Baylor & Associates LLC

06/22/2026

06/22/2026

A lot of headlines are saying the DOJ just announced that states don’t have to follow Olmstead v. L.C

Olmstead is still the law.

The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision recognized that unnecessarily segregating people with disabilities can be discrimination under the ADA. For more than 25 years, it has been one of the strongest legal protections supporting community living, home-based services, and inclusion.

What changed this week is that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum arguing that the ADA and Section 504 do not require states to provide services in the most integrated setting and do not prohibit unnecessary institutionalization.

That memo does not change the Supreme Court’s decision.

It does not erase disability rights laws.

It does not automatically eliminate services.

But it does signal a potential shift in how federal agencies may choose to interpret and enforce those protections moving forward.

As an advocate, this is a reminder that rights on paper only matter when people are willing to defend them.

Many of the protections students and adults with disabilities rely on today exist because families, advocates, attorneys, and self-advocates refused to accept segregation as the norm.

Pay attention.

Stay informed.

Document everything.

And never assume that a protection will remain in place simply because it has existed for decades.

The disability rights community has fought too hard for inclusion, access, and community living to stop now.

06/22/2026

In May, the Social Security Administration announced it was making a switch in the company that administers its Direct Express cards. 🔗 in comments

06/19/2026

06/17/2026

📢 The Department of Education is shifting key special education and civil rights responsibilities to other agencies.

AFT President Randi Weingarten responded, calling the move “a dagger to the heart” of the department’s mission to protect the most vulnerable.

Read her statement: https://www.aft.org/press-release/afts-weingarten-education-departments-move-special-ed-and-civil-rights-offices-other

06/09/2026

06/05/2026

Disability Belongs™ is deeply concerned by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Interim Final Rule implementing new Medicaid work and community engagement requirements for certain adults.

While the rule includes exclusions and exceptions for some disabled people, medically frail people, family caregivers, and others, the existence of an exclusion does not guarantee that eligible people will be protected in practice.

In the coming days, we will provide the disability community with plain-language advocacy tools to help advocates understand what the rule does, why it matters, how it may affect disabled people and family caregivers, and how to make their voices heard during the comment period.

We will continue working to ensure that Medicaid remains a strong foundation for independence, community living, and full participation.

Read our full statement: https://www.disabilitybelongs.org/2026/06/statement-new-medicaid-work-requirements-regulation/

06/03/2026

The FBI cut the phone lines during the 1977 disability rights sit-in. Then they turned off the hot water.

They locked the doors from the outside. One hundred and fifty protesters were trapped on the fourth floor, many of them wheelchair users. The government believed the building itself would force them out.

Kitty Cone knew better.

She was thirty-three, living with muscular dystrophy, her body weakening while her mind stayed razor-sharp. Logistics were her gift. Organization was survival.

The federal government had promised disabled Americans protection from discrimination through Section 504. But the regulations sat unsigned, buried beneath delays and excuses. Without signatures, rights meant nothing.

So the protesters occupied the Health, Education, and Welfare offices in San Francisco. Sleeping bags. Medication. Catheters. They arrived prepared to stay until the government acted.

By nightfall, police sealed the exits. Kitty organized the floor — committees for security, sanitation, medicine. Her medications rested in a small cooler beside her.

Then the blockade tightened.

No food deliveries. No medical supplies. Guards monitored every entrance. Federal officials assumed disabled bodies would eventually collapse under pressure. According to later memorandums, the strategy relied on attrition. Make conditions miserable enough, and people would leave on their own.

Then the phones went dead.

The fourth floor was cut off from reporters, city officials, the outside world. Silence became another weapon.

Kitty studied the barricades and noticed something critical: they were built for people standing upright. Waist-high obstacles. Empty space underneath.

So she dropped to the floor.

The linoleum was filthy with cigarette ash and spilled coffee, but she crawled beneath the barricades anyway, dragging herself toward offices and elevator shafts the police hadn’t secured. Notes stuffed into her pockets. Muscles burning. Arms shaking.

She found a payphone the FBI had missed.

She called reporters. Called city leaders. Pulled the story back into public view. Then she crawled back through the dirt. When her strength gave out, others grabbed her ankles and pulled her home.

The Black Panthers heard what was happening and crossed police lines carrying hot meals. Authorities backed down rather than spark a riot.

The occupation lasted twenty-five days — the longest nonviolent takeover of a federal building in American history. On April 28, the government signed the regulations exactly as demanded.

Kitty Cone didn’t storm barricades. She crawled under them.

And changed American civil rights forever.

05/14/2026

Exclusive: US freezes Medicare enrollments for new home healthcare and hospice providers

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