Disability Rights Watch

Category: Employment

Employment related information.

  • Week 28 Update

    1. Department of Health and Human Services reclassifies Head Start. This week, HHS reclassified Head Start as a welfare program instead of an educational program. This reverses the legal precedent of Plyler v. Doe that all children in the US have a right to education.

      The reclassification allows HHS to restrict children’s access to Head Start programming on the basis of immigration, income, other other statuses, (if the program continues–the administration’s current budget bill also cuts funding).

      Head Start provides early education, family support, health and nutritional services, with a focus on children 0-5 and pregnant women.
    2. Appeals Court erodes Voting Rights Act protections for disabled and ELL voters. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that neither voters nor private organizations can sue under Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. This statute is supposed to protect the rights of disabled voters, English language learners, and those with other language barriers who need assistance at the polls.

      The ruling says only the Department of Justice can enforce the law, and also upheld an Arkansas law that allows for criminal charges against anyone who helps more than six voters at the polls.
    3. Jobs report and economic indicators paint a grim picture. A dismal July jobs report shows that only 106,000 jobs were added over the past three months, a quarter million fewer than previously reported. These are some of the worst Labor statistics to come out since early pandemic.

      Unhappy with the poor numbers, President Trump then fired the Labor Statistics Chief via a post on Truth Social, prompting concerns about whether any government data can be trusted going forward.

      A new Executive Order announced another round of tariffs on dozens of countries, prompting stock market drops and companies announcing price hikes, including Proctor and Gamble’s 25% raise on diapers, soap, detergent, toothpaste, and more.
    4. Administration launches new health tracking program using private data. Officials are asking Americans to share their private medical and personal health data to be incorporated into a new government tracking system that officials say will “broaden access to health records” and “monitor wellness.”

      More than 60 Big Tech and Healthcare companies, including Google, Apple, Amazon, CVS, United and others have agreed to share data. Medicaid and Medicare data will also be included, on an “opt-in” basis for now.

      This is concerning to all data privacy advocates, especially in the hands of an administration that has openly embraced eugenic policy.
    5. Good news? Senate Appropriations Committee pushes back for 2026. This week, the bipartisan Senate Committee on Appropriations released their Fiscal Year 2026 bill, pushing back on Trump’s Budget, including:

      Provides $116.6 billion increase in discretionary funding for HHS

      $48.7 billion increase for NIH and rejection of the 15% indirect cost cap

      $85 million increase for Childcare Development Block Grant and Head Start. Rejects cuts to SAMHSA programs for substance abuse and mental health programs

      It remains to be seen if the Senate at large will accept the committee’s proposal.

      Action items:
      Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.
      Hit the streets if you are able. It’s past due.

      Protect your neighbors. Warn and record in the presence of ICE. Push your local officials not to collaborate.

      Donate to your local food pantry, library, clinics, cash bail funds, or other mutual aid if you can. Or volunteer your time.

      Encourage your Senator to support the Appropriations Committee’s proposals to push back on budget cuts.

      Make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Ditch the wearable tech when possible.

      Consider running for local office or getting involved to support a local candidate through organizing or phone banking–especially progressive primary challengers.

      Think about ways to spread information offline. Make flyers and stickers. Make art.

  • Week 27 Update

    1. Executive Order: Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. Trump signed an executive order this week telling cities to remove unhoused people from the streets as a way to “reduce crime”. While an EO is not a law, it makes it easier for city officials to remove unhoused people and to involuntarily commit them, because it instructs Attorney General Bondi to reverse other federal and state regulations that previously limited this authority.

      The EO is reminiscent of the Ugly Laws, a series of local laws that prohibited unhoused and disabled people from being in public places that were in place across the US from the turn of the 20th century. The last of those laws wasn’t repealed until the 1970s. A SCOTUS decision okaying the forcible sterilization of disabled people in state custody has never been overturned.
    2. Department of Education releases withheld funds. DoEd had previously been illegally withholding over five billion dollars from K-12 schools. Districts had been expecting the funds on July 1st , and were already depending on them to provide staff and resources for the Fall.

      The funds were largely earmarked for teacher training and before and after school care programs as well as summer programs already in swing. Several states had filed suit to pressure DoEd to release the money.
    3. Deaf Californian kidnapped by ICE. 32-year-old Javier Diaz Santana, a Deaf resident of LA, was detained when an ICE raid came to the car wash where he worked. Though he is a legal resident with a Real ID, agents confiscated his wallet and arrested him anyway.

      Santana is a DACA recipient who came to the US with his family when he was five years old. While in detention, Santana was denied an interpreter and given materials to read and sign in Spanish, a language he doesn’t know. DHS denies these claims and says they provided him with a “communication board.”

      Santana is just another of many disabled people kidnapped by ICE and held in squalid conditions without accommodations or information.
    4. Department of Education watchdog fired. Earlier in the year the Trump administration fired 17 Inspectors General. This month, the administration removed the Inspector in charge of serving as watchdog for the Department of Education.

      The watchdog was demoted and replaced for investigating the illegal withholding of education funds that began on July 1st. Removing oversight that asks questions or critiques (illegal) activity to replace them with party loyalists is a concerning move common to authoritarian governments.
    5. Local: Tennessee school district will no longer accept doctors’ notes for absences. One Tennessee school district has changed their policy for the new school year and will no longer allow excused absences, even with a doctor’s note.

      The district instructs families to send their children to school sick. If the nurse deems them ill enough to go home, they will be marked as “tardy.” Students who miss more than eight days of school per year will be sent to juvenile court.

      This eugenic policy is obviously discriminatory toward disabled and chronically ill children, both those who may be absent from school more than 8 days, and those while will suffer catching increased sickness from ill peers. Disabled and immunocompromised teachers are also at risk. The district has said exceptions may be made for “verified chronic conditions” but did not elaborate.

      Action items: Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

      Hit the streets if you are able. It’s past due.

      Protect your neighbors. Warn and record in the presence of ICE. Push your local officials not to collaborate.

      Boycott businesses supporting these policies. Donate to your local food pantry, library, clinics, cash bail funds, or other mutual aid if you can. Or volunteer your time.

      Contact your local officials and congresspeople and ask them to protect election integrity.

      Make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Ditch the wearable tech.

      Consider running for local office or getting involved to support a local candidate through organizing or phone banking–especially progressive primary challengers.

      Think about ways to spread information offline. Make flyers and stickers. Make art.

  • Week 26 Update

    1. SCOTUS rules on Dept of Ed. case, approving mass layoffs and paving the way for the dismantling of the department. SCOTUS ruled that DoEd’s mass layoffs (or RIFs)–attempted in March but temporarily stopped by a lower court–are allowed to move forward.

      This includes many positions that are required to be filled by law, ex: IDEA, The Education of the Deaf Act. However, SCOTUS has allowed the administration to ignore the law, and opened the door for further layoffs. Only Congress can legally dismantle a department, but the administration is already ignoring the law, and if no one works there, DoEd will not function.

      This is in conjunction with the illegal withholding of previously approved funds from July 1, and the trashing of several thousand civil rights complaints. DoEd employees are now scheduled to leave Aug 1.
    2. George Retes found and released; deaf Mongolian man remains in ICE detention. Retes, a 25 year old disabled US Army veteran was working as a security guard on a farm in Camarillo, CA. Though he is a US citizen, he was kidnapped from his car by ICE, and held for several days.

      A deaf Mongolian man who was attempting to seek asylum following legal protocol continues to be detained for over four months, without due process or a sign language interpreter. ICE agents reportedly attempted to use Google Translate with him, resulting in severe miscommunications on basic facts.

      These disabled men are just two of many kidnapped by ICE and held in squalid conditions without accommodations or information.
    3. Department of Labor to allow subminimum wage to continue. A Department of Labor statute giving businesses “sheltered workshop certifications” has long been a loophole for employers of severely disabled people to pay them less than minimum wage. Half the people employed under this statute are paid less than $3.50 an hour.

      Biden’s Department of Labor had started to repeal the rule, but the Trump administration has rolled back that request.

      The fight for wage equality must include disabled people, who face massive inequities with respect to sheltered workshops, general employment discrimination, disproportionate benefits compared to cost of living and inflation, and loss of benefits when getting married.
    4. Department of Labor to end hiring goal for disabled federal contractors. In 2013, the Obama DoL implemented a rule with a goal of at least employing disabled federal contractors at a rate of at least 7%.

      This was to comply with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and help combat high rates of unemployment discrimination for disabled people. The program long been considered a successful step in improving wage and employment gaps for disabled workers. About 25% of people in the US have some type of disability, so even 7% is far below population representation.

      The Trump DoL will now repeal the rule, and stop tracking any data on disability within federal contracting.
    5. Insurance costs spike under new GOP budget. The GOP budget passed on July 4th, teeing up Medicaid and Medicare cuts that will harm the quality of life for many disabled people, and are expected to kill over 51,000 people annually from otherwise preventable deaths.

      Those who buy private insurance on the ACA marketplace will also be affected. Biden had previously provided subsidies to help with high payments, but they are now expiring. More than a quarter of providers are planning a rate hike of 20% or more.

      The new law also makes it harder to enroll in health insurance on the marketplace by shortening enrollment window and denying enrollment for those with outstanding balances.
    6. Dept. of Justice makes concerning move toward English-only services and materials. The memo says the department will “lead a coordinated effort to minimize non-essential multilingual services, redirect resources toward English-language education and assimilation, and ensure compliance with legal obligations through targeted measures where necessary.”

      This is a concern for all English language learners. Disabled people and/or signed languages are neither explicitly mentioned or excluded, (except citing case law that said offering disability/ss applications in English only is not a legal violation). It is unclear but concerning how this will impact deaf and hard-of-hearing people and others who use signed languages to communicate.
    7. They’re messing with the elections. The Department of Justice is making an unprecedented demand for sensitive election data. The request include access to voter rolls and in some cases “all records.” This is an abnormal request and it is unclear what the DOJ wants that data for. The requests went mainly to swing states, but others were included, too.

      Meanwhile, Texas is seeking to illegally redistrict to add five congressional seats in projected “red” areas. This is illegal, as new maps are not due to be drawn until 2031.

      Contact your local officials and demand they protect election integrity in your state. Folks both in and outside of Texas can also contact congress to stop the illegal redistricting. Templates are available for residents of any state to use.
    8. Action items: Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

      Hit the streets if you are able. It’s past due.

      Protect your neighbors. Warn and record in the presence of ICE. Push your local officials not to collaborate.

      Boycott businesses supporting these policies. Donate to your local food pantry, library, clinics, cash bail funds, or other mutual aid if you can. Or volunteer your time.

      Contact your local officials and congresspeople and ask them to protect election integrity. (See above templates).

      Make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Ditch the wearable tech.

      Consider running for local office or getting involved to support a local candidate through organizing or phone banking–especially progressive primary challengers.

      Think about ways to spread information offline. Make flyers and stickers. Make art.

  • Week 25 Updates

    1. FEMA ends door to door assistance, leaving elderly and disabled stranded. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been a target of the Trump administration, with DOGE cutting 20% of its employees and attempting to freeze funds, and Trump repeatedly pushing for disaster response to be a state-level problem.

    Experts say a diminished FEMA and National Weather Service made warning and rescue response times slower, leading to more deaths in disasters like the recent Texas floods, which killed over 120.

    Due to cuts, FEMA has now stopped door-to-door work in disaster zones, focusing instead on shelters only. However, this potentially leaves the elderly, disabled, and those without transportation stranded.

    2. Disabled veteran and US Citizen George Reddis detained by ICE, now missing. The 25 year old disabled US Army veteran was working as a security guard on a farm in Camarillo, CA. (video contains auto-captions)Though he is a US citizen, he was taken by ICE.

    His family saw news footage of the raid in which agents broke his truck window, pepper sprayed him, pulled him from the vehicle and threw him to the ground before arresting him.

    Family haven’t heard from him since the kidnapping, and can’t find where he is being detained. In addition to contacting law enforcement, they are seeking any tips from the public who may have seen where he was taken.

    He’s not the first US citizen kidnapped by ICE, and he won’t be the last.

    3. Concern for disabled immigrant detainees in the face of NQRP, oversight cuts. Funding for the National Qualified Representation program (NQRP), which provides legal aid for immigrants with cognitive disabilities or mental illness was cut in April. Now, as ICE ups indiscriminate arrests, more disabled people are caught in raids with no recourse.

    This comes as Homeland Security has gutted other oversight mechanisms, including the Office of Civil Rights and Civil liberties and the ombudsman within the department.

    Deaths and reports of injury, assault and neglect within ICE facilities have surged in recent weeks.

    More than half of ICE detainees have committed no crimes. Less than 10% have ever been convicted of a violent offense.

    4. SCOTUS ruling paves the way for more governmental restructuring and layoffs. SCOTUS released a ruling related to the layoffs (RIFs) of multiple agencies, paving the way for more authoritarian governance.

    While SCOTUS didn’t comment on the legality of the layoffs specifically, they allowed for restructuring and consolidation of certain powers by the executive branch, which previously required Congressional approval.

    The ruling suggests RIF legality can be decided by lower courts, though it’s unclear how this will mesh with the previous ruling that lower courts can’t issue national injunctions, (except in class-actions).

    This ruling doesn’t affect the Dept. of Ed. which is a separate case currently waiting on the emergency docket.

    5. State Dept lays off 1300+ people. The move comes days after SCOTUS’s previously stated ruling, about the consolidation of power within the executive branch.

    Experts warn that removing diplomatic expertise at a tense time in international relations can have dangerous national security consequences.

    In general, the shrinking of the Department of State’s civil and diplomatic service consolidates power under fewer people, and party loyalists.

    The entire DOS accommodations team was among the layoffs.

    6. HHS blocks access to key services for undocumented immigrants. The Department of Health and Human Services recently reclassified a series of public programs in keeping with Trump’s February Executive Order, an effort to make sure that undocumented immigrants or their families cannot access social services.

    These programs include Community Behavioral Health Clinics and Mental Health Services grants, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Disorder Treatment, the Educational and Training Voucher Program, Family Planning programs, Kinship Guardianship Programming, Transition from Homelessness program, and more.
    It also includes Head Start –which provides early education, health screenings, and food–to young children.

    7. Most people affected by Medicaid cuts don’t know it’s coming. Trump previously said his budget bill wouldn’t cut Medicaid, but deep cuts were passed last week. They don’t go into effect until 2026, and due to local naming conventions, many people don’t even know they will be at risk.
    Here is what Medicaid is called in each state, listed alphabetically by state.

    8. Action items: Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

    Hit the streets if you are able. It’s past due.

    Protect your neighbors. Warn and record in the presence of ICE. Push your local officials not to collaborate.

    Boycott businesses supporting these policies. Donate to your local food pantry, library, clinics, cash bail funds, or other mutual aid if you can. Or volunteer your time.

    Join Project Mail Storm by writing and sending paper letters to government. More info on our site.

    Make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Ditch the wearable tech.

    Consider running for local office or getting involved to support a local candidate through organizing or phone banking–especially progressive primary challengers.

    Think about ways to spread information offline. Make flyers and stickers. Make art.

  • Week 23 Updates

    SCOTUS Decision Day:
    ❌ Limited power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, consolidating power under executive branch (limits ability to stop Trump EOs, etc.) Only SCOTUS or class-action suits remain as judicial checks.

    ❌ Opened door to unconstitutional revoking of birthright citizenship. Removal of birthright citizenship in Germany is widely recognized by historians as the country’s transition from democracy to dictatorship in the 1930s.

    ❌ States can restrict Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.

    ❌Parents can opt their students out of “exposure” to LGBTQ+ books in public school due to “religious burden” opening door for sweeping book and curriculum bans.

    ❌No DoEd decision. Employees continue to be paid but are not allowed to work.

    ✅ Protected the provision of Obamacare/ACA that keeps preventative care covered by insurance companies at no cost to patients. This includes things like wellness checkups, HIV testing and PrEP, blood pressure medication and other maintenance medications and tests.

    ✅ Upheld the FCC’s Universal Service Fund. The money supports the expansion of telephone and broadband service, especially in rural areas. It also subsidizes internet access at schools, libraries and low-income households.

    2. Senate moves closer to vote on budget bill; McConnell Says of People Losing Medicaid “They’ll Get Over it”. The Senate continues to rework the “big beautiful” budget bill that will gut Medicaid, SNAP and other services to provide tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. They are expected to vote soon.

    A provision preventing Medicaid from paying for trans folks’ healthcare was removed, (good news, though it can still be added back in on the floor).

    Wheelchair-using protesters were again arrested at the capitol protesting Medicaid cuts.

    McConnell urged his colleagues to go through with the vote, acknowledging that constituents were calling in worried about Medicaid, but that “they’ll get over it.”

    3. Beyond Medicaid Patients: Everyone’s Care at Risk Under New Budget. The Center for American Progress estimates the proposed budget bill will increase cost of health insurance for everyone, including those who buy plans on the marketplace or through work. Depending on family size and age, costs could increase from about $1000 to $15,000 annually.

    Since 49% of American children are on Medicaid, Medicaid funds large swaths of pediatric hospitals. Medicaid cuts mean less money and resources for children’s hospitals, and fewer beds for all (including those with private insurance).

    Medicaid also pays for some related services at public schools like Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapy. These cuts in addition to DoEd cuts will decimate already underfunded special education programming.

    4. RFK’s new Antivaxx Committee Meets; AAP says they’ll Ignore any changes: The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, recently repopulated by antivaxxers and COVID-deniers, has begun meeting to plan new recommendations for vaccine schedules and availability. This is important because it will affect whether offices and pharmacies receive, and insurance companies will cover, vaccines even if people ask for them.

    The American Association of Pediatrics released a statement that they will continue to recommend the evidence-based childhood vaccine schedule independent of any of RFK’s new recommendations. Advocates hope the AAP’s stance will pressure insurance companies into continuing vaccine coverage.

    5. Deaf Man in ICE Prison for Over 80 Days without due process, interpreter: Family of a Deaf Mongolian man say he has been held in an ICE detention center for over 80 days without access to due process, or anyone who knows Mongolian Sign Language.

    The man, who committed no crime, had entered the country and immediately turned himself in to Border Patrol so he could ask for asylum. He brought with him a written letter detailing the reasons why he feared for his life and return to Mongolia, but agents refused to look at it.

    He was denied the “credible fear screening” used to determine whether one has a case for asylum, and all other due process procedures.

    6. 911 Calls from ICE Detention flood in, but many are ignored.
    A report from WIRED analyzed the content of hundreds of calls from inside ICE centers from both workers and prisoners detailing a variety of horrors, including sexual assault, medical neglect, pregnancy complications, mental health crises, and deaths by suicide.

    People previously detained in ICE centers have spoken of being denied access to medication for chronic health conditions, a situation worsened by overcrowding, understaffing, inadequate staff training and accountability, and a general culture of cruelty surrounding the detentions.

    7. Several states turn over medical data to DHS; RFK proposes more surveillance via wearables. Several states who provide healthcare coverage to noncitizens recently turned over their Medicaid data to the Department of Homeland Security, including California, Washington, Illinois and DC.

    The data surrender is an invasion of privacy and concerning in the hands of RFK’s HHS, who have vowed to create a “registry” of autistic people.

    Advocates are also concerned this will prevent immigrants from seeking healthcare or early intervention services.

    RFK praised health surveillance on Americans, saying he wanted everyone in the country to be using a wearable within four years.

    Action items:
    at to Do: Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

    Call your Senator and tell them to vote NO on this dangerous budget. Choose 1 or 2 programs important to you–Medicaid, gender-affirming care, SNAP, IDEA, etc.–and mention them by name.

    Calling is also important if you buy your own health insurance or get it through work. This bill affects your premiums and access to hospitals, too.

    Join Project Mail Storm by writing and sending paper letters to representatives and the White House. Each is required to be opened and logged.

    Make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Ditch the wearable tech.

    Protect your neighbors.

    Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, and protest, including offline materials. Make flyers and stickers. Warn (and record) in the presence of ICE. If able march, boycott, donate and/or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.

  • Week 22 Updates

    1. SCOTUS Upholds Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Minors. SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that states can ban trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care. Gender-affirming care can include psychological support, reversible puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapy. In all but rare cases, surgery is not available to patients under 18. Less than 900 total surgeries on minors were performed in the US over a 3-year-period.

    In addition to being in opposition to scientific consensus and harming the mental and physical well-being of trans kids, the ruling also takes away doctor-parent autonomy in choosing what is in the best medical interest of the minor, opening the door for government control over what kinds of medicine and care everyone can access.

    2. Described and Captioned Media Program Funding Cut. The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP), previously funded through DoED, was “the only free, national source of accessible educational videos for both deaf and blind, and deafblind students.” Videos with captions, ASL interpretation, and descriptive audio made a variety of educational material available for free for families and teachers.

    Due to DoEd’s funding cuts and the transition to block grant funding, states receiving money with no strings attached can to use it for accessible media…or not.

    The DCMP grant, issued through OSERS, was also a main source of income for the National Association for the Deaf (NAD).

    3. Department of Education Employees in Limbo Awaiting SCOTUS. Thousands of DoED employees await a ruling from SCOTUS’s emergency “shadow docket” process about whether their illegal firings will be overturned.

    Possible outcomes:
    SCOTUS could decide not to take the case; employees return to work.
    SCOTUS takes the case but goes on vacation 1 July, leaving things undecided until at least September.
    SCOTUS issues an official decision in either direction.
    SCOTUS consolidates the DoED case with cases of other federal agencies (unlikely, as DoED case also addresses the legality of Trump’s Executive Order about the department).

    Meanwhile, the administration seeks to continue its backdoor dismantling of federal agencies through OMB without Congressional “interference.”

    4. Department of Energy Opens New Attack on Section 504. Over the past several weeks, the Department of Energy has been working to weaken Section 504, a statute that protects disabled people’s right to enter and be accommodated in any spaces that receive federal funding, including government buildings, public schools, hospitals that accept Medicaid, and more.

    The change seeks to allow various entities to decide whether or not they want to include accessibility and accommodations for disabled people in their updates based on whether they are “efficient.”

    Public comment on this change recently closed, but you can still contact your representatives to voice your concerns about DoE and other attempts to attack 504 and ADA protections.

    5.  Trump’s EPA Considers Bringing Back Asbestos: The Biden Administration had previously banned the final type of asbestos used in the US. The current EPA has now taken that policy “under review.”

    Asbestos is a carcinogen that killed millions of Americans due to a rare and aggressive cancer called mesothelioma, though it has been linked to other cancers of the abdomen, ovaries, and larynx.

    The EPA under Trump has also sought to roll back other protections, like limits on coal emissions and toxic “forever chemicals” in drinking water, even as other parts of the administration tout a goal to make the nation “healthy again.

    6. Hickson vs St. David’s Healthcare Partnership Threatens ADA/504 in Healthcare Settings. Michael Hickson, a 46-year-old disabled Black man died in Texas in June 2020 after contracting Covid and being denied ventilator care and other ICU services. At the time, Texas and 24 other states had policies about rationing care that explicitly discriminated against disabled people. This is one of the things Final Rule updates seek to rectify.

    The case is currently before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative court. If they rule in favor of the hospital, it would set a precedent that guts disabled people’s ability to file medical facility-related discrimination claims under the ADA or Section 504.

    7. Good News: Federal Judge Rules Some NIH Grant Terminations “Void and Illegal.” On Monday, a Federal Judge ruled in a pair of cases that the administration’s termination of NIH grants was both discriminatory and had “no force or effect.”

    Most of the grants covered in the suits were terminated due to mention of LGBTQ+ populations, either directly or indirectly.

    While the ruling only reinstates grants specifically named in the suits, it opens the door for more organizations to seek reinstatement of funding through the courts.

    Keep pressure on your electeds to let them know you are watching, that the administration complies with the court’s rulings.

    Action Items
    Share this info! Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

    Call your Senator and tell them to vote NO on this dangerous budget. Choose 1 or 2 programs important to you–Medicaid, gender-affirming care, SNAP, IDEA, etc.–and mention them by name.

    Join Operation Mail Storm by writing and sending paper letters to representatives and the White House. Each is required to be opened and logged.

    If your state is involved, ask your Attorney General to withdraw from Texas v. Kennedy. If able, donate to organizations like DREDF, ACLU, who are fighting various legal challenges, and ADAPT who routinely put their bodies on the line in activist work.

    Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, and protest, including offline materials. Make flyers! Call out misinformation. Warn your neighbors (and record) in the presence of ICE. If able march, boycott, donate and/or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.

  • Week 15 Update

    Week 15 Update

    1. White House releases harrowing budget requests. On Friday, the White House released their budget request to Congress. The 46 pg document seeks massive cuts for almost all social and educational programs domestically and internationally, cuts totaling $163 billion.

    Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are two of the handful of that see increased spending in order to better fund police militarization and the deportation of immigrants and kidnapping of US citizens by ICE.

    This week’s post will examine some key budget asks affecting the disability community. This is not a complete list, but a link to the full document is available here. Items 1-4 on this post are pulled directly from that spreadsheet. It’s important to note that these are *nonbinding requests* from the President. It will be up to Congress to write and pass specific legislation. Call them.

    2. WH Budget Requests: Dept. of Education
    $60 million increase in funding for charter schools

    $4.5 billion in cuts for K-12 education / Title I programming for underfunded schools

    $49 million in cuts for DoED’s Office of Civil Rights

    A vague category of “Special Education” is listed to “remain at 2025 levels. it mentions IDEA by name, but it’s unclear to what extent programs and sub-departments will be included. The explanation also appears to employ Project 2025’s block grant distribution, meaning it’s suggested the money be used for special ed, but with limited oversight.

    Many other DoED programs receive explicit cuts. There is no mention of special institutions, like Gallaudet, NTID, Printing House for the Blind, etc. in the document.

    3. WH Budget Request, HHS
    $500 million increase to “MAHA” a slush fund for RFK Jr’s antivax and “overreliance on medication” initiatives

    $4 billion in cuts to LIHEAP the program that provides heat and AC assistance for low-income families.

    $1.9 billion in cuts for services for refugee and unaccompanied minors

    $315 million cuts to Preschool Development Grants

    $1.7 billion cuts to HRSA, $3. 5 billion cuts to the CDC
    $17.9 billion cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

    $1 billion cuts to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

    $180 million in cuts to STI and teen pregnancy prevention programs

    $674 billion in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare Service

    4. WH Budget Request, HUD:
    $26 billion cut from rental assistance state block grants, money sent to states to support rental housing for the elderly, disabled, and those aging out of foster care.

    $479 million in cuts from Native American and Hawaiian housing block grants

    $532 million cut from Homeless Assistance Program

    $296 million cut from Surplus Lead Hazard Reduction and Healthy Homes Funding

    Additional cuts to other self-sufficiency, fair housing, and community grant programs

    5. WH Budget Requests, our liberation is intertwined: Deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Parks System, the Department of the Interior (including significant reductions in funding for Native American reservation-based social services and education), aid-based programming within the DHS, FEMA and other disaster-relief funding, Department of Labor job skills programs, funding for libraries, HBCUs, PBS and NPR, programs to combat misinformation, and more have all been explicitly named and targeted for cuts at the President’s request.
    These cuts will hurt everyone, and particularly those living at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.

    7. Gallaudet suspends enrollment of several majors as budget cuts loom. A list from Provost Rashid said admissions to the following programs will be suspended:
    Secondary Education programs, including the BA and MA in Secondary Education in Biology, Chemistry, English, General Sciences, Mathematics, and Social Studies, Undergraduate Teacher Preparation, Programs in Early Childhood and Elementary Education

    The announcement comes as deaf studies and education programs shutter at universities across the country.

    GU leadership continues to be nontransparent about the future of the university without its DoED Liaison, who previously disbursed funding and advocated on behalf of deaf education. The University has gone so far as to say that the liaison has been reinstated, which is untrue.

    The only liberal arts university for the deaf in the world faces an uncertain future without mention in Trump’s budget request (yes, that would be illegal).

    8. Texas v Beccera lawsuit continues
    Despite recent “clarifications” from HHS about the how mention of gender dysphoria in Final Rule’s preamble is not legally binding, involved parties have not revoked their original filing, which explicitly asks for 504 to be declared unconstitutional (p 37-42).

    504 protects disabled people’s rights in all spaces that receive federal funding, and would have major implications in conjunction with rescinding of ADA guidance, the uncertain future of DoEd, and a separate suit going before SCOTUS next week.

    A stay has been issued, and parties are now required to update every other month, with the next due June 21st.

    9. RFK makes wild vaccine claims on air as HHS floats dangerous clinical trials.
    Speaking live on News Nation Wednesday, RFK Jr. repeatedly claimed the MMR vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris.”

    IT SUPER DOESN’T! The MMR vaccine, like most vaccines, was cultured within (sterile) fetal cells, one of two lines from the 1960s. It does not contain fetal cells or human DNA because the virus kills the cell. The vaccine virus is also purified before it is made into a replicable vaccine.

    HHS also said they want to conduct placebo trials on existing vaccines, raising ethical concerns with public health experts. Not giving available effective and thoroughly-tested vaccines to trial participants and infecting them with, and allowing them to die from preventable disease is cruel, and in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

    10. HHS releases harmful anti-trans report, highlights willingness to distribute misinformation. On Thursday, HHS released a “report” seeking to disparage gender-affirming care for trans youth, care that is already known to be safe and effective as backed by decades of peer-reviewed research.

    The report’s authors are anonymous, and it is not peer-reviewed. No trans people are consulted in the report, though anti-trans extremists are cited.

    Every human deserves access to healthcare. The disability community stands with trans youth.

    Multiple studies also estimate that 27-50% of trans people are disabled, too. (1, 2, 3)

    The report also demonstrates a willingness to publish blatant disinformation to support the administration’s various eugenic vendettas. This won’t be the last.

    Take Action:

    What to do: Share this info. Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

    Call your Representative and tell them not to accept the White House’s requested budget cuts. Choose 1 or 2 programs important to you personally and mention them by name when you call.

    Call your Senator and tell them to take meaningful action against illegal deportations and ideological-based arrests.

    Contact the Gallaudet Board of Trustees and urge transparency in communication with the community, and action to protect the university.

    If your state is involved, contact your Attorney General and ask them to withdraw from Texas v. Beccera. Tell them you stand in solidarity with disabled people, and trans folks.

    Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, and protest, including offline materials. Make flyers! Call out misinformation. Warn your neighbors in the presence of ICE. If able march, boycott, donate and/or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.

  • Week 14 Update

    Week 14 Update

    1. HHS announces plan to build a registry of autistic people. This week, the HHS announced plans to use private health data, from medical records down to wearable smart tech, to create a government registry of autistic people. The announcement sparked privacy concerns and comparisons to the 1939 registry for disabled children as part of T4, a program for the mass murder of 300K+ disabled people across occupied Europe.

      Several state-level autism databases already exist for research and resource purposes, as do other condition-specific registries; however, participation in those is voluntary.
      Limited reporting Friday stated that due to public outcry, the NIH is walking back registry plans and investing in other unspecified research, but nothing official from RFK yet (as of late Friday, 4/25).

      Update: as of 4/26, reports of an emailed statement from an unnamed HHS official are here. The email states that there will be no “registry” and instead researchers will draw from limited data sets.
    2. Actual autism-related research defunded. In last week’s diatribe against autistic people, RFK Jr. had vowed to find the cause of autism by September. NIH later moved back the timeline. However, other grants for longstanding autism research have been cut, including:

      National Science Foundation grants featuring the words “accessibility” and “inclusion,” like one for the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, which included work by autistic scholars.

      The federal government’s Autism Research Program (ARP) omitted from 2025 appropriations.

      Other NIH grants and programs continue to be delayed and cut as remaining employees parse through unfinished projects after many workers have been laid off.
    3. RFK Jr. expands eugenic hit list, says disabilities are, “bankrupting our nation.” RFK’s quote: “Neurological disorders–ADD, ADHD, speech delay, language delay, tics, Tourette’s syndrome, narcolepsy, ASD ….All these are injuries I never heard of when I was a kid… There was $0 spent in this country treating chronic disease when my uncle was President. Today it’s $1.8 T annually. It’s bankrupting our nation….juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, were just unknown when I was a kid.”

      RFK also said the diagnosis uptick endangers the nation because fewer qualify for military service.

      Most conditions listed were discovered at the turn of the 20th century or before. However, disabled people were often institutionalized or lobotomized, decreasing their visibility, (especially in rich people circles like RFK’s).

      Disabled people “draining society” is a eugenic talking point, and The word “injury” to describe disability and autism is also an antivax dog whistle.

      His press conference was supposed to be about banning synthetic food dyes, which he did not do.
    4. DOGE already has access to sensitive HHS data. While autistic people and allies rightfully sounded the alarm on the invasion of privacy that a national autism registry could bring, DOGE already has access to at least 19 of HHS’s systems, some of which contain sensitive information, and typically require specific specialized training before use.

      Some of the systems are: Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS, CALM), CMS’s Integrated Data Repository Cloud (contains patient info), several grant processing and personnel management systems, the Unaccompanied Alien Children portal, and accounting and payment systems across HHS, NIH, and CDC.
    5. Supreme Court to hear case that could gut ADA/504 protections. Next week, SCOTUS will hear arguments related to the case A.J.T. vs. Osseo Area Schools. The case examines whether a disabled person must prove a party acted, “in bad faith or gross misjudgment” to claim their rights were violated.

      The case, about accommodations for a disabled student, was originally narrow in scope and focused in K-12 ed, but the most recent brief makes clear the intent will be to apply the interpretation to the ADA and Rehabilitation Act more broadly.

      Having to prove malicious intent in order to access basic accommodations will further gut the ADA/504 in an already hostile DOJ oversight. Does this building not have a ramp? Well, as long as they aren’t doing it to be mean! *shrug*…..
    6. Executive Order, “Reinstating Common Sense Discipline in Schools” From the order: “The Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful ‘equity’ ideology.”

      The White House seeks to roll back trauma-informed and anti-racist educational practices currently in place to address disparities in the biased application of disciplinary policy (e.g. children of color getting punished more frequently and harshly for the same behavior as white children.)

      The removal of equitable discipline practices will be dangerous for children of color, disabled children, and especially those at the intersection of those identities.
    7. Deaf and Disability Studies programs shutter while Gallaudet begins layoffs.
      Across the country, deaf education TOD programs, and deaf/ disability cultural programs are being shut down. The deaf ed programs have likely lost funding due to cuts at the Dept of Ed’s Office of Special Education, while cultural “area” studies have been targeted by a variety of Trump’s anti-DEIA orders.

      Deaf Education programs cut: University of Minnesota–Duluth, Utah State University. Deaf ed at Columbia University Teacher’s College has also been defunded through the Trump takeover there.

      Deaf Studies: University of Maryland–College Park, University of Montevallo, University of Nebraska, Ithaca College.

      Disability Studies: University of Toledo

      ASL Interpreting Programs: Columbia College–Chicago, University of Texas–Houston

      Gallaudet also announced layoffs on the executive team and comms office, while others took pay cuts. Gallaudet Pres. Cordano continues to downplay growing concerns about the future of the university without its DoED liaison.
    8. Texas v. Becerra lawsuit continues. Despite recent “clarifications” from HHS about the how mention of gender dysphoria in Final Rule’s preamble is not legally binding, involved parties have not revoked their original filing, which explicitly asks for 504 to be declared unconstitutional (p 37-42).
    9. 504 protects disabled people’s rights in all spaces that receive federal funding, and would have major implications in conjunction with rescinding of ADA guidance, the uncertain future of DoEd, and a separate suit going before SCOTUS next week.
    10. A stay has been issued, and parties are now required to update every other month, with the next due June 21st.
    11. The FBI arrests a sitting judge, Attorney General Bondi threatens more. The FBI arrested WI judge Hannah Dugan on charges of obstruction. They say Dugan allowed an immigrant to use a side door typically only for the jury, in order to avoid detainment by ICE.

      US Attorney General Pam Bondi promised that Dugan’s arrest is just the beginning. “We are sending a very strong message today: If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are, if you are helping hide one, if you are giving a TdA member guns, anyone who is illegally in this country, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”

      The judge was not giving anyone a gun. The immigrant in question had been at the courthouse due to a misdemeanor.

      The arrest is a marked turn in the disintegration of Constitutional rule, ushering in an era of ideological-based arrests.
    12. Do not comply in advance (good news). Judges issued a series of blows to Trump’s anti-DEIA agenda within the K-12 sector, with two judges blocking, and one postponing the implementation of various anti-equity policies within public school settings, calling them too vague, and unconstitutional.

      The number of school districts and states standing up to the administration on this issue continues to grow, and under forceful pushback, the administration typically folds (see: Harvard). The federal government has never had control over individual states’ or districts’ curriculum choices.
    13. Action: Share this info. Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

      Call your Representative and continue to make noise about the HHS’s eugenic rhetoric and practices.

      Call your Senator and tell them to take meaningful action against illegal deportations and ideological-based arrests.

      Contact your school board and state’s education officials, and tell them not to comply with baseless anti-DEI directives. Tell your universities you value deaf and disability studies programs!

      If your state is involved, contact your Attorney General and ask them to withdraw from Texas v. Beccera. Tell them you stand in solidarity with disabled people, and trans folks.

      Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, and protest, including offline materials. Make flyers! Call out misinformation. Warn your neighbors in the presence of ICE. If able, donate or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.

  • Week 12 Update

    Week 12 Update

    1. House passes budget framework, paving the way for deep social cuts. The House passed the budget framework that paves the way for Trump’s desired budget, including trillions in tax cuts for rich people, increased defense spending, increased spending autonomy for the President, weakening social security, and an estimated $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid.
      The House and Senate must now work to turn their resolutions into actual legislative text, which will reveal the minute breakdown of their spending plan and cuts. This is typically a months-long process.
    2. Markets roil as Trump plays with global tariffs, threatens more. Trump issued tariffs on multiple countries in a questionably legal process this week, promptly tanking the global market. He paused some of the tariffs for 90 days due to instability, but kept a tax at over 100% on goods from China, who also levied their own tariffs. (Update: as of noon on 4/12, Trump also paused tariffs on electronics like smartphones and computers.)

      Tariff costs are passed down to the buyer, meaning further hikes in a market where food and basics prices are already soaring. This will be a hardship for all Americans, but especially those already struggling with food insecurity, and/or those on a fixed income.

      Trump also announced tariffs on pharmaceutical imports to be implemented “shortly,” with no details yet on which medications will be affected. Medical device and equipment prices are already expected to rise due to current tariffs.
    3. HHS fallout reveals more disability-centric programs lost. Massive cuts at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities last week left advocates reeling. Now the cuts are coming clear:

      EHDI programming for universal newborn hearing screenings has been eliminated. States have received some funding in 2025, but may not receive the rest.

      The CDC partnership with the Special Olympics has also been eliminated. Trump and DeVos first tried to defund the program in 2017. (4/12, clarifying note: The Special Olympics funding and oversight primarily came from OSERS in the Dept of Ed, but those employees were also laid off in earlier an earlier RIF).

      A department dedicated to sickle cell research is gone.

      The team for national data collection on adults with cognitive disabilities is gone, just before a key report about the rise in cognitive disability in young people was to be released. Some say it’s being blocked so RFK can bury evidence contradicting his own team’s theories about “autism’s origins,” which he’s promised to “reveal” by September.
    4. White House Press Secretary says the administration is seeking a “legal” pathway for deporting US citizens. White House press secretary Leavitt mentioned this week that the administration was looking into whether there is a legal pathway to deport US citizens. (There’s not!)

      Leavitt said the move would only be exercised on “criminals” who commit “heinous” crimes. However, that the DOJ has already been stripping students of their visas for protests and other thought crimes, and 75% of the immigrants who were illegally deported to El Salvador have no criminal record suggest they will continue to use their power for show against anyone they want.

      Legal scholars and historians fear the move will be used to strip the citizenship and/or detain anyone “undesirable,” a frightening a echo from 1930s Germany’s stripping of citizenship from Jewish people and others, the 1940s US internment of Japanese people, and other war crimes.
    5. House passes “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” (SAVE Act). The proposed law, which will require people to present proof of citizenship in-person in order to register to vote, passed the House this week, including votes from for Democratic representatives.

      One major concern is that women who changed their name due to marriage won’t be able to use their birth certificates for proof of citizenship, since their surnames no longer match. An amendment was suggested to remedy this, but it was denied.

      People with any name different than what’s issued on their birth certificate will need a passport to register, and everyone will need to present this proof in-person. 50% of Americans have no passport.

      SAVE would place undue hardship and expense, and restrict the right to vote of the elderly, disabled, women and trans folks, those living rurally and more.

      The bill is likely to be voted down in the Senate, but it is still worth calling about.
    6. DOGE accesses Social Security database, falsely begins declaring some recipients “dead” to stop payments. DOGE has shown their inability to understand basic information stored within the SSA’s database over the past months, in part because it is written in an archaic coding language. Previously DOGE said they would rewrite the code, but that is a long-term project.

      In the interim, DOGE has declared some people dead as a way of removing them from the payment system. This has largely attacked immigrants, but some US citizens were also placed into the “death master file.”

      Beyond stopping social security payments, falsely declaring someone dead will have massive implications on their ability to move through the world, may cut access to their credit cards and more. SSA employees who tried to stop DOGE were ejected from the building.
    7. Texas v. Becerra lawsuit continues. Attorneys General continue to use transphobic rhetoric to attack Final Rule and Section 504.

      Participants continue to say they do not want to dismantle disabled people’s rights, but have not revoked the original filing, which explicitly asks for 504 to be declared unconstitutional (p 37-42).

      504 protects disabled people’s rights in all spaces that receive federal funding, but could have major implications in conjunction with rescinding of ADA guidance, and the uncertain future of DoEd. The next update is due in the coming days.
    8. Do not comply in advance (good news). Due to pending legal action over McMahon’s DoEd issued directive to withhold funding from schools pending receipt of their anti-DEI loyalty pledge, a judge ordered that schools do not need to sign any certifications until at least April 24, after the legality of the pledge is assessed.

      Previously, the directive required school leadership to sign within 10 days.

      So far NY, MA, PA, MI, WI, IL, MN, CO, OR, and WA officials have declined to sign, while other states have declared their intent to sign or are still in review. (full map of states’ declared intent)

      Action:
      Share this info. Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

      Call your Representative and tell them to intervene on behalf of the Dept of Education, SSA and HHS regarding illegal layoffs.

      Call your Senator and tell them to vote NO on SAVE and any budget cuts to Medicaid.

      Contact your school board and state’s education officials, and tell them not to comply with McMahon’s baseless anti-DEI directive.

      If your state is involved, contact your Attorney General and ask them to withdraw from Texas v. Beccera. Tell them you stand in solidarity with disabled people, and trans folks.

      Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, local protest and growing awareness, including offline materials. Make flyers! Warn your neighbors in the presence of ICE. If able, donate or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.

  • Week 11 Update

    Week 11 Update

    1. More HHS layoffs gut public health and research. HHS fired an additional 10,000 workers this week, shuttering entire departments, ending grants and cutting spending by an additional third across the board.

      The closures will impact every American’s safety from infectious disease, foodborne illness, worker safety, HIV, STI and TB programs, maternal health, and vast amounts of research.

      Disabled-specific closures include the Administration for Community Living, the CDC’s Office of Health Equity, cuts to HRSA, and several subdivisions of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
      For the full list of HHS departments cut, see this running list.
    2. Economy in freefall as Trump and DOGE slash safety nets. On Wednesday, all Low Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) staff were fired. The program helps struggling families with utility bills. Many food banks also reported not receiving expected deliveries of food due to more cuts from the USDA, in addition to the $1 billion in cuts previously announced, though the funding had already been allocated.

      This comes as the stock market freefalls in the wake of Trump’s latest tariff plan, prices continue to rise, the GOP targets Medicaid, dismantles public education and libraries, and as DOGE attacks social security as a “ponzi scheme” and threatens to crash the system by recoding the database.
    3. Deaf students and researchers lose programs, funding, especially in STEM. Cuts at the NIH this week obliterated programming for deaf people in STEM at the undergrad, graduate, and post doc levels. The RISE and BRIDGE programs out of NTID were impacted, as well as individuals’ postdoc funding.

      Gallaudet’s Center for Black Deaf Studies is imperiled by the termination of it’s founder Dr. Joseph Hill’s NEH grant.

      The University of Minnesota also shut down their deaf studies program this week, midsemester with no warning– the reason is unclear.

      Removing deaf (or culturally-competent) professionals will have a variety of educational and employment impacts, and will allow ableism to run unchecked through deaf-related research.
    4. Kidnapped Rümeysa Öztürk suffers asthma attacks in ICE detention, ICE withholds medication. Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student and former Fulbright Scholar, was taken off the street by plainclothes officers in March, likely for having co-written an op-ed in her school newspaper that criticized the school’s response to Gaza-related protests.

      Öztürk was being illegally detained in Louisiana, where she suffered several asthma attacks and was denied her medication, one of many dangerous conditions for the chronically ill, disabled, and everyone, inside these prisons. In a hearing Thursday, a judge blocked the DOJ’s attempt to deport Öztürk, and moved her petition to be heard in VT (instead of LA).Öztürk has not been charged with a crime.
    5. DoEd threatens to revoke funding from schools who don’t sign an Anti-DEI loyalty pledge. DoEd issued a letter to state education leaders across the country, threatening to withhold funding unless schools eliminate anything that could be construed as “DEI” programming. The letter asked administrators to sign a document promising their adherence to anti-DEI guidance within 10 days.

      The directive throws confusion on the administration’s attempts and promises to dismantle DoEd. It’s unclear who will enforce the directive or distribute the funding, which DoEd’s acting assistant Civil Rights secretary called a “privilege,” but is actually taxpayers’ money.

      Disabled and multiply marginalized students, particularly those in rural and low income districts, will suffer most from a loss of Title 1 and other funding.
    6. Texas v Becerra lawsuit continues. Attorneys General continue to use transphobic rhetoric to attack Final Rule and Section 504. Participants continue to say they do not want to dismantle disabled people’s rights, but have not revoked the original filing, which explicitly asks for 504 to be declared unconstitutional (p 37-42).

      504 protects disabled people’s rights in all spaces that receive federal funding, but could have major implications in conjunction with rescinding of ADA guidance, and the uncertain future of DoEd. The next update is due in the coming days.
    7. Early Hearing detection and intervention programs impacted by CDC cuts. Federal EHDI programming gave funding and resources to states to conduct universal newborn hearing screenings, and support deaf and hard-of-hearing babies and their families. Full impacts are still unclear, but these workers were housed at the CDC’s NCBDDD, which saw massive cuts this week. Maternal and Infant Health divisions elsewhere in HHS also saw cuts that may impact EHDI funding.

      Without universal hearing screenings for early detection, d/hh children will be at higher risk for language deprivation syndrome–when incomplete access to a first language before approx. age 5, causes pervasive social, emotional, educational and cognitive damage.
    8. Local: Several school districts are announcing the removal of special ed programs and students. Without an OSEP director and with the DoEd civil rights division slashed, it’s unclear if there is any recourse for families.

      Two districts who made headlines are the South Range Local District, OH, who told 7th and 8th graders with IEPs not to return next year due to “staffing issues,” and Dysart Unified Schools, who notified families they were shuttering their high school students’ special ed program, making plans to send them to a different school without family consultation.

      This trend is likely to continue without DoEd to enforce IDEA, the law that guarantees disabled children’s rights to K-12 education.
    9. Do not comply in advance (good news). Immediately after McMahon’s DoEd issued the directive to withhold funding from schools pending receipt of their anti-DEI loyalty pledge, the New York state Dept. of Education replied forcefully declaring that they would not comply, citing a lack of legal standing for the move.

      The Mayor of Chicago also threatened that the city would sue the if funding is withheld. Other cities and towns are likely to follow.

    Take Action:

    Share this info. Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.

    Call your Representative and tell them to intervene on behalf of the Dept of Education and HHS regarding illegal layoffs.

    Contact your school board and state’s education officials, and tell them not to comply with McMahon’s baseless anti-DEI directive.

    If your state is involved, contact your Attorney General and ask them to withdraw from Texas v. Beccera. Tell them you stand in solidarity with disabled people, and trans folks.

    Attend one of the nationwide protests today, Saturday, 5 April if able. Wear a mask!

    Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, local protest and growing awareness, including offline materials. Make flyers! Warn your neighbors in the presence of ICE. If able, donate or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.