The New Hampshire statehouseHolly Ramer/AP
On Monday, the Boston Globe reported that the Senate version of New Hampshire’s two-year budget bill contains language that “would prohibit public entities from supporting any program designed to improve the lives of people with disabilities.” The reason? An attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion by state House and Senate Republicans.
“The Senate’s anti-DEI provisions would prohibit state and local government entities from supporting any program related to efforts to improve ‘demographic outcomes’ for people with physical or mental disabilities,” writes Boston Globe reporter Steven Porter.
Disabled people already face challenges in hiring, both due to biases of companies and some people just needing more assistance. DEI-focused hiring programs and trainings—both for disabled people and people of color—help this problem.
The House version of the bill is also an anti-DEI attack, though it does not specifically go after disability as heavily as the Senate version of the budget. The House bill goes after race-conscious practices in hiring, which still would hurt disabled people of color. Karen Rosenberg, policy director for the Disability Rights Center, told Porter that the bills are “mostly the same, and they’re both terrible.”
As Porter writes, the curtailing of disability programs in the state can also affect disabled children.
Louis Esposito, executive director of ABLE NH, an advocacy group for people impacted by disability, said there have been so many additional pressing concerns—including a disagreement between the House and Senate over a proposed cut to Medicaid provider rates—that the implications of the anti-DEI provisions in the state budget legislation haven’t garnered as much attention as they warrant.
Esposito said the proposals could have far-reaching ramifications in education. If a school offers a training session on neurodiversity, for example, would that be deemed a DEI violation? School leaders who are unsure might avoid such topics, at the expense of equity and inclusion for students with disabilities, he said, especially since the proposals would direct the state’s education commissioner to withhold all public funding from schools deemed noncompliant.
The House and Senate will have to come to an agreement and pass a two-year budget bill before July 1.
