6/22/26 - One more on education, and a new attack on community-based services
Welcome to Summer!
Today we have a bit more Education Department followup, including a new Take Action item below ... plus two links on yet another potentially major threat to one of US disabled people's most fundamental rights. Last week ended with some nasty hits from Washington, DC.
RFK Jr. Will Oversee Disability Education Policy
Julia Métraux, Mother Jones - June 16, 2026
"At HHS, disability education would fall under the oversight of an agency head, Kennedy, who has spent decades spreading disinformation about autism and villainizing autistic people ... 'As autistic people, we don’t feel safe having RFK Jr. in charge of our education,' Autistic Self-Advocacy Network policy analyst Cameron Lynch said to me. 'Autistic students deserve to have their education accommodated for them and provided with the services and supports that they need, rather than trying to be cured from their autism, as RFK Jr. has suggested.'"
Alongside the other, deeper, institutional reasons to oppose the dismantling and reassignment of Special Education, there's the wild card prospect of RFK, Jr. being in charge of overseeing education of students with disabilities. He seems like exactly the sort of ideological loose cannon that tends to cause the most chaos among disabled people and disability communities. His entire personal and political brand is advocating "outside the box" ideas that can seem appealing to some, terrifying to most, and usually incoherent and misinformed in practice. Public health is already in crisis under RFK, Jr. Disabled students and their families do not need education thrown into turmoil too, or led down bizarre and discredited paths by one man's crank theories.
States aren't required to provide community-based care for people with disabilities, new DOJ opinion claims
Sarah N. Lynch, CBS News - June 18, 2026
"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."
DOJ Memo Is Attempting to Turn Back The Clock On Integration and Olmstead's Promise
Jess Davidson, American Association of People with Disabilities - June 18, 2026
"Today, just days before the 27th anniversary of the landmark Olmstead v. LC decision, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) learned of an opinion memo from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) urging the White House to turn back the clock by 30 years on disability integration and civil rights. The DOJ just gave the White House and other federal entities a green light to take disabled people back to a time when the state could, at any time, strip us of our homes, families, autonomy, and our lives."
It may be time to reintroduce and explain again a core concept of disability rights – that disabled people should be able to get any services and support we need in our own homes and communities, and never be forced by state or federal programs to live in care facilities if we don't want to. The 1999 Olmstead decision, backed up by the Americans with Disabilities Act, has been a keystone of disability rights and deinstitutionalization work for 27 years. I'm not sure how likely it is, but the possibility that it might be overturned is, frankly, a nightmare. Now may also be a good time to think about how much we in US disability communities depend on court decisions and legal precedents that can seem ironclad for decades, but which can be overturned when an especially wide ideological swing occurs in US politics.
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