Highlights from Cyndi Jones’ career show that within the
prolonged fight for change, even the slightest actions can
cascade into profound impact. Take t wo phone calls that
helped put people with disabilities into the greater public
consciousness:
1983: “I was grocery shopping and noticed that Wheaties
was asking for nominations of athletes for their next box.
I called the head of Wheelchair & Ambulatory Sports USA
and said, ‘ You know we could get a wheelchair athlete on
the front of a Wheaties box. Who are we going to nominate?’
In the summer of ’84, there was George Murray, who was
a t wo-time winner of the Boston Marathon’s wheelchair
division. He was on 3 million boxes; I get goose bumps
thinking about how many mothers of kids with disabilities
saw that and realized their child could get into sports.”
2000: “My husband (Bill Stothers) and I still work to increase media coverage of disability. We
noticed the U. S. Census Bureau puts out media fact sheets for trendy topics or holidays, like how
many turkeys were sold this Thanksgiving, etc., but there had never been one that addressed
disability. Just prior to the ADA’s 10th anniversary, we suggested they make a fact sheet on
disability in America—they did, and have continued to do so every year since.”
TRITON | SPRING 2016 34
MAN Y WHO DEVOTE THEIR LIVES to social
justice can point to a definitive moment
when the need to stand up to inequality
became saliently apparent. Not so many
can say they experienced such a moment at
the age of six, but for Cyndi Jones, Revelle
’74, a first-grade classroom would prove to
be her first touch with the harsh reality of
discrimination.
Jones contracted infantile paralysis,
or polio, at the age of two. As a young girl
in St. Louis, Mo., she was selected to be
the March of Dimes poster child in the
region. Jones remembers the excitement
of being the young girl on crutches waving
from parade floats and featured on local
billboards. Throughout the 1950s, hers was
the smiling face meant to open people’s
eyes to polio. Yet when the organization’s
mission moved from polio fundraising to
vaccination, just the reverse occurred—
Jones’ eyes were opened to the prevailing
attitudes that she and other people with
disabilities faced.
“I was in class and a new poster was
being distributed,” Jones says. “They used
a photo of a couple of kids running through
a field, then a photo of me in a party dress.
Over their picture it said ‘THIS,’ and over
my picture it said ‘NOT THIS.’ I wanted to
crawl under my desk.” Jones went home
that day with an acute sense of being
wronged, and more importantly, the resolve
to do something about it. “I told my mom
that the March of Dimes cannot use my
photos anymore,” she recalls. “That’s when
I realized how society viewed disability.
That’s when I became an advocate.”
What reads like a tragic instance in the
life of a young girl would only be Jones’
first brush with the social injustices she
would spend her life fighting against.
Upon moving to San Diego, Jones was not
admitted into her neighborhood school, but
was bussed across the county to a school for
children with disabilities. This was before
legislation such as PL 94-142 and Section
504 prohibited discrimination, and Jones
acknowledges the opportunities afforded to
her even before Section 504 passed in 1973.
“UCSD didn’t have to accept me, either,”
Jones says. “I’m lucky that I was already
enrolled in college even before I had the
right to attend.”
Even though she was admitted to
UC San Diego, a lack of accessibility and
accommodation at the time ultimately took
a substantial toll on her education. Using
crutches to navigate a growing campus in
the 1960s was not easy. “I always had to
choose my classes based on where they
were located, not who was teaching them,”
Jones says. The distance from her dorm
to educational facilities proved to be a
major obstacle; her inability to travel to
Geisel Library—then known as the “not-so”
Central Library—impacted the quality of
her classwork. “It was exhausting trying
to make it to classes. I was always late,
and I was tired by the time I got there. But
back then, the sentiment was ‘If you can’t
do it, you can’t do it.’” Finally, during her
senior year, she faced a nearly impossible
circuit in order to take courses required to
complete her degree in biology.
“I had to take three core classes that were
back-to-back. The first was in Revelle 2722,
the second over in Muir, and then back
to 2722. I really couldn’t do it on crutches,
cascade into profound impact. Take t wo phone calls that
and said, ‘ You know we could get a wheelchair athlete on
Change Catalyst
An insensitive tear-off
vaccination voucher
featuring six-year-old Jones set her on
a course of lifelong
disability rights
advocacy.
