The Justice Department released a memo this week that quietly calls into question decades of civil rights protections for Americans with disabilities and stirred fear and anger among advocates and families.The memo, an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that states do not have to provide in-home or community-based care to people with disabilities who need support.These services allow many disabled Americans to continue to live, learn and work at home or in their own communities, among family and friends."It is now the position of the United States government that people with disabilities don't have a right to be part of their communities," says Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who led disability law and policy efforts during both the Obama and Biden administrations.
"I can't overstate how significant this change in position is."Without the federal government requiring that states provide these services – to help disabled people integrate into their communities – advocates and legal experts warn that cash-strapped states could cut them and return to what was once common practice: de facto segregation of Americans with disabilities in nursing homes and large institutions.Pushback from the disability community was swift."As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, [this memo] threatens to drag our nation back to a dark and shameful era of ignorance and cruelty," said the American Association of People with Disabilities."This interpretation will open the doors for states to revert to warehousing people with disabilities out of sight and out of mind in institutions.""This opinion is a direct threat to decades of progress toward community living for people with disabilities," said Shira Wakschlag of The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit disability advocacy group.
"People with disabilities shouldn't be forced into institutions because a state refuses to provide services in the communit...