400-pound student sues Wayne State over allegations of weight discrimination
David Lopez is seeking $1 million after the school refused to let him work virtually
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Before his health problems, David Lopez thrived as an athlete, deriving joy and purpose in team sports.
While enrolled at Wayne State University, Lopez realized he wanted to become a gym teacher and football coach.
In 2022, he finished all of his classes and just needed to complete his student training requirements to graduate from the physical education kinesiology program and receive a certificate to teach.
But over the previous few years, he gained a lot of weight and had diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. He now weighs more than 400 pounds. If he stands for a prolonged period of time, his knees and back hurt, and he becomes fatigued and has trouble breathing.
With a legitimate disability, Lopez received an accommodation letter from his doctor so that he could work virtually for some of his student training. The university’s Student Disability Services department also signed off.
But Wayne State University officials wouldn’t allow it, making it impossible for him to graduate with a teaching certificate.
In July, Lopez filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university, claiming he was discriminated against because of his weight. He’s seeking $1 million.
“They said I didn’t fit the description of what a physical education teacher should be,” Lopez tells Metro Times. “They said I wouldn’t be a good teacher. They didn’t want me to pass. They didn’t want me to graduate. I thought they were going to do something, but I didn’t know they’d take it this far.”
Now Lopez is 44 years old and out of work. He feels defeated and embarrassed. He spent thousands of dollars pursuing a degree that is essentially useless without a teaching certificate.
Wayne State claims in a court filing that there are no legal protections for weight discrimination against an educational institution and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”
A Wayne County Circuit Court judge set a Jan. 23 hearing to consider the university’s request to toss the lawsuit.
Wayne State declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation.
In an interview, Lopez says Wayne State has repeatedly lied about the circumstances surrounding the case and silenced university officials who have sided with him. He says the university’s ombudsman urged the university to accommodate his requests to avoid a lawsuit and because it was the right thing to do. Now, he says, the ombudsman has been ordered to stop talking to him.
In early 2022, Lopez was assigned to Dearborn Public Schools to fulfill his student teaching requirements. The district allowed him to work virtually, but he says Wayne State would not allow it.
At the time, Dearborn Public School was offering a virtual physical education class.
Lopez says Wayne State’s refusal to allow virtual teaching was an excuse to keep him from getting certified. He pointed out that the university “graduated an entire class that worked virtually” during the pandemic.
“They passed an entire class doing the same thing I wanted to do,” Lopez says.
In his lawsuit, Lopez is asking to be reinstated into the university’s teaching program. But since he left, Wayne State has changed the requirements for his major by adding additional health courses that Lopez would need to graduate.
He says he isn’t going down without a fight.
“I’m not going away,” Lopez says. “I’m going to hold them accountable if I have to die doing it. What they did was intentional and premeditated. And it was cruel.”
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