Authority Substituted for Autonomy
The Trump DOJ declared in July that 27 years of Olmstead enforcement guidance is 'not enforceable.' That's the guidance built on the 1999 Supreme Court ruling that said unjustified institutionalization is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act — the one that required states to fund community-based services so disabled people could live in their own homes instead of institutions. The ruling itself still stands. The enforcement is what changed. DOJ issued a legal opinion in June stating federal disability rights laws don't require states to provide services that let people with disabilities stay in their homes. Then in July they said the enforcement guidance that had been in place since 1999 doesn't bind anyone. Millions of people with disabilities just lost the federal backstop that kept them out of institutions when state budgets got tight or administrators decided warehousing people was easier than accommodating them. What Olmstead said Olmstead v...