7/28/26 - Rights at risk

Sigh ...

Bad news is never fun. But bad, threatening disability news usually isn't even really new. Most often it's news we have seen before, a lot, over and over again. Every few years we see the same attacks on the same handful of programs, laws, and principles that give shape to what we are at least trying to build as disabled people. The fact that so little of what happens is really new can lead us to be terrified and complacent at the same time. We feel simultaneously afraid of what might finally really happen, and so bored that we have to make the same arguments again, as if we haven't made them twenty or thirty times over the last 40 or so years.

I think that's why I'm feeling less angry these days and more like frustrated and scattered. Anyway, here are three articles that are feeding into this feeling today.

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Democrats probe DOJ finding that eases way for states to institutionalize mentally ill

Sarah N. Lynch, CBS News - July 22, 2026

"'For more than 50 years, federal civil rights laws have recognized that unnecessary segregation and institutionalization constitute discrimination,' they wrote to Blanche ... 'The consequences of weakening the integration mandate would be profound,' they continued. 'Millions of Americans with disabilities rely on home and community-based services supporting them to be among their families, maintain employment, pursue education, and participate in civic life.'"

THE COMING ASSAULT ON DISABILITY RIGHTS

Ken Nakata, Converge Accessibility - July 13, 2026

"The Trump administration now has its sights set on dismantling Section 504, and the Department of Commerce has started a new rulemaking to do exactly that. The ADA and all other civil rights laws are next."

The ADA at 36: A Promise in Peril

Grace Dow, Grace Dow Writes - July 26, 2026

"The ADA has always been about allowing disabled people to live their lives fully: to live at home, work, raise families, and be active in their communities. But now, with significant cuts to Medicaid, a new memo from the DOJ that seems to limit its scope, and long-standing issues within the system, these everyday freedoms are under threat."

It's tedious, but also important to organize our thoughts on the Trump administration's attempts to undermine some of the most basic legal rights disabled Americans depend on. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act has been under threat for many months now. The second link above provides an excellent overview of what that could mean and how opponents are trying to justify it. And of course this summer, the Olmstead decision that legally supports home and community-based services is under attack from the Trump administration Department of Justice.

The most immediate danger is that we could lose the legal backing we have had since 1999 for the principle that even if we need a lot of help every day, paid for by the government, we shouldn't have to live in a facility. That we have the right to get support in our own homes instead. If this legal right goes away or is significantly weakened now, it will be at the worst possible time. Congress has already passed massive Medicaid funding reductions. And both red and blue states are already joining RFK Jr. in targeting home care programs as supposed cesspools of "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Losing a viable path to independence is bad enough. It might be the worst thing that could happen to Americans with disabilities. But we could lose more – like curb cuts, access to education and public buildings, and any leverage at all in making stores, restaurants, and offices accessible. Nothing has changed yet. But the blueprint for rolling back independence and disability rights is becoming a lot clearer.

We need to do all the usual advocacy, and maybe some that's less than usual too. Already it seems like the disability activist community is revisiting some earlier, low-key debates over whether to focus on shoring up the actual programs that provide home care in the US, or going for Congressional and civil rights guarantees that feel like they would be more resilient and far-reaching than the Olmstead decision and the ADA have been – but also more of a long shot politically.

Either way, we also probably need to reacquaint ourselves with all the long-standing arguments against institutionalization, for home and community-based services, and for accessibility in public spaces and programs. We need to explain to ourselves and others, again, why nursing homes are bad, and home care is good, and why ramps and elevators aren't a favor or a kindness only for wealthy towns and cities. We need to get back to those basics that many of us have already been over more than once – but that are still unfamiliar to far too many people, including many people with disabilities themselves.

Why do we have to justify ourselves all over again? I don't know. But apparently, we do.

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