1/26/26 - Promises

Good afternoon!

There's a bit of a unifying theme for today's links. Each one seems to be quite different from the others. But they all have me thinking about the kinds of policies, laws, and lifestyle choices that have historically promised safety, security, and health for disabled people – promised, but not always delivered.

Also, please scroll down and see the new action alert I've added on college accommodation policies. Our best efforts may not always deliver as promised, but we keep trying.

Avon Lake’s ‘Blue Envelope’ program aims to ease traffic stops for drivers with disabilities

Hannah Drown and Advance Local Express Desk, Cleveland.com - January 23, 2026

"The department’s Blue Envelope Program is designed to improve communication between police officers and drivers who may need additional accommodations or awareness during traffic stops, including individuals with autism, dementia, physical disabilities or mental health conditions."

The promise of safety – If disabled people can take the right precautions, and fine-tune our interactions with authorities, we can increase or guarantee our safety. It's easy to see how this sort of special envelope or ID card program for police should work. But it's also easy to forget or ignore how programs like this can fail to address the deeper problem, and can even go horribly wrong. A pre-printed request for detailed accommodations can be very helpful to a police officer who is well trained to expect it, and is an actual good person with an even temper. But a poorly trained, frightened, or angry officer may well treat such folders or cards with contempt. Imagine a deaf or autistic driver in Minneapolis being stopped by ICE agents, and how they might react right if the driver reaches for one of these envelopes.

A loser of an ADA argument

Robin Shea, JDSupra - January 23, 2026

"In short, I suspect that this employer's “no-disability” argument is a loser. Lawyers, and sometimes even judges, have been known to erroneously cite pre-2009 court decisions in interpreting the ADA. (No telling how much worse this will become now that artificial intelligence is being used to conduct legal research, and to write briefs and opinions.) Those older decisions may be fine as they apply to other aspects of the ADA, but they are largely obsolete when determining whether a given medical condition is a protected disability."

The promise of equal opportunity – If we can pass the right laws and adopt the right policies – and work hard to make the most of the opportunities they open up to us – then we as disabled people can be successful and financially secure. This has been the basis for most disability rights work since at least the late 1970s. And it's been remarkably successful. But disability rights laws and inclusive practices have so far failed to substantially protect disabled people's rights as fully as we expected, and were promised, when we got the laws passed. This article doesn't quite debunk the value of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In fact, the author clearly thinks the disabled worker deserves to win her case. But the piece does highlight many ways that the ADA, and laws like it, have been weaker and more easily maneuvered around than we like to think.

Can the right diet really cure all our health problems?

Dylan Scott, Vox.com - January 22, 2026

"But there’s a major problem with Kennedy’s vision: Simply insisting that people “eat real food” does not make it any easier for them to find or afford nutrient-rich meals in a country where most grocery stores are awash in fatty, sugary, and salty treats and over-processed foods ... Instead, he places the onus for healthy eating on the consumer rather than focusing on improving the food environment that makes it so hard for many Americans to eat healthy diets in the first place."

The promise of health and fitness – If we try harder at living and eating more healthy, then we can minimize and maybe even eliminate our disabilities. It's obviously better to be a reasonably healthy disabled person than it is to be an avoidably sickly one. But disabled people know better than most the severe limits on how much individual "healthy choices" can change the fundamentals of most disabilities.

It strikes me that there are two things that these three promises have in common. One is obvious – the other a bit less so:

1. All three promises are plausible conceptually, but usually fall short in practice. They make a kind of intuitive sense. But, they don't necessarily work.
2. All three depend mainly on our individual actions, rather than on any real, systemic changes. Some disabled people find this empowering. They like the idea that we ourselves have the ability to improve our lives without having to wait for laws to pass or ableism to end. But disabled people in particular rely more on systemic change than others. We can do a lot for ourselves, but not everything. That's part of what it means to have disabilities. As Stella Young once said: "No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshelf and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille.”

I don't know what this suggests about how disabled people and our allies should address our problems. These traditional strategies are all valid to some extent, even if they aren't as powerful or effective as we tell ourselves. But it's important to at least be aware of the contradictions and limitations on the promises most of us still lean on.

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