Kansas, Missouri AGs join lawsuit to remove protections for students with disabilities | Opinion
Children targeted
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has joined other attorneys general around the country in a lawsuit to do away with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This federal law is designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities, such as young students with dyslexia, which is estimated to affect some 20% of Americans. Section 504 helps ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to educational opportunities.
I have five grandchildren with dyslexia. Doing away with Section 504 would make their learning process much more difficult. I hope for the sake of all children with special educational needs protected by Section 504 that Kobach would reconsider his support for the elimination thereof.
- Charles R. Denesia, Overland Park
Editor’s note: Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has also joined the lawsuit to repeal Section 504.
Chiefs’ love
The Chiefs became America’s football team overnight. I attended the Super Bowl and was disappointed with the loss. Everyone I spoke to was humbled by the love and respect shown to President Donald Trump by the Mahomes family and Chris Jones on the field before the game. I felt like I was at a Rolling Stones concert when the video screen displayed the Trump family during the national anthem.
God bless the Chiefs and their fans.
- Joe Cyran, Buffalo, New York
Mahomes’ heart
There’s no question the Eagles dominated at the Super Bowl. The question: How did the Chiefs get caught so off-guard? Before the game, former NFL star Rob Gronkowski spoke about the 2021 Super Bowl where Tampa Bay trounced Kansas City by overwhelming Patrick Mahomes’ pass protection. And then we saw the Eagles do the same thing. Why did it take coaches three quarters to catch on to the Eagles’ game plan? How many times did Mahomes have to get sacked?
Now I’m hearing all kinds of praise for the Eagles, but nothing about how Mahomes engineered three touchdowns and two two-point conversions in the last 20 minutes of play, with phenomenal passes (one for 50 yards right into the arms of Xavier Worthy in the end zone). And, just like that, the score went from 40-6 to 40-22.
Any way you look at it, that’s a display of greatness when to those watching, it was over. Too late, yes — but if you take the entire game and factor in that the Eagles’ first touchdowns came after questionable calls by referees and two dumb roughing penalties by the Chiefs, it may change things in terms of what might have been.
Mahomes deserves praise for his show of heart and talent.
- Gunna Dickson, New York, New York
No buck passed
Although the Super Bowl was a sad day for the Chiefs, there was one silver lining: Patrick Mahomes showed Americans how to take full responsibility for one’s mistakes. It is a valuable lesson for all of us. I hope politicians and business executives learn from Mahomes’ example.
- Paul L. Newman, Merion Station, Pennsylvania
Not reform
David Mastio’s claim that President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is engaging in “creative destruction” is nothing more than an attempt to mask reckless governance as innovation. (Feb. 13, 11A, “Like it or not, Washington needs creative destruction brought by Trump and Musk”) Creative destruction, as economist Joseph Schumpeter originally defined it, refers to the natural evolution of economies through competition and technological advancement — not the wholesale dismantling of government institutions without a coherent plan.
Elon Musk, a billionaire with no experience in public administration, is no architect of efficiency. His approach at Twitter — a chaotic mass firing followed by desperate rehiring — proved that dismantling without a strategy leads to dysfunction, not efficiency. If he and Trump are so confident in this model, where is the evidence that their slash-and-burn approach improves governance rather than destabilizing it?
Axing the penny may be an amusing distraction, but it’s hardly a testament to reform. The real issue is the unchecked power of executive orders being used to override Congress, dismantle regulatory agencies and erode institutional checks. Destruction without foresight is not reform — it’s sabotage.
What we are witnessing is not creative destruction. It is ideologically driven upheaval, and history tells us that such reckless governance rarely ends in prosperity.
- Ray Watford, Hilliard, Ohio
Real goals?
There is no question that waste and fraud exist in the federal government. If human beings run it, there will be waste and probably fraud. But if you think the goals of Elon Musk and Donald Trump (who is $288 million in Musk’s debt) have anything to do with reducing waste or fraud, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Please ask yourself: If their goals were instead tied either to 1) personal profit or 2) indebtedness to Russian President Vladimir Putin (or both), how would their actions be different? And if your honest answer is that their actions would be no different, then their motivations, even were they pure, are irrelevant. They are inflicting severe damage on our country.
- Paul L. Schenk, Parkville