Authors’ note: The disability community is rapidly evolving to using identity-first language in place of person-first language. This is because it views disability as being a core component of identity, much like race and gender. Some members of the community, such as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, prefer person-first language. In this column, the terms are used interchangeably.
The Trump administration started implementing Project 2025 immediately upon taking office, and as predicted, it is already harming disabled people. Far-reaching administrative actions such as the executive order on “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s memo on freezing federal spending have caused significant confusion for disabled people and organizations that serve them across the country. While the administration battles the legality of the executive orders in the courts, nonprofit organizations and state programs have had to cut back on services, lay off staff, and even shut down.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is attacking spending it deems wasteful, resulting in mass layoffs of federal workers that have especially affected disabled workers, who often have longer probationary periods due to Schedule A hiring processes. The administration and Congress are also on the verge of making significant cuts to Medicaid and Social Security benefits, two of the most successful anti-poverty programs that keep disabled people in their communities. This onslaught of destructive policies is seemingly intended to keep advocates stressed and disorganized.
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That is why it is essential for disability rights advocates and other allied organizations to create a plan of action that builds cross-movement solidarity, interdependence, and collective liberation—all core principles of disability justice. Over the next few years, the disability advocacy community must work creatively to develop a proactive plan of action that centers community care and support. The Center for American Progress’ Disability Justice Initiative, along with its numerous community partners, has been working to push back against the executive and legislative branches’ sweeping actions, identifying three areas where the disability advocacy community could have maximum impact:
- Litigation: Protecting and defending basic civil rights
- Narrative building: Developing a strong message to better communicate and advocate
- Organization: Building partnerships and coalitions to share resources, knowledge, and collective power
This column highlights important actions that can help organizations, community members, and policymakers work together to advance disability justice. With the increasing dangers facing the disability community across the United States, it is more important than ever for communities to collaborate to fight back.
Litigation: Protecting and defending basic civil rights
Over the past century, litigation has been the bedrock strategy for protecting basic civil rights within the United States. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 enshrined into law a legal structure for disabled people to utilize the courts to access their rights. Unfortunately, the ADA and its precursor, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, have since come under attack. Congress introduced the ADA Education and Reform Act in 2017, which was later renamed the ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services (ACCESS) Act, in an effort to hamstring ADA protections. The bill created more burdensome requirements for disabled people by forcing them to inform businesses of ADA violations before being allowed to file a federal complaint.
In September 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 16 other state attorneys general, filed a lawsuit to eliminate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which ensures disabled people have equal access to federally funded programs. Notably, the lawsuit uses the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule on “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance” as part of its justification to make Section 504 unconstitutional.
It is essential that communities defend against such threats to the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. Protection and advocacy (P&A) organizations, other legal advocacy groups, and state attorneys general can do this by filing their own lawsuits, submitting amicus briefs, or becoming intervenors in existing lawsuits. Meanwhile, individuals can contact their state attorneys general offices, P&As, and legal advocacy organizations to pressure them to join existing litigation efforts to protect against attacks on civil rights that affect disabled people—such as Paxton’s lawsuit.
Narrative building: Developing talking points to better communicate and advocate
Every movement needs a narrative—a cohesive story of why people are working toward change and what change people want to see. Unfortunately, the disability community is often pushed out and siloed from the broader civil rights movement, making it much more difficult to develop the collective power needed to create change. That is why it is essential that the disability advocacy community reassess its communication and narrative strategies to better frame how disability-centered policies help all Americans thrive.
This requires local grassroots work—going from state to state, community to community, talking to people. One of the ways to do that is through deep canvassing, a technique that is known to help shift a community’s beliefs on hot-button issues, as has been done with efforts related to marriage equality for same-sex couples. It requires hours of groundwork from local community members going door to door and phone to phone to hear from their neighbors and create real connections. Organizations such as the People’s Action Institute have been implementing these strategies for decades with success, and they could easily be replicated to address disability policy issues.
Disability advocates and organizations can utilize stories from deep canvassing to help connect disability policy to the broader civil rights narrative. By focusing on the most vulnerable communities, including disabled people, policymakers can improve policies for all communities through what is known as the “curb-cut effect,” a theory that came out of the disability civil rights movement. Disability advocates and organizations should develop narrative strategies that align with broader policy issues, such as reproductive health care, immigration, and police reform, to help researchers and political strategists better understand how various disability-centered policies positively affect the community.
What is the “curb-cut effect”?
A theory known as the “curb-cut effect” came about in the 1970s when disability activists poured cement on a curb to create a makeshift ramp. After years of advocacy by the disability community, in 1972, Berkeley, California, installed its first official curb cut, which became “the slab of concrete heard round the world.” The proliferation of curb cuts across the country benefited everyone, from parents pushing strollers to workers pushing equipment on carts to travelers wheeling suitcases. A study of pedestrian behavior at a Florida shopping mall revealed that 9 in 10 “unencumbered pedestrians” will go out of their way to use a curb cut, showing that designs intended to benefit the most vulnerable can also benefit the general community.
Organization: Building partnerships and coalitions to share resources, knowledge, and collective power
The disability community has had difficulty building intersectional coalitions due in part to the disability rights movement’s willingness to compromise the rights of the most marginalized in order to protect or gain rights for themselves. This has resulted in some more privileged members of the disability community ignoring issues around race, immigration, and reproductive rights, which, in turn, has caused many multiply marginalized disabled people’s needs to go unmet by the disability rights movement.
While the disability justice movement—conceived by a group of disabled LGBTQI+ people of color in 2005—has reduced this siloing, there remains a division between disability advocates and organizations that address civil rights more generally. For instance, some organizations that address civil rights from the vantage points of race, gender, and immigration continue to minimize how disability affects their issue areas, resulting in tokenization or outright erasure of disabled people. It is essential that communities pull together and have frank discussions about inclusion efforts in order to build bridges between each other.
The disability community’s work cannot solely be focused on civil rights defense or maintaining the status quo. Effective organizing must include providing tangible community support through mutual aid, direct services, and advocacy. Mutual aid, such as the work done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, should be reflective of the needs of various communities and can include food and housing assistance, transportation, personal care, and more. Such aid should provide access to resources and services for the most vulnerable community members outside of traditional structures, with coordination of direct services and advocacy aimed to help create a healthy ecosystem of community support.
Cross-movement collaboration, including partnerships with organizations across the disability advocacy spectrum, is essential. Other policy areas that overlap with nondisabled groups include fair wages, access to health care, police violence, and voting, just to name a few. De-siloing these movements can help build toward interdependence and collective liberation for the entire disability community.
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Conclusion
The fight against the policies put forth by the Trump administration, Congress, and Project 2025 will be a battle for the ages. Disabled people are already feeling the effects of funding freezes and other threats to critical programs and services. It is easy to fall back and get trapped in a defensive stance. However, we must invest in a proactive strategy for the future by creating structures that support all disabled people. Litigative advocacy, narrative building, and organizing will all be crucial to protecting and expanding the rights of disabled people.
We must invest in a proactive strategy for the future by creating structures that support all disabled people.
The authors would like to thank Rachael Eisenburg for her guidance and review; the Legal, Editorial, and Art teams for their guidance; and Haley Norris for their assistance in fact-checking.