Texas advocacy groups fear they could see a surge in the number of people living with disabilities being forced to either move back home or into institutions to receive critical health needs.
The fear of potentially having to make such a complex, multifaceted decision stems from a recent opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The D-O-J opinion essentially says that states are not required to provide services that help people with disabilities stay in their community.
At issue are two underlying civil rights protections for people with disabilities. These federal statutes include the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The now highly-controversial mid-June published opinion by the DOJ claims that neither of the disability protections listed above impose an “integration mandate” on states. Such a mandate, spelled out in the ADA, bans what is technically referred to as the “unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities.”
As Houston Public Media reports, more than 25 organizations have now signed a joint statement urging policymakers to take action and protect the rights of disabled citizens.
That includes Abby Maddox, a 26-year-old advocate with down syndrome. The independent life she has built for herself relies on several home and community-based services - like Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and a workforce support program.
Maddox also serves on the Texas Council of Developmental Disabilities (TCDD). She describes the thought of losing such independence, not to mention access to these programs, as depressing. "I will have to move back with my parents, or live in an institution. It depends what my family wants."
While The DOJ opinion does not change law, some advocates fear it serves as a potentially bleak precursor, or harbinger, of what’s to come in the not-too-distant future.
One such advocacy group is the Austin-based nonprofit Disability Rights Texas. The disability rights agency posted a statement on its website that questions the potential ramifications of the DOJ memo and how it might affect:
- how federal agencies investigate complaints?
- enforce disability rights laws?
- oversee state service systems?
- past settlement agreements?
- future litigation
(*by parties seeking to narrow the scope of community integration protections)
Even before those questions could be answered, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a statement of its own the very next day, on June 19. The director of the ACLU Disability Rights Program, Zoe Brennan-Krohn said, in part:
“Trump’s Justice Department cannot erase federal laws and decades of legal precedent with a single opinion…This is a blatant attempt to undermine the rights of disabled people.”
Specifically, the ACLU and other legal scholars say the DOJ memo is a violation of the Olmstead decision, a landmark 1999 Supreme Court ruling (Olmstead v. L.C.) which established that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities in institutions is an illegal form of discrimination under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
