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disability rights
Climate Change Education Must Be Disability Inclusive
Safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities should be a priority for both the scientific and educational communities, and they need to partner with disabled students to get the job done right.
Jan 04, 2026
Let’s face it, whether you are a parent or teacher, a school principal or college president, if you care about students with disabilities under your care, then logic dictates you should care about climate change and its impacts on the most vulnerable among us.
In 2025 alone, major climate tragedies, such as Hurricane Melissa’s destruction in Jamaica and Cuba, extreme heatwaves across Europe, and floods in Southeast Asia, demonstrated a new reality for today’s college and K-12 students: We are seeing more extreme weather, and the most vulnerable among us, along with the elderly, are college and K-12 students.
Consider the fact that nearly 240 million children globally manage life with a disability, making them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than the general population. They are among the most affected by sudden floods or mudslides; they cannot physically escape without help; they are most harmed by incapacitated roadways and shut-down transportation; and they are most vulnerable when it comes to diminished or defunded healthcare.
As a former public school teacher and a professor, I have witnessed firsthand the inadequacies of our disaster drills for students with disabilities. Some of the daunting questions that flashed through my mind during these drills were: Are school and university emergency shelters accessible to students in wheelchairs? Many communication systems and warning alerts depend on visual and auditory cues. What if a student is deaf and vision impaired?
The need for K-12 climate change education to be disability inclusive runs against the Trump administration’s attempts at dismantling special education.
As an author of two books on climate change and environmental justice education, when our policies and programs do not include disability access, I know we are failing to keep all children and students safe.
The need to provide accessible climate education is especially urgent in light of the recent 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). For five decades, IDEA has guaranteed every child in the United States a “Free and Appropriate Public Education.” Still, Congress’ promises remain largely unfulfilled, and schools struggle to fund services because they don’t receive adequate federal support.
However, in times of extreme weather, we must ask ourselves whether we are creating curriculum and safety plans that provide information needed to survive a sudden flood or severe heatwave. And we must consider whether our actions meet the letter of the law. A non-inclusive climate education is not just a curriculum gap; it is a violation of civil rights. We must treat students with disabilities as experts who can contribute to climate change action and activism, not just view them as people who need to be saved.
This means co-designing climate change studies with disabled students. A partnership. Co-designing (or redesigning) climate change curriculum offers teachers an excellent opportunity to tackle and overcome building design challenges. For example, students can design and engineer prototypes of multimodal emergency alert systems that can deliver warnings through sound, tactile vibration, and accessible text (such as large fonts or braille). Being intentional and thinking about accessibility throughout the design process benefits all students.
In addition, students can solve problems using a multidisciplinary approach across all subjects.
Students with disabilities can create and engineer prototypes of multimodal emergency alert systems that can deliver warnings through sound, tactile vibration, and accessible text, such as large fonts or braille—designs innovated via students’ life experiences and challenges. When working within the realm of visual color-coded maps meant to indicate levels of pollution or heat, students with eyesight challenges can create tactile, three-dimensional maps in clay or papier-mâché and attach braille labels. Other design solutions needed by disabled students during a climate event include supplying emergency electrical power for medical devices and refrigeration for certain medications, as well as access to emergency evacuation routes.
Furthermore, students with disabilities working on design and safety projects will be in a position to present their findings and projects to the city council, school board, and school PTA to advocate for increased accessibility at their school and in their community.
Researchers have also called on scientists to consider physical and mental ability when developing adaptations and responses to climate change. This provides students with an opportunity to glean from established scientific work to build their own solutions. Safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities should be a priority for both the scientific and educational communities, and they need to partner with disabled students to get the job done right.
The need for K-12 climate change education to be disability inclusive runs against the Trump administration’s attempts at dismantling special education. In fact, Trump’s administration has launched a war on disability, which has included removing the accessibility page and American Sign Language content from the White House website, removing interpreters from across multiple federal agencies, and openly using ableist slurs.
Urge your senators and representatives to support the IDEA Full Funding Act (S. 1277/H.R. 2598), co-sponsored by US Representative Jared Huffman, who represents California’s District 2.
The bill will ensure that Congress funds IDEA at the full 40%. And that means student designers will create a world accessible to everyone.
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What's at Stake When the President Uses the R-Word
The real question is not whether Trump is allowed to use degrading language, but whether a president who does so honors the dignity of the office—or hollows it out from within.
Dec 27, 2025
When a president uses language that dehumanizes, it is not a matter of legality, it is a matter of dignity, and it signals who our society values. Every utterance from the Oval Office carries weight; it sets norms, authorizes behaviors, and communicates whose humanity is recognized and whose is diminished.
When President Donald Trump referred to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz using the R-word, defenders rushed in with a familiar refrain: freedom of speech. He can say what he wants. He is protected. End of discussion.
But this is not a freedom-of-speech question. It is a freedom-of-dignity question.
Donald Trump is not a private citizen muttering into the void. He is the most powerful person in the world, speaking through a global amplifier backed by the authority of the presidency. The real question is not whether he is allowed to use degrading language, but whether a president who does so honors the dignity of the office—or hollows it out from within.
A president’s words do more than reveal character; they instruct the nation in who it is permitted to become.
Some defenders argue that only the N-word merits being reduced to an initial, that if Trump wants to use “retarded,” he can—and so can anyone else. They dismiss criticism as cancel culture, another example of Democrats weaponizing political correctness.
This defense is morally hollow. Saying, “Only the N-word counts” is an impoverished standard. Harmful language does not become acceptable simply because it targets a different group. The R-word is not neutral—it has been used for decades to demean, exclude, and dehumanize people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, reducing human beings to a punchline or a flaw.
This is not about partisan loyalty or performative outrage. It is about whether we believe people deserve basic dignity regardless of disability. If you had a child, a sibling, or a close friend with an intellectual or developmental disability, would you really argue that the most powerful person in the country should be excused for using a word that has long diminished their worth? Would that feel like free speech, or like indifference?
Leadership is not only about what one is legally permitted to say. It is about what one chooses to say. Leaders set norms. When they adopt language that punches down, they grant permission for others to follow. Calling that out is not political correctness; it is a minimal ethical expectation of public leadership.
BJ Stasio, a Peer Specialist 2 with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, explains:
When national leaders use the R-word casually, it reactivates real harm for people who were once labeled, limited, and underestimated. As someone who has lived with that label—and now leads within the disability rights movement—I know firsthand what the stigma can do.
Nicole LeBlanc, a disability employment consultant and self-advocacy adviser, underscores the emotional and systemic toll:
Seeing the R-word insult return to everyday language is enraging. Many people with autism—especially those diagnosed in adulthood—carry complex trauma histories from bullying and verbal abuse. Research shows they are more likely to be bullied than the general population, leading to high rates of PTSD, anxiety, and other challenges. People with disabilities want respect, love, acceptance, and access to services that allow us to thrive, not just survive. Using hateful language fuels negative attitudes, health disparities, and higher abuse rates. Respect is not optional.
Emauni Crawley, a behavioral health coach and disability advocate, is blunt:
The manner in which Trump articulates the R-word is not a result of ignorance. It is an act of perverseness.
Dr. Gary Schaffer, professor of school psychology, mental health counselor, author, and a person with disabilities, adds historical context:
The R-word is not neutral. It is hate speech, reducing learning and behavioral differences to something laughable and diminishing a person’s value to society. When the president of the United States uses it openly, he gives a green light to discriminate, segregate, and withhold empathy—not only from people with intellectual disabilities, but from anyone with learning or behavioral differences.
This danger is not theoretical. Prior to 1975, many students with disabilities were denied access to education entirely because they were deemed incapable of learning. Language paved the way for policy. It always does.
Max Donatelli, a US Air Force Vietnam veteran, disability advocate, and parent, put it plainly:
The public disrespect shown by this president to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is unprecedented. Our country deserves better. As a parent and advocate, we have found it challenging to rid our language of the R-word at the local, state, and national levels. We helped New York State end its use of it in the office that administers services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. What was once the Office for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities is now the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, thanks to significant advocacy. Our wonderful son Craig, who has Down syndrome, deserves the respect and opportunities afforded all citizens. The use of this slur is a stain on this presidency that won’t be forgotten by us.
The R-word entered medical and educational usage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a supposedly humane replacement for earlier slurs. By the 1960s and 1970s, it had become an everyday insult. Its harm was so widespread that it was removed from professional, legal, and clinical use, replaced by terms such as intellectual disability and developmental disability. Organizations like the Special Olympics have spent decades urging the public to abandon the word entirely.
Trump’s use of it is therefore not accidental, nostalgic, or brave. It is regressive. It communicates that labeling human beings this way is acceptable—even legitimate. Taboos are ethical boundaries. When a president violates them intentionally, the violation instructs.
Words alone are dangerous. When paired with policy, the harm compounds. Rhetoric that degrades, combined with policies that strip protections, sends a clear message about whose lives are valued and whose are negotiable. Programs like SOAR, which helped people with severe mental health challenges access Social Security benefits and provided housing, healthcare, and stability. Cutting them leaves people exposed. The erosion of special education, weakening of Americans with Disabilities Act guidance, and refusal to provide real-time American Sign Language interpretation at White House events send the same message: Accessibility is optional; inclusion is an inconvenience.
Harm becomes systemic not all at once, but sentence by sentence, joke by joke, policy memo by policy memo. The erosion of dignity rarely announces itself as violence. It begins as permission—to mock, dismiss, reduce. When that permission comes from the highest office in the land, it spreads.
This is not about fragility. It is about responsibility. A president’s words do more than reveal character; they instruct the nation in who it is permitted to become. When language degrades and protections are hollowed out, dignity ceases to be shared and becomes a privilege rationed by power.
The question is no longer whether such language is legal. It is whether we will accept a politics that treats some people’s humanity as expendable, and whether we will recognize, before it spreads further, that a nation willing to bargain away dignity at the margins will eventually find it gone at the center.
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The Fight for Adult Autistic Self-Empowerment in a MAGA World
My situation is emblematic of a broader problem faced by Autistic people: There is so much public misunderstanding of our condition and, in spite of some progress, nowhere near enough ways for us to advocate for ourselves.
Oct 12, 2025
Recently there has been highly welcome indignation and pushback against the quackish treatments and attitude of stigmatization advocated by President Donald Trump against Autistic people during his infamous September 22 press conference. Some of the most forceful criticisms have been made by Autistic individuals and Autistic-led organizations. It has also been satisfying to see a major political figure like Illinois’s Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker offer enlightened rhetoric on the subject. In an executive order in May designed to protect Illinois’s Autistic persons’ privacy from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposal to create a nationwide registry of Autistic persons, Pritzker stressed that “autism is a neurological difference–not a disease or an epidemic.”
In recent years activists and writers like Eric Garcia Jr., Temple Grandin, and the late Steve Silberman have pushed back against the stigmas attached to Autism by Trump and RFK Jr.: that Autistic people represent a diseased, anti-social segment of the population that are in need of a “cure” for their condition. Silberman’s best selling 2015 book NeuroTribes was a particularly notable contribution to the public discourse, describing Autism not as a mental illness but a normal and healthy variation of human neurological development. Writers like Silberman have stressed that Autistic people have the potential to use their unique intellectual and emotional gifts to make valuable contributions to the broader society—if that society is willing and able to offer accommodations to allow Autistic people to thrive.
Unfortunately, while the relatively enlightened approach toward Autism outlined above has made some progress in positively impacting public understanding, that progress has also been relatively limited. That limitation is illustrated perfectly by the Trump administration’s focus on finding a “cure” and other aspects of its harmful, reactionary approach to Autism. The Trump administration’s approach to Autism is part and parcel of its punitive and uncaring approach to underprivileged Americans in general, as demonstrated by its draconian gutting of an already devastated American welfare state.
Adult Autistic Employment: A Personal Story
Some of the most serious problems in Autistic policy in the United States run much deeper than Trump’s cruelty and ignorance or the medical quackery promoted by RFK Jr. One of the most deep-seated problems relates to Autistic adults in the job market. The unemployment rate for Autistic adults in the United States is extremely high—85% according to one estimate.
I have direct experience with the subject of Autistic adult employment. As an adult in my early 30s—in 2012—I received my first official medical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. This diagnosis was supposed to help me receive disability accommodations in future employment after I received my master’s degree. After all, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, employers are supposed to provide “reasonable accommodations” to persons with documented disabilities in order to help them overcome barriers to performing a job.
Over the past 15 years, I have had about seven employers—all low wage jobs—and have mostly gone without disability accommodations—not because I don’t need them but because I’ve found it impossible in most cases to obtain them. In most of these jobs, it was a psychologically shattering strain for me to try to succeed at them and try to compensate for my learning disabilities and moderate verbal communication impairment.
As far as I can tell, one of the reasons for my difficulties in obtaining employment accommodations is that, looking at me on the surface, I appear “high functioning.” As a job counselor with my state government’s Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) said to me 15 years ago, “You have a master’s degree, you shouldn’t be working at McDonalds,” when I suggested the latter as a possible employment route. When I had my first meeting with a supervisor at a job with a medical company in 2021, she remarked—thinking she was giving me a compliment—that I “didn’t look” like I had Asperger’s Syndrome. According to her I appeared “well put together” and well spoken. However, before long, previously invisible manifestations of my disabilities became apparent to her; I quit the job after four months as the supervisor made clear she was preparing to write me up for ineptitude.
The Trump administration’s approach to Autism is part and parcel of its punitive and uncaring approach to underprivileged Americans in general, as demonstrated by its draconian gutting of an already devastated American welfare state.
Although at one point the supervisor suggested she would be willing to give me disability accommodations, the company’s corporate office refused, saying that I would have to go through the costly and lengthy process of getting a new diagnosis of Autism before they would consider granting accommodations. The corporate HR official said that my 2012 Aspergers diagnosis was obsolete because of new diagnostic criteria for Autism embodied in the 2013 publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
However, perhaps the most important reason for my frequent failure to secure disability accommodations is that, in many cases, the willingness of employers to provide accommodations often comes into conflict with the need to maximize worker productivity in the interests of profit. Even when accommodations are officially provided, they can easily become reduced to irrelevance as supervisors feel the pressure to maximize efficiency and productivity and lash out at employees. I myself have been bullied at a previous job for aspects of my personality related to my Autism—in spite of this job being one of the few instances where I was provided with formal disability accommodations—and have seen other Autistic coworkers similarly treated.
Meanwhile, I can report that I have been employed in a full time job for the last four years with the same company, currently making per hour approximately $3.49 more than my state’s minimum wage. I work with no disability accommodations at this job and have only told one coworker that I am Autistic. Within the last year, the company has assigned me a more public-facing role in tasks especially incompatible with my Autism-related disabilities. I’m highly tempted to ask HR for accommodations—to at least minimize my work in the public-facing role—but fear rejection and unduly antagonizing my supervisor who has long faced a staffing shortage in the public-facing role.
I think my situation is emblematic of a broader problem faced by Autistic people: There is so much public misunderstanding of our condition and, in spite of some progress, nowhere near enough ways for us to advocate for the manner in which society can respect our needs.
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