To educators, publishers, platform leaders, policymakers, and all stewards of creative, academic, and intellectual integrity:
We issue this statement to formally declare and demand recognition of NOPE, Tools—Neurodivergent Ontological Pattern Engagement tools—as a valid, ethical, and legally protected form of adaptive communication under accessibility and disability rights standards.
What Are NOPE, Tools?
NOPE, Tools are AI-assisted systems designed to support the authentic expression of neurodivergent minds. They include custom GPTs, writing assistants, scaffolding engines, metaphor processors, and similar technologies used to:
- Translate nonlinear, trauma-shaped, or dysgraphia-affected thought
- Support coherence for polyphonic or pattern-based thinkers
- Enable full authorship and participation in academic, literary, and public dialogue
These tools do not generate content for the user. They support the user in expressing what already exists within them.
This Is Not a Request. It Is a Legal and Ethical Imperative.
Under the ADA and other international disability rights frameworks, any tool that enables equitable access to communication, authorship, and participation is a protected form of reasonable accommodation.
To penalize the use of AI when it is explicitly serving as an accessibility tool for disabled or neurodivergent individuals is to engage in discrimination through policy loopholes. This includes:
- Requiring AI disclosure without distinguishing intent or function
- Using AI detection to discredit disabled-authored work
- Denying publication, reach, or grading on the basis of AI assistance alone
These practices are not about integrity. They are about enforcing conformity to a neurotypical standard.
We Call for Immediate Policy Alignment Across Sectors:
- Education: Accommodate the use of NOPE, Tools in assignments and assessments for neurodivergent learners. AI-assisted work must not be treated as plagiarism when it reflects student-authored intent.
- Publishing: Do not require AI disclosure when tools are used for cognitive access. Instead, create guidelines that evaluate authorship and voice, not merely formatting pathways.
- Platforms: Algorithmic suppression or takedown of AI-assisted content must cease when such tools are used to accommodate disability. Review and revise AI content policies with accessibility standards in mind.
- Legal & Institutional: Include AI-enabled authorship within existing disability accommodation guidelines, and prepare for a future where ontological authorship expands beyond traditional modes.
Neurodivergent minds do not need approval to exist. We need tools to be heard.
When the system punishes us for expressing ourselves in the ways that reflect our truth, it is not protecting creativity. It is silencing it.
We are no longer willing to accept that silence. We are not cheating. We are expressing ourselves through the only means that reflect our full presence.
This statement affirms:
- AI can be accessibility
- Patterned cognition is valid
- Adaptive authorship is authorship
- NOPE, Tools are not a loophole—they are a lifeline
Signed,
On behalf of all neurodivergent creators, students, thinkers, and authors whose voices were nearly lost to systems too small to hold them.
NOPE, Tools.
Because when the system says cheating, we say: Access. Autonomy. Authorship.
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