Disability Rights At Risk, 7 States Back Case Attacking Key Protections, Warehoused Institutions, TX v. Kennedy

[appalachiablue]

- 'Disability Rights Are at Risk as 7 States Back Case Attacking Key Protections.' - Ed.

Advocates for disability rights are fighting the lawsuit, which would push more people to be warehoused in institutions. Truthout, 5.30.26.
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- (Photo): On the 35th anniv. of the Americans with Disabilities Act hundreds of members and allies of disability advocacy activist groups from all across NY gathered at Washington Sq. Park for the ADA35 NYC Protest, Rally, July 26, 2025.
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The right of disabled people to live in community rather than being warehoused in institutions is under attack in a lawsuit currently being pursued by Texas and 6 other states. But advocacy efforts are persuading states to pull out of the suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called Texas v. Kennedy.

Two state plaintiffs withdrew from the case in May after hearing concerns from the disability community, bringing the number of remaining state plaintiffs to only 7 in an amended case that began with 17. “[The case] could really alter the legal landscape for people with disabilities who have support needs,” Claudia Center, legal director at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), told Truthout.

Alongside Texas, the other state plaintiffs are Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Montana. Indiana and South Dakota dropped this month.

The lawsuit targets Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a landmark piece of disability rights legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in federal programs or programs that receive federal funding. Since that legislation, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), came into force, federal guidance and court rulings have helped clarify how the laws must be applied and who is protected under them.

Texas v. Kennedy also targets some of those precedents, especially a body of regulations and decisions often collectively called Olmstead (or Olmstead rules), which ban the unnecessary segregation of disabled people and allow them to receive services in the community rather than in institutions. The name comes from the 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that segregating disabled people when needed support could be provided in community is a form of discrimination prohibited by the ADA... - More,

https://truthout.org/articles/disability-rights-are-at-risk-as-7-states-back-case-attacking-key-protections/
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- The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities from discrimination. Disability rights are civil rights. From voting to parking, the ADA is a law that protects people with disabilities in many areas of public life. New on ADA.gov
https://www.ada.gov/

[hlthe2b]

1. Cruelty seems to be in vogue now. Sigh...

[appalachiablue]

2. Yes it does, a shift for the worst, rollbacks after progress. Thanks for the post.

[Skittles]

3. sounds so......"pro-life Christian"

[appalachiablue]

4. Ik, rollback of protections, discrimination. Glad disability groups are involved in this !

[Skittles]

6. I recently watched a documentary regarding how disabled folk brought about the ADA

it was a long, hard brawl but those folk were FORMIDABLE and RELENTLESS, they did NOT back down........I expect nothing less from them this go-around; yes INDEED

[appalachiablue]

9. Yes, there were, and are excellent advocates and fighters on the side of disability rights.

[Sweet Rosie Red]

5. As a disabled American

currently receiving services under Olmstead, I will simply say that evidence shows that caring for people in the community is proven to be cheaper than institutionalization and provides higher quality care. I will also state for the record that I worked in some of those institutions as a young woman, before my childhood spine injury knocked me out of the workforce. I quit the field and went back to school because I felt I was denying my own humanity by the way the institutions forced me to treat the patients. I will cheerfully die before I will leave my home. Mr Sweet, a former teacher and social worker, agrees. So if they do this they might as well be promoting suicide.

[Skittles]

7. hear, hear

seems like profits for institutions are WAY more important than what is best for disabled folk

[appalachiablue]

10. Good for you, I understand & support your views. I hope the disability advocates prevail, I

think they will. Thanks much for your thoughtful post and all the best.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

8. I hate conservatism

Last edited Mon Jun 1, 2026, 08:21 PM - Edit history (1)

In it is fascism.

Conservatives believe in a natural order of things, (funny how they always put themselves on the top).

If you have a hierarchical way of being you can either be part of the tiny few tops but most are not the tops but jostling to get to be one of the tops.

Free market capitalism is the same shit applied to finances


Then there’s eugenics The same shit applied to societies.

The Republican Nazi psychopaths want to cause us to suffer cause we in thier self serving conservative “natural”hierarchy of things ,disabled people are declared weak.


For a hierarchy to exist it must have a bottom and there has to be a top .The vast struggling mass aspiring to the top are terrified of looking weak to each other and the top so they point at disabled people declare them the “weakest”,
Then the struggling masses who need to feel secure in thier “place” in the hierarchy seek out a leader to remind them who they are , and lie to them so they don’t have to ask why or think they can be lazy and obediently rationalize evil shit through conservatism rationalizing why they have the “right “ to dehumanize us.


The disabled people are among the lowest rung in the “natural “order of things according to conservatism and the lower rungs are declared inferior unworthy unproductive etc.,

Then it becomes easier for the monsters on the top and the vast middle will start rationalizing atrocity to kill us disabled. The poor the mentally ill like they wanted to do all along because our existance not only reminds them of thier own vulnerability it reminds them to hate thier own vulnerability. So they project it on us.

When the narcissists among us warp the minds of people with Nazi conservatism everything goes to shit.

Fuck trump and every Nazi/conservative piece of shit that has ever existed, existing and will exist forever.

[valleyrogue]

11. What "conservatives" are

is simple: They are greedy, selfish, bigoted assholes whose entire "philosophy" is justifying being a greedy, selfish, bigoted asshole.

There was a time when it wasn't acceptable. Then Reagan came along with the "politics of division" which helped to make "conservativism" a virtue instead of a vile philosophy and demonizing liberalism and liberals. What it devolved into now is Trump openly spewing KKK rhetoric, which shouldn't be mainstreamed at all.

[appalachiablue]

12. Tx for posting. The repressive, anti democratic, cruel aspects of far rt extremism, fascism.

It's a deathly killer that stifles humanity, equality and progress.

The eugenics faux science that began in the late 19th century warehoused, sterilized and exterminated many throughout the world, namely the poor, 'weak,' and undesirable.

That evil movement may have faded but its ideology is resurfacing and few realize it.

The sterilization of unwanted populations, esp. indigenous women and the incarcerated is still in place in some areas but receives little attention.