On December 8, 2016, this blog explained that Trump and Sessions both have bad records on disability issues.
Now, at a time when the holiday season is distracting Americans and many reporters are on vacation, the Sessions DOJ makes a move. Charlie Savage at NYT:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he had revoked more than two dozen documents that interpreted and explained a wide range of federal laws, including guidelines on storing explosives and accommodating people with disabilities.The Justice Department scrubbed the statement from its website.
The 25 rescinded documents cover more than 200 pages and date back as far as 1975. They include a Reagan-era “industry circular” by what is now known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives saying it was illegal to ship certain guns to buyers across state lines, and an Obama-era letter urging state and local judges not to impose fines and fees in a way that locks poor people into cycles of debt and prison.
Mr. Sessions said the documents improperly went beyond explaining existing laws, and instead essentially created new rules — circumventing the regular process for creating regulations, which can include public hearings and comment periods.
...
One letter affected by the decision had been issued by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in October 2016. It advised public programs for employing people with developmental disabilities to modify their policies and practices, where reasonable, to better integrate their beneficiaries into mainstream workplaces in order to comply with a 1999 Supreme Court ruling about the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The civil rights of persons with disabilities, including individuals with mental illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, or physical disabilities, are violated by unnecessary segregation in a wide variety of settings, including in segregated employment, vocational and day programs,” the letter said.
On November 3, 2016, this blog excerpted the statement:
A core purpose of the ADA is to “assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency” for individuals with disabilities.1 The integration mandate of Title II of the ADA is intended to allow individuals with disabilities to live integrated lives like individuals without disabilities, including by working, earning a living, and paying taxes. The civil rights of persons with disabilities, including individuals with mental illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, or physical disabilities, are violated by unnecessary segregation in a wide variety of settings, including in segregated employment, vocational, and day programs.
Since the passage of the ADA and the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead, the ADA’s Title II integration mandate has been applied in a variety of contexts. The ADA’s integration mandate applies to all the services, programs, and activities of state and local governments, including their employment service systems.2 This guide discusses and explains the requirements of the ADA integration mandate and Olmstead as applied to employment service systems for individuals with disabilities. It complements and supplements, but does not supersede, the “Statement of the Department of Justice on Enforcement of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C.” (June 22, 2011).3
