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."
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 are firing most of the staff who enforce it. A judge has temporarily paused the attack, but the administration will likely find ways to ignore or circumvent the order.
Officials often “moved slowly and allowed noncompliance to continue for too long,” said Callie Oettinger, an advocate in Virginia. There are some parents, she said, who have no problem with federal employees losing their jobs.
“At the same time, they’re terrified because, as problematic as some staff members were, they did more than the states,” she said. “It’s a case of be careful of what you ask for.”
It took federal officials, she said, to force Texas in 2017 to lift an arbitrary cap on the number of students receiving special education services. The limit meant that schools often denied special education services to students with autism, ADHD and epilepsy or offered cheaper accommodations. Gov. Greg Abbott blamed teachers, while educators insisted they were following the Texas Education Agency’s instructions to identify fewer students for special instruction.
“Can you imagine Texas without OSEP’s monitoring?” Oettinger asked. “Not even major investigations by the Houston Chronicle and others, which made the noncompliance public, resulted in the state making its own changes.”
The special education office often works hand-in-hand with the Office for Civil Rights when schools violate student rights. In fact, despite the investigations that make the news, nearly 70% of the complaints OCR handles are related to disability, said Beth Gellman-Beer, co-founder of Evergreen Education Solutions, a consulting firm, and a former regional director for OCR’s Philadelphia office.
One OCR attorney who received a layoff notice said she’s “deeply concerned” about how the potential layoffs could affect students.
“The mass elimination of OCR offices that have over 25,000 open cases leaves those complainants without any recourse, let alone answers as to if their case will move forward,” she said. She asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “States are not prepared to handle these concerns.”
