Disability Justice

The National Center for Law and Economic Justice is a national leader in the fight to advance disability justice. Many low-income people have physical, psychiatric, and learning disabilities that affect their ability to access public benefits. Nearly half of families receiving public benefits have a parent or child with a disability. States and the federal government alike are renewing efforts to institutionalize disabled people rather than promote full inclusion and access in the community, and the federal government is now considering rollbacks to longstanding ADA regulations. Our work on access to benefits, deinstitutionalization, and meaningful inclusion in the community is urgent.

NCLEJ maintains a robust docket of litigation and advocacy to ensure that public benefits are fully accessible to people with disabilities. We seek to ensure that laws and programs live up to the promise of the ADA, which was designed to eliminate discrimination against disabled people, promote full inclusion into all aspects of society, and create clear anti-discrimination standards. NCLEJ is excited to broaden this advocacy by bringing a disability justice lens to our litigation and policy efforts. The disability justice movement takes disability rights activism a step further, acknowledging and engaging in the inextricability of racist, classist, sexist, transphobic, and ableist oppression. We are committed to centering intersectionality as we develop our disability justice casework across the country.