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Kansas City writer Rebekah Taussig was scrolling Instagram earlier this year, when she saw something that made her freeze: A new lawsuit was threatening to overturn one of the nation’s most important disability rights laws.
That would be absurd, she thought.
“The world we live in, it feels like there are red flags and alarm bells going off everywhere. Like, how much attention do you have?” says Taussig.
Then she read the lawsuit, Texas v. Becerra, for herself.
“That’s when I had a very sobering night of looking at it and being like, ‘This is real.’”
Attorneys general in 17 states, including Kansas and Missouri, sued the U.S. government late last year challenging a decades-old provision known as Section 504.
The lawsuit’s central issue was the Biden administration’s 2024 decision to include gender dysphoria as a protected disability.
But the attorneys general also sought to declare the entirety of Section 504 unconstitutional – something that would endanger protections for people with disabilities in health care, education, housing, transportation, and more.
It could also seriously undermine subsequent civil rights laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.
Taussig is the author of the books, “Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body” and “We Are the Scrappy Ones.”
And, coincidentally, she had recently co-written the script for an upcoming Apple Original movie about Section 504 — and how activists occupied a federal building for nearly a month to make sure it was enforced.
“This fight was just in the forefront of my mind,” Taussig says. “I wanted people to know what it was, why it was important, and what it would mean to take it away.”
What is Section 504?
You’ve probably heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. It guaranteed equal opportunity for people with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications.
But equally as fundamental is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was signed nearly two decades before by President Richard Nixon — after he vetoed it twice.
“Section 504 is the very beginning of the notion of civil rights for disabled people,” says Taussig. “ It's like a little piece of legislation that's like less than 50 words long. And it was kind of snuck into that Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and nobody really paid attention to it.”
In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, and more. But it didn’t include any provisions for people with disabilities.
The next decade’s Rehabilitation Act covered multiple things, including affirmative action for people with disabilities in federal employment. But the part that advocates were most excited about was Section 504, which prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities for federally funded programs, forcing places like hospitals and universities to become more accessible.
Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, a Republican who spent decades pushing for disability rights legislation, called Section 504 “one of the greatest civil rights statutes ever enacted.”
But here’s the kicker: Even after being signed into law, Section 504 wasn’t initially enforced by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Businesses and other organizations argued that it was burdensome and unfair.
Nearly four years after Section 504 became a federal law, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano was still refusing to develop and sign important regulations. So effectively, the requirements were toothless.
Eventually, disability activists got sick of hounding him.
'The scrappiest underdogs ever'
On April 5, 1977, protesters began a series of highly publicized and disruptive sit-ins in federal buildings across the country: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle.
People with all kinds of disabilities came together to sing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” and chant “sign or resign!” as a stern message to Califano and the HEW.
“All of these disabled protestors and leaders came together and insisted together that the world should be built with them in mind,” says Taussig. “It was a lot of hippies. They were just the scrappiest underdogs ever.”
The largest and longest occupation was at the HEW headquarters in San Francisco, led by the 29-year-old disability rights organizer Judy Heumann.
“We will no longer allow the government to oppress disabled individuals. We want the law enforced,” Heumann said in 1977.
The San Francisco demonstration was an occupation unlike any other. Between 100 and 150 protesters — some blind, some deaf, others in wheelchairs — moved into the building, refusing to leave until regulations were signed.
As the sit-in dragged on, the federal government cut the building’s phone lines and water supply. But activists didn’t budge, encouraged by the coalition of organizers mobilizing around them. The Black Panthers arrived with hot meals. The mayor of San Francisco showed up with mattresses and portable showers.
Demonstrators in San Francisco lived in the HEW building for nearly a month. All the while, Heumann warned of “more takeovers of buildings” until the federal government started to take disability rights seriously.
Finally, the pressure got to Califano. He signed the Section 504 regulations, agreeing to enforce them nationwide.
The San Francisco sit-in is still on the books as one of the longest occupations of a federal building in U.S. history.
One of its biggest victories was achieving nationwide visibility for this long-ignored group.
“There was no, even, conception of disability rights,” Taussig says. “It wasn't like, ‘Oh, this place isn't accessible, but it should be 'cause I deserve to be here.’ Like, that was a story that didn't really exist the way that it does now.”
13 years later, Section 504 would become the foundation for the construction of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA expanded Section 504’s original protections to all state and local governments, private businesses and employers.
Celebrating a legacy
The historic 26-day occupation of the HEW building is the subject of an upcoming Apple Original film, “Being Heumann.”
The movie has been filming in Toronto, Canada, this summer and will star Mark Ruffalo and Ruth Madeley. It’s based on Heumann’s memoir of the same name.
Taussig co-wrote the script with Siân Heder, who is also directing the film. Heder previously wrote and directed “CODA,” which featured a predominantly deaf cast and took home the Academy Award for Best Picture (along with two other prizes) in 2022.
“I think it is wild to take stock of how far we have come from 1977, and also look at how far off we still are from building the world that they were dreaming of in 1977,” Taussig says.
Heumann grew up in 1950s Brooklyn, New York, and contracted polio as a toddler, leading her to use a wheelchair for most of her life. At the time, Taussig says, people with disabilities led fairly isolated lives. Many public spaces weren’t accessible to wheelchair users, and discrimination was rampant.
“They had one school in the district where they would put all the disabled kids K-12 in a basement classroom,” says Taussig, who uses a wheelchair herself.
“There was no expectation that they would grow up to be meaningful, contributing community members.”
Despite that, Heumann became the first wheelchair user in New York to become a teacher, after suing the New York City Board of Education for discrimination.
Heumann was such an active organizer that today she is frequently called the “mother” of the disability rights movement.
A handful of years ago, Taussig moderated a panel that included Heumann — and she was struck by what a force Heumann was.
“She commanded the conversation, even from a Zoom screen. Her vision for what the future could be — a world where everyone is included — was so clear and vivid,” Taussig wrote when Heumann died in 2023.
“I can still hear her voice in my head. I imagine a lot of us can. I believe her story, her voice, will only grow stronger with time, because the story she brought us is true. We belong, we belong, we belong here.”
The power of collective activism
When Taussig heard about the lawsuit challenging Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, she immediately got to work. That Friday, she pitched an essay to an editor at Time Magazine, and submitted her first draft on Sunday. The article, “A Lawsuit Threatens the Disability Protections I’ve Known My Whole Life” was published the following Wednesday.
And Taussig wasn’t the only one reacting with urgency. The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund held community briefings about what people could do to stop it. Grassroots organizers and influencers in the disability rights space came out in droves.
“Parents were livid, furious at the idea that, ‘You're gonna take that away from my kid? No!’” says Taussig.
As a result of this public outcry, the state attorneys general dropped the part of the lawsuit that sought to declare Section 504 unconstitutional.
“The sweeping, loud outcry against the lawsuit, along with retreat from the AGs, reminds me that our collective voices do have power,” Taussig said in an email to KCUR. “I think it's very important that we remember that. Especially because I think the need for our collective outcry is so far from over.”
Threats very much still remain: The amended lawsuit, Texas v. Kennedy, continues to challenge disability protections, including the right to accessible medical equipment and prohibiting medical discrimination.
Taussig still has hope, though, even as she watches the government roll back programs and funding for people with disabilities.
Because nearly 50 years after the Section 504 sit-ins, more than just the built world has changed.
“I really believe that that belief that they put into that world, that story that they put into the world, has changed at least a couple generations of kids now,” Taussig says.
“Who will show up to a movie theater or a restaurant or a school and just have something deep inside that says like, ‘I belong here.’ And if somebody tries to push me out, there is something that will kick up in me that says, ‘That's not right. And I know that's not right.’"
"That story exists in us now and that is not something that you can easily take away."
This episode of A People's History of Kansas City was reported, produced, and mixed by Mackenzie Matin. Editing by Suzanne Hogan and Gabe Rosenberg.
