Trump administration reverses stance on integration of people with disabilities

Hundreds of disability advocates gathered in New York in 2025 to protest cuts to Medicaid and demand the enforcement of disability rights protections. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption

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For nearly 50 years, the federal government has said people with disabilities should live, work and learn in the most integrated setting possible rather than be segregated in institutions like nursing homes.

The Trump administration just took its most concrete step yet to reverse that position.

Last week, a federal judge agreed to strip out mentions of "integration" from federal regulations tied to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a landmark civil rights law that prohibits disability discrimination. The judge did so after the Justice Department declined to defend its own rules in a lawsuit brought by several states challenging the legality of those rules.

Part of what is so striking about Texas v. Kennedy is that the federal government was originally the defendant in that lawsuit, brought by states fighting what's known as the integration mandate. Then, it switched sides and agreed with the states that the requirement should be undone.

Bruce Darling, president and CEO of the Center for Disability Rights, says when he heard about the ruling, it felt "like a knife in your chest. Because what we're hearing, what people are hearing, is that the federal government has made a determination that [disabled people] don't have a right to live in freedom, that they can be locked up against their will."

The court's decision removes regulations from Section 504 that explicitly required federally funded programs to provide services in the "most integrated setting."