30 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is still twice the rate for non-disabled people. One of the key reasons may be that many ableist assumptions about disability and basic competence are still so widely considered common sense that we don’t even think of them as discrimination. Then, just when it seems like employers are starting to think differently about disability, competence, and employment, popular politics intervenes to reinforce everyone’s worst instincts.
A few weeks ago, news and social media followers were alternately distracted or amused by a new round of health and mental state spitballing against President Trump, based on the idea that he’s secretly physically or mentally disabled, or both. Trump is old and infirm. He’s physically failing. Worst of all, he’s either mentally ill or suffering from some sort of age-related dementia! These mental fitness arguments are also often used to explain Trump’s more outrageous actions and offensive personality traits, even his beliefs. Several of the key “takeaways” from Mary Trump’s forthcoming book … though significantly not all of them by far … apparently include assertions of clinical mental illness and “personality disorders.”
Since well before Trump’s 2016 election, speculating freely about his mental and physical “fitness” for the job has been a popular if unofficial tactic for many of those who oppose and resist him and his administration. However, not all of Trump’s critics are so quick to jump on the “Trump-is-sick” bandwagon.
In The Atlantic, David A. Graham makes a similar, though slightly more equivocal argument, focusing on what he considers “extensive evidence” that he is “temperamentally unfit to lead the country.” His argument here is interesting, because it skates very close to diagnosing Trump with some kind of mental illness. Yet, Graham concludes by rejecting ableist arguments entirely and suggesting we all focus instead on his actions and behavior. This may reflect the fact that in the popular understanding, the line between mere personality traits or “temperament” and mental pathology is very fuzzy.
Caroline Reilly of BitchMedia notes that this tactic has never been confined to just President Trump, writing:
“We’ve seen this playbook used time and again: We saw it when Hillary Clinton fainted in 2016 as she battled pneumonia; we saw it when Bernie Sanders had a heart attack in 2019; and we see it in current conversations about Joe Biden’s stutter. Ableism, it seems, is bipartisan.“
In a Washington Post editorial, leading disability activist and disability policy expert Rebecca Cokley takes this a step further, offering an excellent rebuttal to these attacks on their substance, but also pointing out what so many other disabled people have felt since ableism first became a go-to rhetorical tactic against Trump. These accusations of physical and mental “infirmity” may or may not damage Trump politically, but they absolutely hurt and harm people with disabilities.
“Every single professional with a disability I know has been questioned privately and publicly about whether their “condition” hinders their ability to do their job. This is a universal truth and fear for any individual across physical, mental, intellectual, sensory and chronic illness communities.“
As Reilly further observes, ableist attacks on individual politicians have a much broader corrosive effect on disabled people more generally:
“… Every time a politician stumbles, stutters, or misspeaks, we seemingly return to that toxic notion that to be ill is to be less than, to be less capable and less worthy of a job or respect.”
Whether in politics or management, disability discrimination is lazy. Instead of facing up to actually terrible employees … or a loose-cannon President … we look for an escape hatch that allows us to “get rid of them” without taking responsibility for what they stand for and why people support them in the first place.
This can bring temporary relief, but it leaves deeper problems to fester. And these arguments also usually produce collateral damage. In both politics and the workplace, loose talk of mental instability, chronic illness, and physical impairment is like mustard gas on a WWI battlefield. It’s tempting to use, but it can’t be controlled and can blow back on anyone.
Physical and mental fitness arguments in politics also have a troubling history. In 1972, Vice-Presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton was dropped because he had been treated for depression. No one candidate is essential, but who is to say the United States didn’t lose an outstanding leader when Thomas Eagleton fell to ableist fears of mental disorder?
It’s also worth remembering that totalitarian regimes have used psychological diagnoses to neutralize political opponents as recently as the 1970s and ‘80s. Deviance from approved ideology wasn’t just a political problem in the Soviet Union. Disagreement was treated as a literal pathology. It’s an extreme example, but we come pretty close to it when we start labeling abhorrent beliefs as some kind of personal clinical deviance, rather than signs of deep social and ideological division. The implications for free speech and democracy are chilling.
And again, using the stigma of disability as a political weapon also helps keep people with all kinds of physical and mental conditions stigmatized and economically dependent. The social and financial costs of this are massive, and not contained just to disabled people themselves.
So, what do we do instead? How do we respond to employees, or politicians, who we believe may be sick, fragile, or clinically unstable? With workplaces riven with competition and politics so polarized, how can we effectively protect ourselves from those who we feel are genuinely unfit? Here are five principles to keep in mind:
1. Stay away from armchair diagnosis
Most people can’t help connecting “weird” or “irrational” behavior with “mental illness” … or stumbles and awkward movements with disability or “frailty.” That’s usually regarded as simply observant, but it’s also ableism … unsupported assumptions about a person’s mental or physical state based on superficial evidence. And most of us have at best a superficial understanding of mental and physical disabilities.
Don’t do it. Stick with what you know, and set aside what you can only speculate. That goes for what other people speculate too, even when they present as psychological professionals or medical doctors. If they haven’t met and conducted a proper examination, then their opinion is just that, and no more reliable than anyone else’s.
2. Focus on individual people’s actions and behaviors
This is prejudice 101, but it never hurts to review. Resist the temptation to rely on what you expect from different “kinds” of people, and assess each person as an individual. What matters is what people do and how they behave with others, not what their health or mental status might or might not be.
The key thing to remember is that while most disabilities have effects on the disabled people who have them, neither physical nor mental disabilities can truly predict or explain what any person will do or can do. Any physically disabled people can be capable of performing any physical task, either in the usual way or with adaptations and accommodations. And any mentally disabled person can be perfectly reliable, rational, and analytical … able to process any tasks, using the usual methods, or some different routines and supports.
In any case, if you are assessing a coworker, employee, or a politician, your only concern is results. Are they doing a good job? Are they working well with others, if working with others is necessary and important? If they are having difficulties, can they be surmounted with reasonable accommodations, or maybe a different perspective on the matter?
This is one of the rare instances where a genuine businesslike approach actually helps. Results are what matters, not half-baked theories, personal hang-ups, or prejudices.
3. Focus on ideas and ideologies
At first glance, this runs counter to distinctly American values of fairness and nonpartisanship. You’re not supposed to judge a person for their politics, or either punish or reward them for their personal views and beliefs.
Yet, even in the workplace, while retail, partisan politics shouldn’t be a factor, some ideas and beliefs are understood to be off-limits, or inherently counter-productive to the job at hand. Open racism, sexism, homophobia, and other beliefs are not welcomed or sustainable in well-functioning organizations.
And in politics, judging and acting on people’s belief systems is entirely appropriate … it’s what politics is.
Also, it’s important not to confuse objectionable beliefs and behaviors with mental illness. Racism is bad, but it’s not a mental illness. Sexism is gross, but it’s not a pathology. Cruelty and narcissism are unpleasant, and ultimately dysfunctional, but they aren’t illnesses. It’s tempting to some people to equate terrible beliefs and attitudes with impairment, but they aren’t the same things. Disabled people aren’t more likely to be evil, and evil can’t be explained away by disability.
4. No matter how dire a personnel matter is, don’t look for an easy way out
When someone is driving either chaos or chronic mediocrity in your organization, you want them out. And there are always procedural and “political” barriers to making that happen. There are steps to follow for fair termination. There are consequences to deal with if the person you are getting rid of has allies.
It’s the same in politics. For good reason, our institutions have barriers in place to prevent getting rid of people we have once elected just because we’ve changed our minds and things aren’t working out. And no one political or philosophical viewpoint is allowed to lord it over all others merely because they have a thin majority at any given time. Barriers and consequences are built into the system for a reason.
Either way, in politics and in workplaces, taking short-cuts around those barriers is seductive, but also potentially illegal and certainly a bad idea. One of the shortcuts people think of is physical or mental “unfitness.” If we can “prove” that the problem isn’t the person or their ideas and policies, but rather an unfortunate illness, then we can get rid of them with something that may feel like a clear conscience, maybe without consequences. We all supposedly agree that an “incapacitated” person can’t do a job, or serve in an elected office. So it looks like a path to agreement where agreement can’t otherwise be found.
Core problems in workplaces and politics don’t go away just because a particular person is gone. Serious problems are almost never all the fault of one person … in politics, and in workplaces too.
5. Don’t throw around stigmatizing language about mental or physical disability
Meanwhile, an important piece of background culture change is to quietly but firmly break the habit of pathologizing language.
Stop calling people or ideas lazy, sick, weak, fragile, crazy, nuts, certifiable, or insane. Language like this may seem unimportant, and it can be very difficult to avoid. But it is important, and disabled people notice. We really do. Stigmatizing language like this hurts. It weighs us down. And acceptance of it sends a message to us and everyone around us that it’s okay to judge people based on their real or perceived physical or mental disabilities. This is toleration of illegal, harmful prejudice, and it needs to stop, especially when it’s used casually.
These principles are themselves common sense. Most of us know they are the right ways to approach questions we might have about other people’s mental or physical conditions. We only overrule ourselves because our prejudices also feel like common sense to us. That’s why we can’t assume our own good intentions. We need to be deliberate about rejecting ableism, in our own everyday lives and workplaces, and in the intense heat and high stakes of politics.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
