A Justice Department official’s casual use of a disability slur is endemic of a broader nationwide trend that can be traced directly to President Donald Trump, who experts said dropped a “nuclear bomb” that has reverberated through kitchen tables, group chats, and social media.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general overseeing the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, ignited outrage after using a slur against people with intellectual disabilities in a casual social media post about her knitting project, The New York Times reported Monday. Dhillon posted a photo of a purple hat alongside a black-and-white dog with a caption blaming “influencer r—-ds” for delaying her work.
Dhillon’s job is to protect the rights of people with intellectual disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Simply mind-blowing,” fumed Katy Neas, CEO of the Arc of the United States disability rights organization.
Neaas said the “drumbeat and use of this word has been like nothing I’ve seen in a very long time.” She said there’s a perception of power when using the word, that “I am powerful, therefore I can use this language; I am powerful, and therefore I can diminish others.”
“It’s language used by bullies to bully,” she said.
Dhillon’s post reflects a jarring resurgence of a term long considered taboo. But the word has exploded across social media, appearing over 46,000 times daily on X — a 2,000 percent jump since 2020. The surge accelerated dramatically after Trump used it to describe Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with usage spiking over 200 percent in just one week.
“[Elon] Musk influences a lot of people, especially in the manosphere, so we had a hunch that the platform was going to have more use of the term,” Dr. Bond Benton, a professor of public relations at Montclair State University, told the Times. “Then when Trump used it, it was like a nuclear bomb.”
The comeback has stunned disability advocates who spent decades successfully erasing the slur from mainstream discourse. Special Olympics launched the “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign in 2009, and President Obama signed “Rosa’s Law” in 2010, replacing the term in federal policy.
Now celebrities like Elon Musk, Kid Rock, and conservative commentators have resurrected the language, often framing it as a “free speech” victory against political correctness. But advocates emphasize the real damage: teens with disabilities report feeling shame and stigma when hearing the word normalized again.
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