Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education, proposed budget cuts for the Special Olympics. The Special Olympics is a nonprofit organization for children and adults with mental and or physical disabilities. It provides year round training and competitions to millions of athletes. But Madame Secretary has decided that the funding for this organization is expendable. Her “justification” for wanting cuts is that since the Special Olympics is not a federal organization it gets most of its funding from other organizations and donors anyway.
This is honestly one of the cruelest things I have ever heard of. How can DeVos look at everything her department is funding and decide that it’s the Special Olympics that needs to be cut? DeVos must think it is not important enough or that outside donations are enough to support the Special Olympics. This is literally borderline discrimination if not actual discrimination.
Not only did Betsy DeVos plan on pulling funding for the Special Olympics, but she also proposed budget cuts from an after-school program for low-income children, a program that offers mental health services in schools, institutions for the blind and places that make books for the blind as well.
As I said, this is discrimination against people who have disabilities. Despite Trumps reversal on DeVos’s plan to cut special olympics funding, DeVos’s new budget plan is approved; I cannot even imagine how being close minded and discriminatory to people with disabilities is allowed.
Organizations such as the Special Olympics offer adults and kids alike with not only something to do, but also inclusion and a community that accepts them as they are. They’re given a space free of judgement and acceptance, because after all – we are all people.
By cutting the budget, it’s detrimental to the people who actually use and need organizations like the Special Olympics to stay involved and socialize.
I don’t mean to overstep myself, however, what DeVos is suggesting to do is un-American in my book. Maybe that’s just me but I’m pretty sure we are supposed to be apart of a country that is open and accepting to different people, cultures, and ways of life, people even move here expecting a better life. It’s 2019, lack of inclusivity should not be as big an issue as it is anymore.
Essentially, the twenty percent budget cut that President Trump ordered through all departments is hitting the Education Department hard. Cutting funding to organizations such as the Special Olympics and after-school programs is detrimental to not only those who participate in them, but even to those who don’t, because without these programs it becomes that much easier to be judgmental and discriminatory.
Cartoon by Cassie Talbot.