Statement: DOJ challenge to Olmstead repudiates hard-won progress – MN Disability Law Center
STATEMENT (Minneapolis, Minn.) — Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion questioning one of the most important disability civil rights principles in modern American law — that persons with disabilities have the right to live, work and learn in the community rather than being unnecessarily segregated in institutions. The Minnesota Disability Law Center (MDLC) of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid strongly objects to this repudiation of 27 years of hard-won legal progress for persons with disabilities and their civil rights
For more than 25 years, the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. has stood for a basic promise: people with disabilities should not be forced into institutions when they can be safely and appropriately supported in the community. That promise has helped people leave state institutions, nursing facilities and other segregated settings. It has helped people avoid institutionalization in the first place. It has shaped how state systems are set up and funded, impacting the daily lives of disabled people and their families.
The new OLC opinion attempts to weaken the promise of Olmstead and countless other hard-won legal authorities upholding the rights of persons with disabilities to be integrated into the community. OLS claims that neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act requires states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. It adopts a “sole factor” causation standard, where institutionalization can be deemed unlawful only if disability is the sole motivating factor. OLS claims that as long as the state can articulate a “nonarbitrary” justification, such as cost, convenience or lack of planning, institutionalization, even if unnecessary, would not violate long-standing legal precedent mandating integration.
MDLC contends that the DOJ’s interpretation is contrary to law and attempts to turn back decades of civil rights enforcement for persons with disabilities. It attempts to weaken protections keeping persons with disabilities out of institutions. It tells persons with disabilities that rights to live in the community are preferences that governments may ignore.
We emphasize that the OLC opinion does NOT overrule Olmstead. It does not require courts to follow that interpretation of the law and does not erase the ADA, Section 504, existing court orders or the decades of case law recognizing that unjustified institutionalization is discrimination.
But we also want to be clear about the threat and the danger that federal integration mandate rules be changed or even rescinded. MDLC Legal Director Anne Robertson reaffirms, “MDLC’s commitment to ensuring that hard-won progress for persons with disabilities in Minnesota will not be lost. MDLC will continue to closely review the OLC opinion to assess its impact on people with disabilities and the civil rights laws that protect them.” Disabled people belong in their communities and MDLC will continue the fight to make sure it stays that way for Minnesotans with disabilities.
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Media Contact:
Lisa Ramirez
Communications Director
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
lramirez@mylegalaid.org