New Ordinance Updates Language in New Haven Laws Concerning People with Disabilities

by Maggie Grether, Yale Daily News, Dec. 9, 2022

When Gretchen Knauff moved to New Haven and became the city’s Director of Disability Services last year, she began to examine the city’s laws concerning people with disabilities. She quickly noticed that many of these laws featured outdated terminology. Now, thanks to an ordinance submitted to the Board of Alders by Knauff, that language will be updated. The ordinance calls on the city to use “person-first language,” which emphasizes an individual’s personhood before their disability, according to Knauff. For instance, under person-first language, “handicapped person” changes to “person with a disability.”

“Language is important. How we talk about people is important; the way we portray them is important,” Knauff said. “I see this as something that’s truly basic that needs to be done to show that individuals are valued members of the New Haven community.”

Knauff submitted the ordinance to the Board of Alders July 5, and the Board passed it on Sept.19. Mayor Justin Elicker signed the ordinance into law Nov. 3. The ordinance only updates terminology and does not affect the intent of any laws.

“Updating and modernizing the terminology used in our ordinances to be more respectful and honoring of people with disabilities was the right thing to do and, frankly, long overdue,” Elicker stated in a press release.

For Carmen Correa-Rios, executive director of the CT Center for Disability Rights, the change brings New Haven law up-to-date with the language many disability rights advocates have been using for decades.

Correa-Rios said that seeing a change in the legal terminology was personally meaningful to her, both as a disability rights advocate and as a person with a disability.

Read the article in its entirety at https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/12/09/new-ordinance-
updates-language-in-new-haven-laws-concerning-people-with-disabilities