DOJ Signals Shift in Interpretation of Landmark Supreme Court Case Protecting Independence of Individuals with Disabilities

In June 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo that reinterprets the landmark 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case, Olmstead v. L.C. The memo argues that neither Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act mandates that states provide disability care in the “most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of a qualified person with a disability,” despite long-standing regulations, guidance, and enforcement actions from the DOJ and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the contrary. Consequently, the memo provides legal justification for federal agencies to stop enforcing the “integration mandate,” which has historically protected disabled individuals from unnecessary institutionalization. Disability rights organizations strongly oppose the DOJ’s position, warning that it threatens decades of progress by allowing states to shift resources away from in-home care and Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), and, instead, rely on institutionalization, despite research showing the latter is considerably more expensive for states to provide.