I’ve been worried since the election, and every week it seems there’s another policy, another memo, another proposal that chips away at the rights disabled people have spent decades fighting to secure.
An excellent piece by AP reporter Annie Ma lays out why so many disability advocates are sounding the alarm. She describes a series of recent federal actions that, taken together, point toward something many of us hoped was behind us forever: the institutionalization and segregation of disabled people. Could Trump’s actions put more people with disabilities in institutions?
One sentence in particular stopped me in my tracks:
“Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society,” advocates told Ma. Could Trump’s actions put more people with disabilities in institutions?
That isn’t hyperbole.
For those of us who know disability history, it’s a warning.
Many Americans don’t realize how recent our civil rights victories actually are. For generations, disabled people were routinely shut away in institutions, separated from families, denied education, employment, community, and often the basic dignity of deciding how to live our own lives. The disability rights movement fought for decades to replace that system with one rooted in inclusion, accessibility, and self-determination.
One of the most important milestones was the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which recognized that unnecessary segregation of disabled people is discrimination and affirmed the right to receive services in the most integrated setting possible. That decision has allowed countless disabled people to live, work, learn, and participate in their communities instead of being isolated from them.
Now we’re seeing that foundation challenged.
As Annie Ma reports, the Department of Justice recently issued guidance arguing that federal disability law does not require services to be provided in the most integrated setting. While the memo doesn’t change the law by itself, it signals how the federal government intends to interpret and enforce disability rights going forward.
Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, put it bluntly:
“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives.”
That should concern everyone.
This isn’t just about institutions. It’s about who gets to belong in public life.
It’s about whether disabled kids learn alongside their peers.
It’s about whether adults can live in their own homes. Once you lose your ability to live in your own home, you’ll never get it back.
It’s about whether society sees disability as a natural part of humanity or as something so revolting that they’d prefer it if we were out of sight. Or just die.
The language coming from some leaders makes that even more troubling. When disability is framed primarily as tragedy, defect, or something to be cured, we’re slipping back toward a medical model that treats disabled people as problems instead of citizens. The disability rights movement has spent decades pushing toward a social model. A model that recognizes that people thrive when society removes barriers instead of removing people.
I also worry about the broader pattern.
Whether it’s proposals that make voting harder through restrictive voter ID laws, attacks on community-based services, or efforts to weaken civil rights protections, these aren’t isolated events. They add up. They reduce our political power, our visibility, and ultimately our ability to advocate for ourselves.
Disabled people make up roughly one quarter of the American population. We work. We create. We raise families. We make art. We pay taxes. We vote.
We are not a special interest.
We are part of the fabric of this country.
What frightens me most is how openly ideas that echo eugenics are surfacing again. Maybe they’re wrapped in different language. Maybe they’re presented as efficiency, cost savings, or public safety. But underneath are old questions we’ve heard before, questions that up until recently, had been whispered.
Does the government (as a proxy for society) have a responsibility for those that are thought of as being “less than”? Why do we have to provide access for people with disabilities? Shouldn’t we allocate our resources elsewhere? Questions like this were considered shameful, but today, there is no shaming those in power. And I see the assaults that immigrants, people of color, members of the LGBTQI+ community face coming from the same people asking these questions.
The disability community has answered these questions for decades.
Every life has value. Productivity is not a measure of value.
Every person belongs.
Every person deserves to live in community.
With all of my talk about worrying about the future, I realize that I do have a great deal of hope. I find that hope comes from my community and the allies that have been with us for decades and continue to fight alongside us (YES-I see you Senator Harkin!).
I’m grateful for advocates like Amanda Upson who first brought this article to my attention and so many others who refuse to let these issues pass unnoticed. And frankly, they’re helping all of us stay informed when it’s easier for the rest of the country to look away.
Representative Lateefah Simon gives me hope as she brings her lived experience with disability to the halls of congress with a fiery commitment progressive causes.
The latest generation of disability rights and disability justice advocates give me hope and fuel in my tank. Their persistence matters. Their voices matter.
The disability rights movement has never been about asking for pity.
It’s about insisting on equality.
We’ve fought too long to quietly surrender the ground we’ve gained.
We refuse to go back.
Because this isn’t about politics alone.
It’s about how we regard one another, not focusing on differences that scare us because we’re unwilling to open our minds, but looking at what beauty has been hiding right in front of us all of these years.
As this day draws to a close, I wish everyone Happy ADA Day. This has been a challenging Disability Pride Month, but that pride and the power that we have as a community is rising up again. Those that would keep us down have no idea who they are fucking with.
All quotes are sourced from the original AP article linked above.
There are many disability rights organizations working to stop the draconian policies of the current administration. One of those is the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. I turn to their website when I need to understand the issues I wrote about in this article.
To learn more about what it took to pass the ADA, I humbly suggest you seek out a film that I directed for PBS’ American Experience titled Change, Not Charity: the Americans with Disabilities Act.
JIM
Well said! And we are not going back!