While policy debates on immigration, abortion, and other issues took center stage in the 2024 presidential election, the first months of the Trump administration have also signaled major changes in federal disability policy.
An estimated 20% to 25% of Americans have a disability of some kind, including physical, sensory, psychological, and intellectual disabilities.
It has been 40 years since the U.S. Supreme Court first took up a case about special education in public schools, Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley. In that case, the court ruled that a deaf student didn’t qualify for a sign-language interpreter because the student was doing well enough even though an interpreter could have helped the student learn more and do better.
In the decades since Rowley, court orders and a few adjustments to federal laws have clarified the rights of students to get accommodations for various conditions and disabilities affecting their education. But the law governing these rights, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has not been updated significantly since its original passage in 1975 and has never gone so long without a full congressional review.
