FALLS CHURCH, VA – It all started right before dragon boat practice.
Christine Grassman and her husband, Gary, had an important race coming up. In less than a week, the couple would be off to Florida for the national championships.
Much like the Grassmans, who are blind, dragon boating is often misunderstood. It’s confused with rowing, but they’re not the same. Dragon boaters use paddles and face forward; rowers use oars and face backward.
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The lesser-known sport is also favored among people with disabilities – “paradragons,” as Christine and Gary call themselves. The two were “bit by the dragon” just before the coronavirus pandemic. Roughly six years later, Christine, at 56, is the president of their team, the “Out of Sight Dragons.”
On the morning of Oct. 11, Christine’s phone lit up with a text just as she and Gary were gearing up for one of their last workouts before nationals. Her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education relayed a message that their team had received “reduction in force” notices. That’s Washington-speak for a layoff. She instructed Christine to check her own email.
She did. She let a “few choice phrases” slip. Her last day would be Dec. 9.
Christine was distraught. She also wasn’t alone. President Donald Trump’s administration fired more than 4,000 federal workers that weekend, just 10 days into what eventually became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Read more: Education Department lays off roughly 20% of its workforce amid shutdown
In the past, such ordeals caused furloughs that, while harmful, were only temporary and ended with federal workers eventually getting paid for their forced time away from the office. That’s what happened during Trump’s first term, when the government shuttered for 35 days, setting a record at the time.
In Trump’s second term, the administration’s decision to fire its employees during another historic shutdown became one of the funding crisis’ defining challenges.
The upheaval that people like Christine endured underscored just how harmful Washington gridlock can become for many Americans, including civil servants. That tumult has in turn affected some people with disabilities, who are employed at slightly higher rates in the federal government versus the private sector. Federal law has historically required agencies to plan to meet specific hiring goals for people with disabilities.
Read more: Their time at the Education Department may be over. The grieving isn’t.
Claire Stanley, director of advocacy and governmental affairs for the American Council of the Blind, said Christine wasn’t the only blind or low-vision federal employee she knew who was initially laid off during the shutdown. Many others, though not fired, spent weeks without pay.
“All of us were kind of holding our breath,” she said.
Christine spoke to USA TODAY for this story in her personal capacity as an advocate for other blind people – she is the president of the Fairfax chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia – and as a member of AFGE Local 252, the union for Education Department employees. She said her views are not representative of the agency.
From a ‘dream job’ to nightmares
Christine Grassman sits near Pixie, the family cat.
On Oct. 29, four weeks into the government shutdown, Christine sat in her apartment, resting both palms flat on her dining room table. Pixie, her Norwegian forest cat, lounged on a couch nearby, his sandy brown fur complementing the dark maroon upholstery.
For a multitude of reasons, she was on a higher dose of anxiety medication. Worries about caring for her aging parents usually live more toward the back of her mind. Since she was fired, those fears had shoved their way to the front.
Her mother has Alzheimer’s; her father, a longtime firefighter, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They both still live in Long Island, New York, Christine’s hometown.
Nightmares were making it harder to sleep. Her stomach hurt frequently.
Despite all those concerns, the previous 24 hours had brought some hope. On Oct. 28, a federal judge in California temporarily paused her firing, along with thousands of others. With most federal agencies still largely closed, though, she wasn’t back on the job yet.
The news offered only limited comfort. It did little to soothe her concerns about the long-term future of the federal law she has helped implement since 2019. Though housed in the Education Department, it’s not really about education at all.
The main goal of the Randolph-Sheppard program, as it’s known, is to give blind business owners job opportunities. Under the law, blind and visually impaired entrepreneurs get priority when competing for contracts to manage food service businesses in federal buildings.
More: Advocates are pushing to end lower wages for disabled workers. Some families are opposed.
In fiscal year 2023, the program allowed nearly 1,500 vendors to generate roughly $750 million, according to federal data. As a program specialist, Christine’s job has been to mediate conflicts and make sure blind entrepreneurs get the favored status they’re entitled to. Her own husband was once a beneficiary of the program.
“She got her dream job,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of the Education Department’s union.
Read more from the USA Today Network: These blind vendors did brisk business across NY. Then COVID brought sales to a standstill
The Department of Education building is shown weeks into the U.S. government shutdown in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21.
That all changed in mid-October, when staffers in charge of the program at the federal level were fired. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the broader slate of layoffs that came down simultaneously, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said he took no pleasure in the circumstances.
“It is a regrettable situation that the president does not want,” he said as the White House was considering the workforce reductions.
In a statement Nov. 6, the Education Department argued that because layoffs like Christine’s had been blocked by the courts, there would be no impact on the agency’s operations.
The breaking point
Volunteers in Altadena, California, distribute free groceries to those in need at a drive-through food distribution event in the aftermath of the federal government shutdown. Delays in food assistance benefits during the crisis caused widespread hardship.
The future of Christine’s job was still uncertain a week and a half after the court injunction. In the U.S. Capitol, the vibes were starting to shift in a way that suggested a resolution could be within reach.
More: Pain from the shutdown keeps worsening. Is a turning point on its way?
Around the country, the consequences of Washington’s monthlong stalemate were increasingly revealing themselves to everyday Americans in ways that mattered. Large swaths of flights experienced cancellations or delays. Preschool programs for thousands of children closed. Millions of people on federal aid programs struggled to afford food.
Senate Democrats who were holding back their votes to reopen the government over health care costs had reached their breaking point. Finally, on Nov. 9, they struck a deal with congressional Republicans and the White House to turn the lights back on.
Read more: Inside the details of the shutdown deal, from new cannabis rules to a Jack Smith jab
Travelers sleep on chairs as flights are cancelled at Orlando International Airport on Oct. 30. Major delays occurred after the Federal Aviation Administration said the airport had no certified air-traffic controllers in its tower amid the shutdown.
The agreement immediately pitted Democrats against one another. Many castigated their colleagues for capitulating without any substantive commitment from the other side to avoid a looming spike in health insurance premiums for millions of people.
The compromise did, however, include a major provision for people like Christine: All the shutdown-related layoffs would be reversed. Plus, the White House would be barred from implementing any more firings across the federal workforce until at least Jan. 30, 2026.
The next night, the Senate sent a bill to reopen the government over to the House of Representatives. Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator and 2016 vice presidential nominee who represents thousands of federal employees in Virginia like Christine, crossed party lines to side with the GOP.
“We protected them,” he told USA TODAY moments after he cast his vote. “They’ve all got families and people depending on them, and it feels very, very good.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, speaks to reporters on Nov. 10 during a vote to end the shutdown.
Sen. John Fetterman, who also split from his party to reopen the government, echoed those sentiments. Moving to rehire people like Christine was the “right thing” to do, according to the Pennsylvania Democrat who himself has a disability caused by an auditory processing disorder.
“This needed to end,” he told USA TODAY.
Read more: Master stroke or dumb luck, Dems may win shutdown’s long game
Relieved, but not happy
Christine Grassman, sitting alongside the family cat named Pixie and her husband Gary.
On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the shutdown was officially over. Christine went back to work later that week.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, who proved himself to be an ardent defender of federal workers during the shutdown, told USA TODAY he wasn’t familiar with Christine’s specific situation but nonetheless predicted people like her would be happy to get their jobs back.
“I’m relieved,” she said when asked about Johnson’s suggestion. “But I’m not happy.”
The future of her workplace is far from clear. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has vowed to eliminate as much of her agency as legally possible − and just took another big step in that direction. On Nov. 18, she announced she was outsourcing key programs, including for low-income and rural schools, to four other agencies.
Read more: Is RFK Jr. about to get the special ed portfolio? Trump admin mulls a change
Though Christine’s division wasn’t included in the reorganization, there’s widespread speculation such a change is in the works. (Education Department officials have said they’re still mulling the future of the special education division, where Christine’s office is housed.) Agency spokespeople didn’t respond to multiple requests from USA TODAY since the shutdown ended for comment about the reversed layoffs. But court documents indicate the administration is fully complying with a judge’s order to reinstate people like Christine.
Dragon boating season is now over. As soon as they get their post-shutdown finances in order, the Grassmans are thinking about planning a trip somewhere warmer to get back at it. Exercise is as much a stress reliever for them as it is for anyone else.
“You can get a lot of anger out with a paddle,” Christine said.
The sport officially ramps up again in May. Until then, they hope their winter workouts will help them cope with whatever life throws their way.
Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A blind woman, a ‘dream job,’ and the toll of the government shutdown
