4/7/25 - A potentially important lawsuit, and a disability summit
I had these articles set up by mid-day last Friday. They are still timely. But all I can think about right now is how plunging stock markets affect disabled people, disability services, and disability organizations. My guess is that the impact is greater than some might imagine.
AAPD and Disability Advocates Sue Social Security Administration and DOGE to Stop Unlawful Cuts to Social Security Services
American Association of People with Disabilities - April 2, 2025
"Filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the complaint seeks emergency, declaratory and injunctive relief to halt the dismantling of the SSA’s infrastructure, including the abrupt closures of the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (OCREO) and the Office of Transformation (OT), and the termination of 7,000 SSA employees. At the center of the lawsuit is the allegation that the federal government has undertaken a campaign to “reform” the SSA by gutting the very infrastructure designed to ensure fairness, accessibility, and timely delivery of benefits."
It's hard to say whether lawsuits like this one can be successful in delaying, stopping, or rolling back some of the destruction of disability infrastructure DOGE is doing in the name of "efficiency" and preventing "fraud." But for those of us with a more technical, legal mindset about these things, it is at least satisfying to see some disability organizations mount a formal, strategic, and specific attack in defense of disabled Americans. It's refreshing. It's energizing. Let's hope it's effective too.
Global Disability Summit 2025
Global Disability Summit
"The International Disability Alliance (IDA), the Government of Germany and the Government of Jordan hosted the third Global Disability Summit (GDS) from 2-3 April in Berlin – gathering more than 4,500 participants from 100 countries. The Summit resulted in 800 new commitments from governments, development actors, private sector, and civil society."
Recovering our dreams: A dispatch from the Global Disability Summit
Peter Torres Fremlin, Disability Debrief - April 2, 2025
"It's a big group of people who have something important in common: the desire for a better world for disabled people. There's something special about being surrounded by so many pushing in the same direction ... I felt it even as we rolled into the event yesterday, alongside many other disabled people, each moving in our own way. Whether walker, white cane or wheelchair: here, for a brief few days, we are less the exception and much more the norm."
This part of Peter Torres Fremlin's summit story struck a chord with me. I'm not a very social person. But I still remember how my first disability conferences changed my whole perspective and feelings about disability and other disabled people. No matter how sophisticated we get about our goals, or how deeply we re-examine our own privilege in even being able to attend conferences like this, it's still impossible to be blasé about being in huge conference rooms full of people with every kind of disability imaginable. That, I think, is always at least half of the good that disability conferences do, no matter what else of substance they accomplish.
Action Alerts
Opportunities to take action on disability issues ...
tpinedo
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