DRI President, Laurie Ahern, was cited in NPR's recent coverage of the FDA moving to ban devices used to shock students at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts. DRI first reported on this practice in the 2010 report, Torture not Treatment.
"The idea that this is somehow treatment is absurd. It's sadistic and its torture," said Laurie Ahern, president of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Disability Rights International. "Many, many, many advocates have been trying many things for many decades to close the doors of the Judge Rotenberg Center."