In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities.
Lauren Wagner & Beth Hawkins at The 74:
The law that created the state complaint processes, the IDEA, guarantees disabled students’ educational rights. By contrast, the ADA, passed in 1990, outlaws discrimination against people who need accommodations to access public facilities and programs — including schools.
Families of children denied special education services can assert their rights under either law. When states fail to enforce a student’s educational rights under IDEA, families often file a discrimination complaint via the ADA.
In the 2022-23 school year, more than 54,000 state dispute resolution requests were filed in the U.S. and its territories, including due process complaints, written state complaints and mediation requests. The Office for Civil Rights had about 12,000 open cases — half of them involving disability discrimination — when its staff was slashed in March. For fiscal year 2026, which started July 1, the White House’s proposed OCR budget is $91 million, a 35% drop.
At the same time, the administration wants to move $33 million that currently funds state advocacy clearinghouses into block grants that states — cash-strapped as their federal pandemic funds run out — can use for other things. This means families risk losing a second source of leverage: free assistance from experts.
If enacted, both budget cuts would also exacerbate socioeconomic and racial disparities in the services kids with disabilities receive, says Carrie Gillispie, a senior policy analyst at New America. This is because families in states where there’s little appetite for local enforcement depend on OCR to investigate discrimination.
“Those discrepancies that exist will only worsen if these budget changes happen,” Gillispie says. “It’s a choice to continue to underinvest.”
With the federal office a hollow shell of what it was six months ago, advocates say, families are likely to rely more heavily on their states. And how — and how well — each state helps students with disabilities varies widely.
