@nazgul
The US was built on stolen land, from murdered populations, using enslaved labor
"A house built on sand cannot stand...." & this house has been given plenty of time to recognize its cruel ignorant arrogance
I am heartbroken about the suffering the fall of this house is causing but praying we can eventually rebuild on Rock:
#Equity #Compassion #Truth #Solidarity
Witnesses argued that executive interference could compromise the agency's ability to administer Social Security benefits fairly and effectively. For example, there were discussions about how executive control might lead to decisions driven by short-term political goals rather than the long-term stability of the program. The independence of the SSA was seen as a way to protect it from such influences and maintain public trust in its operations.
Source: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/hrg103-449.pdf
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
3/28/1914 Born on this day, Robert Myers Ball who was very influential in shaping Social Security policy, both during his tenure at SSA and afterward: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v68n3/v68n3p67.html
History's reverberations:
H. B. Anderson author of a number of books including, “State Medicine a Menace to Democracy”, introduced into evidence, the “Public Health Reports,” dated March 28, 1919. An interrogatory familiar to any fan of C-SPAN today ensued. https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/hr35anderson.pdf
3/28/1945 A deficiency appropriation bill signed by the President included the Case Amendment. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/T14T17XDuHYC
3/28/1968 President Johnson signed H.R. 12555. The law was designed to prevent the loss of pensions when social security benefits or other sources of retirement income were increased.
3/28/2000 The House of Representatives agreed to the Senate amendment to H.R. 5, the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act of 2000 https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #socialinsurance #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
"The Health and Human Services Department's Office for Civil Rights is investigating an unnamed California medical school following allegations of discrimination in its admission practices.
The agency said Thursday it received information that the school was allegedly admitting students based on race, color or national origin."
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/government/hhs-dei-investigation-california-medical-school
Inclusivity is not a choice; it’s a responsibility we all share.
Why is inclusivity important? It enhances innovation, improves employee satisfaction, reflects our diverse world, and strengthens communities. 
What are some ways you promote inclusivity in your daily life? Pin your ideas! 
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
" Resolved, That the General Court of Massachusetts favors the immediate enactment by Congress of suitable legislation creating a national compulsory unemployment-insurance..." F.W. Cook, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the US House of Representatives. https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/h416.pdf
3/27/1960 (March 27 - April 2, 1960) The sixth White House Conference on Children and Youth was held.
More: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED078896.pdf
3/27/1969 (March 27 & May 21, 1969) President Nixon signed the Reorganization Act. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-establishing-common-regional-boundaries-for-agencies-providing-social-and
3/27/1891 SSA awarded a communications terminal replacement contract to the Paradyne Corp. of Largo, Florida. See: The Paradyne Affair (Pg. 126) - https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/ota86.pdf
3/27/2006 SSA published its Disability Service Improvement initiative. https://s3-us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com/cg-778536a2-e58c-44f1-9173-29749804ec54/uploads/2023/12/2006-HearingProcess_2006.pdf
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
Chilling effect
We reached out to senior decision makers working in global health about the new Certificate peer learning programme for equity in research and practice.
Crickets.
One CEO wrote: “We aren’t currently in a position to enter into new strategic partnerships on the topic.”
The chilling effect is real.
Many organizations are retreating from publicly championing equity work—even those with deep commitments to fairness and inclusion.
But here’s the opportunity: While public discourse faces headwinds, meaningful work continues through trusted networks and communities of practice.
This is precisely when innovation in equity approaches accelerates—away from the spotlight but with profound impact.
The evidence is clear: health systems that neglect equity waste resources and deliver poorer outcomes.
When research excludes key populations or policies overlook certain communities, we all lose—through inefficiency, increased costs, and diminished impact.
This moment calls for courage from those who understand that equity is fundamental to effective health systems.
“The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort, but where they stand at times of challenge.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
If you’re still committed to this essential work, you’re not alone.
Question: How are you maintaining momentum on equity work during challenging times?
Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2025
Grant Application Questions and Answers
Here are our answers to the questions on a grant we recently applied for.
Table of Contents
History
When did your group come together and why? Share major accomplishments and tell us about your recent activities, successes, and learning opportunities.
Stimpunks was created to forge the way for educational inclusion and to give our community the means to survive and to thrive. We as a disabled and neurodivergent run organization had to roll our own education, because even the “all means all” of public education failed to include us. We had to create our own care systems, because “we realized that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us.” “Responsibility for the survival of entire communities lies with us.”
Learn more about our history, our successes, and our current activities on our front page and our Now page. We put a lot of time into long-form scrollytelling (scrolling + storytelling) and will be sharing links to our website as part of this application process. You’ve never seen a website like ours. Check it out. Professors have told us they use our website to teach digital composition.
Root Causes
What is the specific problem or injustice your group is trying to solve? What are the root causes of the problem (racism, poverty, sexism, etc.)?
We live in an age of mass behaviorism, rampant ableism, and unvarnished eugenics.
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/ableism/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/behaviorism/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/eugenics/
Schools are inaccessible to us because of “empty pedagogy, behaviorism, and the rejection of equity“.
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/equity/
When you or your kid is diagnosed as neurodivergent, almost all of the professional advice you get from education and healthcare is steeped in deficit ideology and the pathology paradigm.
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/deficit-ideology/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/pathology-paradigm/
The logistics of disability and difference in a structurally ableist and inaccessible world poisoned by bad framing are exhausting, often impossible. We are perpetual hackers, mappers, and testers of our systems by necessity of survival.
“I would like to honour all the autistic people who survive the care system somehow.
“All those who survive extreme ‘therapy’.
“All those who are brought to their knees, reading hellish descriptions of their loved people.
“And all who did not survive this onslaught.”
—Ann Memmott
Part of surviving the onslaught is naming the systems of power.
https://stimpunks.org/pathways/systems-of-power/
Action & Lasting Effect
What is your overall strategy for solving the injustice described above? What social, economic, political, or cultural institutions or systems will you work to change in order to fight the injustice? What actions will come out of your work? What will be different in your community and our society because of your work?
IF you do direct services to meet the needs of your community, how do you connect that work to organizing, action & systems change?
IF you are creating an alternative to a current system/policy/institution, please tell us why and describe how that will make real change for your community.
We tackle injustice through two avenues, education and direct giving to individuals.
Our mutual aid grants and creator grants give money directly to individuals to use as they need.
https://stimpunks.org/philosophy/direct-support-to-individuals/
We develop educational programming directed at these institutions:
Our emancipatory research efforts focus on the sweet spot of digital sociology, neurodiversity studies, disability studies, and syncretism, in the open. We improve the scientific experience for the disabled and the neurodivergent by restoring the humanities. We bring voice into empirical constructs and translate voice into academic comprehension.
https://stimpunks.org/research/activist/
In addition to educating those in existing systems and institutions, we have created our own anti-ableist learning spaces compatible with neurodiversity and disability. These spaces use the best of progressive pedagogy to avoid the problems that exclude us from public and private education.
Constituent-Led
Who is most impacted by the injustice you are fighting? How are those most affected actively providing leadership and direction for your work? How do you identify & develop new leaders?
Neurodivergent and disabled people are most impacted by the ableism we fight.
As part of our mission, we hire neurodivergent and disabled people and invest in their professional development. We don’t think of administrative costs as “overhead”, though we are mindful of how much we spend. We consider administrative costs a component of our mission. We pay living wages to those who help us run the organization. We include folks in our software subscriptions so that they have the tools to do work. We introduce folks to the rhythms of distributed work and team work so that they can take these skills with them wherever they go.
Community-Wide
How does your organization define diversity within your constituency? How do you ensure that everyone is represented in your organization – especially those with less privilege in your community? In addition to filling out the diversity chart, describe any activities, education, or actions your organization has taken in this area. Also explain any progress or set-backs in this area.
We outline our notions of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging as well as the major obstacles to them on this page:
https://stimpunks.org/2025/01/30/deib-and-their-adversaries/
Organizational Structure and Decision Making
Who decides what kind of work your group does? What is the decision-making process? How are you organized (staff, board, volunteers, leaders)? How are your decisionmakers accountable to the larger community? If you have a fiscal agent, please explain the relationship.
We reject hierarchy. We use prosocial principles, restorative practices, transformative justice, and an advice process. We encourage omnidirectional learning, competency networks, and a “Default to open” philosophy. We use the NeurodiVenture operating modeled.
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/advice-process/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/prosocial/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/restorative-practices/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/transformative-justice/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/niche-construction/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/competency-network/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/omni-directional-learning/
https://stimpunks.org/philosophy/default-to-open/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/neurodiventure/
Movement Building
How does your group see itself as part of a larger movement for social change? How does your work connect with other social change issues and communities? Describe the most important coalitions, collaborations or networks that you participate in. Include your organization’s role.
We actively participate in the greater neurodiversity and disability rights movements and are part of the ever expanding Autistic rhizome.
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/autistic-rhizome/
Our allies include:
Funding and Community Support
Please describe your current fundraising activities. How does your community support your organization? How do you plan to sustain your future work? If you have any committed or pending grants, please list them, if applicable.
We do fundraising through our website and peer-to-peer campaigns as well as events.
Our community helps with peer-to-peer fundraising.
We plan to sustain our future work by continuing peer-to-peer fundraising and applying for grants with the help of our partners at Point B(e) Strategies.
Community Feedback
How do you integrate community feedback into your work?
We default to open. We run our organization in the open in our community Discord and on our website. We iterate openly, create feedback loops, and continuously integrate that feedback using methods we developed in open source project management.
https://stimpunks.org/philosophy/default-to-open/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/feedback-loop/
https://stimpunks.org/glossary/iteration/
https://stimpunks.org/fieldguide/communication/
3-5 Milestones
List 3-5 milestones your organization aims to achieve with this grant over the coming year. Please include detailed plans on how you intend to reach each milestone. For example: “By July 2025, we intend to specific milestone, and we plan to achieve this by detailed action 1 and detailed action 2, etc.
Our Objectives and Key Results are listed on our Now page.
In an especially strange twist, the case — against #TownstoneFinancial, a small Chicago-based lender — was brought during #Trump’s first term by Kathleen Kraninger, the director he appointed to run the #CFPB.
#RussVought, who became the agency’s acting director last month, said it had “used radical ‘#equity’ arguments to tag Townstone as #racist with zero evidence, & spent years persecuting & extorting them.”
Trump's firings of federal workers with DEI jobs were illegal, complaint claims
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
3/26/1943 The first disability payment under the Civilian War Benefits Program was made to a civilian defense worker. More: (“The Civilian War Benefits Program: SSA ‘s First Disability Program,” by Larry Dewitt. SSA Historian) https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v60n2/v60n2p68.pdf
3/26/1945 The U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted funds for a study of the Social Security Act, with particular reference to old-age and survivor's insurance and related problems of coverage, benefits and taxes. More (“Social Security Act Amendments of 1946,” by Angela J. Murray): https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v9n9/v9n9p2.pdf
3/26/2009 Vice President Joe Biden and Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced today that the federal government will send out $250 economic recovery payments to people who receive Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits beginning in early May 2009 and continuing throughout the month. More: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the_press_office/Vice-President-Biden-Announces-250-Dollar-Recovery-Payments-to-Go-to-Social-Security-and-SSI-Beneficiaries-in-May
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
Trump cancels NIH grants on equity research
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-trump-cancels-nih-grants-equity.html
Ethnicity Ethnicity refers to shared cultural, traditional, and familial bonds. It includes common language, religion, and customs. Examples: Han Chinese & African Canadian
As someone genuinely passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion, it pains me to see recommendations for job offers at companies such as Nestlé. They are well known for exploiting both people and natural resources, which in turn negatively and disproportionally affects maginalised groups.
These companies don't care about justice, they don't care about improving living conditions for all – or at least as many poeple as possible – they only care about PR, and at best try to slightly improve the work experience for those already enjoying a plethora of privileges.
Set in Louisiana in the late 1950's, a ghostly apparition opens the eyes of a young teen to the beauty of diversity and the injustice of segregation in A Friend in the Floorboards by Stefan Scheuermann.
#youngadult #comingofage #segregation #diversity #equity #inclusion
https://www.amazon.com/Friend-Floorboards-Stefan-Scheuermann-ebook/dp/B0DYWC74HC/
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
#WeAreNotGoingBack
The Day the New Deal Was Born, New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire:
On Saturday, March 25, 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a lethal fire broke out on the factory floor. more than one hundred women and two dozen men. Less than three weeks after the fire, on April 11, 1911, factory co-owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were indicted on charges of manslaughter - but when the case went to trial that December, they were found not guilty.
The attached video includes audio from that Triangle Fire 50th Anniversary Commemoration, March 25, 1961. Hear: former Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. In her own voice, you will hear Madame Perkins say,
"I am one of the very few people still alive who not only remember the triangle fire, but who saw it ... that with affection and respect upon those who died on March 25th, 1911, in this great fire. For this we can be thankful, and we can still say, these dead have not died in vain, and we will never forget them."
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
The Day the New Deal Was Born, New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Source “OASIS May 1979”: Frances Perkins: Life on her Own Terms https://www.ssa.gov/history/oasis/may1979.pdf
Frances Perkins Center | Her Life: The Woman Behind the New Deal https://lnkd.in/eFsPh4j6
FDR Library https://www.fdrlibrary.org/perkins
3/25/1941 The “OASIS News” published its first issue. OASIS News was the forerunner of the full-fledged, https://www.ssa.gov/history/oasis/oasisarticles.html
3/25/1983 “Finally, in the early morning hours of March 25, the Senate passed H.R. 1900...”
From: “Social Security Amendments of 1983: Legislative History and Summary of Provisions,” https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v46n7/v46n7p3.pdf
3/25/1996 (March 25-27, 1996) A government-wide conference on reinventing government was held in Bethesda, Maryland.
3/25/2004 SSA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) jointly transmitted to the Congress their proposed plan for transferring responsibility for Medicare-related hearings from SSA to HHS.
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #healthcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
3/24/1939 All States, the District of Columbia, Alaska, and Hawaii were actively participating in the program of disabled children's services under the Social Security Act. The Social Security Act: What It Has Meant to Children https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v23n8/v23n8p39.pdf
3/24/1943 An act was passed to permit the War Shipping Administration, as the employer of seamen serving on vessels owned or chartered to the United States, to pay the employer's payroll tax for old-age benefits without regard to the $3,000 limitation placed upon the amount of wages subject to that tax. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v8n8/v8n8p6.pdf
3/24/1965 After consideration by the House Ways & Means Committee where it passed the Committee on March 23, 1965, H.R. 6675 was introduced by Representative Wilbur Mills as the Social Security Amendments of 1965. https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/lbjmedicare1.html
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/ & #SSAHistGWC
The REACHE Lab’s primary investigator, Dr. Tara Horrill, was featured in an online Rady UM article! The link is in our bio.
