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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-01-26 Correspondence - Disability Rights MT - From Courtrooms to Dance FloorsFrom:Disability Rights Montana - Growth Rings To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]From Courtrooms to Dance Floors Date:Thursday, April 30, 2026 12:03:29 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Every paid subscription supports Disability Rights Montana’s work across Montana. Federal funding is nowhere near sufficient to meet the advocacy and culture change work that is needed. You can help fund the future you want to see! more than advocacy.mp4 Watch now From Courtrooms to Dance Floors Why Advocacy and Education Aren’t Enough READ IN APP For more than twenty years, my professional life has revolved around disability civil rights. I’ve spent thousands of hours enforcing the law. I’ve brought and won cases that forced bureaucrats to create entirely new statewide programs and legislatures to invest over $2 billion dollars in new services. I’ve taught law students, trained judges and lawyers, and given presentations to over 10,000 of people across the country about disability rights. I believe deeply in litigation. I believe deeply in education. Which is why what I’m about to say may not be what you expect. Advocacy and education are necessary, but insufficient. That realization didn’t come from theory or burnout. It came from decades of watching where movements actually succeed… and where they stall. In disability rights work, we are very good at two things. APR 30 The Two Tools We Rely On Most First, advocacy. When systems discriminate, we know how to respond. We file complaints. We negotiate. We litigate. We use the law to force change. And we win. A lot. That work matters. It has saved lives and expanded freedom. Second, education. We teach people what the law requires. We explain rights and responsibilities. We train professionals on how to do better. Education is often the first instinct when something goes wrong, and sometimes it works. Most campaigns stop there. Advocate. Educate. Repeat. And to be clear: both are essential. I wouldn’t still be doing this work if I didn’t believe in them. But over time, something became clear: even the strongest legal wins and the best trainings don’t automatically get you hat you want and they certainly don’t build a movement. Years ago, I learned a lesson from self‑advocates in the People First movement that fundamentally changed how I think about change. They talked about organizing not around two pillars—but three: 1. Advocate 2. Educate 3. Celebrate That third word—celebrate—is the one we tend to skip. It’s the hardest to justify in grant reports. The easiest to dismiss as optional. The first to be cut when resources are tight. The Missing Piece We Rarely Talk About And yet, it’s often the difference between a short‑term win and long‑term power. People are not advocacy machines. They are not law textbooks. They are human beings. They need connection, joy, culture, and a sense of belonging. If showing up always means being criticized, corrected, or overwhelmed, people stop showing up, even if they agree with the cause. Celebration isn’t “extra.” It’s not fluff. It’s infrastructure. When people gather for something joyful, a party, a movie night, or some other shared experience in real life, they build relationships. Those relationships become trust. Trust becomes community. And community becomes power. You can go fast alone. But if you want to go far to build durable change that is resilient to changes in political leadership, public backlash, and time, you need a lot of people moving together. That doesn’t happen in courtrooms or legislative committee rooms alone. That’s why, in the video accompanying this piece, I talk about celebrating Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 504 is the nation’s oldest civil rights law for people with disabilities. Passed in 1973, it made a radical promise: that the federal government and anyone who receives federal money cannot discriminate against people with disabilities. Before 504, exclusion was routine. Children were turned away from schools. People were forced into institutions. Entire communities were built around separation. Section 504 laid the groundwork for community integration. It promised that Why Celebration Is Political Infrastructure Remembering What 504 Did—and Still Does people with disabilities could live in their own homes, neighborhoods, and towns. That is worth celebrating. Not because the job is done, but because remembering what we’ve already built sparks our imaginations about what’s still possible. In the video, I explain why we decided to throw a party instead of another rally or panel discussion. The answer is simple: sometimes the most powerful message is showing what’s at stake by living it. Community life. Joy. Connection. Culture. Those things are not distractions from advocacy. They are what advocacy exists to protect. Another reason celebration matters is scale. Nearly 30% of people in Montana have a disability. That’s a larger group than either Democrats or Republicans. Yet disability is rarely treated as a political community with shared interests, culture, and power. When we gather only to fight, we fragment. When we gather to belong, we unify. That’s when movements grow. I know my reputation. I’ve earned it. People expect me to talk about litigation strategies, compliance failures, and legal obligations and I will continue to do that work. Why This Isn’t a Protest or a Lecture Disability Is Not a Niche Issue Why I’m Saying This Now But if we want a disability rights movement that lasts, that grows, and that can’t be ignored, we also need to talk about how we come together. That’s what this video is about. Not abandoning advocacy or education, but completing them. Watch the video: From Courtrooms to Dance Floors: Rethinking Disability Advocacy above or you can check out that video and other episodes of our podcast on our YouTube page: Growth Rings podcast As promised in the video, here are the links I mentioned: Party info: https://disabilityrightsmt.org/504-day/ Summer movie tour: https://disabilityrightsmt.org/crip-camp/ Self-advocacy groups: https://disabilityrightsmt.org/self-advocacy/ In Solidarity, David David Carlson, J.D. Executive Director Disability Rights Montana You’re currently a free subscriber to Life Beyond Compliance. Upgrading to paid subscriptions supports Disability Rights Montana’s work across Montana. Federal funding is no where near sufficient to meet the advocacy and culture change work that is needed. You can help fund the future you want to see! Upgrade to paid LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Disability Rights Montana1022 Chestnut Street, Helena, MT 59601 Unsubscribe