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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-04-26 Correspondence - Disability Rights MT - 504 Lawsuit UpdateFrom:Disability Rights Montana - Growth Rings To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]504 Lawsuit Update Date:Friday, September 4, 2026 9:22:22 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Every paid subscription supports Disability Rights Montana’s work across Montana. Federal funding is nowhere near sufficient to meet the advocacy and culture change work that is needed. You can help fund the future you want to see! 504 Lawsuit Update Montana is still involved in the lawsuit to attack disability inclusion andthere was a huge development this week READ IN APP The dozens of systemic disability civil rights lawsuits I have led over the years have rarely been just about the law. At their core, they have been about morality. They have asked questions such as: Who do we think belongs? Who do we believe has dignity? Who do we allow to participate in community life? And what obligations do we have to one another? Those same questions are at the heart of a lawsuit Montana has spent years supporting and which has now reached a settlement. I am writing to tell you about this new settlement, and why I believe it is wrong. SEP 4 On September 1, the federal government and the states of Texas, Montana, Florida, Alaska, and Louisiana filed a proposed settlement agreement asking a federal court to erase key community integration protections from regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, our nation’s oldest federal disability civil rights law. The settlement removes references requiring services to be delivered in “the most integrated setting” and eliminates the regulation that expressly protects the right of disabled people to receive services in community settings whenever appropriate. National disability organizations responded with an unusually forceful statement. They condemned the agreement as an abandonment of the federal government’s responsibility to enforce the right of disabled people to live in our own homes and communities. They emphasized that community integration has been part of federal disability regulations since 1977 and that neither this settlement nor the federal government’s new position can erase decades of law recognizing the rights of disabled people to live outside institutions. I agree. But I want to talk not as a lawyer. I want to talk as a disabled Montanan. Because this fight has never really been about regulations. It is about whether disabled Montanans get to be full members of our communities. Earlier this year, more than 70 Montana organizations and over 1,000 individual Montanans came together around a simple idea: people with disabilities belong in our communities. We sent a letter to Attorney General Austin Knudsen asking Montana to stop participating in this attack on disability rights. That coalition included disability organizations, service providers, churches, nonprofits, advocates, family members, and ordinary citizens from every corner of our state. While these organizations and people do not agree on everything, we do agreed on this. Community is not a partisan value. Family is not a partisan value. Freedom is not a partisan value. These are Montana values. And that is exactly why Montana’s involvement in this lawsuit has always felt so backwards. For decades, Montana has invested in helping people live at home, work in their communities, raise families, attend school, and participate in civic life. We have spent years trying to move away from isolation and segregation because experience has taught us something simple: People do better when they live with family and friends in the communities where they have chosen to build their lives. This is what belonging looks like and Montanans belong where they belong. Yet somehow the idea that disabled people should be included in community life has become a target. Think about that for a moment. The dispute is not over whether people should receive services. The dispute is over whether those services should be organized around inclusion or segregation. Whether community participation is a right or merely an option that can be withheld by state bureaucrats. Whether institutions should be the exception or whether they can quietly become the default. Many younger Americans have never seen disability segregation at its height. Truthfully, many of us older disabled Americans haven’t seen much of it either. I turn fifty in a few months. The original Section 504 regulations were signed in 1977, just months after I was born. While doctors debated whether I was strong enough to survive open-heart surgery, disability activists were occupying a federal building in San Francisco to demand enforcement of civil rights protections that had already been promised by law but denied in practice. Their movement changed America. Section 504 was finally implemented. Federal fair housing protections were expanded to include people with disabilities. Nursing home residents gained stronger rights, including the right to be screened to get more appropriate community services. The Americans with Disabilities Act became law. Because of their work, I grew up in a country that was increasingly moving away from segregation and toward inclusion. I have spent my entire life benefiting from the progress they fought for. The generation before mine could not say the same. For much of American history, people with disabilities were routinely removed from public life. Hidden away. Institutionalized. Separated from schools. Separated from jobs. Separated from neighbors. Separated from ordinary community life. Many of the people I have known who survived those institutions have now passed away, but they carried those experiences of institutionalization with them for the rest of their lives. The last 50 years of community inclusion is a testament to the success of the disability rights movement. Because for generations, disabled people were routinely removed from public life. Hidden away. Sent to institutions. Separated from schools. Separated from jobs. Separated from neighbors. Separated from ordinary community life. Most Americans understand today that racial segregation was wrong. We understand why institutions that separated people because of who they were represented a profound moral failure. Disability segregation rarely comes as obviously as signs over water fountains or schoolhouse doors. Instead, it hides behind locked doors. It lives in distant facilities. In bureaucratic rules. In reimbursement systems. In policy manuals. In decisions about where people can live, who they can spend time with, and whether they get to participate in community life. And in this instance, it appears in a legal filing submitted to a federal court in Lubbock, Texas. That invisibility makes it easy to pretend nothing is being lost. The national organizations opposing this settlement made an important point. This agreement does not erase the ADA. It does not erase the language of the Section 504 statute. It does not erase decades of court decisions recognizing the rights of disabled people. Only Congress can change those laws. But that does not mean this moment is unimportant. Narratives matter. Public commitments matter. Government priorities matter. And when government officials argue that community inclusion is not a right but merely a policy choice, they send a message that whether disabled people belong in Montana communities is negotiable. It is not. The disability rights movement has spent decades proving the opposite. What disappoints me most is that Montana did not have to be part of this effort. Earlier this year we reminded state leaders that Montana has repeatedly invested in community-based services and has worked to expand opportunities for disabled people to live in integrated settings. We reminded them that community living supports parents who want to raise children, elders who want to age at home, young adults who want to build their futures here, and people with significant disabilities who deserve the same dignity and freedom as everyone else. Those values have not changed. The people affected have not changed. What has changed is that Montana’s Attorney General unilaterally chose to use the authority of his office to challenge principles that generations of Montanans have spent decades building into our laws, services, and communities. That was his decision. The rest of us should not be afraid to disagree and defend Montana values against all attackers. I believe the future of disability rights is bigger than any single lawsuit. It is bigger than any administration. It is bigger than any attorney general. The question before us is the same question disabled people have been asking for generations: Will society recognize us as fully human? Not patients. Not problems. Not burdens. Humans. Humans who belong in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, churches, businesses, and civic institutions. Humans whose lives are enriched by community and whose communities are enriched by our presence. That is not a radical demand. It is the promise America made. It is the promise Montana made. And it is a promise worth defending again. And I tell the legislature, that regardless of what the attorney general thinks, it is a promise worth keeping. If you care about community, family, freedom, and equal opportunity, this issue concerns you whether you identify as disabled or not. The disability rights movement has always been about one question: Who gets to belong? Today, we are being asked whether people with disabilities still belong in our communities. My answer is simple. Yes. Closing Call to Action It mattered in 1977. It mattered when Section 504 was first enforced. It mattered when the ADA became law. It mattered when more than 1,000 Montanans stood together earlier this year. And it matters now. I encourage you to contact your state representative and state senator and tell them you expect Montana to continue protecting community supports for people with disabilities. Community is a Montana value. Let’s act like it. Legislative District Locator In Solidarity, David David Carlson, J.D. Executive Director Disability Rights Montana You’re currently a free subscriber to Life Beyond Compliance. 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