Hello REC Center and PEAP supervisors,

We have noticed that REC center and PEAP do not allocate sufficient courts for badminton for a very long time,

most prominent issues include:

• badminton courts are always the first to be taken away whenever roof leaking, intramural sports, or other emergencies happen
• poor communication within the reservation team, that many times we are told by staff to leave for another court setup elsewhere, only to find that we are scammed and there are zero court available.
• no transparency regarding court scheduling, that we always have to call the front desk to confirm availability, and many times there are no reservations.
• we pay $145.00 as sports fee every semester, and our right to play badminton should be respected!

and this petition aims the following:

• convey the popularity of badminton sport within Texas A&M University
• have 1 REC/PEAP court of reservation for badminton on a daily basis
• push for transparency of court scheduling for all sports, not limited to badminton, to have reservation status published at least 1 day in advance
• request disclosure of court scheduling and usage in the past 1 year, for further inspection whether the courts are properly allocated to all sports

Since the fairness of court scheduling has been in question for years, we refrain from reporting to the Department of Civil Rights and Equity Investigation under the discrimination category, if the supervisors do not respond timely.  

Below records many people’s frustration regarding the unfair treatment towards badminton activity in recent years.  If you feel the same pain, please sign, share, and comment under this petition for better visibility.  This needs to change. 

Luming Xu ‘21, Graduate Student, Computer Engineering (xuluming@tamu.edu)
I have been playing badminton in the A&M Rec Center for the last two years, and I have noticed an unfair distribution of courts for badminton activity, especially in the Fall 2021 semester.  My friends and I often find that there are zero courts for badminton, while some courts are left totally empty.  More confusingly, some supervisors have rejected our request of setting the courts up, explaining that the Rec Center tries to have courts for each sport, which makes no sense when badminton activities are not accommodated at all.  Supervisors have claimed to treat every sport equally, so I do not wish to think that some sports are more equal than the others.

Dacheng Kuai ‘23, Ph.D. Student, Chemistry (kdc2016@tamu.edu)
I graduated from A&M with a B.Sc. degree in 2018 and am now pursuing Ph.D. Through years of Aggie experience I have been enjoying the badminton experience at the rec center until this year. Since 2021, especially the Fall semester, there is a constant shortage of badminton courts, either none available or only one court neighbored by volleyball court. When the badminton court is available, no sign is displayed to discourage/prohibit the volleyball players from entering the badminton courts. Crowds of volleyball players often enter the badminton courts to practice which resulted in tremendous disruptions and safety hazards for the badminton players. The badminton sport is demanding for the court conditions, including the floor, lighting, etc. Even though the PEAP floor is too slippery for rigorous badminton matches, the request to set up badminton courts at PEAP when the Rec center denied so is also frequently unsuccessful. Beyond having regularly available badminton courts, we hope that all the historic records and reservations of court setup could be accessible online for students’ frustration-free schedule. 

The badminton sport is particularly popular within the Asian group of students. Per Student Rule 45, and University system rule 08.01.01.M1, “The University bars students, employees and third parties from engaging in discrimination and/or harassment on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, age, religion, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information or veteran status.”, the rec center is not supposed to discriminate against badminton when less domestic students are attending. Before launching it to the Civil Rights Compliance, we believe it would be more efficient for everyone to submit this petition to the Rec center first, but all rights are preserved.  

I Fan Wu, PhD, Biochemistry (peterwu19881230@tamu.edu)
1. This is my sixth year here. From my recollection, there's no single semester where badminton courts are served on a daily basis like basketball and many other sports. 

2. When large events take place, I usually see badminton courts being taken away first even when there are many people waiting to play. This never happens for basketball. Given that there are lots of badmintoners having been required to pay fees for rec, we deserve to have guaranteed free courts at all times.

2. Throughout the years, I have seen badminton courts being intentionally set up at times people don't usually come. I don’t understand the purpose of this.

3. I have witnessed many times that there are 10-20 people waiting for a badminton court while there are basketball courts where there’s only 1 person playing. It’s difficult to convince ourselves that this has nothing to do with discrimination.

4. It is uncomfortable to be notified by the last minutes that "there's no courts today", if our only interested sport is badminton. 

5. The badminton courts being frequently taken away didn’t happen recently. Rather, from the first year I was here, it happens all the time. In addition, since our school has started hosting intramural sport events since 2-3 years ago, this situation only got worse.

6. We have estimated that there are at least more than 50 people coming to rec to play badminton every week. These do not include members from the school badminton club, and those who occasionally come for fun. Given this large cohort, we think that school representatives should care more about the rights for badmintoners, and seriously treat Badminton as an integral part of rec.

Subodh Mishra, PhD, Mechanical Engineering (subodh514@tamu.edu)
I have been a student at A&M for 4 years and every fall semester we have this issue with intramurals, but I don't think the problem of not being able to accommodate badminton has been as acute as this time. It is unfair that so many of us complain about this regularly even after paying full REC fees, and the management invariably turns a blind eye.

Whoever is there on the desk tells us "My supervisor won't allow me to set the courts". In that case, please reimburse my REC fees because I am not able to play the sport I want!!

I understand that is not possible, but what is possible is being a little more accommodating. Since we pay the fee, we deserve the service. A&M has invested so much in infrastructure, it is impossible to digest that they can't keep some courts aside for badminton given the large number of students who are interested in this sport.

 Several times I have seen 1 or 2 people occupying the entire court and the management not paying our heed to set up badminton courts. A lot of times it has happened that the REC officers come in the middle of a game and ask us to vacate because they want to set up volleyball courts or something else. One time an officer told me that they can set up courts during the school hours (8 00 - 17 00 hrs) for us to play, I have never heard a more bizarre solution than this. We all work when the school functions, we cannot play during that time. 

Several times we are sent to PEAP, which has its own issues and this semester even they turn us down very often. It is frustrating, and it is not right. We pay the fee, we deserve the service. Intramurals cannot be the excuse, every other day.