Pageant prompts debate on meaning of disability

Now the Ms. Wheelchair America pageant is in an uproar over just how disabled a winner must be.

A national advocacy group protested that the dethroning reflects ''backward thinking" on the part of the pageant.

''This policy makes no sense," said Andy Imparato, president of the Washington-based American Association of People with Disabilities. ''I think it was interesting the story broke on April Fools' Day. I think a lot of us who saw the headlines thought it was an April Fools' joke."

The World Association of Persons With Disabilities, based in Oklahoma City, called for Lee's reinstatement.

''This is just a very bad message," said George Kerford, chairman emeritus. ''It is the wrong way to project this whole thing. We feel that a person with a disability should not be characterized as practically dead."

The Kaukauna High teacher was shown standing in her classroom in a picture carried in a supplement to The Post-Crescent newspaper of Appleton. The pageant organization said candidates for the crown have to ''mostly be seen in the public" using their wheelchairs or scooters. Lee says she can walk up to 50 feet on a good day and stand while teaching but uses a scooter as her main way to get around.

''The treatment I've received from the board doesn't say much for the organization," Lee said this week.

But Gina Hackel, who won the 2004 Ms. Wisconsin Wheelchair title and is the coordinator of the pageant this year, said: ''The eligibility criteria is very specific, just like Special Olympics. Kids who don't have cognitive disabilities are not eligible for Special Olympics, and nobody has a problem with that."

If Ms. Wheelchair America contestants can get from point A to point B without a wheelchair or a scooter, ''how can they be Ms. Wheelchair anything?" Hackel asked.

In the furor over Lee's dethroning, the runner-up in the pageant refused to accept the crown, and Lee's sister, Ms. Wheelchair Minnesota, withdrew from the national competition in protest. A pageant leader in Minnesota resigned.