- Trump and McMahon further dismantle Department of Education, moving programs to Department of Labor, Interior, and HHS. The relocated programs include Title 1, teacher training grants, English learner programs, TRIO, adult education, Native education, foreign language programs, foreign med-school accreditation, and student-parent grants.
The move of programs along with DoEd’s press release touting an increased focus on vocational training and workplace preparedness, suggests a dangerous shift for pubic education. Students deserve a robust education no matter their income bracket, geographic locations, etc. Disabled students at Title 1 or Native education programs will likely be intersectionally harmed without DoED oversight.
The increased focus on workplace and vocational language and placement is particularly concerning with respect to the Trump administration’s rollback of many child labor laws earlier in the year.
Special education will stay within DoED for now, though it is unclear what work or oversight is happening due to the firing of OSERS employees during the shutdown, who have not been reinstated. Project 2025 also proposes eventually carving up special education to be moved to Department of Labor and HHS. - Many students in health and education professionals will face issues securing federal loans due to graduate degree reclassification. The government proposed a cap on Graduate Plus loans for all but a very small number of “professional degrees” this week. Previously, graduate degrees in fields like Education, Nursing, Social Work, Public Health, Occupational Physical and Speech Therapy, Audiology, Counseling, Engineering and others were eligible for an extended $200,000 cap on federal loans.
Without access to funding, only the wealthy will be able to access graduate level degrees in a variety of fields, many of which are already experiencing staffing shortages. Healthcare and education fields also tend to be women and/or BIPOC-dominated; the goal of lessening of women’s employment outside the home was outlined in Project 2025. - RFK Jr. orders CDC to include false information about vaccines and autism on official website, despite previous walk-backs of his claims. The changes came to the website late this week, and mark another dangerous shift in ableist and eugenic rhetoric by the department, further hampering the public’s access to quality, evidence-based scientific health information.
The US is already on the precipice of losing its measles-free designation within the next several months due to antivax rhetoric and fearmongering. - Despite government reopening and multiple court orders, many SNAP/EBT recipients still have not received November benefits, as USDA threatens to “completely deconstruct” the program and/or force everyone to reapply.
Many of the Democratic politicians who voted in favor of ending the government shutdown cited concern about the illegal withholding of SNAP benefits, but that has continued in the days since. Some states blame a software glitch, while other delays are unspecified. Governors also reported LIHEAP (subsidies for heating and cooling homes) and Head Start delays.
The Secretary of the USDA also released a frightening proposal about how to revamp the program to decrease expenses and prevent “fraud.” However, most SNAP fraud is related to identity theft, card cloning, or retailer-application fraud, not recipients receiving aid who don’t need it. - Local: Abortion is now illegal in North Dakota, carrying a five year prison sentence. The state’s Supreme Court reversed another judge’s decision Friday, upholding the ban.
12 other states also currently have abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy.
Reproductive rights are a healthcare and disability justice issue, just as forcible sterilization, remains a concern for disabled people across the US. (It’s still legal to forcibly sterilize a disabled person in 31 states and DC, and the US Supreme Court case allowing it has never been overturned.) Fair reproductive healthcare is for everybody. - Trump revives first-term policy penalizing legal residents’ use of Medicaid or other assistant programs. The proposal suggests legally present, documented immigrants should not be penalized and not allowed to continue their path to permanent residency or citizenship if they have used Medicaid or other assistance programs.
This was a first-term policy that was ignored and then officially rescinded by Biden in 2022. The policy will give more power to immigration officers to make judgement calls on who might “burden” the US.
In actuality, healthcare professionals say it will burden the hospital system for all, as people will not be able to access preventative care and will have to turn to emergency rooms instead in order to see a doctor or get medication. DHS is accepting public comment on the change for the next 30 days.
Category: social security
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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 EducationThe 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.
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Week 12 Update
- 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
- 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.