends who are avid golfers. One individual told me, ``Well, 
there is nothing like walking a golf course, because when you walk, you 
feel the wind and you see how often it gusts and you know what 
direction it is blowing in. You get a feel for the lay of the fairway, 
and you can think about your next shot and what went wrong on the last 
one. You get in a golf cart and you lose all that feel.''
  I have tested this hypothesis with other golfers, and they say, 
``Yes, that is true.''
  Allowing Casey Martin to use a golf cart will not give him 
any advantage at all in the PGA Tour. In fact, it may very well present 
a disadvantage. So, again, I just think this is one of those old rules 
and traditions that needs a reasonable modification under the ADA so 
that Casey Martin can compete in professional golf.

  Lastly, Mr. President, Casey Martin may not fit the stereotype of 
what the PGA considers a competitive golfer, but millions of Americans 
who don't fit the typical image of a golfer have now taken up the game. 
It has moved from an exclusive sport played at private country clubs to 
an inclusive sport played by a cross-section of Americans.
  When I was growing up in my State of Iowa, I bet I could count on one 
hand the number of golf courses in the State of Iowa, all at private 
country clubs, exclusively played by those people who belonged to those 
clubs. We have 99 counties in Iowa, Mr. President. I bet you every one 
has a golf course now. Some of them have more than one. Farmers out in 
the field get off the tractor and come in and play a game of golf. So 
it is no longer this sort of exclusive game it once was. Everyone is 
playing golf. Barriers to the sport have come down.
  As I said earlier, barriers and traditions that prevent people with 
disabilities from fully participating are barriers and traditions that 
must come down. Holding up a barrier for Casey Martin sends exactly the 
wrong message not only to Americans with disabilities but to each and 
every one of us.
  I am sorry that the PGA Tour saw fit to take this to court. They 
first tried to argue that they weren't even covered by the ADA, when 
the law was plain on its face they were covered. They went to court 
and, of course, the court threw that out and said, ``Of course, you are 
covered.'' Now they are back in court again to drag this thing out.
  I wish they hadn't done it, because that very action alone tends to 
create a chilling effect. A lot of Americans will say, ``Well, I may 
have a disability, but if I want to do something and there is a rule or 
tradition against it, do you mean I have to go to court? Do you mean I 
have to hire lawyers? I have to go through all that just to get my 
rights?''
  That is the message the PGA Tour, by going to court, is sending to 
Americans all over this country.
  Mr. President, people with disabilities get up every morning, and 
they have a tough day ahead of them. They have to prepare for that day, 
many times with the aid of an assistant, perhaps they have to use a 
wheelchair or get in a special bus to go to work. It takes a lot of 
effort, a lot of time. They don't have the time and they don't want to 
go to court, but they want the Americans with Disabilities Act to work. 
People with disabilities want entities like the PGA Tour to use some 
common sense and some common decency to make reasonable modifications 
so that people like Casey Martin can pursue their American dreams.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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