There was no ribbon-cutting ceremony. It was just a Tuesday afternoon press release, the kind of bureaucratic memo that typically goes unnoticed by the majority of Americans. However, this one landed in a different way. Beneath its meticulous wording was a decision that will eventually affect millions of households: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services will take over special education oversight from the Department of Education.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider that. Kennedy is now in a position to oversee programs that serve 7.5 million children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, despite having spent almost 20 years promoting fringe theories about autism. The change was the result of “careful deliberation,” according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which, to be honest, says very little about what really transpired behind closed doors. In the meantime, civil rights enforcement is transferred to the Justice Department, which is a distinct but connected division of the same organization.
Disability advocates reacted quickly, and their rage felt more like genuine concern than a show. The Arc’s Robyn Linscott stated unequivocally that HHS “wasn’t built to replace the Department of Education’s school-specific expertise.” That observation seems to have needed to be made, despite the fact that it is almost obvious. Transferring IDEA oversight to a health agency runs the risk of redefining disability as something to be diagnosed and treated rather than as a normal aspect of human diversity, as Linscott contended. On paper, it’s a subtle difference. It could mean everything in a classroom.
Here, history provides an unsettling sneak peek. Disability services were housed under HHS’s predecessor agency prior to the Department of Education becoming a separate entity in 1979. Nearly half of students with disabilities were not receiving the services they were legally entitled to, and about a quarter were completely prohibited from attending school, according to a congressional investigation conducted at the time. That’s not old trivia; rather, it’s the closest America has to a controlled experiment on the subject, and the findings weren’t promising.
When we spoke, Cameron Lynch of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network put the stakes in a more intimate context. Lynch stated, “As autistic people, we don’t feel safe having RFK Jr. in charge of our education,” adding that rather than what Kennedy has occasionally implied is a cure, students should receive accommodations and support. It’s difficult to ignore how frequently disability advocates have to reiterate what ought to be obvious: autism isn’t a disease that needs to be eradicated.
For its part, the administration maintains that efficiency is the key. Kennedy has described the action as removing “bureaucratic barriers” and improving family resource alignment. There is a version of this argument that isn’t completely absurd: reorganization isn’t always evil, and government agencies do occasionally duplicate effort. However, the decision was a betrayal of families who had been promised protection, according to critics like Senator Patty Murray, who sees something more akin to abandonment than streamlining.
What comes next is still genuinely unclear. The Education Department’s entire $79 billion budget was approved by lawmakers earlier this year, and Congress has not voted to abolish it. The agency’s civil rights office has been cut in half, and complaints are mounting with nowhere to turn. Nevertheless, the agency has been hollowed out. The main question—can the executive branch reassign a federal agency’s core functions without Congress’s approval—remains unanswered and, for the time being, irrelevant because the Supreme Court permitted this dismantling to continue while lower courts sort out the legality.
None of this is considered an abstract policy inside school buildings. It manifests as a parent realizing that the office that once upheld their child’s rights may no longer exist in any recognizable form, or as a teacher wondering who answers the phone when an IEP dispute escalates. At best, it’s unclear if HHS can take on that responsibility in a responsible manner. The decision was made without much input from those who would be most impacted by the response.
