Disability Rights Are at Risk as 7 States Back Case Attacking Key Protections

The right of disabled people to live in community rather than being warehoused in institutions is under attack ina lawsuit currently being pursued by Texas and six other states. But advocacy efforts are persuading states to pull out of the suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called Texas v. Kennedy.

Two state plaintiffs withdrew from the case in May after hearing concerns from the disability community, bringing the number of remaining state plaintiffs to only seven in an amended case that began with seventeen.

“[The case] could really alter the legal landscape for people with disabilities who have support needs,” Claudia Center, legal director at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), told Truthout. Alongside Texas, the other state plaintiffs are Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Montana. Indiana and South Dakota dropped this month.

The lawsuit targets Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a landmark piece of disability rights legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in federal programs or programs that receive federal funding. Since that legislation, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), came into force, federal guidance and court rulings have helped clarify how the laws must be applied and who is protected under them.

Texas v. Kennedy also targets some of those precedents, especially a body of regulations and decisions often collectively called Olmstead (or Olmstead rules), which ban the unnecessary segregation of disabled people and allow them to receive services in the community rather than in institutions. The name comes from the 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that segregating disabled people when needed support could be provided in community is a form of discrimination prohibited by the ADA.

If a decision in Texas v. Kennedy narrows existing protections under disability rights law, federal regulations, and legal precedents, Center told Truthout, “disabled people could be pushed into institutional settings,” adding: “Some of them depending on their disabilities and situations, could be pushed into jails and prisons, and some would die. We certainly have seen deaths in the past when support programs for people with disabilities have been cut.”

Seventeen state plaintiffs first filed the case during the Biden administration as Texas v. Becerra after the agency released a long-awaited rule updating Section 504. The updated rule strengthened anti-discrimination protections and the right of disabled people with support needs to receive home and community-based services. The rule clarifies that the so-called integration mandate, first outlined in the ADA, requires entities receiving federal dollars to serve disabled people in the most integrated setting appropriate, one that “provide[s] opportunities to live, work, and receive services in the greater community” and “afford[s] individuals choice in their daily life activities.” It also clarifies that disabled people can bring a nondiscrimination suit if they are at serious risk of institutionalization due to a lack of community-based services, even if they have not yet been institutionalized.

Eight states withdrew from Texas v. Becerra before an amended complaint was filed as Texas v. Kennedy in January 2026 after Kennedy’s HHS announced a trio of anti-trans rules the previous month. One of those rules addressed part of the original complaint, which argued that the Biden-era rule was unlawful because it acknowledged in its preamble that gender dysphoria may be a disability. Instead of that claim being settled in court, Kennedy’s HHS proposed new federal regulations to explicitly allow recipients of federal funds to discriminate against people with gender dysphoria on the basis of disability — a change that LGBTQ+, civil, and disability rights groups came together in opposing and condemning.

Still, several states have continued their attack on the Biden-era rule.

According to Biden’s HHS and experts in disability rights law, the Biden-era rule simply codifies decades of case law that followed from Olmstead v. L.C. But the remaining plaintiffs in Texas v. Kennedy argue the rule is unlawful and unconstitutional and should be blocked.

The thought of Olmstead protections being rolled back is frightening to disability rights advocates, who recall with horror the not-so-long-gone era when warehousing intellectually and developmentally disabled people in so-called state schools was the norm. Consensus only began to shift following a 1972 civil rights lawsuit that challenged living conditions at Willowbrook State School in New York, where residents were being beaten, experimented on, and deprived of fundamental rights to food, medical care, and access to hygiene facilities.

Plus, advocates argue that community-based models of care are far superior to institutional models. Their arguments are backed by research showing that aging and disabled people who live in community tend to enjoy richer lives and better health outcomes. Community living also costs less than institutional options for most people, and it’s what most aging and disabled people and their families and fellow community members want.

“It has been well recognized across the country that community-based care with home and community-based services versus institutional models of care is the way to go,” Tom Crishon, chief legal officer at The Arc of Indiana, told Truthout. “People have better lives in the community than when they are institutionalized.” The Arc is a national organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Nationwide, and particularly in states that remain plaintiffs in Texas v. Kennedy, disability rights groups, including DREDF and The Arc, are doing everything they can to educate about the dangers of narrowing Olmstead rules and chip away at support for the case. These efforts were integral in Indiana and South Dakota withdrawing from the suit in May, bringing the number of states pursuing it down to the current seven.

Indiana became the first state to withdraw from the amended complaint on May 1. A press release from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office cited HHS’s recent anti-trans rule as its reason for dropping the case.

Disability community organizing and advocacy also played an important role in Indiana’s decision.

Crishon, who is also quoted in the press release from Rokita’s office, told Truthout he had been in contact with the office ever since the case was first filed in 2024, and he met with Rokita and the solicitor general arguing the case ahead of their May 1 withdrawal. “I made the argument that this case carries meaningful risks to the disability protections that have been consistent and longstanding, both in federal law and Indiana’s own policy, including Indiana’s decades-long commitment to home and community-based services for people with disabilities,” he said.

Importantly, Indiana no longer warehouses people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in state institutions, unlike tens of other states, including Texas, which maintains over a dozen state institutions, formerly called state schools, where individuals with certain disabilities are held. Texas’s centers have long been plagued by allegations of abuse, exploitation, and neglect, as well as repeated findings of health and safety violations.

Crishon told Truthout that Indiana residents are proud to have closed their state institutions and to provide support that allows disabled people to live in community — a legacy that The Arc of Indiana wants to preserve. “Continued participation for the state of Indiana in the lawsuit could be interpreted as signaling a retreat from community-based principles that Indiana has had for many, many years,” Crishon said.

Having notched that success, Crishon told Truthout that The Arc of Indiana is now “answering any calls that we get to help those advocacy groups that are based in those states [that remain in the case] share what we did and what worked here and kind of brainstorm what may work there.” South Dakota has already followed Indiana’s lead; it dismissed its claims in the case on May 12.

It’s not only advocacy groups getting involved in efforts to end Texas v. Kennedy. DREDF has helped mobilize hundreds of individuals to express their concerns about the case through action alerts and campaigns to contact state attorneys general via phone or mail. The organization’s recent webinar on the casewas its best attended webinar in its history, with close to 4,000 people logged on to learn about it and how to organize against it. An info sheet on the case is also the organization’s most-visited webpage. “It shows how critical Section 504 and Olmstead are to our community,” Center told Truthout.

Advocates who spoke to Truthout said they are hopeful that more states will listen to the disability community’s concerns and choose to dismiss their claims in Texas v. Kennedy, as Indiana and South Dakota already have. They believe those decisions send a strong message about the power of advocacy and the importance of protecting the rights of disabled Americans.

Unfortunately, with Texas leading the case, it is unlikely the suit will be stopped before a court rules. Richard LaVallo, legal director at Disability Rights Texas, told Truthout the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, is known for being unmovable on cases that threaten disability rights, including several that LaVallo’s team have fought. “We’ve been in litigation against the office for as long as he’s been in office, but Texas doesn’t settle anything,” he said.

Still, Center told Truthout, she recommends that those who live in Texas — as well as in the other plaintiff states of Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Montana — keep up the pressure on their state attorney general.

“There is sort of a societal consensus that people should be able to live in the community with support and not be put away in institutions,” she said. “Somehow, I’m hoping that settled belief can rise to the top. But we’ve got to keep on fighting.”