Trump's actions signal a move toward institutionalizing people with
disabilities, advocates warn
[July 01, 2026]
By ANNIE MA
WASHINGTON (AP) — For decades, disabled people have fought for their
rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities —
rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump
administration.
Last month, the Education Department announced it would offload
oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human
Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of
disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and
lawmakers.
Meanwhile, following a White House push to police homelessness, the
Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to
institutionalizing any person with a disability.
Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where
people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates
said.
“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with
disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled
live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council
of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can't imagine that as a country,
that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”
The move away from confining people with disabilities
Since the 1960s, legislation and court decisions have progressively
expanded supports and protections for people with disabilities to go to
school with nondisabled peers and to live and work in their communities.
Before that, people with mental illnesses or developmental and
intellectual disabilities were largely confined to institutions.
Advocates have pushed back on what's known as the “medical model,” where
an individual's disability is viewed as a defect to be cured. Instead,
under a “social model” of disability, differences can be accommodated
and supported, as people with and without disabilities learn and work
alongside each other.
Families and advocates have warned that moving special education to a
health department marks a return to the medical model. They've also been
angered by Kennedy's attempts to link vaccines to autism, going against
decades of research that show no such link, and his framing of autism as
a debilitating disease.
Kennedy's comments last year, where he said children with autism would
never write a poem, pay taxes or hold a job, raised questions about how
he would oversee an agency meant to help students develop those skills.
Kennedy later said he was referring to people with " severe autism ″ or
those who are nonverbal.
“Many of the things he said autistic people will never do, (special
education) is in charge of making sure students with disabilities have
the opportunity to do,” said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the
Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Will he execute that faithfully, or
does he consider disabled students a lost cause until we find some
medical cure?”
The Supreme Court weighs in
In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that segregating disabled people who
are otherwise able to live in their community with proper supports was a
form of discrimination. The Olmstead v. L.C. decision led to
requirements that government agencies provide disability services in the
most integrated setting possible — in mainstream schools, homes and
workplaces.
But in a memo issued in June, the Department of Justice's Office of
Legal Counsel upended that guidance. It argued that neither the
Americans with Disabilities Act nor Section 504, two major disability
rights laws, requires states to provide services in the most mainstream
setting. While the memo does not change the law, it signals how federal
agencies may interpret and enforce civil rights issues related to the
topic — and it could embolden states or school districts to decline to
support people with disabilities in mainstream environments.
The White House has already acted on a similar philosophy. Last year,
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on homelessness that
endorsed civil commitment, where a court orders individuals into
involuntary hospitalization or treatment programs. Trump directed HHS to
reduce barriers to institutionalizing people with mental illnesses.
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Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, May 27, 2026,
in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
In its memo, the Justice Department
acknowledged its interpretation of the Supreme Court's Olmstead
decision is “out of step" with the common understanding. If a state
starts to provide services in institutional settings, legal
challenges likely would follow, the DOJ said.
The Trump administration's steps fit a worldview in which the
government has no obligation to support people with disabilities,
said Claudia Center, legal director at Disability Rights Education
and Defense Fund.
“It's dark, and it's awful,” Center said. “And I think it's contrary
to the majority view in our country. ... It's out of touch with
where our society is."
Families say their kids thrive in mainstream classes
The moves have created a deep sense of uncertainty for students with
disabilities.
Lindsey Althaus says home and community-based services in northwest
Ohio have been instrumental to her family. Her 12-year-old son,
Whitman, has autism and a neurological disorder called apraxia, in
which the brain struggles to tell muscles how to move to form words
or perform other motor skills. For some of his school career, with
proper support services, Whitman was able to spend much of his
school day in a classroom that included kids without disabilities.
Through a Medicaid waiver program, Althaus pays her mother to care
for Whitman in her absence. That allows him to spend time out in the
community with his grandmother while Althaus and her husband are
working or away with their daughter.
Under the Justice Department's new interpretation of Olmsted, states
would have fewer obligations to fund and support those programs. And
Kennedy, in testimony to lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this
year, criticized similar programs as subject to fraud.
“We want to be able to have him in the community,” said Althaus, who
works as a disability rights advocate. “It's just starting to feel
like Whitman's not going to be welcome anymore. We're going back to
this: You're either perfect, or you're not in the light.”
For many students with disabilities, schools are where they receive
the majority of support services and where they are integrated among
their peers. Before Magda Nakassis's 8-year-old son, who is autistic
and nonverbal, started public school in Maryland, his preschool
experience had largely been defined by being kicked out of things,
she said.
In school, Nakassis said, she found teachers and staff members who
understood her son's needs and told her to stop apologizing for
them. A program at his school called Fantastic Friends teaches
mainstream fifth graders about autism, and they spend recesses with
children in the autism program. Every year, Nakassis said, there is
a waitlist to be a Fantastic Friend.
Nakassis said that it has been difficult to see the ways autism in
particular has become politicized. Every child is entitled to a
public education in this country, Nakassis said, and special
education is a response to the fact that some children have
differences that require additional support.
Regardless of his diagnosis, his right to an education is not a
medical issue, she said, but rather a question of equity and access
in a society that often pushes disabled people to the margins.
“There are lots of kids like him out there, and I sometimes wonder,
‘what did we use to do?’” Nakassis said. “I can't believe it was
better.”
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