Things are happening quickly. We’ll include a weekly round up of disability-related concerns, events, and polices on this site.
- Removal of the “Accessibility” page, and all ASL content from the White House Website The White House page indicates the administration’s values (and potential targets). Accessibility is now a 404 error, concerning in the wake of right wing cultural attacks on the presence of interpreters at emergency press briefings.
- Executive Order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Spending” This order seeks to terminate all DEI related programs and work within the federal government. In the text, DEI sometime includes accessibility as DEIA.
- Executive Order: “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Order” This order expands the Reach of anti-DEIA tasks, including investigating private sector businesses that have DEIA initiatives.
- Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Frozen “Until Further Notice” The DOJ’s OCR is responsible for fielding complaints and cases to protect against discrimination based on race, sex, gender, class, age, religion, disability, national origin and more. It is also one of the main mechanisms for enforcing the ADA and Section 504.
- The US Access Board’s Annual Meeting Postponed Indefinitely. The board is legally mandated to meet annually and maintain federal access standards. Their meeting was canceled with no reason or reschedule date given. If access standards are significantly revised, this could be a backdoor way of dismantling the ADA without repealing the law.
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