Federal DOJ Opinion Threatens to Segregate People with Disabilities
The disability community should be alarmed by a recent Department of Justice opinion that challenges the legal foundation of one of the most important disability rights principles in America– the right of disabled people to live, work, learn, and participate in their communities instead of being unnecessarily segregated in institutions or other restrictive settings.
While this opinion does not overturn the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504, or the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, it directly challenges decades of disability rights enforcement and threatens the progress generations of disabled people fought to achieve.
This new opinion questions whether federal disability rights laws actually require states to provide services in integrated community settings rather than segregated ones. The opinion makes it clear– the goal is to take us back decades and segregate us once more!
If this interpretation gains traction, it could weaken protections that have helped disabled people remain in their homes and communities. It could make it easier for states to defend institutional placements, limit investments in community based services, weaken federal enforcement efforts, and undermine decades of progress toward inclusion and independence. It could even lead to the deaths of many people with disabilities by forcing them into institutional settings, which have a centuries-long history of mistreatment, unsanitary conditions, and violence.
We know where that road leads because disabled people have lived that history.
For generations, disabled Americans were institutionalized, isolated, denied opportunities, and separated from their families and communities simply because they were disabled.
The disability rights movement fought tirelessly to change that reality.
This opinion threatens to undermine that progress.
The disability community has faced attacks before, and every generation has been called upon to defend the rights that others fought so hard to secure.
That moment is here again.
CALL TO ACTION
We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.
Let this be an opportunity for everyone to step up, get fully engaged, contribute their strengths, and take action.
Contact your members of Congress and demand they defend the ADA, Section 504, Olmstead, and community integration. Click the button below to get started.