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Alliance for Rights and Recovery’s Statement on
DOJ Memo Attacking the Olmstead Integration Mandate
The Alliance for Rights and Recovery strongly condemns the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s recent memorandum attacking the longstanding understanding of the Olmstead integration mandate. The landmark Olmstead v. L.C. decision clarified the right of people with disabilities to live, work, and participate fully in their communities and has guided efforts to expand community-based services for over 30 years.
This memo from the DOJ is a dangerous and deeply disturbing attempt by the federal administration to undermine one of the nation’s most important civil rights protections for people with disabilities, including people with mental health challenges, substance use disorders, intellectual, developmental, physical, and sensory disabilities.
For nearly three decades, the Supreme Court’s decision in “Olmstead v. L.C.” has stood for the principle that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The decision affirmed that people with disabilities have the legal right to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs when community-based services are appropriate, desired by the person, and can be accessed via reasonable accommodations.
That understanding has long been reinforced by courts, federal regulations, enforcement actions, settlement agreements, disability rights organizations, and administrations and legislators of both political parties.
The DOJ memo attempts to rewrite that history. It argues that neither Title II of the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act imposes an integration mandate on states and claims that the Olmstead v L.C. decision did not require states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.
In effect, the administration is attempting to narrow the Olmstead v. L.C. mandate to a much weaker rule that would only prohibit institutionalization when it lacks a rational justification. This vague standard could be interpreted so broadly that almost any state decision to institutionalize someone could be justified, dramatically weakening one of the nation’s most important civil rights protections for people with disabilities. This position stands against decades of legal precedent and the lived experience of people with disabilities who have fought for the right to live, work, learn, recover, and participate in their communities.
It is important to be clear: this memo does NOT eliminate the Olmstead mandate. It does not repeal the ADA. It does not repeal Section 504. It does not erase federal integration regulations. It does not overrule the Supreme Court. It does not bind federal judges. The rights of people with disabilities to challenge segregation and institutionalization remain in place!
However, the memo can still cause serious harm. It may signal that the current Department of Justice will reduce or abandon enforcement of Olmstead protections. It may encourage states to slow, weaken, or reverse efforts to expand home and community-based services. It may be used by states or institutions in litigation to argue for narrower protections. It may also embolden policymakers who want to respond to mental health crises, homelessness, substance use, aging, and disability by expanding institutionalization rather than investing in the community-based services people need to live safely and successfully.
Courts are likely to continue applying existing Olmstead precedent, and the memo itself acknowledges that its interpretation is out of step with how federal courts have understood the law. But we cannot ignore the threat. When the federal government signals that it no longer believes people with disabilities have a right to community integration, states, counties, providers, and advocates must respond forcefully.
The Alliance urges our members and partners to take action:
- Contact your members of Congress and urge them to publicly reject the DOJ memo, defend the Olmstead v. L.C. mandate, and support legislation codifying the integration mandate into federal law.
- Engage state leaders, including governors, Medicaid agencies, mental health authorities, disability agencies, and county officials, and demand clear commitments that they will not use this memo as an excuse to reduce home and community-based services or increase reliance on institutionalization.
- Document any denial, reduction, or redirection of community-based services toward institutionalization, and connect affected individuals with Protection and Advocacy organizations, legal services, and disability rights advocates.
- Submit public comments, attend state and local meetings, and push for greater investment in housing, peer support, crisis alternatives, employment supports, home and community-based services, and voluntary mental health and substance use services.
This moment is a reminder that rights are only protected when people organize to defend them. The Alliance stands with the disability rights community, the mental health and substance use recovery movements, people with lived experience, families, providers, and advocates across the country who refuse to return to a time when people with disabilities were hidden away in institutions, denied autonomy, and separated from their communities.
While this memo represents a disturbing turn from the federal administration, it does not end our fight or the ADA’s promise. We must continue working through the courts, Congress, state governments, and local systems to fully implement the Olmstead integration mandate. That means expanding the voluntary, community-based services people need to avoid institutionalization, supporting people to leave institutions without having to go back, and ensuring every person has the housing, healthcare, peer support, crisis response, employment, and community supports needed to live with dignity in the communities of their choice.
The Alliance for Rights and Recovery will continue fighting to protect civil rights, advance recovery, oppose institutionalization, and build systems that support people in the most integrated setting possible, their own communities!