The right of disabled people to live in community rather than being warehoused in institutions is under attack in a 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.
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A new Massachusetts state law passed in November 2025 will make records from state institutions for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or mental health conditions accessible for the first time. Generations of disabled people lived and died in those institutions beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Many experienced horrific abuse, and their histories have long been obscured.
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The Trump administration is trying to slash access to lawyers who defend the rights of Americans with disabilities, advocates say. Most of the lawyers work either for the Department of Justice or for disability rights agencies that Congress set up in every state decades ago. Many of the Justice Department lawyers quit in 2025 after being reassigned to other duties, their supporters say.
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