Disability rights activists were outraged recently by a U.S. Department of Justice memo challenging the long-held rule that disabled people have a right to live as integrated as possible within their communities.
The memo determined that states are not required to “treat mentally disabled patients in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.”
That challenges the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that people with disabilities have a qualified right to receive state funded supports and services in the community rather than in institutions in many cases.
Reaction to the memo was fierce.
“Shock, outrage, fear. In many instances, folks are looking at this as reversing 50 years of disability rights advocacy and action,” Bryan O’Malley, vice president of external affairs at the Center for Disability Rights, told Capital Tonight.
While both New York state’s chief disability officer and Office for People with Developmental Disabilities commissioner commented on the memo saying that New York has enshrined much of Olmstead into law, people with disabilities remain concerned.
O’Malley’s organization is pursuing a federal legislative fix called the “Latonya Reeves Freedom Act” (LRFA), named after a woman who escaped an institution in Tennessee and moved to Colorado, where she successfully lived in the community with proper supports for years and advocated for others to have the same opportunities.
While the legislation is sponsored by Democrats, it has bipartisan support, including that of New York U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-Pearl River).
According to O’Malley, the shift in the Justice Department’s stance is consistent with conservative legal theory regarding strict statutory interpretation. The Dobbs decision which rolled back abortion rights is another example of how this theory has taken hold.
“It’s a dramatic philosophical shift in the Supreme Court that is causing any number of precedents to be re-examined, and within the case of interracial marriage and same sex marriage, Congress immediately looked at it and said, ‘this was not the intent,’ and they passed the Respect for Marriage Act to make sure the law said the words that the court said it needed to say.”
The Latonya Reeves Freedom Act would defer to the desires of an individual living with disabilities rather than a treating clinician’s opinion regarding whether that individual may live in a community setting rather than an institution.