When Agencies That Protect Kids Are Defunded, Families Like Ethan's Pay the Price

Josette Smith's 9-year-old son, Ethan, has autism and ADHD. His school district agreed he needed a trained aide to stay in class. They didn't provide one. Instead, he got pulled from instruction, suspended, and had police called on him in third grade.

When the school wouldn't fix it, Smith did what families are supposed to do: she filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. That office is supposed to investigate whether schools are discriminating against kids based on disability or race.

But here's the problem. The White House has cut that office's budget and staffing. And it's defunded research into the disparities that drive cases like Ethan's, disparities that are real, measurable, and get worse for kids who are Black, girls, low-income, or learning English as a second language.

What's Actually Happening With Autism Diagnoses

About 1 in 31 kids by age 8 have been diagnosed with autism as of 2022. But that number masks something important: who gets identified depends heavily on who you are. Research from the State University of New York at Albany's Institute for Social and Health Equity found that across the past two decades, students of color, girls, low-income students, and multilingual learners were diagnosed at lower rates than peers, even as diagnoses rose overall.

The gaps are steepest where identities overlap. Black and Hispanic girls face the longest delays in getting identified. That means they don't get the supports they need, the way Ethan didn't.

This matters not just because it's unfair. It matters because early support changes outcomes. Kids who get identified and supported early stay in class. They learn. They graduate. Kids who don't, who get suspended instead, don't.

The Contradiction at the Heart of This Story

The administration is putting autism in the spotlight. The President signed an executive order about childhood vaccines. The HHS Secretary has called autism a "tragedy." But while they're talking about autism, they're cutting the offices that actually help autistic kids and their families when schools fail them.

You can't care about autistic children and simultaneously defund the agency investigating whether schools are breaking the law to exclude them. That's not policy. That's theater.

Read the full CBS News report.