In the News
In Case You Missed Them: Notable Stories (March 10–23, 2025)
In case you missed them, here are a few notable reads and views from March 10–23 2025. These aren’t the breaking-news stories covered by dozens of other news outlets and organizations. However, they are notable just the same.
Office for Civil Rights Recent Resolutions Database Remains at “0” for Disability Discrimination Cases Resolved in 2025
By U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights
This listing focuses on something that wasn’t published, rather than something that was published.
U.S. Department of Education maintains a database titled “Office for Civil Rights Recent Resolution Search.” According to the database, eight cases have been resolved in 2025. None address Disability Discrimination. All eight address Race and National Origin Discrimination, and occurred between January 7–17, 2025. There are no case resolutions listed between January 18–March 23, 2025.
Hundreds of muscle car drivers rally around bullied Alabama boy
By Steve Hartman, CBS News
A rainbow is just a rainbow. To both kids and adults, rainbows that appear in the wakes of storms are magical. However, after an Alabama boy who has autism wore rainbow-colored glasses he picked out, he became a target of hate. The hate was so intense the young boy spent the next two weeks in a psychiatric ward. This is the story of the community that rallied around him when he returned home.
This teen tried hiding his autism. His parents think it drove him to suicide.
By Charles Trepany, USA Today
File this under “if I haven’t seen it before, its news to me”. It’s an older story I ran across while catching up on podcast listening of USA Today’s “The Excerpt”. It is an exclamation point to the previous story about the Albama boy who has rainbow-colored glasses—and a story that is all too common within the special education community:
“Youth suicide has been on the rise in recent years. For kids with autism, it's even more common. According to a 2023 study from the University of Pittsburgh, autistic children and teens have about a 5% higher rate of suicidal ideation and are twice as likely to attempt suicide than their non-autistic peers. For kids who are autistic and highly intelligent − a group called "twice exceptional" − the risk in even higher. A 2023 study from the University of Iowa found kids with autism and high IQs were nearly six times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than non-autistic kids.
“Despite this, experts say barely any research is being done on this overlap. What's worse, they add, is hardly anyone outside the autistic community even seems to be talking about it.”
Parents in the special education community at large—not just the “autistic community”—have long been aware of the depression known to accompany students who have disabilities, and the struggles of twice-exceptional students in particular. The failures to take action eclipse the conversations being held.
Friends Of Sleeping Bear Dunes Preps New Wheelchair Bike Program For 2025 Summer Season
By Craig Manning, The Ticker
Although we all share the right to access the beauty of Nature, we don’t share the ability to access her beauty. Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes is changing that narrative through its new wheelchair bike program. According to the article, “the new initiative will allow visitors who require mobility assistance to experience the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail from the front of a state-of-the-art $13,000 two-seater electric bike.”
Click on the link to view a picture of the bike and stick around to read the article.