Cambridge officials affirmed Monday that disability rights are civil rights, addressing threats made over the summer by the Donald Trump presidential administration about involuntary institutionalizations.
“Understandably, this has created tremendous fear and uncertainty among people with disabilities, their families and their allies,” said mayor Sumbul Siddiqui at the night’s City Council meeting. “Cambridge will not stand by quietly when those rights are threatened.”
Siddiqui wrote the night’s order calling on staff to strengthen public awareness of disability rights and lower barriers to programs and services, a rebuke to policy messages from a Department of Justice opinion and a federal court order called Texas v. Kennedy. They raised the specter of of the homeless, addicted and disabled being taken and locked away; Cambridge believes people with disabilities deserve autonomy, dignity, self-determination and the opportunity to participate fully in our communities, the mayor said.
All of the councillors present asked to be made co-sponsors of the mayor’s motion, and councillor Cathy Zusy, who said she grew up with a disabled brother, noted the duty obligated by the rhetoric: Leaving people “out on the street is not a valid or humane option. With this policy order and with support for disabilities rights comes responsibility, and that is funding programs and support services that will provide for these residents,” Zusy said.
Rachel Tanenhaus, the city’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator and executive director of its Commission for Persons with Disabilities, spoke after the order was enacted.
The law itself has not changed, Tanenhaus said, but the manner of enforcement has, allowing the authorities to treat viewpoints and identities they dislike as though they are illnesses. The Department of Justice memo “did not particularly differentiate among different kinds of disabilities that involve one’s mind,” she said.
“Also, they said they’d get back to us later about people with physical disabilities. So that wasn’t ominous,” Tanenhaus said ironically.
The result of all of this means a facto national policy of warehousing people with disabilities through forced institutionalization, and “a lot of folks in the community are very, very scared.”
Residents with disabilities will be proud and grateful to know local officials support them, Tanenhaus said.
“I can’t wait to write the email to let them know that everybody signed on,” she said. “I can’t wait to get the responses for it. Because people are very worried and wanted to hear from their local folks, the people who they work with in their day-to-day lives, to know that y’all have our backs.”
