In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."
A September 18 release from the National Center for Learning Disabilities:
The Trump Administration must make good on their promises to spend hundreds of millions in education research funds before they expire on September 30, 2026, a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts ruled yesterday. The ruling also prohibited OMB from using apportionment footnotes to apply policy directives from Executive Orders to hundreds of millions of dollars in Congressionally appropriated funding for education research programs.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Protect Democracy and Jacobson Lawyers Group on behalf of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and other stakeholders against OMB Director Russell Vought, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and acting IES Director Matthew Soldner in June, to ensure students, schools, and education organizations across the country can receive hundred of millions of dollars already appropriated for students. The suit argued that the funding freeze violated the Anti-Deficiency Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Constitution’s separation of powers.
Today’s order holds that OMB acted unlawfully in using apportionments to forbid the Department of Education from spending education research funds on purported DEI activities, and to require the Department to give political appointees control over the awarding of grants. Setting aside the imposition of these Executive Order policy directives through the apportionment process ensures that OMB cannot leverage the apportionment process — and threaten agency officials with administrative and criminal penalties tied to that process — in order to dictate how congressional appropriations are spent.
The court also ordered the Department of Education to update the court as the end of the fiscal year nears, to ensure that all the funds appropriated by Congress are obligated before they expire.
...
“The court affirmed today that OMB cannot abuse obscure administrative processes to supplant Congress’s sole authority to dictate how federal funds are spent.” said Dan Jacobson, Jacobson Lawyers Group PLLC.
Click to read more about this case and view related documents on Protect Democracy’s website here.
Ema Rose Schumer and Claire Shapiro at Executive Functions:
Judge Allison D. Burroughs (D. Mass.) on Thursday granted partial summary judgment to education groups and vacated, as contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, Office of Management and Budget apportionment footnotes conditioning Department of Education research funds on compliance with two of President Trump’s executive orders, including the January 2025 order ending federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. (Memorandum and Order.)
From the Memorandum and Order:
Plaintiffs contend that they have standing to challenge the footnotes because the Department and its political appointees have interpreted the prohibition on “DEI” to require “scrapping programs for children with disabilities” on the basis that these programs are a form of inclusion, and that “Knowledge Alliance’s members have been chilled from mentioning their work involving equity and disabilities in their funding applications.” [ECF No. 63 at 15]. According to Plaintiffs, this shows that the Executive Order Footnotes will harm them regardless of whether the Department carries them out in a way that directly conflicts with any staute.
