If you are the person who manages a relative's disability care, the arrangement you have built rests on a legal principle you have probably never had to think about. A federal legal opinion issued in June now questions that principle, and it is worth understanding before anything actually changes.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded on June 18 that neither Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act nor Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act imposes what is known as the integration mandate on states, and that neither statute authorizes federal agencies to impose one. The opinion, signed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit, was requested by the White House Counsel's Office in February.
