Cloward-Piven in Action: 'Traumatized' Students Claim 'Disability'

Thank you, George Herbert Walker Bush:

Students with violent and traumatic pasts sued the Compton Unified School District on Monday, alleging they are legally disabled and the school has failed to meet their educational needs. The lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, contends that under federal educational rules and the Americans with Disabilities Act, the district should establish special mental health and other services to help students with “complex trauma.”

That would include methods used by other districts such as San Francisco’s, including special training for teachers and staff; teaching children “skills to cope with their anxiety and emotions”; and “restorative” discipline strategies that don’t rely on suspending or expelling the students, according to the suit.

Trauma “stems from such causes as exposure to violence and loss, family disruptions related to deportation, incarceration and/or the foster system, systemic racism and discrimination, and the extreme stress of lacking basic necessities, such as not knowing where the next meal will come from or where to sleep that night,” according to the lawsuit.

Studies have shown that such trauma can affect a child’s developing brain and psychology and such children do worse in school and have more absences and poorer graduation rates, the lawsuit said.

So now cultural social dysfunction is a “disability.” Is a low IQ a “disability”? What about a low family income? Once you make having a “disability” into a monetary proposition, you are sure to get lots more “disabilities.”

The ADA was one of the dumbest laws ever passed by a Republican president and now it’s predictably being used as a cudgel with which to bankrupt the system. Where does this stop?

Don’t answer that question.