The Breakthrough

What, Who, Why, and How?
Basic facts about what is happening in the US government, in plain language

Written by DNWML Community Engagement Coordinator, Eliot Carter

Issue 2: Texas v. Kennedy and Section 504 – What’s new as of June 2025

Event Announcement

This month’s blog is a long one because this is a complex issue. It is also important to know why Section 504 was so important to the disability rights movement in the 1970s. We can learn more about this by looking at history and seeing what things were like before Section 504 became law.

In the early 20th century, very few parents felt like they knew how to raise a child with a disability. Many times, doctors would tell the parents that they should send their child to live in an institution. These institutions became crowded and dangerous, and some parents would never come back to visit their children.

A TV news report called Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace showed many Americans how bad these institutions were. We will be watching a film that tells the story of how this news report was made and what has changed in the 50 years since it aired. Join us on Thursday, July 1st at 2:00 pm! You can come watch these videos on the big screen in our Ann Arbor Office or online through Zoom. To learn more and register, visit https://tinyurl.com/DNWMLWILLOWBROOK.

Background

Section 504 refers to part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. “Rehabilitation” in this case means vocational rehabilitation, which is a service that helps people with disabilities prepare for and find jobs. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act made it illegal for places that receive money from the federal government to discriminate against people with disabilities. Disability activists fought for years to make sure that the federal government would actually punish places that weren’t following the law. To learn more about the history of Section 504, visit this page from the Minnesota Council on Developmental Disabilities (click here).

In the 1990s, there were two women named Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson who were living in a state mental health hospital in Georgia. The two women wanted to go back to their homes, and their doctors agreed that they could live there comfortably as long as they could get home and community-based services (HCBS). But the state of Georgia’s Department of Human Resources did not have a plan on how to provide HCBS. The women filed a lawsuit which became known as Olmstead v. LC. This case went to the Supreme Court, which is the most powerful court in the United States. They found that keeping the women in the institution was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The court said all states should have a plan for providing Home and Community Based Services to people who want to live in the community when doctors say they should be able to. In many states, these are called Olmstead plans. To learn more about Olmstead, use this link (click here).

What?

Texas v. Kennedy is a lawsuit that the state of Texas and 16 other states have brought against the federal government. For a while, these states were arguing that Section 504 was unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court should undo what the law is supposed to do. Many people with disabilities were outraged because this law is so important to our history and community accessibility. The states who are suing (called plaintiffs) recently said they were not going to argue that Section 504 as a whole is unconstitutional, which was a relief to advocates.

But there are still two big threats to Section 504. First, the plaintiffs are now trying to undo the changes to Section 504 from 2024 instead. The other is a department within the White House that is trying to undo Section 504 protections in a way that we have not seen before.

Many of these updates are meant to prevent discrimination in health care settings. One part of the Section 504 update says that hospitals and doctors’ offices should be accessible and should have accessible equipment such as exam tables. Another part makes it illegal for doctors to discriminate against people with disabilities based on bias and stereotypes about disability. For example, a doctor cannot decide that a person with an intellectual disability shouldn’t get a heart transplant just because they think it would be too hard for the person to follow the instructions for how to take care of themselves after the surgery.1

Another part of the law is called the Final Rule, which says that states must make sure people with disabilities are not being put in institutions or care facilities when they could be out in the community. The states in this lawsuit are saying that this would cost them too much and isn’t what they think Medicaid should be used for. If the Supreme Court agrees with them, it will go against the decision they made with Olmstead v. LC. This would mean states would not have to provide home and community-based services in the “most integrated setting possible.” Disability advocates are afraid that this will mean more people will be put into institutions, nursing homes, and other places that are hard to get out of.

Who?

The lawsuit is called Texas v. Kennedy because it is against the head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which is run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This department looks at laws that apply to them and figures out how they well be enforced (for instance, how will we know when people disobeyed the law and how they will be punished). The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, was the first person to file the lawsuit. The other states whose Attorneys General are suing are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia.

The federal department that is trying to undo Section 504 is the Department of Energy. This is the department that is in control of how the Rehabilitation Act is enforced. The name of the man in charge of this department is Chris White. Like all Department heads, he was chosen by the president.

Why?

Many politicians and judges in these states think that the government went too far with the updates to Section 504. The Final Rule has many ways to “test” whether a program or living situation is integrated, meaning people have the freedom to interact with people without disabilities and maintain control over their lives. These states would have to use their own money to fix places that do not pass this test. When these states filed this case, they said that the new parts of Section 504 would cost their Medicaid programs too much and cause “administrative burdens.”2 It is true that the Final Rule will create a lot of work for states. Even some people in the disability community think that the law is too restrictive.

How?

When disability advocates found out about this lawsuit, they fought back by telling the public and sending letters to the Attorneys General in this case. Then, the AGs announced that they would not argue that Section 504 is unconstitutional. The new lawsuit focuses on the 2024 update to Section 504 instead. The lawsuit argues against the new rules about community living, but it mostly focuses on the rules that mention transgender people. These rules were added because a transgender woman won a federal court case that argued that the stress that comes from being misgendered can count as a disability, and the majority of congressmembers in 2024 agreed that this should be in the law.3

Currently, the case is “stayed,” meaning that the Supreme Court is not going to decide on it right now. The plaintiffs will make new arguments on why the Supreme Court should hear the case in late July 2025. But in June, the Department of Energy unexpectedly announced that they planned to get rid of some sections of Section 504. The Department wants to get rid of the part of the law that says new buildings need to be made accessible to people with disabilities if the owners of the building get money from the federal government. They are doing this with what is called a “Direct Final Rule” (this is different from the Final Rule that we talked about above). This is the type of directive that will make this change unless a lot of people write and say that they disagree with it. No federal department has used a Direct Final Rule to get rid of one of the core pieces of a law that was passed by Congress. Advocates are worried that if this happens, the president will try to do this with other laws. This would give the president a level of power that goes against what was written in the constitution.

How to take action

Advocates were already able to save parts of Section 504 this year by telling these states and the public how this lawsuit would harm people with disabilities. We can continue to do this and inform people about what Section 504 is and how it protects people with disabilities and allows them to access the places they need to go.

The American people only have until Monday, June 16, to submit a comment opposing the Direct Final Rule. DREDF has a website that you can use to submit comments. Anyone living in any state can follow these instructions. Click here to go to their website.To fight the court case, inform people who are living in the states that are involved in this lawsuit that they can write to their Attorney General.

This is a complicated case. Please contact Eliot at eliot@dnwml.org if you want clarification on anything in this blog post. We are also able to assist you as an advocate by helping you craft your message.

The Breakthrough Advocacy Blog #2