Statement by Joseph M. Macbeth, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals

The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals is profoundly disappointed by the June 18 legal opinion issued by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. This is not a ruling by the Supreme Court or another federal court, and it does not overturn Olmstead or eliminate protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It represents the legal interpretation of the Justice Department official who authored it and remains subject to review by the courts.

Nevertheless, it is a hostile action by the Trump Administration that seeks to weaken one of the most important civil rights protections secured by people with disabilities.

The opinion argues that neither the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act requires states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. It also contends that federal regulations protecting that right are unlawful and that Olmstead v. L.C. did not establish the broad, enforceable right to community services recognized by the federal government for decades.

That interpretation is wrong in both law and principle.

The Supreme Court held in Olmstead that unjustified institutional isolation is discrimination. It recognized that unnecessary confinement reinforces the false belief that people with disabilities are incapable or unworthy of community life and severely limits their family relationships, education, employment, independence and participation in society.

The DOJ opinion attempts to reduce that ruling to little more than a prohibition against institutionalization without any stated justification. Under this reasoning, states could point to limited resources, inadequate community capacity or policy preferences to justify segregation, even when those conditions resulted from years of underinvestment.

A state should not be allowed to neglect its community system and then use that neglect as a reason to keep people institutionalized.For decades, federal enforcement has required states to confront unnecessary segregation, expand community services and develop alternatives for people confined because adequate supports were unavailable. Those efforts did not force people from appropriate placements. They required individualized decisions, reasonable accommodations and meaningful choices.

Families have spent years, and often lifetimes, building those community supports. They have fought institutionalization, endured long waiting lists and demanded that their loved ones be treated as full members of society. They have every reason to feel furious and betrayed that their own government is now attacking the legal foundation of that progress.

Because this opinion does not settle the law, it may instead trigger years of costly litigation. People with disabilities and their families may again be forced to go to court, state by state and case by case, to protect rights they believed had been firmly established nearly three decades ago. The Justice Department itself acknowledges that its interpretation may be challenged and that states relying upon it could still face lawsuits.

The timing could not be more dangerous. The Trump Administration and Congress have already approved nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid reductions through the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” Medicaid is the principal source of funding for home and community-based services. Cutting those resources while weakening federal civil rights enforcement places people with disabilities at greater risk of losing services, being separated from their families and being forced into institutions.

Direct support professionals make community living possible, but this fight is fundamentally about the freedom, dignity and civil rights of people with disabilities. NADSP calls upon the Department of Justice to withdraw this dangerous opinion and reaffirm its obligation to enforce Olmstead, the ADA and Section 504. People with disabilities and their families should not have to endure years of uncertainty and endless litigation to preserve rights recognized by the Supreme Court 27 years ago.

People with disabilities belong in their communities. Their freedom cannot depend upon a state’s willingness to fund services, an administration’s hostility toward disability rights or their ability to survive another prolonged court battle.

The disability community fought too hard to escape institutional segregation. We will not allow this administration to lead America backward.

Joseph M. Macbeth

President and Chief Executive Officer

National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals