Trump Puts Autistic Kids in the Spotlight and Cuts Agencies Built To Protect Them
Researchers and disability rights advocates warn that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Education Department and its erosions of civil rights oversight risk widening the disparities autistic children face in diagnosis, school support, and discrimination protection.
At Chain of Lakes Elementary School in Winter Haven, Florida, 9-year-old Josette Smith's son Ethan received education tailored to his needs, including crafts, math, and science. However, Ethan, who has autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, was often pulled from class, suspended, and even had police called on him when he was in third grade.
His mother filed complaints alleging the school discriminated against him because of his disability and race. The US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights investigated her allegations, but her concerns were not resolved.
The White House's recent cuts to agencies and funding have impacted federal efforts to protect and support children with disabilities. In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reduce routine immunizations, falsely linking vaccines to autism. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also shared ungrounded claims about autism's causes, including a link to childhood vaccines and Tylenol during pregnancy.
President Trump's administration has taken this administration's actions as a priority, despite health experts disagreeing.
This administration's policies have been detrimental to students with disabilities. In March 2025, the President signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education and close seven of its 12 regional offices. As a result, the Office for Civil Rights now falls under the Department of Justice. Nancy Potter, a former supervising attorney at the Office for Civil Rights, commented that the reorganization could leave families with complaints involving overlapping harms, such as race and disability discrimination, in limbo.
A Senate committee report found that the Office for Civil Rights had reached a 12-year-low in resolving discrimination complaints and had a backlog of nearly 12,000 cases. Moreover, a Washington Post investigation revealed that the Trump administration had indefinitely frozen many of these cases.
Written by urgent.news from KFF Health News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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