Disability Rights

Private equity firms have acquired more than 1,000 disability and elder care providers in recent years By: Anna Claire Vollers – May 19, 2025 2:23 pm Private equity companies have gobbled up group homes and other services for people with disabilities, attracting the attention of state and federal regulators across the nation and alarming advocates. People with intellectual…

By KENYA HUNTER and FATIMA HUSSEIN Updated 11:59 AM CDT, May 6, 2025 WASHINGTON (AP) — Spencer Goidel, a 33-year-old federal worker in Boca Raton, Florida, with autism, knew what he could be losing when he got laid off from his job as an equal employment opportunity specialist at the IRS. Because of his autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, Goidel had…

By Alex Clark May 6, 2025 / 4:45 PM EDT / CBS News AI-generated accounts impersonating people with Down syndrome are spreading across social media, according to an analysis by CBS News Confirmed. Many of these artificial intelligence-backed profiles are gaining followers faster than real disability advocates — and they’re making money from it. These fake accounts use…

The administration ended a legal program in all but three states for immigrants deemed mentally incompetent. Attorneys says they could be deported to persecution, torture and death. By Suzanne Gamboa May 6, 2025, 11:37 AM CDT The Trump administration has pulled the plug on a program that provides legal help to immigrants who are determined mentally…

As legislative attacks on unhoused people ramp up, disabled people are on the front lines. By Marianne Dhenin Published May 9, 2025 The U.S. approach to addressing homelessness in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling will maim and kill people, housing rights advocates and experts tell Truthout. It will disproportionately harm disabled Americans, who comprise more…

Tammie Thompson lost the use of her legs but she wanted to ride the trails; local mountain bikers widened an Ashland trail to accommodate her custom bike; ‘It opens up a whole new world for me,’ she says By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news  April 29, 2025 Tammie Thompson came around a bend and down a slope…

By Dan Gorenstein, Leslie Walker May 5, 2025 7:00 AM ET When Ari Ne’eman heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. call autism an “epidemic” that “destroys families,” Ne’eman felt like he had stepped into a time machine — heading in the wrong direction. It was during an April 16 press conference where Kennedy, the nation’s top health official,…

By: Kyle Dunphey – May 2, 2025 6:01 am Utah state leaders are being sued over a bill passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March created a new guardianship system for adults with “severe” intellectual disability.  In a complaint filed in federal court in Utah earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union…

The federal government is “basically telling people with disabilities that ‘you don’t matter, we don’t want you to go for the same opportunity everybody else goes for,’ ” an employee said. By Peyton Haug May 01, 2025 at 4:54 PM BISMARCK — The North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities is scrambling to figure out how…

By David Hilzenrath and Jodie Fleischer April 28, 2025 The Social Security Administration is backing off a plan it announced in March to withhold 100% of many beneficiaries’ monthly payments to claw back money the government had allegedly overpaid them. Instead, the agency will default to withholding 50% of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits, the agency said…