In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Project 2025 proposed to turn IDEA into a "no strings" block grant, effectively gutting the law and destroying protections that disability families have long relied upon. During the 2024 race, Trump denied any connection to the project, but now he proclaims it, praising OMB director Russ Vought "of Project 2025 fame."
Trump and Vought are now accomplishing their goal of ravaging the law. Instead of shifting it to a block grant, they have tried firing most of the staff who enforce it.
Autism Speaks opposes the decision to move responsibilities of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice. This restructuring reverses decades of bipartisan consensus about where special education oversight belongs.
For families, it’s important to know that students’ rights under IDEA and other federal disability laws have not changed. However, moving the federal offices that help make sure schools follow through on those rights to agencies that have not done this work before could affect how families get support when problems arise. This administrative change risks weakening how special education is safeguarded, coordinated, and enforced across our education system.
It creates uncertainty for states and school districts, as decades of work that defined roles, oversight, and implementation of special education programs are redistributed to departments without experience in meeting the school-based needs of students with disabilities. It weakens accountability, by separating responsibility for special education and civil rights enforcement from the Department of Education, where expertise resides and enforcement is closely coordinated alongside general education policy. And it fragments the administration of the services and protections that students and families rely on by dividing special education oversight among multiple departments, making coordination more difficult and increasing the risk of inconsistent support.
From the Autistic Self Advocacy Network:
Moving OSERS and OCR to different parts of the government makes it harder for schools to get the funding that they need. Disabled students might not get the resources they need. Many students with disabilities will not be included because of this. All of the offices that have moved to other departments should be moved back to the Department of Education.
The Department of Education said that moving these offices will not hurt parents and students. This is not true. Moving these offices will make it much harder for disabled students and parents to get the help that they need. If a disabled student is not allowed their accommodations, it will be harder for them or their family to get help.
ASAN’s Policy Director, Greg Robinson, said, “Students with disabilities deserve protection. Students with disabilities deserve civil rights. Students with disabilities deserve a government that helps them and cares about them.”
The Department of Education made a bad decision. This decision will hurt students with disabilities. ASAN wants the government to keep OCR and OSERS in the Department of Education.
FWIW, Dhillon is deputy assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division is in charge of enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act. And here she is using the word "retarded." https://t.co/qB6R7aX18e
— Eric Michael Garcia (@EricMGarcia) December 30, 2025
