Justice Department switched sides in states’ lawsuit after reversing decades of policy
A federal judge last week agreed to strip out mentions of “integration” from federal regulations tied to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a landmark civil rights law that prohibits disability discrimination. The judge did so after the Justice Department declined to defend its own rules in a lawsuit brought by several states challenging the legality of those rules.
Part of what was striking about Texas v. Kennedy is that the federal government was originally the defendant in the case, brought by states fighting what is known as the integration mandate. The Justice Department then switched sides and agreed with the states that the requirement should be undone. “It is pretty significant and pretty unprecedented to see the federal government asking a court to vacate its own rules,” said Jennifer Mathis, a disability rights lawyer who helps lead the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, passed by Congress in 1973, was the first civil rights law for people with disabilities. It took advocates years of fighting — until 1977 — to get actual regulations that would make the law enforceable. The Department of Health and Human Services, under President Joe Biden, updated the regulations in 2024 to clarify what states had to do to uphold the law, according to Mathis. “They thought it was important to do that so those rights would be as clear as possible,” she said.
The Trump administration began publicly changing its position in June, when the Justice Department issued an opinion saying it no longer interpreted disability law to “require states to treat mentally disabled patients in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.” The memo even noted its position is “out of step with the common understanding” of the landmark Supreme Court decision known as Olmstead. In July, the Justice Department announced it would stop relying on its own longstanding guidance explaining how it enforces the integration mandate.
The court’s decision removes regulations from Section 504 that explicitly required federally funded programs to provide services in the “most integrated setting.” Mathis noted that the ruling did not undo integration protections tied to the Americans with Disabilities Act or those established by decades of case law, including the Olmstead decision. “My concern is that right now, where we’re at is disabled people have a right to integration on paper. It is in the law, but whether it gets practically enforced is a serious question,” said Bruce Darling, president and CEO of the Center for Disability Rights.
Darling described learning of the ruling as feeling “like a knife in your chest. Because what we’re hearing, what people are hearing, is that the federal government has made a determination that [disabled people] don’t have a right to live in freedom, that they can be locked up against their will.” The court’s decision, Mathis said, “will likely impact what states do and how they behave.”
One of the clearest examples of the practical effect of the shift involves children with complex medical needs in Florida. The Justice Department sued Florida in 2013, arguing that the state had failed to provide adequate in-home care services to such children, forcing some families to place their children in nursing facilities. The federal government won the case in 2023, requiring Florida to provide services that would let children remain at home. In August, however, the government asked the federal court to throw out its own victory and allow the case to be reheard in district court, citing the Justice Department’s new opinion on the issue.
Mathis called the reversal “incredibly heartless,” saying the case “involves ripping children away from families, taking them out of the homes where they have families that want to take care of them, and to force those children to grow up in an institution.” The Florida case suggests that coming battles over community integration may increasingly play out not through federal enforcement, but case by case, in the courts, she said.
Mathis noted that the shift comes as states face pressure from the federal government to cut Medicaid spending, which pays for many of the services disabled people rely on. “States are looking for things to cut,” she said. Mathis said she worried that, with the federal government’s changed position, states would be freer to cut spending on community-based living programs.
Disability advocates and some lawmakers are pursuing multiple avenues to preserve integration protections. Alison Barkoff, who worked on disability rights enforcement during the Obama administration and now teaches health law and policy at George Washington University, said the disability community is working to protect those rights. “There’s nothing that is more cherished and hard-won than the right to live, work and participate and be included in your community,” she said. A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a resolution this week affirming the federal government’s longstanding interpretation of Olmstead. In July, 100 members of Congress signed a letter asking the Justice Department to rescind its June opinion.
At the state level, Delaware has already passed a law incorporating the regulations from Section 504 that were stripped from federal law. Barkoff said she had fielded calls in the past week from roughly a dozen state leaders considering similar legislation. “I see a lot of momentum,” she said.
Darling’s organization helped draft the Latonya Reeves Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill that would codify integration protections for disabled people in federal law. The measure has some bipartisan support but has failed in the past and faces a difficult path with an executive branch now challenging integration. Darling said he was nonetheless hopeful that increased attention to the issue would translate into legislative action. “I think that the issue has really come to a head now and folks can see that Olmstead is seriously at risk, that we need to do something,” he said. “I don’t know, I’m optimistic.”
The Justice Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment on why it is changing course after decades of legal and bipartisan support for community-based services.