APB Speaker Rebekah Taussig Calls for Action as Disability Law Faces Legal Threat
05 Mar 2025
In a passionate editorial for TIME magazine, disability advocate and bestselling author Rebekah Taussig discusses an ongoing legal case that threatens the disability protections she’s known her whole life.
According to Taussig, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is under attack. Section 504 prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in programs receiving federal funding. A recent lawsuit, Texas v. Becerra, challenges the constitutionality of Section 504, arguing that the law unfairly burdens states and that its “retroactive” application is unconstitutional.
“Not only was this law written to make sure that students with disabilities, from cerebral palsy to ADHD to a temporarily broken leg, are provided the reasonable accommodations they need to participate meaningfully in their school community, but it prevents a landlord from turning someone away just because they have low vision, an employer from refusing to hire a qualified applicant solely because that person uses a wheelchair, and hospitals from declining to provide interpreters for deaf patients,” Taussig writes. “Like any law, it is not abided by perfectly. Far from it. But it is a serious attempt to create more equity for a population that has been historically excluded from society.”
The major issue with the law, according to the plaintiff, is an addition by the Biden administration that “gender dysphoria … may be considered a physical or mental impairment,” which would grant these folks unique protections under the disability law.
For Taussig, Texas v Becerra feels like a reckless attempt to pull us back to a former time, she writes. The solution, she says, is collective action and advocacy in protecting disability rights.
“We are a valuable part of our communities, we belong here, and we’ve been shown how to fight,” Taussig says.