Trump admin aims to slash access to disability lawyers, advocates say
Source: USA Today
Dec. 14, 2025 5:02 a.m. ET
The Trump administration is trying to slash access to lawyers who defend the rights of Americans with disabilities, advocates say.
Most of the lawyers work either for the Department of Justice or for disability rights agencies that Congress set up in every state decades ago. Many of the Justice Department lawyers quit in 2025 after being reassigned to other duties, their supporters say. And Trump budget officials proposed deep cuts to federal grants supporting the state-based legal groups.
People with disabilities have the right to live in their communities if possible. Federal laws and court decisions say they may attend school, work jobs, and go to restaurants, movie theaters, and other public places. If they can find lawyers, they can file legal challenges when those rights are denied.
The federally funded attorneys quietly work to ensure the U.S. lives up to promises made by the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws, said Alison Barkoff, a health law professor at George Washington University. I think many families of people with disabilities, or even many people with disabilities themselves, dont hear about it until they Google, Where can I get help? said Barkoff, who helped lead such efforts under Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/14/americans-disabilities-trump-budget-cuts/87686476007/
Lovie777
(21,479 posts)enough already.
GiqueCee
(3,224 posts)... of Trump's despicable demand that no disabled veterans appear in his military birthday parade. He also reportedly told his brother, whose son was stricken with cerebral palsy, "Just let him die, then move to Florida." He also tried to deny family members access to a health fund set up by his father, and tried to alter his father's will so that only he would be the beneficiary of Fred's wealth.
Trump's cesspool of malice and depravity has no bottom. He is an irredeemable psychopath. So, what does that say about those that still support him? Nothing good, I can tell you that.
CousinIT
(12,127 posts)And Republicans HATE "DEI".
It's too "woke".
CBHagman
(17,415 posts)Who the **** wants to block accessibility? Accessibility is the law.
And add representation to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. For example, I was recently talking to the mother of a child with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and she explained that her son and other kids appear in advertising, etc. In these days of AI this and AI that, it was good to talk about real people and real community needs.
Ocelot II
(128,726 posts)since that's a service that helps hard-of-hearing people. And they're so petty that they even want to change the type font on SoS documents from Calibri to Times New Roman because Calibri is easier for visually impaired people to read and therefore DEI and woke. What next? No more elevators allowed in federal buildings, or at least no more Braille buttons? Crutches, canes and wheelchairs forbidden? The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities so they can work, but expect that to be abolished, too, by EO.
slightlv
(7,275 posts)I tried for the reasonable accommodations law, and my DoD supervisor (and HIS supervisor) turned it down. All I asked for was at least 2 days remote work, flexible if possible, because of my disability. What's more... whether I was sitting at my desk and PC at home, or at my desk in the office, I was available at all business times. And to boot - no matter WHERE I was sitting, ALL my work was remote work, since it was done on the "Cloud" (AWS).
Talk about a stupid decision by the DoD! If I'd had money, I'd have fought it tooth and nail. It made no logical sense, since everything I did was tracked on the Cloud and in my personal journal, and I proved how much more efficient I was sitting at home, where I could get to a private bathroom, or "come in late" when I woke up exhausted from fighting symptoms and pain all night.
For a couple of years, I had huge heartburn over this. I've tried over these past few years to let it go, but it still jacks my jaws the way I was treated. I blamed a large part of it on old management who believe only in "butts in seats" in the office, and also the fact I was female. Never mind my intelligence level, the work I'd done, or the fact I, alone, in the group held the complete institutional knowledge of the program with which I worked. Like I said, dumb... dumb... evil.
travelingthrulife
(4,171 posts)NotHardly
(2,475 posts)Overview of the T4 Program
The T4 program, initiated by the Nazi regime in 1939, targeted individuals with mental and physical disabilities. This campaign aimed to eliminate those deemed "unworthy of life" based on eugenic beliefs. The program operated until 1945, resulting in the deaths of approximately 250,000 to 300,000 disabled people through methods such as gassing and lethal injection.
Justifications for the Program
The Nazis viewed disabled individuals as a burden on society and a threat to the ideal of a "master race." They believed that eliminating these individuals would promote racial purity and reduce state costs associated with their care. This ideology was rooted in eugenics, which was a widely accepted concept at the time. https://www.theholocaustexplained.org life-in-nazi-occupied-europe oppression disabled
Timeflyer
(3,593 posts)riversedge
(79,069 posts)J_William_Ryan
(3,259 posts)This is something the reprehensible right has sought for decades.
I work with incapacitated adults pursuing SSI and SSDI claims.
Ive heard the lies from the right over the years: that the system is nothing but fraud, that those seeking benefits are criminals, liars, dishonest, lazy.
Republicans advance the same lies about those established disabled by the SSA as such, Republicans try to deny those disabled access to services theyre entitled to and allow the disabled to be discriminated against, denying those disabled access to disability lawyers is another manifestation to that.
dalton99a
(91,674 posts)SunSeeker
(57,412 posts)Bayard
(28,250 posts)They come for the disabled, and who's next? I would say anyone over the age of 60, and they will carve out exceptions for themselves.
chowder66
(11,723 posts)Javaman
(65,000 posts)fucking psychopath.
NotHardly
(2,475 posts)The vast majority of the Nazi regime's victims were Jewish, Romani, or Slavic. Jews, along with some Romani populations, were deemed unfit for society on racial or ethnic grounds and largely confined to ghettos, then rounded up and deported to concentration or extermination camps. The beginning of World War II marked a colossal escalation in the Nazis' efforts to eliminate "inferior" communities across German-occupied Europe, with methods including: non-judicial incarceration, confiscation of property, forced labour (and extermination through hard labour), sexual slavery, human experimentation, malnourishment, and execution by death squads. For Jews, in particular, the Nazis' goal was total exterminationthe genocide of the Jewish people, first in Europe and eventually in other parts of the world. This was presented by Adolf Hitler as the "Final Solution" to the Jewish question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Nazi_Germany
Marie Marie
(10,820 posts)to do Trump's dirty deeds. What a miserable SOB.
Turbineguy
(39,759 posts)that will hurt people who vote for him.