July is Disability Pride Month, and we take this opportunity to honor the many contributions of the disability community to the passage and advancement of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – which was signed into law 34 years ago this month. Disability rights activists fought hard for the passage of the ADA, organizing protests to show just how inaccessible our built environment was and to establish their right to be included and accepted. Months before the ADA was enacted, children and adult activists with disabilities cast aside their wheelchairs and mobility aids and crawled up the U.S. Capitol Building stairs in what is now known as the “Capitol Crawl.” This important demonstration highlighted the critical need for a national mandate of accessibility, integration and equality of opportunity, and it spurred Congressional support for the ADA.
The ADA ushered in a new era of inclusion, independence and equal opportunity for people with disabilities, and the accessibility that people with disabilities have fought for has led to innovations across society. For example, our built environment has been greatly improved by being more accessible to people with and without disabilities, and our technology is more user-friendly for all users due to accessibility features. Expanded participation of all Americans has made our country better, stronger and more innovative.
While we celebrate the advances that have been made, however, we recognize that much work remains to be done. People with disabilities continue to face patronizing and stigmatizing attitudes, as well as discriminatory policies and both physical and technological barriers to full inclusion. That is why the Civil Rights Division has worked tirelessly to break down discriminatory barriers and pursue equal opportunity for people with disabilities in all facets of American life.
We have continued and strengthened our work ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to healthcare.
- On July 26, the Attorney General signed a final rule under Title II of the ADA to improve access to medical diagnostic equipment (MDE) for people with disabilities. MDE includes medical equipment such as medical examination tables, weight scales, dental chairs, x-ray machines and mammography equipment. Accessible MDE is essential for people with disabilities to have equal access to medical care. The rule adopts technical standards that clarify how public entities that use MDE, such as hospitals and health care clinics operated by state or local governments, can meet their existing obligations under the ADA.
We are working to address the critically important issue of needless criminal justice involvement for people with behavioral health disabilities.
- In June, we concluded our investigation into the Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix. Among the findings was the conclusion that they violate the ADA by discriminating against people with behavioral health disabilities when dispatching calls for assistance and responding to people in crisis.
- We are currently in negotiations to resolve similar findings related to Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department. There we found that they violate the ADA by relying on police officers to respond to people with behavioral health disabilities who pose no threat of harm. The City’s failure to provide appropriate emergency response services for people with behavioral health disabilities has had grave consequences, including serious injury and death, for Minneapolis residents.
- We are investigating similar issues in Oklahoma with respect to community-based mental health services in Oklahoma County and emergency response systems in Oklahoma City; in Kentucky with respect to mental health services and law enforcement encounters in the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro area; and in Tennessee with respect to responses to behavioral health calls by the Memphis Police Department. We are also in negotiations with the Louisville Metro Government and Louisville Metro Police Department to resolve findings that they violate the ADA in their response to people with behavioral health disabilities by unnecessarily deploying police to behavioral health calls.
- In May, we obtained a consent decree with the City of Anoka, Minnesota, resolving our findings that the city violated the ADA and the Fair Housing Act by denying tenants with mental health disabilities an equal opportunity to receive emergency assistance. The city, through enforcement of its so-called “crime free” housing ordinance and by sharing confidential medical information relating to calls for emergency service with all landlords, deterred individuals with mental health disabilities from calling for emergency help and threatened their current housing or future housing prospects. Among other remedies, the City has agreed to pay $175,000 to compensate harmed individuals and end its practice of treating mental health-related calls for emergency service as a nuisance and publicizing the health information of individuals with mental health disabilities.
Our work continues to combat the unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities.
- In January, the court approved a settlement agreement to resolve our findings that Alameda County, California, violates the ADA by failing to provide adults with mental health disabilities services in the most integrated, community-based settings appropriate to their needs. The settlement includes requirements for outreach to people with mental health disabilities and expansion of community-based services.
- In May, with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, we issued findings that Rhode Island is violating Title II of the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by unnecessarily segregating children with mental health and developmental disabilities in an acute-care psychiatric hospital. Although the needs of children with behavioral health disabilities could be met in settings less restrictive than hospitals, hundreds of children in the care and custody of the State have instead languished in the psychiatric hospital simply because the State has failed to ensure sufficient capacity of community-based services and prompt and effective discharge.
- In May, we issued findings that Nebraska violates the ADA by unnecessarily segregating people with mental health disabilities (MHD) in assisted living facilities and day program facilities. Instead of helping Nebraskans with MHD find jobs, Nebraska relies heavily on segregated day programs that group these individuals together in facilities. Additionally, instead of being able to live in their own homes, many people with MHD are forced to enter assisted living facilities to get the services they need. Our findings recommended remedies that would enable Nebraskans with MHD to have meaningful opportunities to live and work in their communities instead of in segregated settings.
- In June, we issued a letter of findings to Utah explaining that it is violating Title II of the ADA by unnecessarily segregating youth and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in sheltered workshops and day facilities. In the large, warehouse-like workshops, individuals with I/DD work only with other individuals with disabilities, conducting tasks for which they often get paid less than minimum wage. Our findings recommended remedies that the State could implement to enable individuals with I/DD to obtain typical jobs in the community at competitive wages.
- In June, we issued a report concluding that there is reasonable cause to believe Missouri violates the ADAby failing to provide the community-based services adults with mental health disabilities need in order to remain in their communities. It also found that the State is improperly relying on guardianship and that this leads to people entering nursing facilities when community-based services are appropriate for their needs.
- We continue to enforce settlement agreements in Georgia, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Puerto Rico that are enabling thousands of people with disabilities to live, work and thrive in their own homes and communities instead of being relegated and isolated in institutional settings.
- We are also actively in negotiations to resolve findings of unnecessary segregation in Alaska, Nevada, Iowa, South Carolina and Colorado, and we continue to work with Florida to implement the court’s post-trial decision in U.S. v. Florida, a case brought to ensure that children with disabilities have the opportunity to grow up with their families instead of in nursing facilities.
We are working to ensure people with disabilities in jails, prisons, and juvenile justice facilities and programs are not discriminated against.
- In November 2023, the division opened an investigation into conditions in the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in South Carolina. The investigation includes assessing the jail's use of solitary confinement and whether the jail discriminates against incarcerated people with psychiatric disabilities.
- In November 2023, we reached a settlement agreement with Arizona’s state prison system to address findings that its prisons discriminated against people who are blind or low vision, by failing to provide auxiliary aids and services to ensure that people with vision disabilities can communicate effectively while incarcerated. Per the agreement, Arizona is adopting reforms to ensure equal access and prevent future discrimination.
- In April, we filed a lawsuit against Utah and the Utah Department of Corrections (UDOC). The lawsuit alleges that UDOC discriminated against an incarcerated transgender woman on the basis of her disability, gender dysphoria, by failing to provide her with equal access to health care services and failing to make reasonable modifications to UDOC’s policies and practices to avoid discrimination on the basis of her disability.
- In January, we entered a settlement agreement with the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania (UJS) to resolve allegations that UJS courts violated the ADA by using policies that limit or prohibit the use of lawfully prescribed medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) by individuals in court supervision programs. Under the settlement, UJS agreed to pay $100,000 and to encourage all of its component courts to adopt nondiscriminatory policies.
- This past year, we filed and have continued litigating a lawsuit against Tennessee and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, alleging that they subject people to harsher criminal penalties solely because of their human immunodeficiency virus status by maintaining and enforcing Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution statute.
We continue our work to ensure students with disabilities have equal access to education.
- In February, we issued findings to Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) in Nebraska notifying the school district that it violated the ADA by denying some deaf and hard of hearing students an equal opportunity to attend their neighborhood schools. We found that when LPS believed that a student needed American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation, LPS would require the student to attend a cluster school serving deaf and hard of hearing students without considering the individualized needs of deaf and hard of hearing students.
- We are actively monitoring settlement agreements with the North Gibson School Corporation in Indiana from 2020, Frederick County School District in Maryland from 2021, Cedar Rapids Community School District in Iowa from 2022, Okaloosa County School District in Florida from 2022, Anchorage Public Schools in Alaska from 2023, Spokane Public Schools in Washington from 2023 and Wichita Public Schools in Kansas from this year to address the discriminatory use of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities in violation of the ADA. The investigations found that students with emotional and behavioral health disabilities missed hundreds of hours of instructional time due to the widespread and inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion in non-emergency situations. Each settlement requires the school district to eliminate the use of seclusion, overhaul restraint practices, and better train staff on how to provide effective and appropriate behavior interventions and supports so that students can remain in the classroom. Last year, we launched a webpage dedicated to our work combating improper seclusion in schools.
- In May, we reached an ADA settlement with the Pasco County Schools in Florida to end discriminatory practices under which students with disabilities lost hours of classroom time, were treated unfairly in the threat assessment process, and even faced the prospect of being arrested or sent to a mental health facility against their will under Florida’s Baker Act.
- In June, we reached a settlement with the Fulton County School District in Georgia under both the ADA and Title IX (a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education), to strengthen the district’s policies and procedures for responding to student-on-student sexual assault and ensure that the district’s response accounts for the unique needs of students with disabilities.
- We are addressing the unnecessary segregation of – and provision of unequal educational opportunities to – students with behavior-related disabilities in ongoing litigation against Georgia. We also are engaged in ongoing negotiations with Alabama to resolve our findings that Alabama violates the ADA by unnecessarily segregating and providing inferior educational opportunities to students with emotional and behavioral health disabilities in the foster care system in schools on the campuses of Alabama’s psychiatric facilities.
We are working to ensure accessibility and equity for people with disabilities in the technological and digital world.
- In April, we issued a final rule under Title II of the ADA to ensure that the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments are accessible to people with disabilities. Although the ADA has always required public entities to ensure that people with disabilities can access all of an entity’s services, programs and activities, the initial ADA regulation didn’t include any specific standards for web accessibility because the web was at its infancy when the ADA was passed. This rule helps ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to a full range of government services including critical activities like voting, taking online courses, applying for public benefits, filing taxes and more.
- We also have also issued findings and reached multiple settlement agreements as part of the Civil Rights Division’s Tech Equity Initiative to combat disability discrimination that occurs through technology such as websites and mobile apps. For example, we reached a settlement under Title III of the ADA with Springfield Clinic, a healthcare provider in Illinois. The agreement requires the health care provider to make its website, patient portals, and mobile apps accessible to patients with visual and manual impairments. And in another matter, we found that Service Oklahoma, a state agency, violated the ADA by denying people with disabilities equal access to its mobile identification app.
We are continuing to protect the rights of people with disabilities to exercise their voice in our democracy by voting.
- We are continuing to litigate against Los Angeles County, California, one of the largest counties by voter population in the country. Our complaint alleges that Los Angeles County violates the ADA by denying voters with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in the county’s voting programs, services and activities by failing to select and use physically accessible vote centers. The complaint also alleges that the county violates the ADA by failing to ensure accessible ballot drop boxes and curbside voting for voters with disabilities. We are committed to ensuring that the more than one million voters with a mobility or vision disability in Los Angeles County are able to vote.
- In June, we secured settlement agreements with several counties in Texas whose election websites were inaccessible for people with vision or manual disabilities. These election websites provide essential information about how to vote, registering to vote, identification requirements, early voting and specific information for people with disabilities. Under the settlement agreements, these counties agreed to make all future and existing online content accessible. We also issued findings that Alaska violated the ADA by maintaining an inaccessible elections website. As in Texas, we found that voters with disabilities faced barriers to obtaining key information on Alaska’s election website, including voter registration forms, candidate statements, voting dates and polling site locations.
- In June, we filed a statement of interest in the League of Women Voters v. Frank LaRose, in Ohio, confirming that the Voting Rights Act permits voters with disabilities who require assistance to receive that assistance from any person they choose, so long as that person is not an agent of the voter’s employer or union; and affirming that the ADA requires public entities to provide equal opportunities to vote absentee and allows voters with disabilities to use an assistor of their choice as a reasonable modification.
- In January, we filed a statement of interest explaining how the ADA’s equal opportunity and reasonable modification requirements apply in the voting context in a lawsuit in Georgia, challenging restrictions on absentee and in-person voting. Our brief explains that, under the ADA, voters with disabilities must have an equal opportunity to vote by a particular method as do voters without disabilities.
This list highlights just a few examples of our work across many areas of American life. In honor of Disability Pride Month, we re-dedicate ourselves to pursuing the goals of equal opportunity, full inclusion, and independence enshrined in the Americans with Disabilities Act.
