Where Do You Stand — Section 504, Texas vs. Kennedy

The September 23 decision in Texas v. Kennedy is a serious step backward for people with disabilities.

The federal court vacated the community-integration provisions in HHS’s 2024 Section 504 regulations, including the definition of the “most integrated setting.” Importantly, the decision did not repeal Section 504, change the Americans with Disabilities Act, or overturn the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision. But removing these regulatory protections weakens the federal government’s commitment to ensuring that people with disabilities receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

And it raises a basic question: What happens next?

If the answer is more institutionalization, we should understand what that means.

Institutions cost money. People who live in them surrender much of the autonomy and control the rest of us take for granted—when to get up, when to eat, what to wear, where to go, what to do, and with whom to spend their time.

Communities may become less invested in inclusion. Community-based day programs and supported employment may shrink. Families who want a family member with a disability to remain at home may face an impossible choice: Who quits a job to provide support during the day?

And families with the resources to move may migrate to states that maintain stronger protections for community living.

If the federal government believes states will simply absorb the direct and indirect costs of this policy shift, think again.

If elected officials believe families will quietly accept fewer community options, think again.

Disability is not Republican or Democratic. People who need community-based services live in Republican households, Democratic households, independent households, and households that couldn’t care less about politics.

The answer is not to retreat from community living. The answer is to make community living work better.

We need creative planning to expand community-based services. We need honest research about what is working, what is failing, what services cost, and what families actually need. We need better housing, a stronger direct-support workforce, meaningful day programs, supported employment, transportation, and reliable assistance for families.

And we need to understand what institutionalization actually does.

Institutions concentrate control in the hands of administrators and staff. The people living there learn to survive within somebody else’s rules and schedules. Families worry from the outside. Communities lose the presence and contributions of people who should be their neighbors, coworkers, customers, friends, and citizens.

I wrote about this earlier this year because I know something about institutionalization personally. At 13, I spent six months in Shriners Hospital undergoing orthopedic surgeries. Even in a good institution providing excellent medical care, somebody else controlled virtually every hour of my day.

That experience stayed with me.

In 2026, we should be smarter than this.

The question for policymakers now should not be how to make it easier to segregate people with disabilities. It should be how to build community services strong enough that institutionalization is unnecessary.

Congress and state legislatures can also examine whether the community-integration protections contained in the 2024 Section 504 regulation should be written more explicitly into law, rather than leaving such important protections dependent upon changing regulations and administrations.

This should be a question for candidates as well. Ask them where they stand. Ask whether they support the right of people with disabilities to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. Then make your own decision at the ballot box.

There is a smart way to address the challenges facing people with disabilities and their families.

Going backward is not it.

Thank you.

Common Grounder

Please Help Me Do A Great Job

 Aloha,

It has been a while since I’ve written a post. I cracked my right femur in three places on July 13, a Friday. I was in a skilled nursing facility for over a month and a half. I am now home, thank God! Recovery is slow but going in the right direction. 

I have accepted an appointment as Interim Executive Director of the US international Council on Disabilities through December 31 of this year. It is an unpaid position.

I care about USICD. I have been on the board since 2013. I served as President from 2015-2023. 

My primary mission will be to make USICD’s virtual fund raising gala on December 3, 2026 a smashing success. Please visit our website at www.usicd.org. We will be honoring Ambassador Don Steinberg and Eric Rosenthal, Executive Director of Disability Rights International. We have great speakers lined up  

We appreciate donations; any amount will be appreciated. Individual memberships are $10. There will be no ticket fees this year. If you, your organization, or company would like to be a sponsor, options range from $1,000 to $25,000. 

USICD has spent 35 years bringing visibility to disability rights and helping others understand, promote, and work toward them. Now, this effort is most critical. 

Please help us. My new email is aedmorrissey@usicd.org. I would love to hear from you!

Pat Morrissey

Lonnie Bunch, Museums, and Affordability

Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian, is leaving in December. I am beyond sad.

I heard Lonnie speak at the University of Hawai‘i. His remarks inspired me to join the effort to create a National Museum of Disability History and Culture. He reinforced something important: museums are not simply places where we store old things. They are places where we decide what—and whom—America remembers.

At a time when Americans are struggling with affordability, who cares about museums?

We should.

When families are being asked to do more with less, institutions that belong to everyone matter more, not less. Museums give ordinary Americans access to art, science, history and culture that personal wealth might otherwise determine. They are classrooms, laboratories and repositories of our shared history.

They are also a public investment. Generations of taxpayers built these collections and institutions. Neglecting them today can mean losing irreplaceable assets and paying much more tomorrow.

But we must preserve more than buildings and artifacts. We must preserve the whole story.

History is complicated. National museums should present evidence, context and different perspectives, including those that make us uncomfortable. Neither the political left nor the political right should decide which parts of our history disappear. Americans should be trusted to confront complexity and reach their own conclusions.

And if these institutions are truly national, everyone must be able to participate. That requires a renewed commitment to accessibility for people with disabilities—in buildings, exhibits, technology, communications and programs.

It also means recognizing disability as part of America’s history.

The struggle for education, employment, independent living, accessible transportation, technology and civil rights—including passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act—helped shape this country. Yet much of that history remains scattered, overlooked or invisible.

People with disabilities deserve full access to America’s museums. And America deserves a National Museum of Disability History and Culture.

Such a museum would not separate disability history from American history. It would finally put disability history where it belongs—inside the American story.

Affordability determines what each of us can buy. Public institutions determine what all of us can share.

Two Simple Questions

 

There are two simple questions that every candidate for public office should be asked before Election Day this November:

1. Do you support the Department of Justice memorandum that opens the door to greater institutionalization of people with disabilities?

2. Do you support transferring the federal special education program under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services?

Every candidate’s answers should be collected, published, and shared widely.

How politicians respond will tell us a great deal. If they are unfamiliar with these issues, perhaps they will be motivated to learn. If they understand them, voters deserve to know where they stand. Their answers will reveal whether they believe in inclusion, equal opportunity, and civil rights—or whether they are willing to accept policies that move our country backward.

I know people are busy. Organizations have competing priorities. But few actions could have greater long-term importance than documenting candidates’ positions on these two questions. The answers will tell us how our nation, our states, and our communities intend to treat people with disabilities for years to come.

The real issue is not simply disability policy. It is the kind of America we want to be.

Do we want a country that is open, inclusive, and committed to equal opportunity? A country where people with disabilities receive services in the same communities where everyone else lives, learns, works, and participates? A country that values choice, independence, and contribution?

Or do we accept a future in which people with disabilities are increasingly separated from their neighbors, educated apart from their classmates, and encouraged to live apart from their communities?

We must make our answer unmistakably clear.

We do not want to turn back the clock on disability rights.

We do not want to return to institutionalization.

We do not want children with disabilities educated separately simply because they have disabilities.

We do not want government policies that reduce choice, independence, or participation.

We do want people with disabilities to live, learn, work, and thrive alongside everyone else.

We do want communities enriched by the talents, perspectives, and contributions of people with disabilities.

The disability community has spent decades replacing segregation with inclusion, dependency with opportunity, and isolation with participation. Those hard-won gains should not be quietly dismantled.

Many people are also concerned that current federal policies increasingly classify people by perceived differences, emphasize those differences, and encourage separation rather than belonging. Whether the issue is disability or another characteristic, history teaches us that societies are strongest when they embrace pluralism rather than fear it.

As our nation marks its 250th year, we should reaffirm the principles on which America was built: liberty, equality, fairness, opportunity, and the belief that our diversity is one of our greatest strengths—not something to be hidden, isolated, or excluded.

If you belong to a disability organization, a civic group, a professional association, or a faith community, ask these two questions. If you are active on social media, share them. If you are a journalist, educator, sociologist, anthropologist, or simply a concerned citizen, help collect and publish the answers.

An informed electorate is the foundation of democracy. These two questions will tell us not only where candidates stand on disability policy—they will tell us what kind of country they hope to build.

The future of disability rights—and, in many ways, the future character of America—depends on the answers.

Thank you.

Common Grounder


Patricia Morrissey

Another Stupid Move

I still remember the morning a nurse I had never met pulled back the curtain around my bed at Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia, flipped on the overhead lights, and told me it was time to get up—even though I had barely slept after surgery the night before. I was thirteen years old, groggy, in pain, and suddenly aware that my day would unfold entirely on someone else’s schedule. I spent six months of my life there, undergoing multiple orthopedic surgeries, and that experience shaped my views on disability, independence, and institutionalization for the rest of my life.

Let me be clear: there is nothing redeemable about institutionalization as a way of life. Even when an institution provides excellent medical care—as Shriners did for me—it still strips away something fundamental: control over your own life.

That is why the recent Department of Justice memorandum questioning long-standing interpretations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision chilled my blood.

As someone who has lived, however briefly, in an institution, let me explain what institutionalization actually means. Someone else decides when you wake up. Someone else decides when you eat, where you go, when you bathe, who comes to see you, and when the lights go out. Every hour of every day is controlled by someone else.

Under what circumstances would that be anyone’s first choice?

The DOJ memorandum buries the reader under pages of constitutional arguments, legal citations, and theories of federalism. Yet one of its central assertions is almost beside the point: if a person qualifies for services, those services can be provided in any setting.

Technically, that statement may be true.

But it completely ignores the question that Olmstead answered nearly three decades ago: Who gets to decide where a person lives?

Receiving services is not the same as living a life. A person may receive competent care in an institution while simultaneously losing the freedom to make ordinary decisions that every American values. The issue has never been whether services can be delivered inside four walls. The issue is whether unnecessary segregation denies people with disabilities the opportunity to participate in community life as equal citizens.

That was the genius of Olmstead. It recognized that unnecessary institutionalization is discrimination.

Over the years, I have met many parents and siblings who tell me they simply want a “safe place” for their loved one with a disability. I understand that concern. Families grow older. They become exhausted. They worry constantly about what will happen after they are gone.

Their answer, however, is not a return to institutions.

Their answer is more safe places in our communities.

Create enough affordable housing. Expand community supports. Strengthen direct-care services. Give families confidence that their loved ones will be safe, supported, and connected to the broader community. If we do that, very few people will choose institutionalization.

I also find it ironic that the Department of Justice invokes the Constitution when it serves its purposes while appearing willing to discount decades of disability rights law and Supreme Court precedent when it does not.

Of course states would like more federal resources to provide quality community services. They have been saying so for years.

But do most states really want to reopen large institutions?

I doubt it.

Federalism arguments only take you so far when they ignore incentives, practical realities, and the clear direction disability policy has followed for the past fifty years.

What I find equally fascinating is the Administration’s choice of priorities.

Americans consistently say their greatest concerns are the cost of living, housing, healthcare, and economic security. Yet the Department of Justice has devoted enormous resources to challenging legal principles that protect the right of people with disabilities to live in the community rather than institutions.

Who exactly is asking for this fight?

Does anyone honestly believe that weakening the ADA, Section 504, or the Olmstead decision will lower grocery prices, reduce housing costs, or make healthcare more affordable?

Politically, this makes little sense.

There are an estimated 60 million Americans living with disabilities. But the constituency affected is much larger than that. They have mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren. They have neighbors, coworkers, employers, friends, healthcare professionals, educators, and advocates who understand that disability eventually touches nearly every American family.

These families are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.

There are just as many people with disabilities in Republican families as there are in Democratic families.

If Republicans hope to broaden their coalition, this is an odd way to do it. Instead of expanding support, they risk alienating millions of voters whose lives have been improved by disability rights laws that enjoy broad bipartisan support.

Every day this controversy continues creates one more reason for voters to reconsider where they place their trust.

Another stupid move.

Perhaps the day after the November election, some in Washington will finally develop the insight that disability rights are not a partisan issue. They are about dignity, freedom, family, and the simple belief that every American deserves the opportunity to live where they choose, surrounded by the people and community they call home.

Thank you.

Common Grounder

Patricia Morrissey

A Stupid Move

Today I read in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/) an article indicating the Trump Administration is moving forward with plans to transfer the federal special education program authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

It is a stupid move.

I say that as someone who helped draft IDEA ’97 and as someone who went through school before the passage of IDEA. I have cerebral palsy. I went through school before IDEA’s protections existed. I had no legal guarantees, no right to services, no assurance that I would be educated alongside my peers. What I had was a determined mother who refused to accept “no” for an answer.

When Congress reauthorized IDEA in 1997, we strengthened a simple but powerful principle: children with disabilities should learn alongside children without disabilities. They should attend the same schools, participate in the same programs, study the same curriculum, and be held to the same high expectations.

IDEA is fundamentally an education law premised on a civil right. It is about teaching, learning, achievement, graduation, and preparing young people for productive adult lives. It belongs in the Department of Education.

Moving IDEA to HHS makes no policy sense. Special education teachers, principals, school superintendents, and state education officials should not have to navigate a federal health bureaucracy to address educational issues. Likewise, I doubt HHS officials are eager to inherit a complex educational program that was never designed to be part of their mission.

The administration argues that IDEA can continue to operate under HHS. If that is true—and if the law must still be followed—then why move it at all? What problem is being solved?

The answer appears to be none.

Instead, this transfer risks confusion, disruption, and uncertainty for millions of students, families, educators, and school systems. At a time when schools are already struggling to meet growing needs, the federal government should be providing stability, not chaos.

The Trump Administration has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to test the limits of statutory authority, ignore congressional intent, and force courts to intervene. IDEA should not become another experiment in administrative disruption.

Almost every American knows someone with a disability—a child, grandchild, neighbor, colleague, or friend. This issue touches virtually every community in the nation.

I urge you to contact Senators Thom Tillis and Tim Kaine, leaders on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and ask them to oppose the transfer of IDEA from the Department of Education to HHS.

I know it is summertime. I know people have vacations, family obligations, and countless competing priorities. But protecting the educational rights of children with disabilities is worth a phone call, an email, or a letter.

If enough people speak up, Congress can stop this unnecessary and misguided move.

Please do your part.

Thank you.

Common Grounder

Patricia Morrissey

G20 and D20 and Us

 I am going to do a series of posts on G20. G20 is a group of countries that convene annually to discuss major issues that are important to any economy. They listen to experts, talk about big problems and possible fixes that are in policy papers. This year President Trump is President of G20. He will be hosting the other 19 nations in Florida in December. The purpose of G20 is to promote economic stability and growth among its 20 members by reaching agreement on priority topics.The 2026 priorities are removing regulatory burdens to unleash prosperity, unlocking affordable and secure energy supply chains, and pioneering innovations in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. These three priorities are as important to people with disabilities as other human beings. We want more streamlined access to people who provide services and less red tape. We want our electricity to be available even in emergency situations. We want AI and other technologies to work for us and foster our independence and ability to contribute.

Right now there 13 engagement groups associated with the G20:

1. Civil20 (C20) – Civil society organizations
2. Think20 (T20) – Think tanks and research institutes
3. Youth20 (Y20) – Youth leaders and organizations
4. Women20 (W20) – Women’s empowerment and gender equality
5. Labour20 (L20) – Trade unions and workers’ groups
6. Urban20 (U20) – Cities and local governments
7. Business20 (B20) – Business community and private sector
8. Science20 (S20) – Scientific community and academies
9. Startup20 – Startups, innovation, and entrepreneurship ecosystems
10. Parliament20 (P20) – National parliaments and legislators
11. SAI20 (Supreme Audit Institutions 20) – National audit institutions
12. Judiciary20 (J20) – Supreme and constitutional courts
13. Oceans20 (O20) – Ocean policy and sustainability stakeholders  

Disability is not one of them. That’s needs to change.

Thank you. More to come.

Common Grounder