NPR article on federal change to disability integration laws
So this article doesn’t strike me as necessarily an emergency, but I do feel as though it is a cause for alarm that things could potentially go backwards for people with disabilities here in America. It’s just the federal government changing a few words around in an old ruling about giving people with disabilities a chance for the most integration possible. However, that could easily snowball into further litigations upending the decades of work activists have done to secure rights for Americans with disabilities. As I’ve interpreted from this article, this could be a tipping point towards going back to sending most individuals with disabilities into facilities like institutions and nursing homes with the intention of hiding them from the world and limiting how much funds the government invests into them.
I imagine this probably will not impact the lives of most Autistics that need minimal support, but obviously it is important for anyone disabled to stand up for those with other disabilities (similarly to how it is important for non-hetero individuals to stand up for trans folk and visa versa). Besides, I personally have a stake in this regardless of having low support needs myself, since my current job depends on individuals with disabilities having a right to work in the community. I’d hate to see us return to having this population working primarily in closed-off workshops instead of being encouraged to utilize their skills with the community at large.
