Twelve days before Donald Trump took office, Charlie Kirk, media personality and right wing activist, complained on his eponymous show about the presence of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters at emergency press briefings for the Los Angeles fires.
Another right wing activist, Christopher Rufo, took his cue on X, calling interpreters “wild human gesticulators” who turned briefings into a “farce”. The right wing theorist and Origins of Woke author Richard Hanania, quote-tweeting Rufo, declared ASL interpretation an “absurdity”.
From an article by Sara Nović
To those with less knowledge of disability history, these attacks might read as gross, but ultimately toothless. Activists, though, quickly sounded the alarm: the incoming U.S. Government administration would be coming for disabled people.
“To the deaf community, the fight for accessibility is nothing new,” said Sara Miller, deaf educator and community advocate.
However, Miller said she had seen a burgeoning movement against accessibility from conservatives with large platforms, including during the first Trump administration, when the National Association of the Deaf had to sue to have ASL interpreters during 2020 Covid briefings.
“But when looking at the history of the first term of [the Trump] administration, and currently how diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) is being targeted, it’s not hard to see the correlation.”
Manufacturing cultural outrage to justify policy that would have previously been considered too cruel or damaging is a staple of the far-right playbook: most recently, the US has seen the move used to bolster book bans and outlaw Black history and gender-affirming care.
The play-by-play is always the same: social media followers take their marching orders, hurling discontent at the specified targets and regurgitating talking points. Eventually, the ideas become so ubiquitous they are adopted by politicians who use them to engage their base. Finally, the talking point becomes the policy itself, and politicians claim they have a mandate from the people to justify stripping away the rights of the marginalised.
Fast forward to 21 January 2025, when the accessibility page and all ASL content were removed from the White House website. Then, real-life interpreters were removed from the White House and across multiple federal agencies whose accommodations divisions were dismantled under Trump’s anti-DEIA orders.
Simultaneously, disabled children’s right to education is under fire. On 20 March, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. The department funds early intervention and post-high school transition programs, and organizations like the American Printing House for the Blind and the Special Olympics. It also enforces the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the law that gives disabled kids the right to a “free and appropriate public education”. A child’s needs and services are documented in a legally binding agreement known as an Individualised Education Program, providing services like speech, physical and occupational therapy, and the use of specialised curriculum. Accommodations like closed captions, ASL interpreters, ramps and elevator keys, braille materials, preferential seating, audio books, use of a laptop or notetaker, and movement breaks can also be included.
Without these plans, disabled students may be inside the classroom, but they will not be meaningfully educated.
The canary in the coalmine
Historically, the way a government treats disabled people can be an early indicator of its broader social policy intentions.
Leaving disabled people behind is not new to the American political landscape; the US has a history of eradicating the disabled. Eugenics – the pseudoscientific belief that humans should breed for “desirable traits” and suppress the undesirable ones – rose to popularity in the US and globally during the late 19th century.
Securing change through activism
There is a long history of skilled, effective activism by disabled people to leverage non-disabled people’s discomfort around disability in the fight for equal rights and legal protections.
In the 1988 Deaf President Now protests at Gallaudet University, students took advantage of the misconception of disabled innocence and hot-wired school buses to block university gates, shutting down the school until their demands for self-determination – a deaf university president and majority-deaf board – were met.
Many battles are already being waged in the legal system, with disabled and non-disabled lawyers and organisations like the National Association for the Deaf, ACLU, and Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund working together on legal filings as pushback.
Outside the courtroom, activists are running public awareness campaigns on social media, encouraging people to call their representatives and attorneys general.
“The most practical thing non-disabled people can do is stay informed and recognize the power of their voice,” said Jordan Christian LeVan, a disability advocate and founder of the educational advocacy organisation Fighting for My Voice. “In our current climate, the last thing those in power want is for people to understand the impact of their advocacy. Contact your representatives, show up at school board meetings and support disabled-led organisations. Call out policies that harm disabled people. Your voice matters more than you want to believe.”
“You shouldn’t have to personally know a disabled person to care about disabled issues.”
“Disabled people were not always marginalised; we were incorporated into society in the ancient past,” said Dr Alexandra F Morris, a lecturer in classical studies at the University of Lincoln who studies disability in ancient Egypt. “We have the means to create and return to a more equitable society if we wish to, but it is our modern-day thinking that sees disability as marginalised … and a burden.”
“If you live long enough, chances are you’ll experience disability yourself. While we’ve made huge strides in disability rights over the past few decades – those protections are under attack. If we don’t fight back now, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future.”
- The author, Sara Nović is a deaf organiser and the author of the novels True Biz and Girl at War
From The US right is coming for disabled people. Here’s why that threatens everyone