When the Government Stops Fighting for You

For decades, the Department of Justice served as the primary enforcement engine behind Olmstead v. L.C., the 1999 Supreme Court decision that established the right of people with disabilities to live in their communities rather than be confined to institutions. That enforcement posture — built through settlements with states, intervention in private lawsuits, and consistent legal arguments — was never perfect. But it was real, and people's lives depended on it.

Now that posture is being systematically dismantled. In recent weeks, the DOJ pulled out of a Texas case involving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities placed in nursing homes, reversed its legal position in a Florida case protecting children with complex medical needs from institutionalization, and issued a memo declaring that neither the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. That last move directly contradicts the common legal understanding of Olmstead — a fact the DOJ itself acknowledged in the memo.

This is not a policy debate about regulatory interpretation. This is a reversal with immediate consequences for thousands of disabled people who rely on community-based services to stay out of institutions.

What the DOJ Actually Did — and Why It Matters

The Office of Legal Counsel memo, issued in June, is the foundation of everything that's followed. It declared that neither the ADA nor Section 504 (opens in new window) require states to treat people with mental disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. That interpretation directly contradicts Olmstead, which the Supreme Court decided in 1999 and which has governed disability rights enforcement for 25 years.

The memo doesn't change the law. Olmstead is still binding precedent. Section 504's integration regulations remain in effect. But the DOJ's position shapes how federal courts receive government arguments, how states calculate their legal risk, and how aggressively federal officials investigate systemic violations. As Eve Hill, who served as deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights under the Obama administration, put it: "We are at risk of returning to the terrible conditions people with disabilities were forced to endure when they were locked away out of sight and out of mind."

That's not hyperbole. It's a description of what happens when enforcement infrastructure disappears.

The Florida case is particularly instructive. The DOJ originally brought that case — it was the federal government arguing that Florida was violating the rights of children with complex medical needs by failing to provide home and community-based services. An appeals court upheld an order requiring Florida to improve that system. Now the same DOJ is asking the court to send the case back to a lower court for reconsideration, and specifically opposing protections for children at risk of entering institutions. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote in the filing that "there is little reason to keep in place injunctive relief where, as here, the plaintiff no longer defends the legal theory on which the injunction was sought."

The plaintiff, here, is the United States government. The government is withdrawing its own legal theory in a case it built.

The Olmstead Enforcement Architecture Is Collapsing

Jennifer Mathis, now deputy director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (opens in new window), flagged something that should alarm every disability rights advocate: the DOJ has filed notices in cases where it holds settlements with Maine and Rhode Island, noting that its findings in those cases relied on guidance it no longer supports. "It is unclear what they plan to do at this point," Mathis said, "but the notices are ominous."

Settlements are supposed to be durable. They represent negotiated agreements, often years in the making, that require states to build out community-based service systems. Our research on how legal victories can create compliance failures documents exactly this dynamic: when enforcement infrastructure weakens after a settlement, the gains erode. States that were building toward compliance have less incentive to continue if the federal government is signaling it won't hold them accountable.

Then there's Texas v. Kennedy, the multi-state lawsuit challenging a 2024 update to Section 504 regulations. That rule — which requires HHS-funded entities to provide services in the most integrated setting and identifies serious risk of institutionalization as a potential violation — is now potentially undefended. Michelle Uzeta, executive director of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, said plainly: "If DOJ stops defending the rule, there may be no one left in the case arguing for the federal community-integration requirement."

Think about what that means structurally. The regulation exists. The law exists. But the entity with the authority and resources to defend both at the federal level may simply... not.

Applying the CORS Lens: What This Requires from the Field

The CORS framework — Community Input, Operational Capacity, Risk/Legal Priority, and Strategic Alignment — offers a way to think through what advocates, states, and disability organizations should do now. Each pillar reveals a different dimension of what this moment demands.

Community Input has to come first. The populations most directly at risk are people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, children with complex medical needs, and people with mental health conditions who rely on Medicaid-funded home and community-based services. These are not abstract constituencies. They are people who have built lives in their communities — jobs, relationships, routines — that depend on service systems the federal government is now less motivated to protect. Centers for Independent Living, disability-led advocacy organizations, and Medicaid beneficiary groups need to be documenting what's happening on the ground right now: which states are already pulling back, which service systems are under pressure, which individuals are receiving notices about service changes.

Operational Capacity determines who can actually fight back. Private disability rights organizations — the Bazelon Center, DREDF, state protection and advocacy systems — now carry more of the enforcement load. But they have finite resources and cannot replicate what the DOJ does at scale. States with strong disability rights infrastructure and political will to maintain Olmstead compliance independently will fare better than those that treated federal pressure as the primary compliance driver. Organizations should be auditing their legal capacity honestly: who on staff understands Olmstead litigation? What relationships exist with private civil rights attorneys? What documentation systems are in place to support future cases?

Risk/Legal Priority looks different when the federal enforcement actor has stepped back. The law hasn't changed, which means private plaintiffs can still bring Olmstead cases — and the Supreme Court's 1999 decision remains binding on every federal court. States that reduce community-based services or allow waitlists to grow without adequate justification remain legally vulnerable to private suit. For disability organizations advising states or service providers, the risk calculus hasn't disappeared; it's shifted. Understanding how legal frameworks interact with enforcement realities is now more important than ever.

Strategic Alignment means finding the levers that still work. State legislatures in some jurisdictions have stronger disability rights protections than federal minimums. State attorneys general can bring enforcement actions independent of the DOJ. Medicaid managed care contracts can include integration requirements. Advocacy organizations should be mapping which state-level actors have both the authority and the political motivation to maintain community integration requirements — and building those relationships now, before service reductions accelerate.

The Stakes Are Not Abstract

Institutionalization is not a metaphor. It means people losing control over where they live, who they live with, when they eat, whether they can leave. The Olmstead decision was built on the recognition that unnecessary institutionalization is discrimination — a form of segregation that denies disabled people equal participation in community life. That principle is codified in 28 CFR Part 35 (opens in new window) for Title II entities and remains legally intact.

What's changed is not the law. What's changed is the willingness of the federal government to be the entity that enforces it.

For practitioners working in this space, the immediate priority is documentation and connection. Document every service reduction, every waitlist expansion, every institutional placement that could have been avoided with adequate community supports. Connect those cases to private legal organizations that can bring Olmstead claims. Support state-level advocacy for integration mandates that don't depend on federal enforcement posture.

The Southeast ADA Center's community-centered approach (opens in new window) to disability rights analysis has always emphasized that enforcement gaps hit hardest in communities with the least existing advocacy infrastructure — rural areas, states with weak protection and advocacy systems, communities where disabled people have fewer institutional allies. That's where attention needs to go now.

Olmstead is still the law. The question is who's going to fight for it.