South Area People First

06/19/2026

States aren't required to provide community-based care for people with disabilities, new DOJ opinion claims

By Sarah N. Lynch
June 18, 2026 / 6:21 PM EDT / CBS News
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The Justice Department released a new legal opinion Thursday that civil rights experts said represents a significant attack against people with mental, physical and intellectual disabilities who receive state-funded services.

The Office of Legal Counsel opinion said states are not actually required by law to integrate mentally disabled patients with their peers by providing community or home-based care, a finding experts say runs counter to long-standing legal precedent and would lead to greater rates of institutionalizing people with disabilities.

The OLC opinion, authored by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit and posted on the DOJ's website, reinterprets a long-standing Supreme Court case that has served as a cornerstone of America's disability rights law.

That 1999 case, Olmstead v. LC, held that people with disabilities are entitled to receive services in their communities, rather than an institution.

"The Olmstead decision itself said that why community integration is so important is so children can be part of their families, so they can go to school, so people can be part of their communities," said Alison Barkoff, a former DOJ attorney who was in charge of supervising Olmstead civil rights enforcement and now works as a professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. "That's what's at stake with this re-interpretation of Olmstead."

The Olmstead case was brought by two women with mental and intellectual disabilities who were each repeatedly institutionalized at facilities in Georgia because they could not get coverage for the support they needed to live independently at home.

The Supreme Court held that the state had violated their civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Many in the disability rights community have considered the decision the civil rights equivalent of the famed 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which found that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

In its opinion on Thursday, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel suggested that the DOJ's enforcement of the law has gone above and beyond what the Supreme Court intended.

"Over the past two decades, DOJ's Civil Rights Division ("CRT") has relied on its integration mandate and Olmstead to pressure states into discharging individuals from mental-health institutions," the opinion says. "By threatening or bringing federal enforcement action, CRT has successfully elicited consent decrees, remedial orders, or out-of-court agreements in nearly a dozen states, obligating the participants to meet DOJ's deinstitutionalization benchmarks."

The opinion added that the Olmstead opinion by the Supreme Court did not in fact impose any integration mandate. Rather, it says, the finding was narrower in scope and held that "unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination" under federal law.

CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the new OLC opinion.

The OLC's new opinion does not change the law, nor does it serve as any legal precedent.

But it could fundamentally change the way both the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services enforce allegations of discrimination by patients who received state-funded care.

"For decades, courts have recognized that people with disabilities have the right to live, work, and learn in their communities rather than being unnecessarily segregated from society," said Regan Rush, a former civil rights attorney at the DOJ who now serves as director of a Democracy Forward project called Red Line for Civil Rights. "This opinion does not change the law, but it is a clear warning shot aimed at the legal framework that has protected those rights for decades and at the Department's longstanding role in enforcing it."

The DOJ's new opinion Thursday marks the latest action in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to scale back civil rights protections and upend long-standing missions of the Civil Rights Division.

Earlier this month, the OLC authored another opinion which held that "disparate impact" — a legal theory of discrimination that holds employers liable for discrimination for policies that disproportionately harm protected groups based on race, ethnicity or gender — is unconstitutional.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, has also shifted the focus of enforcement efforts away from protecting historically marginalized groups such as people of color and members of the gay, le***an and transgender communities.

She has launched dozens of investigations into universities over allegations of unlawful race-based admission policies and created a new section within the division that is solely devoted to enforcing Second Amendment gun rights.

Last year, Dhillon angered the disability rights community when she posted a photo of a hat she was knitting online and wrote: "This hat is an hour behind schedule thanks to influencer retards."

That word is widely considered to be an insulting slur against people with intellectual disabilities.

06/19/2026

From Care2

“LET THEM DIE ON THE STREETS: Trump's DOJ just issued a new opinion, stating that states aren't required to provide community-based care for people with disabilities. Are there no orphanages? Are there no poor houses? Bah Humbug!

No policy debate. No bill discussed by our representatives in Congress. Just heartless MAGA cruelty that diminishes us all.”

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

From Disability Scoop

“A new federal rule requires airlines to take steps to ensure that they are prepared to assist passengers with disabilities and carriers have just a few more days to comply.

By Wednesday, all airline staff and contractors who physically assist people with disabilities as well as those who handle wheelchairs or scooters must receive “hands-on training.”

Training is to include the safe use of the aisle chair, how to effectively communicate with and take instruction from passengers with disabilities and how to transfer passengers to and from their wheelchair, the aisle chair and the aircraft seat.

Staff who stow mobility devices must learn to handle and configure them, to review relevant information provided by passengers or manufacturers and how to properly load, secure and unload the devices on each type of aircraft.

“Employees and contractors must be able to successfully demonstrate their knowledge” through competency assessments, certification exams or similar, the regulations state.

The mandate is part of a 2024 rule from the U.S. Department of Transportation that was touted at the time as the largest expansion of rights for airline passengers with disabilities in a generation.

In addition to staff training, the so-called “Wheelchair Rule” specified that assistance be provided in a “safe and dignified” manner and detailed what airlines must do if a passenger’s wheelchair is damaged or delayed. The rule issued by the Biden administration also makes it an automatic violation of the Air Carrier Access Act if airlines damage or delay the return of a wheelchair or another assistive device.

Last year, the Trump administration said that it would delay enforcement of several key provisions of the rule while it weighs issuing a new version, which officials dubbed “Wheelchair Rule II.”

One item that the Transportation Department opted not to delay is the training mandate.

“Airlines are still required to provide initial training for airline personnel and contractors as set forth in Wheelchair Rule I by June 17, 2026,” the agency told Disability Scoop.

However, it remains unclear how frequently airline staff and contractors will need to repeat the training. The rule specified that training occur annually, but that is one of the provisions subject to the Transportation Department’s delay. The agency now says it has a “target date” of August to issue a proposal for “Wheelchair Rule II.”

Air travel has long been a challenge for people with disabilities. Last year alone, federal data indicates that U.S. airlines mishandled 9,910 wheelchairs and scooters.

“For too long, people like me have suffered injuries, damaged equipment, and in the most tragic cases, loss of life, simply because airline personnel were not prepared to assist them,” said Robert Thomas, a U.S. Army veteran and national president of Paralyzed Veterans of America. “PVA is aware that many airlines are already working to meet these requirements, and we call on them to fully comply. We’ll know this rule is making a difference when wheelchair users arrive safely, with our equipment intact and our dignity preserved.”

American Airlines said it “intends to comply” with the new mandate and Southwest Airlines said it has “developed training enhancements that meet the requirements of the rule.” Officials with United Airlines and Delta Air Lines did not respond to requests for comment about their status.

Airlines for America, or A4A, a trade group representing U.S. carriers, also sidestepped the question.

“U.S. airlines are dedicated to ensuring a safe, inclusive travel experience for all passengers including those with disabilities,” the group said in a statement. “A4A and our passenger carriers are continuously engaged with the disability community, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and others to identify and implement solutions that increase accessibility.”

A4A and several major airlines sued last year after the Wheelchair Rule was finalized arguing that the Transportation Department overstepped its authority and the rule is “unlawful.”

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Barbara with Larry and Daniel at the conference

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