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children's rights
Dispatch From Gaza and the War That Never Ends
With the resumption of airstrikes and further degradation to what little infrastructure remains, the conditions of our existence are almost beyond description, though I will still try.
Mar 26, 2025
There is a fleeting moment, just before waking, when silence blankets the world. A moment where you are still held in sleep, shielded from the harshness of reality. But then, the silence is ripped away. The ground shakes beneath you. The sky erupts in light and fire. Walls tremble. Screams cut through the night. And suddenly, you are awake—not to the promise of a new day, but to devastation and fear.
This is Gaza’s reality—a war that never ends, a war that offers no respite, no mercy. On March 18, Israel resumed bombing Gaza, confirming that the so-called cease-fire, which began on January 19, was never more than a hollow promise. The bombings never really stopped. Gaza’s borders remained sealed. Humanitarian aid was blocked. Hunger deepened. Hospitals were pushed to the brink. Families were left to sleep in the ruins of their homes, or in overcrowded shelters without enough food or water. Even during Ramadan, the holiest month, Israel tightened its grip, ensuring that 2.1 million people were left without the essentials needed to survive.
This time, the war is taking an even darker turn. We had already been living without the basic necessities to survive… no housing, little food, fuel, or water. With the resumption of airstrikes and further degradation to what little infrastructure remains, the conditions of our existence are almost beyond description, though I will still try. Civilians are once again being killed indiscriminately. Journalists, children, and aid workers—those trying to document the truth and help the wounded, and those most vulnerable—are being targeted. At least 25 journalists have been killed since the latest round of attacks began. Some were killed while reporting from the ground, others targeted inside their homes. Khaled Abu Saif, a young journalist known for his fearless coverage of Gaza’s suffering, was killed when an Israeli airstrike hit the building where he lived. His camera was found next to his body, shattered by the same blast that killed him.
We were told the war had ended. We were told there was a cease-fire. But the bombs never stopped. The loss never ended. Now, we no longer ask when the war will end—we only ask how much more we can survive.
Children, as usual in Israel’s wars on us, have not been spared. On the first night of the resumed bombings, more than 130 children were killed. Some died in their sleep, buried beneath the rubble of their homes. Others were hit while playing outside. The youngest victims are too numerous to count. Families are digging through the ruins with their bare hands, trying to recover the bodies of their sons and daughters. They are not even given the dignity of a proper burial—the graveyards are full, and there is nowhere left to lay the dead to rest.
Aid workers are targets. Ambulances marked with the Red Crescent symbol are being bombed. Shelters clearly designated as humanitarian spaces are again targeted by Israeli missiles. Medical staff have been slaughtered while trying to reach the wounded. In one tragic case, three paramedics were killed when their ambulance was struck as they responded to an emergency call.
And now I must try to describe the horror that those of us still living must endure. There is no clean place left in Gaza. The streets are choked with the stench of rotting garbage and decaying bodies. Mountains of waste rise between collapsed buildings and broken roads. Flies swarm over the debris. Dogs sniff through the rubble and gnaw on human limbs and flesh. The air is thick with the sour smell of decay and smoke. Gaza, already suffocating under siege and war, is now drowning under its own waste.
Once again, tens of thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes in northern Gaza, seeking refuge in the already overcrowded central and southern areas. But there are no proper shelters left. Every school, mosque, and hospital that once offered refuge has been bombed or turned into a makeshift camp for the displaced. With nowhere else to go, many families have ended up on the edges of waste dumps—setting up tents or makeshift shelters among piles of garbage.
Children play barefoot in fields of trash. Families sleep next to rotting food, broken plastic, and the carcasses of dead animals. With the borders closed and humanitarian aid blocked, Gaza’s waste management system has collapsed. Garbage trucks no longer operate because there is no fuel. The sanitation system has completely broken down. Medical waste from overwhelmed hospitals and human waste from destroyed sewage systems now flow through the streets. Disease is spreading quickly—cases of cholera, dysentery, and skin infections are increasing daily.
“I wake up every day to the smell of rot,” says Abu Mohammed, a father of five who fled from Beit Hanoun to central Gaza. “We left our home because of the bombs, but now we are living among trash. My children are getting sick. There’s no clean water to wash them. We barely have food to eat. And the smell… it never goes away.”
In the few hospitals still functioning, doctors are warning of a major health crisis. Children are arriving with respiratory infections from breathing the polluted air. Cases of poisoning from contaminated food and water are on the rise. Infections from untreated wounds—often caused by the debris of collapsed buildings—are becoming more dangerous because antibiotics and medical supplies have run out.
“We are living like animals,” says Um Ayman, a mother of four sheltering near a waste dump in central Gaza. “I have to cover my children’s noses with pieces of cloth so they don’t breathe the poisoned air. We sleep surrounded by flies. My youngest child has a rash all over his body. There are no doctors left to treat him.”
If we were the “animals” that Israel says we are, would our suffering be any less? Even animals have their limits. We reached ours a long time ago, and still we keep going.
The humanitarian disaster is deepening, and the accumulation of waste is making an already desperate situation even worse. The people of Gaza cannot escape the bombs, but now they cannot even escape the rot beneath their feet. Clean water is running out. Food is scarce. Medical aid is blocked. And as the waste piles grow higher, so does the threat of disease and death.
There is no safety in Gaza. No one is spared. Journalists trying to tell the truth, children caught in the crossfire, and aid workers struggling to save lives—all are targets.
We were told the war had ended. We were told there was a cease-fire. But the bombs never stopped. The loss never ended. Now, we no longer ask when the war will end—we only ask how much more we can survive.
The world is watching Gaza slip further into devastation. The targeting of those who speak, those who heal, and those who are too young to understand why this is happening—this is not collateral damage. It is a deliberate effort to silence the truth and crush the human spirit. The world cannot remain silent any longer.
I say this: What is happening to us is beyond words and beyond the most wild and outrageous of imaginations. Those who support this genocide, those who look away, and those who remain silent for the sake of their comfortable lives will be judged and must be held accountable. Someday. I pray for that day, that day when the world finally sees us, that day when the world rises up to finally stop Israel and stop the mass murder of me and my people.
Stop Crime Talk: Overcriminalization of Youth Spells Disaster for America’s Future
From conventional therapy to culturally relevant initiatives and healing-based, trauma-informed programming, youth can grow in a healthy manner through a sustainable relationship with community-based caregivers.
Mar 23, 2025
The currently popular “tough on crime” narratives touted by local, state, and federal policymakers—as evidenced by the attacks on mayors of sanctuary cities at recent congressional hearings—pose a risk that the United States will revert to a dangerous place that will harm marginalized communities for decades to come.
The nation’s stability is directly tied to the stability of this country’s younger generations. As a 25-year veteran of Juvenile Diversion programs in Denver, I took an early retirement to lead a nonprofit that works with young people referred through deflection, a pre-citation or pre-arrest intervention that connects young people to resources without criminalizing their behavior.
The goal is to make my old job obsolete.
Something must change. Community based organizations and legal advocates are already seeking solutions and are floating reform initiatives across the country.
During the past three decades, I have been deeply involved in community organizing, while simultaneously working full time inside the Juvenile Justice Industrial Complex where I have heard the internal systemic whisperings while also seeing how those systemic policies affect the communities they serve in real time.
On any given day, there are about 27,600 youth in detention centers in the U.S., representing a 75% decline since the year 2000. Juvenile crime rates plummeted between 1994-2020 by 78%. There is an obvious correlation between the drop in youth in detention and the decrease in crime. Reducing involvement in the juvenile justice system reduces juvenile crime.
The troubling national trend of rolling back justice reform efforts is raising alarms among advocates, as seen in Washington state where they are repurposing adult detention centers to create more juvenile lock-ups. And in North Carolina, legal expert Jake Sussman criticized policies leading to youth isolation, stating, “We are only aggravating any existing problems by placing these very vulnerable kids in isolation.”
Recently, I witnessed a 10-year-old stand behind his mother in Denver’s municipal juvenile court, clutching her jacket sleeve, struggling to understand how he came to be paraded before a judge for age-appropriate behavior. He tossed a pencil behind his back that grazed a teacher’s leg. Sitting in the intake room, his feet did not even touch the floor.
A 2024 study clearly spells out the damage that this one experience in the juvenile justice system will have on this child’s life as he grows up, carrying the trauma of this day and the burden of heightened scrutiny that will come from being placed on juvenile diversion. The study highlights the fact that young offenders often experience polyvictimization, developmental trauma, and complex PTSD, emphasizing the need for trauma-informed approaches within juvenile justice systems.
The National Center for Youth Law published a report in January detailing the extensive harm that tickets inflict on students everywhere, which unveils specifically how Lakewood, a large Denver suburb, has vastly overcriminalized students through the municipal court system.
Many municipal courts in the country, like Cleveland, New Orleans, and Denver, function in much the same manner as Lakewood. Children are ticketed for low-level offenses not worthy of a district-level charge, often by a police officer at their own school.
Ticketed students are siphoned into diversion programs that require them to miss school (and their parents to miss work) so they can show up for a court appearance. That experience is followed by another missed day of school and work to show up for a highly invasive intake interview.
Finally, the student is required to participate in costly classes that range from $60-$150 for one class, which is designed to address and correct criminogenic thinking in adults, at the family’s expense.
Students are required to complete rigorous community service assignments that can include dozens of hours of work. In Colorado for instance, a child is not permitted to perform community service hours without a parent present. So once again, a child’s ticket jeopardizes their parent’s employment.
Something must change. Community based organizations and legal advocates are already seeking solutions and are floating reform initiatives across the country such as the Colorado Youth Justice Collaborative, MILPA Collective, and Denver Healing Generations.
Ideally, healing a young person happens at home and within their own school and community. Some children are not able to have these positive resources.
In the school environment, alongside school discipline matrix reforms is a push for what has been termed deflection. The proposed deflection policies are what advocacy organizations nationwide tout as a means of avoiding harming a child through the juvenile justice system. The goal is to send the young person to an organization for services within their community directly from the point of contact with law enforcement instead of formally charging them.
There are bills in Colorado Judiciary Subcommittees that would begin to codify these policies and lead to a refreshing approach to addressing problematic behavior in young people. The City of Longmont, Colorado has had an 86% success rate already with its Deflection program as it routed youth away from the justice system.
Similarly, Cambridge, Massachusetts has a program that serves as a model for expansion into more cities.
From conventional therapy to culturally relevant initiatives and healing-based, trauma-informed programming, youth can grow in a healthy manner through a sustainable relationship with community-based caregivers. This is an investment in the future of America where healthy young people become healthy adults. That is a net positive for everyone.
Students Like Grace Pay the Price If Trump Dismantles the Education Department
Stripping federal oversight will abandon the students who need it most.
Mar 13, 2025
For decades, the federal government has played a crucial role in ensuring that every child—regardless of disability, income, or background—has access to a quality education. That role isn’t just administrative; it’s a safeguard against discrimination, neglect, and the systemic failures that have historically left the most vulnerable students behind. Now, with the recent push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, that safeguard is under attack.
As an education attorney, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when schools fail to meet their legal obligations—and who suffers most when oversight disappears. No group stands to lose more than the 7.3 million children with disabilities who depend on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for basic educational access. Without federal enforcement, that right isn’t just at risk—it could vanish overnight.
And the harm won’t stop there. Weakening the Department of Education means weakening the very mechanisms designed to prevent discrimination and protect students from systemic inequities. It means fewer safeguards, fewer resources, and fewer options for the millions of students who already face the greatest barriers to educational opportunity. The brunt of these cuts will fall hardest on Black and brown students, students with disabilities, English learners, LGBTQIA+ students, and low-income families—communities that have long relied on federal oversight as a necessary check against discrimination and neglect.
Without federal enforcement of the IDEA’s key provisions, Grace’s school district may well elect to discontinue her therapy sessions with impunity, leaving her unable to make progress much like her typically achieving peers.
The numbers tell the story. In Fiscal Year 2024, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received a record-breaking 22,687 complaints—an 18% increase from the previous high of 19,201 complaints in FY 2023. The vast majority, year after year, involve allegations of disability discrimination. If anything, this surge in complaints underscores the urgent need for stronger civil rights enforcement in schools—not a retreat from it. Stripping away the department’s oversight would not only silence these complaints, but leave the most vulnerable students with nowhere to turn.
Consider Grace (a pseudonym), a bright, eight-year-old girl living in a small Massachusetts farming town. Born with cerebral palsy, Grace depends on physical therapy to navigate her school environment, and occupational therapy to master everyday tasks, like writing and eating independently. Through the provisions set forth in the IDEA, Grace’s family secured access to these vital services at her local public school—services they, like most families, would otherwise be unable to afford out of pocket.
Without federal enforcement of the IDEA’s key provisions, Grace’s school district may well elect to discontinue her therapy sessions with impunity, leaving her unable to make progress much like her typically achieving peers. Her parents, already stretched thin, would have no recourse. For Grace, and for millions of families across the country, what’s at stake isn’t just a matter of policy—it’s the ability to build a future on fair and equal ground for all.
The Lessons of History: Why Federal Oversight Matters
To grasp the significance of the U.S. Department of Education, we need only look to the past. Its oversight, enforcement, and technical assistance functions are not bureaucratic formalities—they are the guardrails that ensure students’ rights are more than just words on paper. Well before the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), students with disabilities faced not only educational exclusion, but also deep-seated social marginalization.
As I’ve written elsewhere, throughout the 19th century, children with disabilities were largely seen as a private concern—a “private trouble” rather than a public responsibility. But as the early 20th century ushered in compulsory school attendance laws, this exclusionary paradigm began to shift. For the first time, children who had long been dismissed as “seemingly uneducable” were legally required to enroll in public schools, disrupting the longstanding pattern of social and educational isolation.
Yet, attendance did not guarantee access to meaningful education. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, the neglect and ableist hostility that had defined the prior century took on new forms within the nation’s public schools. Rather than providing necessary supports, many schools systematically segregated students with disabilities into poorly resourced and stigmatized classrooms.
The White House Committee on Special Classes condemned these environments as little more than dumping grounds for students with specialized needs. In response, parents and community advocates “lobbied aggressively to root out [the] entrenched discrimination” pervading public schools. Still, by the 1971-72 school year—just three years before IDEA’s passage—the scale of educational exclusion remained staggering: Seven states were educating fewer than 20% of their known children with disabilities, and in 19 states, fewer than a third. Only 17 states had even reached the halfway mark.
Without federal protections guaranteeing a right to education, disability rights activists fought to bring students with disabilities into standard educational environments. Drawing inspiration from Brown v. Board of Education, they argued that segregated special education classrooms, much like racially segregated schools, resulted in unequal and inferior educational experiences. Their efforts helped lay the groundwork for constitutional protections that, particularly at the district court level, affirmed the right of students with disabilities to receive a public education.
This federal intervention wasn’t about bureaucracy—it was about necessity. And yet, today, some lawmakers are pushing to strip away the very enforcement and oversight protections that helped bring an end to that era of exclusion and ableism.
The Bipartisan Stakes of Dismantling the Department of Education
Disability knows no boundaries. It cuts across race, class, geography, and political affiliation. It is an equalizer in its unpredictability, shaping lives in urban centers, suburban neighborhoods, and rural farming towns alike. Yet in the very communities where support for President Donald Trump was strongest, families may not realize how deeply this proposal could undermine their children’s futures.
Rural schools already operate under immense strain—stretched budgets, fewer specialized teachers, and the challenges of geographic isolation. For students with disabilities, these hurdles are even higher. Federal funding under the IDEA is a lifeline, covering nearly 15% of special education costs nationwide, amounting to billions in critical federal aid.
Dismantling the Department of Education isn’t just a bureaucratic maneuver—it’s a fundamental betrayal of the promise that every child deserves a fair chance at an education.
States like Nebraska, Indiana, and South Dakota—all of which invest disproportionately less in their rural school districts—depend on these federal dollars to meet even the most basic obligations to students like Grace. Yet in Nebraska, where the funding gap between rural and urban schools is widest, Trump won approximately 60% of the vote in the last presidential election.
For many rural families, these stakes aren’t theoretical. Losing federal protections could mean losing access to the nearest specialist—often hours away—or having nowhere at all to turn when their child needs critical services.
Block Grants: A Recipe for Inequity
As the push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education gains momentum, leaders in Republican-led states are renewing calls to shift federal education funding to block grants—a move that would only deepen the crisis. While touted as a way to give states more flexibility, block grants come with fewer guardrails, making it easier for states to divert funds away from the students who need them most.
If enacted, this shift would further weaken federal oversight, making it far more difficult to enforce “maintenance of effort” (MOE) provisions, which ensure states uphold their own education spending. In a more decentralized system, the risk isn’t just mismanagement—it’s an abdication of responsibility, leaving vulnerable students at the mercy of shifting political priorities and budget shortfalls.
Consider Medicaid block grants as an analog and cautionary tale. States that received Medicaid waivers under block grant-style flexibility often shifted funds away from vulnerable populations to cover budget deficits. For example, in Tennessee, the state redirected Medicaid dollars meant for underserved communities to plug holes in unrelated health system budgets. Without federal oversight, similar reallocations of special education funding are not only possible, but likely.
Without these safeguards, history could repeat itself—not as a distant memory, but as a lived reality for millions of students. The lack of federal accountability would make it nearly impossible for families to challenge these decisions, leaving rural families, already underserved, at an even greater disadvantage.
A Call to Action: Protecting the Future for All Children
Dismantling the Department of Education isn’t just a bureaucratic maneuver—it’s a fundamental betrayal of the promise that every child deserves a fair chance at an education. The impact won’t be abstract. It will be felt in classrooms and kitchen-table conversations, in the quiet struggles of families left without recourse, and in the futures of children who will be denied the support they need to thrive.
This isn’t about politics; it’s about priorities. Federal oversight exists because history has shown what happens when states are left to decide, on their own, whose education matters. Without these protections, vulnerable students will once again be pushed to the margins, their futures dictated not by potential but by geography, circumstance, and political whim.
The question before us is simple: Do we honor our commitment to all children, or do we turn back the clock on decades of progress? For Grace, for her classmates, and for the generations to come, the answer must be clear. We must act—not out of partisanship, but out of principle. The future of our children, and of our country, depends on it.
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