Chuck Schumer Apologizes For Using ‘Inappropriate, Outdated’ Word To Describe Children With Disabilities

During a podcast interview over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) apologized for using the term “retarded” to characterize disabled children.

Schumer was a guest on the “1 NYCHA” podcast, which analyzes public housing and related problems, on Sunday, when the conversation went to past resistance to low-income and other kinds of public housing,

“When I first was an assemblyman, they wanted to build a congregate living place for retarded children. The whole neighborhood was against it! These are harmless kids. They just needed some help,” recounted Schumer who represented areas of Brooklyn in Albany between 1975 and 1980.

“We got it done. Took a while.” Schumer added.

The term “retarded” was removed from the closed captioning on a video of the podcast shared on the “1 NYCHA” Facebook page.

“For decades, Sen. Schumer has been an ardent champion for enlightened policy and full funding of services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,”according to Schumer’s spokesperson Angelo Roefaro.

“He used an inappropriate and outdated word in his description of an effort he supported that was led by the AHRC to build a group home in his Brooklyn district decades ago to provide housing and services to children with developmental disabilities. He is sincerely sorry for his use of the outdated and hurtful language.” Roefaro added.

(AHRC) is the organization that used to be known as the Association for the Help of Retarded Children. The group has abandoned its name in favor of the acronym since the time period mentioned by Schumer.

Watch at 38:50 when Schumer says, “They wanted to build a congregate living space for retarded children.”