Trump Administration Gets OK To Scale Back Disability Protections

Key Points:

• The federal government has agreed to remove references to the "most integrated setting" requirement for people with disabilities from the 2024 update to Section 504 regulations, following a settlement with Texas, Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, and Montana.
• Disability advocates criticize the move as a departure from 50 years of legal precedent ensuring the right of people with disabilities to live and be served in community settings, arguing the government is abandoning its enforcement duties.
• The settlement resolves the Texas v. Kennedy lawsuit, which originally challenged the inclusion of gender dysphoria as a disability and sought to strike Section 504 entirely, but the federal government shifted positions citing a Justice Department memo.
• While the underlying law remains unchanged, advocates warn that deleting community integration language from regulations may cause confusion and lead some states and providers to institutionalize people with disabilities, undermining their rights.
• Experts emphasize that the integration mandate still exists in the law and Supreme Court rulings, but the government's failure to defend these protections in court is seen as a surrender rather than a legal defeat.