I am writing this morning concerning the awful opinion released by the Supreme Court concerning the integration mandate (or, in its opinion, lack thereof). If anyone wishes to read the thing, it is here in PDF form.
I looked up the definition of “slip opinion” It is a commonly used release form of Supreme Court opinions that have not been bound. I assumed at first that it was not a real thing that carried weight. It carries a lot of weight. It is an opinion coming from the highest court in this country.
This decision came about because of a law suit that was brought by nine states in Texas v. Kennedy, claiming that the mandate to provide integrated services according to Title II of the ADA and the Olmstead decision of the Rehabilitation Act was unconstitutional. The state of Indiana dropped out of this suit, but here is a letter from the ARC of Minnessota concerning this case,/p>
I try hard to be understanding of people who think the states will do the right thing. I think that people really do believe that people want to do the rirght thing where people with disabilities are concerned. They can’t imagine that abuses are perpetrated, that anyone would harm those sweet helpless people.
A spiral of factors leads to institutional problems. I’m sure that everyone reading is familiar with the terms “fraud, waste and abuse” by now. The places where federal and state government look hardest for these things are within the care systems that assist people with disabilities. In practice, this means that any redundancy that protects a person with a disability from abuse is viewed as waste or fraud, and any service that isn’t understood is viewed as unnecessary/wasteful. Services in the home that could be split between people in an institution are “wasteful”.
But services in an institution that are shared can easily become neglectful for people who cannot communicate easily. For people who have behavioral challenges that are not well understood, staff can become abusive when trying to meet too many needs too quickly. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The bottom line is that nine people decided something about human beings as if those human beings were objects.
There is copious documentation of institutional abuse in testimony that is preserved in historical archives as well as in biographies of people with disabilities. If you have never read disability biography, please do. It isn’t easy. It will change your life. Please don’t feel sorry for the people. Change the ways that you interact. We are human beings.
In my opinion (which is admittedly that of a mere person with a disability), it should be borne in mind that what is happening is a batle of the system of checks and balances. Congress makes laws. The court interprets laws. Later courts enforce those interpretations, or reinterpret them. Congress amends laws, or makes new ones. Presidents give orders. And on it goes.
It seems that what the court is doing here is trying to say that Congress cannot legislate the inclusion of people with disabilities and that this belongs to the states. I have heard people say in the past that various powers should remain with the states, including how to provide disability-related education accommodations. That makes me feel a sense of dread so deep that I can’t describe it!
There is a wealth of documentation that gives a confusing presentation on this topic. The government itself has a presentation called Understanding Olmstead. It presents several criteria for deinstitutionalizing people with disabilities, one of which is that the person wants to live in the community and another is that others with similar disabilities also live in the community. The problem with these criteria are that (2) many people with disabilities struggle with communication and rely on others to provide appropriate care, often suffering abuse and neglect in institutions; and (2) many disabilities are rare and a person will not be in others with similar disabilities may or may not be found in the community. The nature of integration is that the person with the disability lives among people who are not necessarily just like themselves.
There is a post from the Disability Rights and Education and Defense Fund in response to this court opinion. It responds to the threat of reinstitutionalization and the issues that brought about the Olmstead decision in the first place.
There is a book that I think every nondisabled person needs to read, and read it with a brutal understanding. Disability is the one minority class that anyone can enter at any time and without any warning. If that scares the pants off you, I can’t apologize at this time. The book is called The Ugly Laws. It talks about laws that once existed throughout this country that prohibited people with disabilities from appearing on the street. That is what happens when disability issues are left to the states. Buy The Ugly Laws on Kindle
People with disabilities are human beings. Many people who go on about right to life–and that includes many legislators–can’t hack it when it comes to disability inclusion and equity. They want the right to decide whether people with disabilities get equitable mental health treatment, whether people with disabilities can live in their own homes with personal care, whether people with disabilities get funding for equipment that enables us to work, whether people with disabilities should be in public spaces alongside “normal” people. We are too expensive, too distracting, too upsetting…
There is a lot of social media from people with disabilities about this. There is good reason. A lot of us, even people who are relatively young, have memories of various kinds of institutionalization. I am 54 years old. I have memories of a childhood friend laughing and telling me that her grandmother asked whether there was a “special home” where she could go. We thought it was stupid. We expected that she would have her own apartment.
I learned later that there really were “blind homes” in the past. In fact, there are still a handful of them around. God, I hope I never have to live in one! Kevin and I treasure our home and love living in our community.
Most of this discussion surrounds people with mental illness and developmental disabilities. But do you know what? I do a lot of work with families of adults with developmental disabilities, some of whom are blind and some of whom aren’t. Some are at home and some are transition to chosen housing. They deserve the right to choose where they live. We should care.
In addition to that, mental illness is stuff we should think about. Do you take an antidepressant? Then please stop talking about mental illness like it’s just something that is a homeless people problem. Thank you very much. If you deserve the right to live in your house, then the homeless person on the street deserves the right to get appropriate treatment in an integrated setting. We are human beings. Belonging matters.
I am writing this morning concerning the awful opinion released by the Supreme Court concerning the integration mandate (or, in its opinion, lack thereof). If anyone wishes to read the thing, it is here in PDF form.
I looked up the definition of “slip opinion” It is a commonly used release form of Supreme Court opinions that have not been bound. I assumed at first that it was not a real thing that carried weight. It carries a lot of weight. It is an opinion coming from the highest court in this country.
This decision came about because of a law suit that was brought by nine states in Texas v. Kennedy, claiming that the mandate to provide integrated services according to Title II of the ADA and the Olmstead decision of the Rehabilitation Act was unconstitutional. The state of Indiana dropped out of this suit, but here is a letter from the ARC of Minnessota concerning this case,/p>
I try hard to be understanding of people who think the states will do the right thing. I think that people really do believe that people want to do the rirght thing where people with disabilities are concerned. They can’t imagine that abuses are perpetrated, that anyone would harm those sweet helpless people.
A spiral of factors leads to institutional problems. I’m sure that everyone reading is familiar with the terms “fraud, waste and abuse” by now. The places where federal and state government look hardest for these things are within the care systems that assist people with disabilities. In practice, this means that any redundancy that protects a person with a disability from abuse is viewed as waste or fraud, and any service that isn’t understood is viewed as unnecessary/wasteful. Services in the home that could be split between people in an institution are “wasteful”.
But services in an institution that are shared can easily become neglectful for people who cannot communicate easily. For people who have behavioral challenges that are not well understood, staff can become abusive when trying to meet too many needs too quickly. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The bottom line is that nine people decided something about human beings as if those human beings were objects.
There is copious documentation of institutional abuse in testimony that is preserved in historical archives as well as in biographies of people with disabilities. If you have never read disability biography, please do. It isn’t easy. It will change your life. Please don’t feel sorry for the people. Change the ways that you interact. We are human beings.
In my opinion (which is admittedly that of a mere person with a disability), it should be borne in mind that what is happening is a batle of the system of checks and balances. Congress makes laws. The court interprets laws. Later courts enforce those interpretations, or reinterpret them. Congress amends laws, or makes new ones. Presidents give orders. And on it goes.
It seems that what the court is doing here is trying to say that Congress cannot legislate the inclusion of people with disabilities and that this belongs to the states. I have heard people say in the past that various powers should remain with the states, including how to provide disability-related education accommodations. That makes me feel a sense of dread so deep that I can’t describe it!
There is a wealth of documentation that gives a confusing presentation on this topic. The government itself has a presentation called Understanding Olmstead. It presents several criteria for deinstitutionalizing people with disabilities, one of which is that the person wants to live in the community and another is that others with similar disabilities also live in the community. The problem with these criteria are that (2) many people with disabilities struggle with communication and rely on others to provide appropriate care, often suffering abuse and neglect in institutions; and (2) many disabilities are rare and a person will not be in others with similar disabilities may or may not be found in the community. The nature of integration is that the person with the disability lives among people who are not necessarily just like themselves.
There is a post from the Disability Rights and Education and Defense Fund in response to this court opinion. It responds to the threat of reinstitutionalization and the issues that brought about the Olmstead decision in the first place.
There is a book that I think every nondisabled person needs to read, and read it with a brutal understanding. Disability is the one minority class that anyone can enter at any time and without any warning. If that scares the pants off you, I can’t apologize at this time. The book is called The Ugly Laws. It talks about laws that once existed throughout this country that prohibited people with disabilities from appearing on the street. That is what happens when disability issues are left to the states. Buy The Ugly Laws on Kindle
People with disabilities are human beings. Many people who go on about right to life–and that includes many legislators–can’t hack it when it comes to disability inclusion and equity. They want the right to decide whether people with disabilities get equitable mental health treatment, whether people with disabilities can live in their own homes with personal care, whether people with disabilities get funding for equipment that enables us to work, whether people with disabilities should be in public spaces alongside “normal” people. We are too expensive, too distracting, too upsetting…
There is a lot of social media from people with disabilities about this. There is good reason. A lot of us, even people who are relatively young, have memories of various kinds of institutionalization. I am 54 years old. I have memories of a childhood friend laughing and telling me that her grandmother asked whether there was a “special home” where she could go. We thought it was stupid. We expected that she would have her own apartment.
I learned later that there really were “blind homes” in the past. In fact, there are still a handful of them around. God, I hope I never have to live in one! Kevin and I treasure our home and love living in our community.
Most of this discussion surrounds people with mental illness and developmental disabilities. But do you know what? I do a lot of work with families of adults with developmental disabilities, some of whom are blind and some of whom aren’t. Some are at home and some are transition to chosen housing. They deserve the right to choose where they live. We should care.
In addition to that, mental illness is stuff we should think about. Do you take an antidepressant? Then please stop talking about mental illness like it’s just something that is a homeless people problem. Thank you very much. If you deserve the right to live in your house, then the homeless person on the street deserves the right to get appropriate treatment in an integrated setting. We are human beings. Belonging matters.
I want to address one more thing. Many people with disabilities, including me, have had interactions in which people without disabilities have said that they would kill themselves if they became disabled. People with disabilities, the ones y’all call inspirational every day of your nondisabled lives, are busy trying to stay alive. We would like to not be shut away like yesterday’s trash, and we would like to not constantly be reminded of how horrible you think our lives must be. We don’t happen to be spending al day bemoaning our disabled lives. Most of us are busy trying to get a little food on our table, maybe have a cup of coffee with a friend, and keep the cat fed. So y’all who live in the states who want to decide what to do with us, please get brave and confront the eugenics. We will be nice and have a cup of coffee with you.
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