Have you ever sat in the nosebleeds in the Smith Center during a basketball game? Odds are, if you’re an unlucky student like me, the answer is yes. Have you ever noticed the flashes of light that emanate from these huge bulbs on the ceiling?
I’m not talking about the lights flashing from people’s phones during the pre-game pump up. I’m talking about huge flashes of light from huge bulbs on the ceilings. Maybe you’ve noticed, or maybe you haven’t, but I certainly have, and I notice them every time I go to a home basketball game.
For me, noticing flashing lights is a part of my everyday life. I notice when the fluorescent light in my philosophy class flickers, I notice when headlights flash through the dividers on a highway and I notice when these huge bulbs flash on the ceiling in the Dean Dome.
See, I’m epileptic. I was diagnosed with epilepsy my junior year of high school, after I had a huge grand mal seizure during Latin class. Ever since, I’ve taken anticonvulsants twice a day, seen a neurologist every six months and been hyper-vigilant about things that could trigger a seizure. Luckily for me, my epilepsy is really well controlled, and I’m not super photosensitive, i.e. lights don’t bother me too much.
Even though my epilepsy is well-controlled, it’s still a disability. I had to register with Accessibility Resources & Service as a first-year, and I have to indicate my epilepsy on job applications. And, when thinking about the lights at basketball games and other events on campus, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were other students at UNC who exclude themselves from these activities because they were sensitive to the lights.
After a few rounds of calls to the facilities managers at the Smith Center, ARS and the Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office, I found that there really aren’t any existing accommodations for students with photosensitivity. Basketball games are a campus-wide event, so ARS can’t help. And when I contacted the Smith Center to ask what the lights were there for, I never heard back.
And honestly, I don’t want some major exception to be made for me.
Instead, I think it would be really helpful if students with light sensitivity could sit lower in the stadium, where they wouldn’t see the flashing bulbs as much. I don’t mean to restructure the entire basketball student-ticket lottery; I actually think the lottery system is fair, and I trust it.
But I do mean putting a little asterisk by my lottery entry that would indicate that it can be hard for me to watch a full game with all the flashes. I have to shield or close my eyes, or if it happens too often, I have to go to the restroom, and that makes me really sad.
