By Marianne Dhenin for Yes! Magazine.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for Georgia News Connection reporting for the YES! Media/Public News Service Collaboration

When then-Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in April 2021 that a new law enforcement training complex would be built in the Weelaunee Forest, or South River Forest, in Dekalb County, near Atlanta, Georgia, a diverse coalition of organizers, activists, and other community members formed to oppose the project under the "Stop Cop City" banner. For Atlanta-based disability justice activists who are part of the coalition, the movement to stop Cop City is a disability justice issue.

"It is critical for us to bring a disability perspective when we talk about Cop City," says Atlanta-based Dom Kelly, co-founder of the nonprofit New Disabled South (NDS), "because the construction of this facility will disproportionately harm disabled people."

Almost three years after Bottoms' announcement, Cop City, officially titled the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, is under construction on an 85-acre plot of forested land owned by the City of Atlanta in DeKalb County. If completed, the campus will be the nation's largest police training complex, equipped with military-grade facilities and a mock city for urban police training.

Many who have mobilized against the project have highlighted the adverse environmental effects of clearing dozens of acres of the South River Forest to make way for the development. Indigenous-led groups also oppose the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest and its wildlife habitat.

Meanwhile, racial justice groups foreground the fact that police violence disproportionately harms communities of color, and abolitionist organizations reject any expansion of policing and incarceration. They argue that Cop City would further militarize the police force. "Police here have already responded to protests with militarized tactics, chemical weapons, and domestic terrorism charges," Atlanta organizer Micah Herskind told The New York Times last year. "Cop City would only further provide police with training and equipment to suppress dissent and terrorize Black and working-class communities."

According to disabled organizers, each of these issues affects their community in unique ways. The framework of disability justice helps reveal these intersections.

"Destroying any portion of that forest is going to have an impact on our ability to fight climate change, and then that will disproportionately impact the disabled community," says Kelly. Disabled folks are at greater risk of being negatively affected by climate change, including experiencing worsening health conditions due to changing weather or being left behind during climate-change-related disasters.

Many disabled people also live on fixed incomes, making it nearly impossible for them to afford equipment to help navigate the effects of climate change, like air conditioners to survive a heatwave or backup generators to get through a blackout.

Disabled people are also especially vulnerable to police violence and are overrepresented in the nation's incarcerated population. "Disabled people, especially disabled people of color, are disproportionately harmed by police and the carceral system," says Kelly.

NDS, which works across the southern United States, partnered with Data for Progress on a recent voter survey in six Southern states including Georgia, examining sentiments on law enforcement encounters for disabled people in the region. The survey respondents agreed that disabled people experience discrimination during law enforcement encounters due to their disabilities.

Among Black and disabled respondents, rates of agreement were higher than among White and non-disabled respondents, pointing to the important difference between lived experience and outside perception of law enforcement encounters. Over 50 percent of Black survey respondents said they believe disabled people experience discrimination when interacting with law enforcement. About 34 percent of White respondents agreed that disabled people face discrimination in these encounters. More than 46 percent of all disabled respondents and about 37 percent of all non-disabled respondents agreed that disabled people experience discrimination when interacting with law enforcement.

Further, according to data from the Survey of Prison Inmates, 66% of people incarcerated in the U.S. report having a disability. Studies have also found that as many as half of those killed by police nationwide are disabled.

Black people are already three times more likely than white people to be killed during a police encounter-disabled or not. Additionally, they are more likely to be disabled and less likely to have access to needed health care.

Often, police encounters with disabled people become violent because officers make assumptions about so-called normal behavior. If an individual does not speak, move, or behave as an officer expects or demands, rather than considering that they might be disabled, the officer may assume noncompliance and react with force.

"A lot of the Black men that Atlanta police or [those from] other police departments in the metro area have killed were disabled," says Susi Durán, chair of the Atlanta chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, another group actively organizing against Cop City.

In 2015, police in Chamblee, Georgia, just northeast of Atlanta, shot and killed Anthony Hill, a Black man with bipolar disorder who was experiencing a mental health crisis. In 2021, in a similar incident, a DeKalb County officer killed Matthew Zadok Williams. His family later told reporters he was having a mental health crisis, and they wished the police would have gotten him help.

Experts suggest that a training facility such as Cop City would worsen the criminalization of disabled people rather than lessen the issue. Studies show that training programs, even those intended to reduce implicit biases against marginalized groups, do not improve police interactions with those communities. Research also shows that the increasing militarization of the police disproportionately threatens minority groups.

Kiana Jackson, Research and Coalition Organizing Manager at NDS and a co-author of the recent NDS and Data for Progress survey, says people have been connecting the dots between the discrimination they've seen in their communities and police militarization. "It is important for disabled people to get out on the forefront of these issues and say, 'Hey, we are victims of this. We are the ones being killed,'" she says.

Many disabled folks in Atlanta and DeKalb County have been doing just that as an outspoken contingent of the Stop Cop City movement. When the Atlanta City Council scheduled a vote on an ordinance for funding Cop City at a council meeting in June 2023, hundreds of community members showed up to make their voices heard at a public comment session that lasted 14 hours.

"Disabled people are a part of the Atlanta community," said Barry Lee, an Atlanta-based disabled artist who spoke at the meeting. Lee then urged the council to "allocate the proposed funds toward creating better accessibility for the city of Atlanta."

The city consistently ranks low for quality of life for its disabled residents, partly because of its crumbling sidewalks, inaccessible transportation, and lack of health care facilities. "There are parts of the city where it is difficult to walk on some sidewalks," says Durán. "Plus, we lost our Level I trauma center when Atlanta Medical Center closed down [in 2022]."

When Georgia-based respondents to the recent NDS and Data for Progress survey were asked whether their state had adequate resources, such as medical or mental health resources for disabled people when interacting with law enforcement, only 31 percent said they thought so.

People are frustrated, Durán says, because rather than the Atlanta City Council allocating funding for repairing infrastructure or shoring up the city's health care, "They're spending it on policing." Slogans like "Defund the Police" and "Care, Not Cops," heard at Stop Copy City protests capture this sentiment. Like Lee, many others who spoke at the public comment session also called on the City of Atlanta to allocate funding to infrastructure, housing, or youth programs rather than policing.

Despite the mass opposition at its meeting last June, the Atlanta City Council voted to approve $31 million in funding for the construction of Cop City.

When the Stop Cop City movement launched its next front, disabled organizers were again at the fore. The "Vote to Stop Cop City" referendum campaign began soon after that council meeting, aiming to get a vote on Cop City's construction on an upcoming ballot. One of its two fiscal sponsors was New Disabled South Rising (NDRS), NDS's political arm.

Kelly says backing the referendum campaign "aligned with the work [NDS was] already doing" as part of the organization's mission to support efforts decriminalizing disability and ensuring disabled people have access to the democratic process.

As fiscal sponsor on the campaign, NDS worked behind the scenes processing and disbursing contributions. Kelly says the organization also helped ensure that communications and canvassing were inclusive of disabled Atlantans.

Between its launch in June and September 11, 2023, the referendum campaign collected and submitted 116,000 signatures from Atlanta residents. That number is well over the threshold needed to get Cop City on the ballot. But the City of Atlanta has questioned it and made a series of attempts to disrupt the validation process, which Stop Cop City organizers claim are stalling tactics undermining Atlantans' right to vote on the issue.

As the referendum petitions move through a contested verification process and direct action to stop Cop City's construction continues, disabled organizers say they're committed to continuing their work. "If we want to see collective liberation in our lifetimes, we have to fight back against the further militarization of police and destruction of our already precious forest environment to ensure that future generations have a planet to live on and won't be murdered by police," says Kelly. "Cop City is one piece of that struggle."


Marianne Dhenin wrote this article for YES! Magazine.


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Oregon's right to repair law, which increases consumers' ability to repair their own electronics, takes effect this week.

The law requires manufacturers to provide access to replacement parts, tools, manuals, as well as digital keys needed so people can fix their own devices.

Charlie Fisher, state director of the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, helped author the law. He said it needs to go further, which is why, along with disability justice advocates, he is pushing for wheelchairs to be included. Fisher pointed out the current process for getting wheelchairs fixed is overly complicated and takes months.

"Just simple barriers that shouldn't exist are really what we're trying to address in this wheelchair right to repair law," Fisher explained. "It just seems like common sense."

Fisher noted Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, will introduce two bills this year to expand the right to repair law. One bill would add protections for wheelchairs, the other would simplify the repair process when going through Medicaid.

Wren Grabham, a disability justice activist, has been working on the bills and said additions to the law would require wheelchair manufacturers to post their manuals and allow a person to fix their chair without voiding their warranty.

Grabham noted when she was 16, her electric wheelchair began shutting off and giving an error code. Because there was no public manual for the chair, she did not know what the code meant or if the chair was safe to keep driving. Grabham added fixing it included getting insurance approval, so it took a long time.

"I had to pretty much use an old chair that didn't fit me for six months," Grabham recounted.

Grabham emphasized even simple, routine fixes, like getting a new tire or battery for her chair, take months because she has to prove new parts are needed.

"Even though it's something that we could fix in a weekend, if we were able to actually get the parts to fix them," Grabham stressed.

The Public Interest Research Group's research found being able to fix phones, computers and appliances instead of buying new ones will save the average Oregon household more than $300 a year.


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Nevada education experts say literacy rates are improving, but aren't where they should be.

Nevada's third- through eighth-grade students have improved their English Language Arts proficiency rate to above 41%.

Julie Bowers is the director of the Nevada's Department of Education's Office of Inclusive Education.

She said children who lack literacy proficiency are more likely to struggle academically, increasing the chances of dropping out of school and decreasing their likelihood of finding a job down the line.

The department says it is committed to supporting districts in the early identification of students, so that "interventions" can start sooner rather than later - including for those with disabilities.

"We have unique ways of meeting their literacy," said Bowers. "We have different interventions that we can use for kids with more needs for assisted technology or accommodations within the classroom. But we also have that tiered instruction level."

Bowers said Nevada has a "tiered approach." She said the "multi-tiered system of supports" integrates data and instruction to maximize student achievement and development.

Bowers added that as students are identified as having certain needs, they're given the assistance they need to grow.

Mandy Leytham is also with the state's Department of Education - as an education programs professional with the Read By Grade 3 team.

She said their data indicates reading achievement is rising across all grade levels, including students with Individualized Education Programs.

"Our graduation rates just came out, and we are seeing an increase in graduation rates - including those with students who have IEPs," said Leytham. "So are we where necessarily we want to be at this moment in time, not necessarily, but we are headed towards that direction."

Leytham said parents concerned about their child's progress should have open and honest conversations with their child's teacher, to ensure they reach the best learning outcomes.

"We do have a Read by Grade 3 law, and parents should be not only notified, but they are involved in that planning and decision making on behalf of their students," said Leytham. "So the schools should be involving the parents. Schools just can't do it alone."

By Tony Leys for KFF Health News.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the KFF Health News-Public News Service Collaboration

Hundreds of people who were separated from society because they had disabilities are buried in a nondescript field at the former state institution here.

Disability rights advocates hope Iowa will honor them by preventing the kind of neglect that has plagued similar cemeteries at other shuttered facilities around the U.S.

The southwest Iowa institution, called the Glenwood Resource Center, was closed this summer in the wake of allegations of poor care. The last of its living residents were moved elsewhere in June. But the remains of about 1,300 people will stay where they were buried on the grounds.

The graveyard, which dates to the 1800s, covers several acres of sloping ground near the campus's brick buildings. A 6-foot-tall, weathered-concrete cross stands on the hillside, providing the most visible clue to the field's purpose.

On a recent afternoon, dried grass clippings obscured row after row of small stone grave markers set flat in the ground. Most of the stones are engraved with only a first initial, a last name, and a number.

"If somebody who's never been to Glenwood drove by, they wouldn't even know there was a cemetery there," said Brady Werger, a former resident of the facility.

During more than a century of operation, the institution housed thousands of people with intellectual disabilities. Its population declined as society turned away from the practice of sequestering people with disabilities and mental illness in large facilities for decades at a time. The cemetery is filled with residents who died and weren't returned to their hometowns for burial with their families.

State and local leaders are working out arrangements to maintain the cemetery and the rest of the 380-acre campus. Local officials, who are expected to take control of the grounds next June, say they'll need extensive state support for upkeep and redevelopment, especially with the town of about 5,000 people reeling from the loss of jobs at the institution.

Hundreds of such places were constructed throughout the U.S. starting in the 1800s. Some, like the one in Glenwood, served people with disabilities, such as those caused by autism or seizure disorders. Others housed people with mental illness.

Most of the facilities were built in rural areas, which were seen as providing a wholesome environment.

States began shrinking or closing these institutions more than 50 years ago. The shifts were a response to complaints about people being removed from their communities and subjected to inhumane conditions, including the use of isolation and restraints. In the past decade, Iowa has closed two of its four mental hospitals and one of its two state institutions for people with intellectual disabilities.

After closures in some other states, institutions' cemeteries were abandoned and became overgrown with weeds and brush. The neglect drew protests and sparked efforts to respectfully memorialize people who lived and died at the facilities.

"At some level, the restoration of institutions' cemeteries is about the restoration of humanity," said Pat Deegan, a Massachusetts mental health advocate who works on the issue nationally. Deegan, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager, sees the neglected graveyards as symbolic of how people with disabilities or mental illness can feel as if their individual identities are buried beneath the labels of their conditions.

Deegan, 70, helped lead efforts to rehabilitate a pair of overgrown cemeteries at the Danvers State Hospital near Boston, which housed people with mental illness before it closed in 1992. More than 700 former residents were buried there, with many graves originally marked only with a number.

The Massachusetts hospital's grounds were redeveloped into a condominium complex. The rehabilitated cemeteries now have individual gravestones and a large historical marker, explaining what the facility was and who lived there. The sign notes that some past methods of caring for psychiatric patients seem "barbarous" by today's standards, but the text portrays the staff as well-meaning. It says the institution "attempted to alleviate the problems of many of its members with care and empathy that, although not always successful, was nobly attempted."

Deegan has helped other groups across the country organize renovations of similar cemeteries. She urges communities to include former residents of the facilities in their efforts.

Iowa's Glenwood Resource Center started as a home for orphans of Civil War soldiers. It grew into a large institution for people with disabilities, many of whom lived there for decades. Its population peaked at more than 1,900 in the 1950s, then dwindled to about 150 before state officials decided to close it.

Werger, 32, said some criticisms of the institution were valid, but he remains grateful for the support the staff gave him until he was stable enough to move into community housing in 2018. "They helped change my life incredibly," he said. He thinks the state should have fixed problems at the facility instead of shutting it.

He said he hopes officials preserve historical parts of the campus, including stately brick buildings and the cemetery. He wishes the graves had more extensive headstones, with information about the residents buried there. He would also like to see signs installed explaining the place's history.

Two former employees of the Glenwood facility recently raised concerns that some of the graves may be mismarked. But officials with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, which ran the institution, said they have extensive, accurate records and recently placed stones on three graves that were unmarked.

Department leaders declined to be interviewed about the cemetery's future. Spokesperson Alex Murphy wrote in an email that while no decisions have been made about the campus, the agency "remains committed to ensuring the cemetery is protected and treated with dignity and respect for those who have been laid to rest there."

Glenwood civic leaders have formed a nonprofit corporation that is negotiating with the state over development plans for the former institution. "We're trying to make the best of a tough situation," said Larry Winum, a local banker who serves on the new organization's board.

Tentative plans include tearing down some of the existing buildings and creating up to 900 houses and apartments.

Winum said redevelopment should include some kind of memorial sign about the institution and the people buried in the cemetery. "It will be important to us that those folks be remembered," he said.

Activists in other states said properly honoring such places takes sustained commitment and money.

Jennifer Walton helped lead efforts in the 1990s to properly mark graves and improve cemetery upkeep at state institutions in Minnesota.

Some of the cemeteries are deteriorating again, she said. Activists plan to ask Minnesota legislators to designate permanent funding to maintain them and to place explanatory markers at the sites.

"I think it's important, because it's a way to demonstrate that these spaces represent human beings who at the time were very much hidden away," Walton said. "No human being should be pushed aside and ignored."

On a recent day, just one of the Glenwood graves had flowers on it. Retired managers of the institution said few people visit the cemetery, but amateur genealogists sometimes show up after learning that a long-forgotten ancestor was institutionalized at Glenwood and buried there.

Former grounds supervisor Max Cupp said burials had become relatively rare over the years, with more families arranging to have deceased residents' remains transported to their hometown cemeteries.

One of the last people buried in the Glenwood cemetery was Kenneth Rummells, who died in 2022 at age 71 after living many years at the institution and then at a nearby group home overseen by the state. His guardian was Kenny Jacobsen, a retired employee of the facility who had known him for decades.

Rummells couldn't speak, but he could communicate by grunting, Jacobsen said. He enjoyed sitting outside. "He was kind of quiet, kind of a touch-me-not guy."

Jacobsen helped arrange for a gravestone that is more detailed than most others in the cemetery. The marker includes Rummells' full name, the dates of his birth and death, a drawing of a porch swing, and the inscription "Forever swinging in the breeze."

Jacobsen hopes officials figure out how to maintain the cemetery. He would like to see a permanent sign erected, explaining who is buried there and how they came to live in Glenwood. "They were people too," he said.


Tony Leys wrote this story for KFF Health News.


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