Jess Piper lives on a farm in Missouri. She has been fighting for years against the mean-spirited policies of the Republicans in her state. She’s also pushed hard to persuade the Democrats to run candidates in rural counties, which they have written off.
In this post, she calls on parents, teachers, and decent folks to speak out against the lawsuit to kill Section 504, which protects the rights of people with disabilities.
She writes:
I loved my Kentucky-born grandma. She was one of 12 kids who lived in a small cabin in a valley next to a creek in Harlan. She made bologna gravy and fried chicken, but every time I visited, she made potato soup and a German Chocolate Cake. She knew they were my favorites.
She called me Jessie and I loved to sit and listen to her talk. You had to pry the stories out, but once she started, her narratives always kept me laughing or crying.
I miss her.
My grandma pictured with her siblings and parents. Harlan, Kentucky — 1930 something.
I was one of the first on that side of my family to graduate from college. When I received my MA in Education, my grandparents came all the way down to Arkansas to celebrate the day with me. They were very proud, but especially Grandma. She was proud to have a teacher in the family.
One day, years later, she asked me a question, “Jessie, what happened to education? The kids I went to school with could all read and write. Now, there are so many in school who can’t read well or do math.”
Grandma wasn’t trying to berate me or public schools — she did watch Fox News though and was getting some ideas in her head that didn’t live in reality. Fox regularly ran stories on kids in urban areas falling behind and that part isn’t necessarily untrue, but you and I both know why they focused on urban kids and not rural kids.
I reminded her of a few things about schools back in the 30s and 40s in Kentucky. Her school was poor but not nearly as poor as the Black schools in surrounding counties. I also asked her if she could remember any kids with disabilities in her class or school. She did not remember anyone with a disability, but she did say there were quite a few boys who couldn’t read well and they always dropped out by 6th or 8th grade to go to work on the farm or in a coal mine.
There you go, Grandma. There it is.
I will never forget that scene in “Forrest Gump” when Forrest’s mom had to have sex with the local Principal so her child could be enrolled in school. I know that is likely a stretch, but how far of a stretch?
There were no accommodations back then. If a child presented with a disability, they were most often turned away. Children could legally work on a farm at any age and they could work in a mine by 14.
The poor kids went to work and the kids with disabilities were shut out.
Grandma understood immediately after our talk…she just hadn’t thought about it much.
Fast forward to 2025 and Missouri is under the boot of a GOP supermajority and an Attorney General with few morals but a lot of hate that he directs at women, minorities, and folks with disabilities…even children.
Missouri AG Andrew Bailey was appointed in 2022 when Eric Schmitt won his Senate race. Don’t get me wrong — Eric Schmitt was nearly as bad and sued Missouri schools to force them to remove mask mandates in 2020. You know, when folks were dying from a global pandemic.
But, in my opinion, Andrew Bailey is the worst AG we have had in recent memory and that’s saying a lot because Josh Hawley was also a Missouri AG.
We have scraped the bottom of the barrel with Andrew Bailey.
Bailey is suing China for failing to supply our state with masks during COVID though Bailey has repeatedly said that masks didn’t prevent the spread of COVID.
Bailey is suing Costco for their DEI policies, saying that the private company should be forced to hire more white men because hiring women and people of color is discriminatory.
Bailey is suing Starbucks because he argues that, “Starbucks diversity initiatives have caused higher prices and longer lines,” and that, “Starbucks workforce is more female and less white.”
Yes, you read that right. I mean, it’s as condescending and racist as it sounds, but his first statement also goes against the Republican mantra of the “free market.” If folks don’t like a line or think the coffee is too high, they can just run over to a Scooter’s or McDonald’s.
But, it only goes downhill from there…Missouri’s AG has joined a suit to gut the 504 program.
What is Section 504 in plain language?
Section 504 is an important law that protects people with disabilities. 504 says you can’t discriminate against disabled people if you get money from the United States government. Section 504 says you cannot mistreat people because of their disabilities.
Section 504 has rules that explain what disability discrimination is. The rules say that schools, hospitals, and doctors’ offices have to include people with disabilities.
In the suit, my AG and sixteen other state AGs are suing because they want to eliminate gender dysphoria from a protected status under 504 — a Biden era addition to protect trans kids. But, the suit asks the court to get rid of all the updated rules – and to get rid of Section 504 altogether. The lawsuit says that Section 504 goes against the United States Constitution.
This will impact so many students in the country. The point is to offer no accommodations for any disability. For any child.
This is what they meant when they said Make America Great Again. They meant Kentucky in the 1930s.
There are a few things you can do: Call your AG if you live in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or West Virginia. Demand that they drop from the lawsuit.
The bright side of this suit is that it is bringing disability and accommodations in front of everyday Americans. Folks who may not understand DEI, understand a 504 — they should know diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts include disability.
Another positive note: my AG has rarely won any suit he has filed or joined. He is very bad at his job because he doesn’t seem to understand the Constitution. I hope this suit ends like most of them do…Bailey, with his tail tucked between his knees, running from cameras.
You can help get the word out by sharing this post or the others I will list at the bottom of this post.
Tell everyone you know and then start calling. We can’t do everything, but we can do one thing.
Every day.
~Jess
Sources:
Plain Language Explainer: Texas v. Becerra Section 504 Under Attack: https://www.bazelon.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Plain-Language-Explainer_Texas-v-Becerra.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Jess Piper is a treasure. The problem is that rural people don’t know what they have. They don’t know that they get far more than they give in taxes. They buy into the false myth of rugged individualism. Her 25% of the electorate she got in rural Missouri is about what Democrats get in red Tennessee. No need to suppress votes here, although they do it anyhow.
I went to a friend’s house to tune a hammered dulcimer. During this two hours of tuning, Fox news sat silently on the big screen. Somehow the conversation turns to children without enough food who suffer when schools close for hostile weather. She hoped aloud that the Trump administration will do something about food insecurity with all the money they are saving by looking at government waste. I just tuned.
These people will never know what is happening. If you tell them, they will not believe you because they only listen to the talking heads on Fox
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Most of the right wing extremists that are going after DEI programs are rabid about stamping out anything related to diversity which offends what they believe is their right to be racist. They are largely obsessed about race and perhaps gender to some degree. Also, included in 504 legislation are accommodations for those with physical or mental challenges. Eliminating 504 rules would be tremendous setback for people with a variety of health or mental conditions. It would make it a lot more difficult for those with handicapping or restrictive conditions to compete for employment.
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“This is what they meant when they said Make America Great Again. They meant Kentucky in the 1930s.”
I concur with Jess Piper.
In 1935, after little more than a year of college, my maternal grandfather (who I called “Pop-Pa”) began teaching in a one-room school in the hills of Eastern Kentucky (Magoffin County). His salary was $58 and some cents a month. He also worked on a small family farm outside of school hours. Since it was the Great Depression, the county board of education sometimes had no money to pay teachers. He continued going to school every day and teaching the children anyway, whether or not he got paid. They carried a bucket of water into the school from an open well, and everyone drank from a communal dipper. They carried in wood and coal to build a fire in the stove, their only source of heat. Sometimes he had to line up the children (boys and girls) to shave their heads because of lice.
Roads were extremely poor in Eastern Kentucky back then, and the closest college was about 75 miles away. It took him 15 years to finally receive his bachelor’s degree. He worked on it steadily all those years, taking a class or two at a time at night or during the summer if he’d been able to put aside enough money to pay the tuition. Except for the GI bill that started in 1944, aid to education was nonexistent then, and my grandfather received no financial aid whatsoever because he had been unable to serve in the military. Nine years after his bachelor’s, he earned a master’s degree in educational administration and became principal of the only high school in the county. He was a large man, a very strict, controlling disciplinarian, and he believed wholeheartedly in the power of education as a way to improve the quality of life. He neither drank nor smoked and did not use profanity. He’d swear by saying, “Oh, sugar!” However, he had a favorite phrase that contained a four-letter word: “The more you stir s–t, the worse it stinks.”
This effort to get rid of Section 504 is definitely stirring s–t, and it stinks. Next, they’ll likely go after IDEA, and it hasn’t even been 50 years since P.L. 94-142.
Fast-forward to the early 1950s:
My late mother was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky. Since there was no Kindergarten, she started school in the first grade. And in her first-grade class, there were several “much older big boys” sitting in the back of the classroom who, for a few years, had been unable to pass on to the second grade. Eventually, those older big boys would drop out of school.
Section 504 exists for a reason, and it benefits all of society. There’s no reason why we should go backward.
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The states that are suing to ban 504 are all red states. Are they representing the people of their states?
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Maybe and maybe not. It’s hard to fathom a state like Alabama having Helen Keller on their state quarter and wanting to get rid of 504.
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Joe: Hard to believe they really knew what Helen Keller had done when they chose her. In her day, she knew what good trouble was.
Also, I assume you have read Thread that Runs So True, by the Kentucky author Jesse Stuart
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Diane: Anyone who is familiar with the Nazis’ treatment of the disabled ETC. must get a chill about this movement in “red” States that are still a part of the United States of America–it’s not full-out Nazi, but it reeks of the same kind of efforts towards exclusion that the Nazis put into systematic practice. CBK
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Roy,
I was not familiar with that book, but I should be. Thanks for mentioning it. I’m definitely going to read it.
My great grandmother also taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Eastern KY when she was 18 years old (circa 1905), but before she got married. All she had to do to qualify was take a test.
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