The administration of the squatter currently occupying the White House may have just stepped on a hornets’ nest.
Most disability rights activists consider the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C and E.W. to be one of the most important civil rights victories in the nation’s history. In this case, two disabled women who were being held against their will in a mental institution in Georgia filed a lawsuit asserting that this sort of involuntary institutionalization of disabled folks violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); it urged that states be required to provide more community support options.
And by a majority of 6-3, the Justices agreed.
But on June 18 this year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an opinion memo stating that neither the ADA nor the Olmstead decision compel states to provide any community support options for people with disabilities.
The American Association of People with Disabilities put out a statement in response to the memo that says “courts across the country have consistently held that the Court did in fact mean for disabled people to be as integrated as possible.”
Several other organizations also issued statements denouncing the memo.
On June 23, Bloomberg Law reported that the whole process leading to this memo was initiated by Stephen Miller, the squatter’s deputy chief of staff. The article said Miller felt the Olmstead decision was being applied in a way that led to legal agreements with states that freed disabled people from institutions and thus increased homelessness.
Spokespersons from the DOJ and the White House denied that this was the rationale but it makes sense to me. I don’t think the squatter is smart enough to know or understand a thing about Olmstead and its legacy without someone explaining it to him.
The opinion memo doesn’t change any laws or reverse any court rulings. But it ignores the long history of states shoving disabled people into isolated and neglectful institutions. And it signals to states that the federal government has no interest in enforcing Olmstead, so they can probably stop worrying about getting in trouble with the feds for segregating away their disabled residents in institutions.
The Arc, a group which “promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” issued a statement saying “rights mean less when the federal government refuses to enforce them. This guidance seeks to undermine one of the strongest protections people with disabilities have from being pushed into institutions when they can and want to live in the community.”
It went on to say: “For people with disabilities, this is about whether they can get services at home instead of being forced into a facility. It’s about whether children and adults with disabilities can stay connected to their family, friends, school, work, and community life. It’s about whether people have a meaningful way to protect their rights when a state or system says ‘no.’ ”
Moreover, according to the American Association of People with Disabilities statement, the DOJ “is incorrect in its interpretation of Olmstead and its assumptions about what Congress intended. But the fact that their conclusion is unjustified and incorrect doesn’t change the fact that they will seek to use said interpretation to hurt disabled people, lock us away, end our autonomy over our lives, and in many cases, end our lives altogether. This interpretation will open the doors for states to revert to warehousing people with disabilities out of sight and out of mind.”
And that’s exactly where the squatter seems to think that disabled people should be—out of sight and out of mind.