Another convention season is here, and yet, the demand for a hybrid convention— a key focus for the Disability Working Group (DWG)— has failed to meet the requirements for  consideration by the convention committee. As a candidate for the National Political Committee, I included this sentence in my responses to the requisite questionnaire: “In DWG, we confront DSA’s institutional ableism, from inaccessible events to token accommodations.” This is something that every disabled organizer in DSA confronts every day. This institutional form of ableism can range from having to remind staff two conventions in a row to book more accessible rooms for the DSA block, to dealing with statements like “We don’t know where the accessible entrances are; this has never been an issue before.” Frustrations among members of our community have been mounting over the years. Frustrations that can cause more alienation, and fellow disabled comrades leaving the organization at a critical juncture. My comrades in the DWG have asked me why this consistently happens to us. I have to admit that I did not have a good answer.  This piece is my attempt to give voice to my own frustrations and theirs.

A focus on disability and accessibility is critical to developing a DSA that’s growing in strength and one that’s effective in winning broader demands. Without us, there is no revolutionary horizon to be achieved. 

A History of the Disability Working Group

In 2019, there was a mass resignation of the Steering Committee of the Disability Working Group. The text of their resignation can be found here and is worth reading in its entirety. However, unmentioned in this text is that prominent leftist writer and co-host of the popular podcast Chapo Trap House Amber A’Lee Frost was a key player in the harassment that the DWG Steering Committee faced. Given Amber’s turn towards advocating for an “anti-woke” left and masculine working class fetishism, it’s hard not to see the historic parallels in how attacks on disabled people are often harbingers of latent right-wing tendencies. Years later, and ableist slurs and ableist rhetoric has once again proliferated in the broader society. 

I strongly believe that the DWG went dormant for a time after this due to a lack of people willing to subject themselves to the ableism that the previous group experienced. At the end of the 2019 convention, an anti-identity politics caucus formed, announcing their formation with the ableist article “Let Them Clap,” published in Class Unity. Thankfully, like many things founded in opposition to other people’s existence and rights, this caucus has since split from DSA to focus on a podcast. Many of its former members are still active in DSA, however, and while they may no longer be part of a caucus that openly presents such divisiveness, I’m sure their influence is still playing a part in DSA’s orientation towards disability justice.

In 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the national convention was held online. Advocates of a hybrid convention or an online convention finally had proof that it was feasible. However, a group of delegates dropped a harassment complaint against a slate of NPC candidates in the middle of the convention and exacerbated the vicious interpersonal conduct that sometimes plagues DSA’s organizational culture. This incident and the online fallout thereafter are now used by a significant section of our membership to argue that we need an in-person-only convention. But the logic of this argument is one that chooses to accommodate toxic behavior and papers over the serious issues at the expense of people with accessibility needs. To put it bluntly, this line of reasoning is more invested in prioritizing avoiding holding bad-faith actors accountable rather than making convention a more welcoming space for disabled comrades, a significant part of our socialist base. The 2023 National Convention had uneven adherence to supporting disabled members. Masking and vaccination were mandatory. Yet,the Disability Working Group worked on several resolutions, including the first hybrid convention resolution, but it did not meet the requirements to be considered. Many disabled delegates also experienced in-person ableism, such as a quiet room that was too close to the convention hall  for those experiencing sensory overload. A delegate was left in tears after a request for the chair to ask other delegates to stop clapping and yelling was denied. In the aftermath of the 2023 convention, the bulk of the Disability Working Group has left DSA yet again.

This history is only a fraction of the issues that affect the wider organization. I have not spoken of the personal incidents that occur throughout chapters because I can’t possibly know them all, but I do know that they occur with alarming frequency. This has led to an organization that is less reflective of the working class that we claim to represent—in just one of many ways it fails to do so. According to the Centers for Disease Control, at least 1 in 4 people in the U.S. have a disability. About 78 percent of all disabled adults participate in the country’s labor force, with nearly 27 percent, twice the rate of able adults, languishing in poverty. If anything, as much as the DSA has become the leading socialist organization in the U.S., it’s regressed terribly when it comes to issues of basic accessibility and respect for its disabled members. 

The Dilemma of Disability Rights Persists

In 2025, the issues of accessibility and ableism persist. Currently, the major focus of opposition to disability justice has to do with masking, transmissible infections, and the cost of accessibility. For many, masking after the initial outbreak became a way of life, and I currently mask on public transit and in enclosed spaces. Members of the DWG have asked me to push for more chapters to have mandatory masking policies, and I have tried advocating for that in various DSA spaces, such as in online discords and the DSA national forums. The opposition to this has crystallized in the optional masking policy adopted by the NPC for the 2025 convention. As a member of the Accessibility Committee for convention, I had pushed for stronger standards, but the committee deadlocked on the final vote and then never met again. Already, some delegates who were democratically elected to their seats have dropped out from attending because of this failure to protect their health. The organization makes explicit institutional commitments to fighting racism, transphobia, and homophobia, yet when it comes to disability, we remain stuck debating whether inclusion is worth the effort. I am not raising this point to pit race, transness, or disability justice against one another, as I know this is not a zero-sum game. I am pointing out that DSA can successfully welcome people into our organization and make them a priority, but it selectively chooses when to do so, and oftentimes, falls short on such commitments.

Many DSA members who are able-bodied perpetuate the ableism present in our society, and many of the arguments that they make are the same arguments that disabled people encounter in their day-to-day life as to why society cannot adjust or accommodate us. Members, including those in the top-most positions of leadership, couch these arguments in concerns about cost but have no problem booking convention at an expensive complex or asking delegates to pay their way to and from convention, even with the cost of living increasing exponentially every year, which also deeply impacts many of us who are disabled and living precarious lives financially. I find it incoherent to say that the cost of a hybrid convention would be somehow more than the cost being passed on to individual delegates in order for us to have our face-to-face time.

Setting aside convention, far too many chapters continue to have events at inaccessible locations and fail to prepare for the possibility of having a disabled member participate fully in chapter activities that some others may take for granted. Every chapter and every working group actively asks members to use pronouns. Why can’t this same level of effort be made for disabled people who are part of a working class feeling squeezed in a neoliberal ableist America? Instead, the issues and concerns of disabled people in the organization are dismissed, and members of the community are made to feel like a burden instead of comrades in this common struggle against oppression and class exploitation. 

I want to think the best of my more able-bodied comrades (although that line between abled and disabled are always blurring), and, while I don’t think any of this is based in explicit forms of eugenics, I do think, like the rest of able-bodied society, there is some kind of squeamishness about what disabled people represent: an otherness that goes unspoken but nonetheless screams with visibility. At some point in their lives, all able-bodied people will need the accommodations that disabled people so fiercely advocate for. Maybe this possibility, this equalization by time and the stress of capitalist life, makes some deeply uncomfortable in ways that they can’t express or don’t know how to. Either way, we are all left with an organization that is weaker for it, with fewer and fewer disabled members who are willing to endure this implicit hostility. We are left with disabled comrades leaving the organization, oftentimes alienated by politics overall, disenchanted and ever more isolated. We are left with policy demands that do not in fact, take seriously accommodations and health issues that all people, abled and disabled alike, shall face, like having facilities that are well ventilated and a healthcare system that cares about our basic health. Such things should be the bedrock of a socialist agenda and yet, such ideas are barely mentioned, along with those of us who need these policies the most. 

The eternal question is always: What is to be done? I don’t know the specific answer to that. I do know that I cannot guilt my comrades into doing better. I cannot simply ask nicely, for I have done that repeatedly and gotten nowhere. I can organize a resolution or proposal that doesn’t gather enough signatures. I can buy my chapter portable wheelchair ramps which will then get lost in the shuffle. As a leader in the National Disability Working Group and DSA, I choose to stay, but I feel it keenly every time a comrade chooses not to. I constantly ask myself: Is there more I could have done? Could I have supported them more? Could I have talked to their chapter leaders? But ultimately if the organization as a whole is unwilling to act, even my substantial efforts won’t be enough. We are all members of DSA because we recognize the limits of the individual. I recognize my limits more and more, and I am proactive about asking my comrades to respect and accommodate them. I wish that the organization would reciprocate and recognize its responsibility in managing and choosing its own limits rather than reinforcing an individualist and anti-socialist culture when it comes to accessibility and inclusion for members of our community, whose lives are often at the frontlines of capitalist decay and class war

I leave with my most recent encounter with how the organization erases disability from within our ranks. While in the process of writing this piece, I filled out my delegate registration form, which asked a variety of demographic questions, but did not include a general question displaying a similar interest in gathering the demographic data related to disability. The only question regarding whether or not our members are disabled and what disabilities they may have was what accommodations they need. Based on past experience, I am not hopeful that these accommodations will be present. This theater of inclusion will play out every convention and in every chapter until it matters to DSA. It’s only a question of how many disabled members we’ll lose before DSA starts to care, and maybe then, for the broader movement, it might be too late.

Image: Handicap parking spots in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 29, 2024. Photo by Tony Webster. Photo distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Now more than ever, under the Trump administration’s constant barrage of attacks, it is critical that YDSA can organize nationally and present a strong alternative to the two-party system’s inaction. The author argues that campaign cohorts, as proposed by R17, would build buy-in to national campaigns and goals by fostering relationships across chapters.  The working…

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International students are living in a precarious limbo as the Trump administration indiscriminately strips them of their visas and rights. An international student in YDSA discusses how to continue to organize and resist under increasing authoritarian surveillance and threats.  Most of us don’t realize the things we take for granted until they’re stripped away. Last…

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GNDCC Committee Updates

DSA Convention season in full swing. In our Campaign Huddles, we strategized for the next two years and outlined why Organizing for a Green New Deal under Trump 2.0 is crucial for DSA in Democratic Left. Read our resolution that would mandate us to focused on Buiding for Power for two more years.

Missed our mass call with socialist electeds, ecosocialist leaders, and campaign organizers? Watch a recording on why the Fight for a Socialist Green New Deal continues, featuring Thea Riofrancos, Ashik Siddique, Sarahana Shrestha, Kelsea Bond, Alex Brower, Michael B, and Sam Z.

Building for Power campaign updates

New Campaigns

We welcomed a new B4P campaign into our universe: Houston DSA launched Our Vote, Our METRO, pressuring Mayor Whitmore to deliver transit improvements voters already approved. The revitalized ecosocialist working group is mobilizing for 2026 METRO budget hearings, driving turnout and shaping the narrative.

Keeping the Pressure On

In New York, Sarahana Shrestha’s Public Renewables Transparency Act passed unanimously in the State Assembly, ensuring democratic oversight of NYPA’s renewables expansion. The push continues for 15 GW of public renewables by 2030—creating 25,000 union jobs, cutting bills, and retiring peaker plants.

If you missed it, check out our latest Campaign Q&A: Building Public Renewables in New York. The Build Public Renewables Act provides a model for a successful chapter campaign within the Building for Power framework, and the fight continues to see it fully implemented. This interview is brimming with insights for chapters running their own strategic campaigns.

The summer months are great for canvassing: We Power DC hosted their first canvasses for their public power pledge, while the canvassing pros in Milwaukee continue their weekly efforts to gather signatures to replace WE Energies.

Louisville DSA’s Get on the Bus campaign to fund TARC continues gaining momentum, with nearly 1,200 signatures on their demand letter and support from 31 organizations—including 9 unions/labor councils. This summer they delivered over 300 postcards to city council and launched a street team wheatpasting bold “Let TARC Grow” posters across the city, taking inspiration from Metro DC’s B4P campaigns model.

If you’re at the 2025 DSA convention, stop by our table and say hi! We will be there championing the  power of organizing at the intersection of climate, labor, and public goods. As more chapters take on strategic, place-based campaigns, we’re building toward a future where ecosocialism is not just a vision—but a material force in the everyday lives of working-class people. See you in Chicago!

The authors argue for amendment R13-1 to build connections between YDSA and the Rank-and-File Project and develop a pipeline from YDSA into strategic sectors of the labor movement.

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SFSU YDSA leader Char Bennet makes the case for student unions as a key strategic site for campus organizing.

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An Amazon worker in YDSA argues for the passage of R14, which seeks to strengthen the pipeline between YDSA chapters and jobs in Amazon warehouses, critical sites for the future of class struggle.  The fight to organize at Amazon is the fight of our lifetime. The history of the labor movement is marked by radicals…

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Sofia Baker argues for R22: "For Coalitions that Strengthen YDSA" to help YDSA chapters build coalitions
to strengthen campaigns.

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James Hernández argues for R10: “Building an International Student Movement” and building connections with student organizers fighting imperialism and capitalism around the globe. Around the world, billions of people are exploited under the boot of capitalism and imperialism. Despite this, U.S. internationalist socialist movements remain nascent and plagued by factional debate. U.S. foreign policy has…

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Addison G. and Steven R. make the case for R7 to approve a new program and set a clear political vision for YDSA. Why a Program? Over the past two years, YDSA conventions have voted to move towards adopting a program to unify our organizing work. In 2023, delegates passed A5: “Programmatic Unity for YDSA,”…

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