Ongoing Federal Efforts to Segregate Disabled Americans

By Lucas Cook

For 36 years people with disabilities have been increasingly able to access mainstream society. For 53 years it’s been illegal for agencies and businesses that receive federal funding to discriminate against people with disabilities. For 52 years there has been no person with a disability arrested for the reason of being visibly disabled under an ugly law ordinance.

When President George HW Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, he stated, "Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” It was not until 1999, when the Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. L.C. that states have to spend money on Home and Community Based Services that the ADA fully began to be realized. Now, the Trump Administration is taking actions to challenge people with disabilities' right to be integrated into society.

On June 18th, the Office of Legal Counsel published a memorandum calling for DOJ and HHS regulations requiring people with disabilities to be served in the most integrated setting to be rescinded. Such regulations began after the 26-day-long Section 504 sit-ins in 1977 and simply state that people with disabilities cannot be segregated from people without disabilities. The memo claims that the Olmstead decision has been misinterpreted for the past 27 years and that neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor the Rehabilitation Act was meant to create an integration mandate. Though the document mostly discusses community-based services regarding people with mental health issues or intellectual disabilities, footnote 21 explains that the right to live in the community is not guaranteed for people with physical disabilities as well. While the memo does not say states can force disabled people into institutions, it does say states are allowed to make institutionalization the only door available to them.

The move came two days after the Department of Education announced it would be moving special education services into HHS.

While disability rights in the United States have never been perfect, we have, up until this point, surprised most of the world in implementing rights for the largest minority group. Nations, even ones that are developed and wealthy, still confine disabled populations in institutions, with, in some cases, such as Belgium, Canada, and Germany, the only way out being a lethal injection or doctor-proscribed suicide pill. Part of the reason for why the United States has been a world leader in deinstitutionalization was the decision in Olmstead v. L.C. That single Supreme Court decision led to states going from spending only 15% of Medicaid on long-term support services (LTSS) on home and community-based services (HCBS) in 1992 to spending 63.8% of LTSS funding on HCBS in 2023. In 2023, 87.1% of people who relied on Medicaid LTSS received care through HCBS. Not only do HCBS better serve the needs of people with disabilities, but they are also cheaper to fund than institutions that require professional staffing 24/7.

Institutions prior to Olmstead were well known for their human rights abuses. In 1965, when Senator Robert Kennedy visited the Willowbrook State School and Hospital in New York, he described the conditions there as a “snake pit” with the thousands of residents “living in filth and dirt, their clothing and rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in zoos.” After Robert Kennedy’s visit to Willowbrook, journalists Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan published the photobook "Christmas in Purgatory” in 1966, showing horrific images from five different institutions. While state institutions began to be shut down by lower-level court decisions starting in the early 1970s, it was not until the Olmstead decision that states across the nation were required to fund community-based services.

On July 20th, the Department of Justice began to follow through on the memorandum by posting a clarification that it would no longer be enforcing the Olmstead Guidance, a document explaining to states their obligation to provide home- and community-based services, and that they would be putting it under review. Up until this point, the DOJ played an instrumental part in enforcing the Olmstead decision and shifting state funding to community-based services. The clarification is the first step in dismantling the integration mandate and is especially concerning since the DOJ is in charge of defending the integration mandate in the 5th circuit case Texas v. Kennedy.

But community-based health services aren’t the only thing the integration mandate protects. One of the integration mandate guidelines that the Office of Legal Counsel directs the DOJ to rescind makes it clear to states that they cannot exclude children with disabilities from state and city-funded summer camps. Additionally, that same guidance tells states that they cannot prevent disabled people from accessing recreation areas or segregate them to a specific part of a cafeteria.

Anytime a state or local government discriminates against a person based on their disability, the integration mandate is violated. That includes when schools needlessly isolate students with disabilities in special education services. Other instances include when States offer employment services to disabled people in segregated settings such as a sheltered workshop. In 2012, a federal judge interpreted the integration mandate to prevent disabled people from being segregated in sheltered workshops (where they were being paid below minimum wage) and ordered the state of Oregon to make it possible for disabled people to obtain competitive integrated employment. If the integration mandate is declared not to exist, 49 years of progress will disappear.

Reversing the Olmstead decision and rescinding integration mandates across the DOJ and HHS would be disastrous. It would mean the reinstitutionalization of people with disabilities in the United States; it would mean a return to deprivation of liberty and a return to the shadows. Institutions are costly, not only to the taxpayer but also to the bodies and minds of people with disabilities who live in them. Those who are lucky to avoid the institution will face segregation by programs funded by the government.

Though times are bleak, there is still hope. States can pass their own laws to create an integration mandate. You can reach out to your state and federal representatives, urging them to do so. When major changes happen, the DOJ is supposed to make public comments available. When they do, tell them about how these changes harm you, your loved one, or simply hurt your belief in human decency. Even just informing people of what is happening is a way to resist the destruction of disability rights. Stay alert, stay educated, and don’t give up hope. Now is the time for heroes, not bystanders.

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Guest UserAugust 26, 2026disability, civil rights, federal governmentComment