Theo Mastio, Contributing Writer
At age 13, I was diagnosed with several learning disorders and mental health issues, which came as a surprise. I had always been ahead of my class in school: how could I be disabled?
It turns out being disabled and working harder than your peers is nothing new. So, they sat me down in a room with a woman that I had never met, my teachers, the vice principal and my mom. It was time to create my 504 plan.
According to The Department of Education, 504 refers to the section of federal law that legally requires accommodations for anyone with a disability in a federally funded program. I received accommodations for those disabilities as a middle schooler.
My therapist put it this way: paying attention, reading and learning was like running an entire football field while everyone else just ran one yard. The accommodations were supposed to level the playing field or shorten my sprint. It still required work on my part: extra classes, training, listening to these weird CDs for audio processing and learning how to manage my emotions.
The 504 meant hearing feedback from teachers on their concerns and observations. It meant finding out what technology could help me, testing my hearing despite having an auditory processing disorder and taking extra breaks when I needed them.
There were complications and I am still jumping through hoops to get accommodations in college to make my life simpler. However, that one 504 plan took my label as a disorganized and uninterested kid and changed it to a depressed child with learning issues. My diagnosis did not excuse my behavior, but instead, explained it and offered me solutions instead of deciding that my struggles were a personal failure. It took me off a ledge and gave me newer, brighter yards to run.
I also learned that I was not alone and this process was not new. People before me had to fight for their education to continue. In fact, 15% of the entire public school student population is disabled, requiring 504s, IEPs and para pros, according to the Center for Education Statistics.
So, why am I talking about 504s and my experience now?
Over President Donald Trump’s past two terms, his administration has severely weakened these 504 protections. It has cut funding for caseworkers and moved the Office of Civil Rights out of the Education Department, according to the Associated Press.
The weakening of these federal protections has led to recent changes including Texas, Alaska and Florida’s decisions to contest Section 504 and the integration mandate, according to the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund).
The integration mandate is relatively new to the 504 code, but is just as important.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network stated that “People with disabilities have a right to live, work, and get services in the community.” A sentence such as this should not be so controversial.
Regardless of how politicians justify contesting mandates like the integration mandate, stripping away these protections is a big slap in the face to disabled people.
I do not have time to get into the whole history of eugenics here, but to be clear, the removal of these protections plays a significant role historically in these lines of thinking. While I received a 504 plan before this mandate, I still receive accommodations in college that would not be possible without these codes. In fact, ideas such as “people with disabilities have a right to live” are the whole reason I am here writing this essay to you today.
A diagnosis saved me, and so did the 504 plan and accommodations that allowed me to live and earn an education the same way everyone else does. Moves like those the Trump administration has made are a clear attack on disabled people’s rights. The 15% of children in American public schools who are disabled equals 7,440,000 students who are and no less deserving of an education or a life.