White House
Lois Curtis presents President Obama with one of her paintings as part of a 2011 commemoration of the Olmsted decision.
Lois Curtis voluntarily entered the psychiatric unit of the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta in May 1992. She had an intellectual disability and was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. A year later, she wanted to move out of the hospital and into a community-living arrangement. Her treatment professionals agreed that she was ready. But the state government did nothing to make that happen. There she sat, confined to the state hospital with no possibility of release in sight.
So in 1995, she became the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that accused Georgia of violating regulations in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which say that states must provide services for disabled people in “the most integrated setting appropriate.” Twenty years ago, on June 22, 1999, in the case of Olmstead v. L.C, a majority of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court said she was right. It was a monumental civil rights victory for disabled Americans.
“Unjustified isolation, we hold, is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability.”
—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
In the majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote, “Unjustified isolation, we hold, is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability.”
Unjustified isolation is exactly what Lois Curtis faced. The ruling did not obligate states to provide more integrated community-based alternatives to any disabled person desiring them, but it does say every state should make efforts to support people in “the most integrated setting appropriate,” and make “reasonable modifications” in policies in order to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities.
Clarence Thomas wrote the dissenting opinion in a snide diatribe in which his legendary thick headedness is on full display. Thomas wrote, “Temporary exclusion from community placement does not amount to ‘discrimination’ in the traditional sense of the word.”
Temporary? Lois Curtis spent four years in the state hospital until she finally was allowed to move into a community setting in 1996. There was no telling how much longer she may have remained. Perhaps for the rest of her life.
Thomas whined that the Court had created a new “species” of discrimination, grousing that “by adopting such a broad view of discrimination, the majority drains the term of any meaning other than as a proxy for decisions disapproved of by this Court.’’
“The appropriate course would be to respect the States’ historical role as the dominant authority responsible for providing services to individuals with disabilities,” Thomas concluded.
As with all great civil rights victories, a Supreme Court decision was not the final resolution of the matter. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, segregated school districts didn’t immediately concede defeat and open their doors to everyone. Activists had to demand compliance and enforcement.
This certainly has been the case with Olmstead. Here in Illinois, it took class action lawsuits, settled with consent decrees, to force the state to make serious progress in deinstitutionalizing disabled people. The plaintiffs were disabled folks who, like Lois, were trapped indefinitely and involuntarily in nursing homes and other state and privately operated institutions. The decrees required the state to create the human services infrastructure that has enabled thousands of formerly institutionalized people to live with much greater freedom and autonomy in their communities.
In 2009, Georgia and the U.S. Department of Justice entered into a consent decree in which the state agreed to “cease all admissions to the State Hospitals of all individuals for whom the reason for admission is due to a primary diagnosis of a developmental disability.”
So happy birthday, Olmstead decision, and cheers to you, Lois Curtis.