Eugene White Refers to Special Needs Students as "Crippled" and "Crazy"

Eugene White, the superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, was a guest on Denny Smith's radio program on 93.1 WIBC-FM on Monday. In the last few minutes of the hour long interview, White starts talking about some of the challenges public schools face:

"You've got to understand. We are public schools. What does that mean? We take everybody that come through the door, whether they are blind, crippled, crazy..."

Maybe White's son can take some of that $13,000 pay raise that his father gave to him and get his dad into some continuing education classes. Or Eugene can take some of the money from his latest pay raise and pay for it himself. We can start with a seminar on how to effectively communicate and talk about children who have special needs.

Here's a freebie: Just like African-Americans don't like being referred to as "negro", children with special needs don't like being referred to as "cripple" or "crazy". Those are, at best, antiquated terms. And at worst, they're derogatory.

Hat tip to Paul Ogden who originally posted about it here.