WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel released a legal opinion stating that states are not legally required to integrate individuals with disabilities into community or home-based care settings. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit authored the legal opinion.

The opinion addresses the 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. LC. The Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. LC that individuals with disabilities are entitled to receive services in community settings rather than institutions.

The Olmstead case involved two women in Georgia with mental and intellectual disabilities who were repeatedly institutionalized after being unable to secure coverage for independent living support. The Supreme Court determined that institutionalizing the two women violated their civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The legal opinion states that the Supreme Court's Olmstead ruling did not establish a broad integration mandate. Instead, it declared that unjustified institutional isolation constitutes discrimination under federal law. The opinion could influence how the department and Department of Health and Human Services process discrimination claims involving individuals receiving state-funded care.

"The Olmstead decision itself said that why community integration is so important is so children can be part of their families, so they can go to school, so people can be part of their communities. That's what's at stake with this re-interpretation of Olmstead," said Alison Barkoff, a former Justice Department attorney and professor at George Washington University.

The legal opinion itself notes that the department's Civil Rights Division has utilized its integration mandate and the Olmstead ruling over the past two decades. This has included pressuring states to discharge individuals from mental-health institutions. The opinion states that the division has achieved consent decrees, remedial orders, or out-of-court agreements in nearly a dozen states, obligating participants to meet the department's deinstitutionalization benchmarks.

"For decades, courts have recognized that people with disabilities have the right to live, work, and learn in their communities rather than being unnecessarily segregated from society. This opinion does not change the law, but it is a clear warning shot aimed at the legal framework that has protected those rights for decades and at the Department's longstanding role in enforcing it," said Regan Rush, director of the Red Line for Civil Rights project at Democracy Forward and a former Justice Department civil rights attorney.