Rhode Island · Through site files published 2025-08-13 · Newer source version available

R.I. Gen. Laws § 43-3-7.1: Use of appropriate disability language.

(a) Whenever the terms “the handicapped,” “handicap person,” or “handicapped person” are used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that they be replaced with the words “persons with disabilities” or “person with a disability,” inclusive, and whenever the term “handicap” is used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that it be replaced with the word “disability.”
(b) Whenever the terms “developmental disability” or “developmental disabilities” or “mentally retarded” or “retarded” are used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that they be replaced with the words “intellectual and developmental disability” or “person with an intellectual and developmental disability,” if the context so requires.
(c) Whenever the terms “substance abuse” or “addict” are used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that they be replaced with the words “substance use disorder” or “person with a substance use disorder,” if the context so requires.
(d) Whenever an act, resolution, statute, regulation, guideline, directive, or other document of a governmental entity refers to people with disabilities, terms that stigmatize, like “the handicapped,” “the disabled,” “the blind,” “the deaf,” “the hearing impaired,” “cerebral palsied,” “paralytic,” “epileptic,” “confined to a wheelchair,” “wheelchair bound,” “lunatic,” “idiot,” “defective,” “deformed,” “victim,” “suffers from,” “mentally retarded,” “retarded,” “addict,” “substance abuser,” etc., shall not be used. Language that puts the “person first,” rather than the impairment or assistive device, such as “person with a disability,” “child who has mental illness,” “worker who is deaf,” “voter who uses a wheelchair,” “person who is hard-of-hearing,” shall be used.

Where this section sits in the code

Title 43 Statutes and Statutory Construction
Chapter 3 Construction and Effect of Statutes

(b) Whenever the terms “developmental disability” or “developmental disabilities” or “mentally retarded” or “retarded” are used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that they be replaced with the words “intellectual and developmental disability” or “person with an intellectual and developmental disability,” if the context so requires.

(c) Whenever the terms “substance abuse” or “addict” are used in the general laws, the law revision director shall, unless the director determines it could alter the intent of the statute, recommend that they be replaced with the words “substance use disorder” or “person with a substance use disorder,” if the context so requires.

(d) Whenever an act, resolution, statute, regulation, guideline, directive, or other document of a governmental entity refers to people with disabilities, terms that stigmatize, like “the handicapped,” “the disabled,” “the blind,” “the deaf,” “the hearing impaired,” “cerebral palsied,” “paralytic,” “epileptic,” “confined to a wheelchair,” “wheelchair bound,” “lunatic,” “idiot,” “defective,” “deformed,” “victim,” “suffers from,” “mentally retarded,” “retarded,” “addict,” “substance abuser,” etc., shall not be used. Language that puts the “person first,” rather than the impairment or assistive device, such as “person with a disability,” “child who has mental illness,” “worker who is deaf,” “voter who uses a wheelchair,” “person who is hard-of-hearing,” shall be used.

Collected 2026-09-05T20:00:16Z. Source file · JSON

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