The Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act @ 50: The Biology of Re-Cognition

Welcome, 2025!

This year is the 50th Anniversary of legislation in the United States that created a liberation movement for people with developmental disabilities, and today, it is easy for us to overlook this grand example of social impact and systems change.

The Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act (Act) transformed society by divesting federal Medicaid funding in tortuous state institutions and investing in community services.

Over the past 50 years, you and I have lived with the results of the Act. If we reflect upon our own family, friends, and community, we find people labeled as developmentally disabled in 1975 being supported just as they were in my community’s annual Polar Plunge, raising funds for community support.

I invite you to this social love story that lives on in our daily living.

I will reveal the more profound lessons of the Act’s societal transformations from the September 1974 Senate Report Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act and the October 1975 Public Law 94-103 Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act to a practical Science of Love that can be applied today and deepen our understanding of the work of Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana.

Welcome 2025!

Let’s celebrate this anniversary joyfully!