Three important disability-related news items have come out in the news recently. They are separate but share a common theme — the Trump regime’s campaign to segregate and exclude people with disabilities from society, reversing the progress of the disability rights and independent living movements over the last 50 years, and returning to the days of people with disabilities being condemned to spend their lives hidden away in institutions, subject to exploitation and abuse.

DOJ memo on Olmstead

The Department of Justice recently released a memo arguing that existing regulations and policies protecting people with disabilities from involuntary confinement in institutions and affirming their right to receive care and service in the most inclusive settings possible, are null and void.

The DOJ’s Office of Legal Council (OLC) asserts that the landmark Olmstead v. L.C. Supreme Court decision, issued on June 22, 1999, which provides the basis for these protections, did not actually mandate them, and if they had, it would have been unconstitutional.

These statements are false, and fly in the face of repeated legal affirmations and government policies in the 27 years since Olmstead. The memo itself uses a lot of legal hair splitting, but is clearly aimed at gutting rights and protections, and ignores the tragic history of disabled people being confined to institutions and segregated from society that Olmstead and subsequent litigation has helped to mitigate.

Department of Education transfers

The Department of Education is transferring the administration of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other educational programs supporting students with disabilities to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

This move reflects a philosophy based on a medical model of disability, in which the person with a disability is seen as a problem to be solved, separated from their community. The current head of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has made clear his views on the relative worth of disabled lives and the need to surveil and isolate them.

At the same time, the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, which fields complaints of disability discrimination in schools, will move to the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. The DOJ has no expertise in educational matters, and is currently acting as the personal legal hit squad for Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his total contempt for people with disabilities.

This division of program responsibilities will fundamentally, and tragically, change how students with disabilities are taught, medically treated, and viewed in society. It will also determine where money comes from, who controls it, where and how it is spent, even how disability is defined. Trump has already transferred tens of billions of DOE funding to other agencies.

Tennessee disabled children at risk

In Tennessee, the intersection between immigration and disability rights is being used to put parents and kids in an impossible dilemma: continue to receive essential medical treatment under Children’s Special Services and get reported to ICE and potentially deported; or pull out of treatment with no viable alternative. Either way, children with severe illnesses and disabilities will be denied care and in many cases be left to die.

This is a developing situation, with medical professionals and politicians pushing back and urging the governor to rescind the directive that was to go in effect July 1. The Tennessee Department of Health has agreed to stop such reporting while a legal challenge to the policy plays out in court. Although currently happening in Tennessee, there is reason to be concerned that other states will do the same thing.

Please spread the word, contact your senators and representatives, and support organizations working to combat these assaults on disability rights.

Matthew Mattingly lives in Amherst.