Louisiana Weekly

Page 7 THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY - YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM December 25 - December 31, 2023 Have this important news medium delivered to your door every week – 52 times a year – for only $32!* Census Bureau’s proposed changes threaten to undercount people with disabilities, advocates say The KKK planted bombs at a US university scandals, the most famous of which involved the leader of the Indiana KKK – in effect, the most powerful Klansman in America – who raped and mur- dered his secretary. The KKK had faded from view by 1930, but not without achieving many of its aims. For one thing, its extraordinary violence, including lynchings, helped ensure that white supremacy would remain the order of the day in the South – as it did for the next few decades. In addition, the Klan and its sympathizers won the fight on immigration. In 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act, which remained on the books until the 1960s. This law drasti- cally reduced the number of immigrants who could enter the U.S. from Southern and Eastern Europe – that is, reducing the number of Catholic and Jewish immigrants – and essentially cut off all immigration from Asia. One of the tragic effects came in the 1930s and 1940s, as the act made it very difficult for Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust to get into the U.S.. While the second KKK faded from view in the late 1920s, a third emerged in the 1950s and 1960s to lead the charge against the Civil Rights Movement. Today, Klan membership is miniscule, as the KKK has been supplanted by more tech-savvy hate groups. The Second Ku Klux Klan argued that to be truly and fully American one must be the right race, the right ethnicity, the right religion. One century after the Dayton bombing, such senti- ments persist in the United States. The author is a professor of History at the University of Dayto n.◊ Common ground is a testament tackle daunting challenges. “The slap heard around the world” by Sidney Poitier’s char- acter in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night was an important symbol of the right and need to stand up for Black dignity. And, of course, how can we forget the societal impact of the TV shows like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, cre- ated by Norman Lear – my dear friend who recently passed away at the age of 101. Common Ground’s celebrity nar- rators open the film by passing on reflections in the form of a letter to current and future generations. One of them, Woody Harrelson, mentions that what viewers are about to receive are “hard truths.” I couldn’t help but think of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which was instrumental in sound- ing the alarm and raising global awareness about climate change. The impact and influence of An Inconvenient Truth got an impor- tant cultural boost when the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature of 2006. It would benefit all of us for Common Ground to gain similar recognition (for the Academy’s and America’s consideration). To borrow a phrase from Woody Harrelson, “the one thing that’s keeping us all alive is that soil you’re standing on.” Let’s get hopeful again about environmental solutions (includ- ing soil). Let’s work to find our common ground.◊ Continued from Page 5 Continued from Page 5 By Casey Quinlan Contributing Writer (lailluminator.com) — The Census Bureau has proposed a major change to disability ques- tions on its annual American Community Survey that advocates say will reduce the number of peo- ple who are counted as disabled by 40 percent, including millions of women and girls. The change in available data could affect federal funding allocations and the deci- sions government agencies make about accessible housing, public transit, and civil rights enforce- ment, they argue. Catherine Nielsen, executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, said having correct data is vital not only because it helps identify gaps in the system but because it affects federal funding levels. “Many providers are not reim- bursed at 100 percent for the serv- ices they provide,” Nielsen said. “When we take into consideration this cut to the data, we’re essen- tially saying we have even less people that will qualify for sup- port. If we have less people that qualify, that in turn tells the Feds they have less of a need to support these programs. The snowball effect of such a significant change will be greater than most can even anticipate at this time.” Although some opponents of the change have said that the ACS disability questions needed revising because the survey cur- rently undercounts the number of disabled people, they say they are worried that the new approach is worse. Instead of the current yes or no answers to the six disability ques- tions on the survey, respondents will be asked to provide a range of responses on how difficult it is for them to perform certain functions. The Census Bureau is recommend- ing that only people who answer “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all” be considered “disabled” by Federal terms, advocates say. “Part of the issue with what they proposed is they are asking this scale and then excluding every person who says they have some difficulty in terms of these func- tions. Even if you say you have some difficulty with all of these functions, you would not be included as disabled,” said Kate Gallagher Robbins, senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “What does ‘some’ look like? Is that some of the time or some difficulty all of the time? For my own dad, who had a stroke and walks with a cane and a brace, is that difficulty for when he has those mobility aids or absent those mobility aids?” The Census Bureau has stated that the revised questions will “capture information on function- ing in a manner that reflects advances in the measurement of disability and is conceptually consistent with” the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health frame- work. The changes “reflect the continuum of functional abilities” and include a new question that includes psychosocial and cogni- tive disability and problems with speech, according to the notice for public comment. Time for comment When a federal agency proposes rules or changes to a standing process, it typically has a public comment period. The Census Bureau goes through a very long process where it tests the ques- tions. Then it asks for public com- ment from stakeholders. The dead- line for comments on the disability questions as well as other changes to the American Community Survey, which include asking about electric vehicles and chang- ing the household roster questions, was Dec. 19. Many organizations focused on civil rights issues, including disability advocacy groups, are weighing in. The Consortium for Consti- tuents with Disabilities, which includes 100 groups, commented that the new approach will likely miss identifying many people with chronic conditions and mental or psychiatric conditions. The National Partnership for Women & Families, joined by more than 70 groups, including many state entities such as the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Disability Rights Iowa, and Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, also has commented. They say that there was not enough consultation with the disabled community and that the changes are overly restric- tive, which could affect disaster preparedness responses, emer- gency allocations for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP), enrollment efforts for Medicaid and funding for State Councils on Developmental Disabilities. Who will be left out The National Partnership for Women & Families released an analysis on Dec. 5 that estimated the new questions would leave out 9.6 million women and girls with disabilities. The organization notes that women are more likely to have disabilities related to autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, and gas- trointestinal disorders. Robbins said she’s concerned about the effects this will have on people who apply for help paying utility bills or who rely on Medicaid. “When people go to apply for those [LIEAP] funds, what is going to happen? Are there not going to be enough funds left? Will they do another applica- tion?” she said. States are also going through the process of unwinding a pandemic- related Medicaid policy, which allowed people to stay enrolled in Medicaid without going through a renewal process. People who are no longer eligible for Medicaid or couldn’t finish the renewal process are being disenrolled. Robbins said data excluding many people with disabilities could affect efforts to re-enroll people. “People are losing their Medicaid and we’re in a situation where we don’t know how to fig- ure out who needs Medicaid and [Children’s Health Insurance Program] and direct our efforts to make sure people don’t lose health insurance,” she said. Eric Buehlman, deputy execu- tive director for public policy at the National Disability Rights Network, has a disability that includes not having vision from the left side of his face and atten- tion issues, according to the orga- nization’s website. He said the new questions could affect him and other people with disabilities who use public transportation if the data doesn’t show a need for more paratransit programs. “I’m not supposed to drive, so I use public transportation to go everywhere. But under these [current] questions, I would have checked yes, for a person with a disability as they currently are. But under the way these [new questions] are, I’m not sure I would consider myself to be inca- pable of doing any of the six questions listed,” he said. Buehlman said this could hit areas of the country that are more impoverished, which likely have a higher level of people with disabil- ities, harder than others. The con- nection between poverty and dis- abilities have been well document- ed, including by the Census Bureau. Its Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that in 2019, 21.6 percent of disabled people were considered poor, compared with just over 10 percent of people without disabilities. And in 2021, the American Community Survey found that the South had the highest disabil- ity rate. Of the five states with the highest poverty rates that year, four were in the South – Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia. The fifth was New Mexico. “All of a sudden this connection between poverty and disability which does exist out there, does- n’t appear like it is (under the new survey). And these are areas of the country that may not have as many resources … It could have a higher negative impact in areas that are already underfunded,” Buehlman said. Timing of changes particularly bad The change in the survey ques- tions could also have an impact on civil rights enforcement, said Marissa Ditkowsky, disability economic justice counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families. Disparate impact claims, which focus on the effect a policy has on a protected class, including people with disabili- ties, could be affected by a change in data, she said. “They are literally using math in these disparate impact claims to make these claims,” she said. “When you don’t have the ability to do that, I can’t imagine the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services], all of these agencies that enforce civil rights laws, I can’t imagine it will make their lives any easier.” Opponents of these changes add that the timing of this new approach is particularly harmful when so many Americans are experiencing disabilities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long COVID symptoms can include shortness of breath, fatigue, and difficulty thinking and concentrat- ing. In 2021, the Biden administra- tion released guidance on how Long COVID can be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ditkowsky, who herself has Long COVID, said it seems coun- terintuitive to narrow the defini- tions for people with disabilities at this time. “We’ve had one of the biggest mass disabling events in a long time with COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. ” … But the questions don’t necessarily get at a lot of the issues that Long COVID patients or patients with chronic conditions and people with chronic pain experience.”◊