Disability Rights Education and

National Disability Policy and Research - DREDF conducts research, monitors public policy development and provides technical assistance on issues affecting the civil and human rights of people with disabilities and advocates for the rights of people with disabilities. In 2024, DREDF wrote and published a number of important papers looking at topics that affect the disability community. These papers included an examination of how the growing movement toward social housing in the US could be fully inclusive of people with disabilities, a report on the importance of capturing demographic disability data can reveal health and other disparities experienced by disabled people, and two first-of-their-kind reports on the impact of private equity and corporate consolidation impacts people with disabilities in terms of education, healthcare, housing, and institutionalization, including imprisonment. We also continued to be involved with advocating for people with disabilities to have full reproductive choice as well as the freedom to marry and build families with those they love while maintaining access to vital healthcare, community supports, and other disability benefits. Our work on tracking and analyzing the increasingly ubiquitous presence of artificial intelligence (AI) also continues, with a focus on the swift emergence of state bills and laws. Many of these laws emphasize bias testing but still broadly fail to recognize the basic problem that arises when AI is trained on data that emphasizes "typical" non-disabled bodies, thinking, and reactions, without any required understanding of how legally required reasonable accommodations can change outcomes commonly associated with disability.