Skater’s discrimination case settled
A skater nicknamed ‘‘Meat Train’’ has been paid $4000 in compensation after she said the national coach failed to accommodate her disabilities.
Marcia ‘‘Meat Train’’ Taylor, who is hard of hearing and has dyslexia, took the case of her 2014 nonselection for the New Zealand Roller Derby team to the Human Rights Commission. It was announced her case had been settled without proceedings being brought.
Taylor was a member of the Richter City Roller Derby team in Wellington in 2014 when she began training with the New Zealand team. Her aim was to make the squad which toured the United States later in the year, but she was not selected by coach Stacey Roper, whose playing name is ‘‘Pieces of Hate’’.
After the touring team was announced on October 2014, there was a discussion on Facebook about Taylor’s non-selection in which Roper made discriminatory statements.
‘‘What I do not like is that everyone has to walk on eggshells around someone because they have a disability,’’ Roper wrote, as quoted in a statement from the Office of Human Rights Proceedings yesterday.
She also wrote Taylor ‘‘did the best [she] could and I’m real sorry but it’s called a disability for a reason’’.
Taylor said Roper discriminated against her by failing to take reasonable steps to accommodate her disabilities.
Roper failed to offer assistance during written tests (including reader/writer assistance), failed to speak into a looped system for her hearing aid and failed to speak directly to her or give her visual cues during training, Taylor said.
Taylor said Roper’s comments and actions caused her ‘‘much embarrassment and shame’’ and the ordeal was a ‘‘huge blow to her confidence’’.
She said she was made to feel like she was being set up to fail and that her hearing loss was an annoyance to Roper and a liability to the team.
Taylor told RNZ she was initially fine with missing selection, but was devastated after seeing the comments on Facebook.
‘‘One of the reasons for my nonselection was because I was a liability due to my hearing. It had nothing to do with my skating abilities - my disability was my reason for exclusion. That was really devastating. It felt like a personal attack.’’
As part of the settlement, Roper paid Taylor $4000 in compensation for emotional harm and $169 compensation for the purchase of a team uniform. She also provided a letter of apology for the comments on social media and two official team jerseys that Taylor was entitled to receive because she had trained for the team.