- More HHS layoffs gut public health and research. HHS fired an additional 10,000 workers this week, shuttering entire departments, ending grants and cutting spending by an additional third across the board.
The closures will impact every American’s safety from infectious disease, foodborne illness, worker safety, HIV, STI and TB programs, maternal health, and vast amounts of research.
Disabled-specific closures include the Administration for Community Living, the CDC’s Office of Health Equity, cuts to HRSA, and several subdivisions of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
For the full list of HHS departments cut, see this running list. - Economy in freefall as Trump and DOGE slash safety nets. On Wednesday, all Low Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) staff were fired. The program helps struggling families with utility bills. Many food banks also reported not receiving expected deliveries of food due to more cuts from the USDA, in addition to the $1 billion in cuts previously announced, though the funding had already been allocated.
This comes as the stock market freefalls in the wake of Trump’s latest tariff plan, prices continue to rise, the GOP targets Medicaid, dismantles public education and libraries, and as DOGE attacks social security as a “ponzi scheme” and threatens to crash the system by recoding the database. - Deaf students and researchers lose programs, funding, especially in STEM. Cuts at the NIH this week obliterated programming for deaf people in STEM at the undergrad, graduate, and post doc levels. The RISE and BRIDGE programs out of NTID were impacted, as well as individuals’ postdoc funding.
Gallaudet’s Center for Black Deaf Studies is imperiled by the termination of it’s founder Dr. Joseph Hill’s NEH grant.
The University of Minnesota also shut down their deaf studies program this week, midsemester with no warning– the reason is unclear.
Removing deaf (or culturally-competent) professionals will have a variety of educational and employment impacts, and will allow ableism to run unchecked through deaf-related research. - Kidnapped Rümeysa Öztürk suffers asthma attacks in ICE detention, ICE withholds medication. Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student and former Fulbright Scholar, was taken off the street by plainclothes officers in March, likely for having co-written an op-ed in her school newspaper that criticized the school’s response to Gaza-related protests.
Öztürk was being illegally detained in Louisiana, where she suffered several asthma attacks and was denied her medication, one of many dangerous conditions for the chronically ill, disabled, and everyone, inside these prisons. In a hearing Thursday, a judge blocked the DOJ’s attempt to deport Öztürk, and moved her petition to be heard in VT (instead of LA).Öztürk has not been charged with a crime. - DoEd threatens to revoke funding from schools who don’t sign an Anti-DEI loyalty pledge. DoEd issued a letter to state education leaders across the country, threatening to withhold funding unless schools eliminate anything that could be construed as “DEI” programming. The letter asked administrators to sign a document promising their adherence to anti-DEI guidance within 10 days.
The directive throws confusion on the administration’s attempts and promises to dismantle DoEd. It’s unclear who will enforce the directive or distribute the funding, which DoEd’s acting assistant Civil Rights secretary called a “privilege,” but is actually taxpayers’ money.
Disabled and multiply marginalized students, particularly those in rural and low income districts, will suffer most from a loss of Title 1 and other funding. - Texas v Becerra lawsuit continues. Attorneys General continue to use transphobic rhetoric to attack Final Rule and Section 504. Participants continue to say they do not want to dismantle disabled people’s rights, but have not revoked the original filing, which explicitly asks for 504 to be declared unconstitutional (p 37-42).
504 protects disabled people’s rights in all spaces that receive federal funding, but could have major implications in conjunction with rescinding of ADA guidance, and the uncertain future of DoEd. The next update is due in the coming days. - Early Hearing detection and intervention programs impacted by CDC cuts. Federal EHDI programming gave funding and resources to states to conduct universal newborn hearing screenings, and support deaf and hard-of-hearing babies and their families. Full impacts are still unclear, but these workers were housed at the CDC’s NCBDDD, which saw massive cuts this week. Maternal and Infant Health divisions elsewhere in HHS also saw cuts that may impact EHDI funding.
Without universal hearing screenings for early detection, d/hh children will be at higher risk for language deprivation syndrome–when incomplete access to a first language before approx. age 5, causes pervasive social, emotional, educational and cognitive damage. - Local: Several school districts are announcing the removal of special ed programs and students. Without an OSEP director and with the DoEd civil rights division slashed, it’s unclear if there is any recourse for families.
Two districts who made headlines are the South Range Local District, OH, who told 7th and 8th graders with IEPs not to return next year due to “staffing issues,” and Dysart Unified Schools, who notified families they were shuttering their high school students’ special ed program, making plans to send them to a different school without family consultation.
This trend is likely to continue without DoEd to enforce IDEA, the law that guarantees disabled children’s rights to K-12 education. - Do not comply in advance (good news). Immediately after McMahon’s DoEd issued the directive to withhold funding from schools pending receipt of their anti-DEI loyalty pledge, the New York state Dept. of Education replied forcefully declaring that they would not comply, citing a lack of legal standing for the move.
The Mayor of Chicago also threatened that the city would sue the if funding is withheld. Other cities and towns are likely to follow.
Take Action:
Share this info. Disability is often lost in mainstream coverage.
Call your Representative and tell them to intervene on behalf of the Dept of Education and HHS regarding illegal layoffs.
Contact your school board and state’s education officials, and tell them not to comply with McMahon’s baseless anti-DEI directive.
If your state is involved, contact your Attorney General and ask them to withdraw from Texas v. Beccera. Tell them you stand in solidarity with disabled people, and trans folks.
Attend one of the nationwide protests today, Saturday, 5 April if able. Wear a mask!
Consider how to move toward creative acts of mutual aid, local protest and growing awareness, including offline materials. Make flyers! Warn your neighbors in the presence of ICE. If able, donate or volunteer with your local food pantry or library.