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The Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law advocates for the civil rights, full inclusion, and equality of children and adults with mental disabilities.
Section 9817 of the American Rescue Plan, increases the amount of federal reimbursement available under the Medicaid program for one year for what the law calls Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS). There may be future legislation that extends this funding. HCBS are services that help people live and participate in the community — like intensive case management, peer support services, assertive community treatment, skills training, and supported employment. The new funding is meant to expand existing service capacity by supplementing what states now spend on HCBS.
A SAMHSA sponsored webinar presented by The Bazelon Center, will take place Monday, May 17, 2021 at 3:30pm ET called “Targeting Housing Resources to Support Reentry of People with Serious Mental Illness” This webinar will explore strategies to target housing resources to assist people with serious mental illness in transitioning smoothly from jail or prison to their communities, achieving stability and support, and avoiding re-incarceration.
The Bazelon Center, standing in solidarity, calls for justice in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, and so many other Black Americans. The deaths and injuries, and unjust treatment, of people of color at the hands of law enforcement, the courts, and jails and prisons will continue until the forces that perpetuate racial bias and hatred are dismantled. We will continue to fight to end systemic racism. We all must do better.
On February 11, 2021, the Bazelon Center and a national coalition of civil rights groups and legal scholars announce the release of a new report: “Examining How Crisis Standards of Care May Lead to Intersectional Medical Discrimination Against COVID-19 Patients.” Crisis standards of care are used to decide who should receive priority for treatment when there are not enough resources to serve everyone. The report provides an explanation of crisis standards of care policies implemented by states and hospital systems and how they may discriminate against people with disabilities, older adults, higher weight people, as well as Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, in hospital care. It also outlines principles that can help prevent discrimination, the relevant civil rights legal framework, and recommended strategies to ensure that crisis standards do not discriminate during the pandemic or in the future. See the intersectional crisis care guide and contributing partners(PDF) here.
The new COVID-19 relief bill – the American Rescue Plan, H.R. 1319 – provides new federal funding, as part of the Medicaid program, to support the expansion of mental health mobile crisis teams (see section Section 9813). Mental health mobile crisis teams are highly effective, both as an alternative to the police responding to individuals with mental illness and as a way to meet the urgent needs of individuals with mental illness or substance use disorder. Settlement agreements negotiated by the Bazelon Center and the U.S. Department of Justice to implement the community-based service mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead, 527 U.S. 581 (1999), routinely include requirements to expand mobile crisis services. To access this resource, the State must file an amendment to its Medicaid plan or seek or amend a waiver to secure the additional funding. The bill provides funding for grants to states to help them with developing an amendment. Learn more by reading the Bazelon Center’s resource (PDF) here.
The Bazelon Center and its partners had concerns about what was happening in Alameda County. That and the lawsuit we filed prompted an unprecedented investigation by the U.S.
On April 22, 2021, The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division issued a letter of findings concluding that Alameda County’s mental health system is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and that conditions at the county’s Santa Rita Jail violate the U.S. Constitution and the ADA. This is the first-ever findings letter by DOJ that examines civil rights violations in a mental health system and a jail, and the relationship between the two.
Read the amended complaint (PDF) here. See a video providing an overview of the lawsuit we filed with partners. The video personal stories of people who have faced institutionalization in Alameda County.
On May 6, 2021, we submitted comments to the HHS Office for Civil Rights in response to proposed modifications that would dramatically weaken privacy protections under the HIPAA Privacy Rule. We opposed a number of the proposed modifications because they would cause significant harm to individuals with disabilities and interfere with their ability to receive needed services. In addition, the proposed modifications were not based on actual evidence or data but rather on generalized comments and speculation. As such, these modifications are beyond OCR’s authority to promulgate. The proposed modifications include removing the requirement that covered entities use “professional judgment” in determining whether five exceptions to the Privacy Rule apply, modifying the exception allowing disclosures necessary to avert a “serious and imminent threat” to require only “serious and reasonably foreseeable harm” and creating a presumption that any asserted harm is reasonably foreseeable, and eliminating the requirement that disclosure for coordination of care be the minimum information necessary. Read more (PDF) here.
The Bazelon Center submitted comments on a discussion draft of legislation called the Home Community Based Services (HCBS) Access Act released by members of Congress who solicited feedback from stakeholders. The draft legislation aims to create a set of home and community-based services for people with disabilities that must be covered by states participating in the Medicaid program. Our comments focus in part on ensuring that these services are inclusive of people with psychiatric disabilities See the letter (PDF) here.
The Bazelon Center, NAMI, Mental Health America, and NASMHPD urge all states to take advantage of new funding for community-based mental health services available through the American Rescue Plan. The American Rescue Plan is the most recent COVID-19 relief law enacted by Congress. It provides a significant increase in federal Medicaid funding for states that provide any of a specified set of home and community-based services, including mental health services, through the Medicaid program. Learn more here.
Attorneys filed a major class-action lawsuit challenging New York City’s segregated school system for students with disabilities on Staten Island. The lawsuit alleges that the borough’s separate school district for children with disabilities, known as District 75, denies these students an equal education, forcing them into segregated schools and classrooms without adequate resources and with no meaningful opportunity to be integrated into their community schools. Disability Rights New York, The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and Disability Rights Advocates work together to support the plaintiffs, three Staten Island students with disabilities. They are not seeking monetary damages; rather, they seek reforms that will compel the New York City Department of Education to provide the resources necessary so that every Staten Island District 75 student has the opportunity to attend their neighborhood schools if they choose. Read the press release (PDF) here. View Class Action Complaint (PDF) here.
National disability groups are closely following the Supreme Court’s consideration of the challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought by Texas and 19 other states and supported by the Trump Administration. Texas argues that the ACA’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the entire law must be struck down. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, California v. Texas, on Tuesday, November 10. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), and 16 other leading disability rights organizations, represented pro bono by law firms Dentons and Baker Hostetler, filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court highlighting the crucial health care protections that Congress provided for people with disabilities in the ACA. The ACA prevents people from being denied coverage or charged more due to pre-existing conditions and made coverage of needed services available and affordable to millions of people with disabilities for the first time. Read the press release (PDF) here. Read the amicus brief (PDF) here.
The Bazelon Center applauds the November 9, 2020 introduction of the Mental Health Justice Act by Reps. Katie Porter, Tony Cárdenas, Mary Gay Scanlon, and Ayanna Pressley. Individuals with mental illnesses and intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to experience police violence during arrest, with one out of every four deaths caused by law enforcement officers being a person with a mental illness. Moreover, these individuals are often needlessly incarcerated rather than receiving the community-based services they need. The Mental Health Justice Act would address this by creating a grant program to pay for hiring, training, salary, benefits and additional expenses for mental health provider first responder units. These mental health providers would act as a mental health emergency response team, deployed in lieu of law enforcement officers when 911 is called because someone is in a mental health crisis or related situation. Grant recipients would also receive expert advice through technical assistance from the Disability Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Read more about the Mental Health Justice Act here.
Read the Opposition Nomination letter (PDF) here.
Today (October 6), the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, together with fourteen other disability and civil rights groups, sent a letter to the Conference of Chief Justices urging the conference to endorse the widespread adoption of temporary diploma privilege, for individuals applying for admission to the bar during the ongoing pandemic. In-person bar examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic pose a significant danger for communities of color and people with disabilities because of the disproportionate infection and death rates in those communities. This policy would allow qualified law school graduates to practice law without sitting for the bar exam during the pandemic. Read the press release here (PDF). Read the letter (PDF) here.
Today (October 5), the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, together with more than 50 other organizations representing people with disabilities, sent a letter to the Senate leadership, urging them to reject the nomination of Judge Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The coalition also states that Congress should not act on any nomination to the Supreme Court until it has passed and the President has signed a COVID-19 relief bill. Read the letter (PDF).
Today (September 30), the Bazelon Center released a new report reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s record on issues affecting people with disabilities. The review outlines her judicial decisions and other writings on healthcare/the Affordable Care Act, the “public charge” rule, and other disability rights issues. Read the full report here (PDF).
Today (August 20), the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the resolution of a federal complaint filed against Utah. The complaint, brought by the Utah Disability Law Center and a coalition of national groups— the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, The Arc of the United States, Center for Public Representation, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and Samuel Bagenstos—is one of nearly a dozen complaints that have been brought nationwide challenging states’ plans for rationing medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic as discriminating against people with disabilities. Today’s resolution sets a national precedent, with OCR building off earlier resolutions of complaints regarding plans in Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee and weighing in on the discriminatory impact of a number of provisions common in many states’ rationing plans. Read the announcement. Read the press release (PDF). Read the original complaint (PDF).
Today (July 30), the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, along with Disability Rights California (DRC), Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and the Oakland-based law firm Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho filed a federal lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against Alameda County and Alameda Health System. The lawsuit challenges the unnecessary and illegal segregation of people with mental health disabilities — especially Black people with disabilities — in psychiatric institutions and the failure to ensure people with disabilities are provided the services they need. Read the press release (PDF). Read the amended complaint (PDF). A video providing an overview of the lawsuit is available, with personal stories of people who have faced institutionalization in Alameda County.
(July 23) A coalition of state and national disability and civil rights advocacy groups have filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) challenging the crisis standard of care plans in Arizona and Texas, two states hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. These crisis plans are used to decide who receives life-saving treatment. Along with state partners, the national groups—the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, The Arc, the Center for Public Representation, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and Justice in Aging—argue that the plans discriminate against people with disabilities, older adults, and people of color, placing these communities at risk of substantial and imminent harm—and the real risk of being denied basic and emergency treatment—during the pandemic. Read the press release (PDF). Read the Arizona complaint (PDF). Read the Texas complaint (PDF).
(Updated July 22) The Bazelon Center decries the July 1 shooting of Mr. Ricky Walker, Jr., a Black Baltimore resident with mental health issues, by Baltimore City police officers responding to a 9-1-1 call at his family’s home. Yesterday, Bazelon, Disability Rights Maryland, the ACLU of Maryland, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sent a letter to Baltimore’s mayor, police commissioner, State’s Attorney, and the CEO of Baltimore’s behavioral health authority demanding that they take immediate action to prevent more tragedies like Mr. Walker’s. The letter asks that Baltimore’s 9-1-1 system dispatch non-law enforcement mobile crisis teams on calls responding to individuals in crisis, and that Baltimore expand and enhance its behavioral health system, including its crisis response system but also longer-term supports, including housing services. Bazelon calls on Baltimore and all communities to consider a reduced role for the police and additional spending on community-based measures that promote the well-being of all. Read the press release (PDF). Read the full letter (PDF).
Today (June 26), the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the resolution of a federal complaint filed against Tennessee, one of nearly a dozen complaints filed by a coalition of national disability advocates – the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Center for Public Representation, The Arc of the United States, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and Samuel Bagenstos — challenging states’ plans for rationing medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic as discriminating against people with disabilities. Medical rationing policies have disproportionately impacted Black people with disabilities, who have higher rates of COVID-19 infection and hospitalization. Today’s resolution sets a national precedent, with OCR building off earlier resolutions of complaints regarding Alabama’s and Pennsylvania’s plans and weighing in for the first time on the discriminatory impact of a number of provisions common in many states’ rationing plans. Read the announcement (PDF). Read the press release (PDF). Read the original complaint (PDF).
The Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, and Center for Public Representation this week (June 10) filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in a class action case challenging Connecticut’s failure to take adequate steps to protect residents of two state psychiatric hospitals from contracting and dying from COVID-19. Both hospitals, Connecticut Valley Hospital (CVH) and Whiting Forensic Hospital (WFH), have had outbreaks of the virus. Five patients at CVH have died from COVID-19. At CVH and WFH, Defendants have confirmed 73 cases of COVID-19 among patients and 64 cases among staff, since testing began. Read the full press release (PDF).
This week (May 13), the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, American Association of People with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and 16 other leading disability rights organizations, represented pro bono by law firms Dentons and Baker Hostetler, filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court highlighting the crucial health care protections that Congress provided for people with disabilities in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA prevented people from being denied coverage or charged more due to pre-existing conditions and made coverage of needed services available and affordable to millions of people with disabilities for the first time. In March, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, formerly known as Texas v. US and now known as California v. Texas, which it will hear in the fall. Read the full press release (PDF). Read the amicus brief (PDF).
Today (May 15), the Bazelon Center and partners have released a guide setting forth what hospitals and doctors’ offices must do to comply with the ADA and other disability rights laws when there are no-visitor policies in place due to COVID. The guide explains the requirement to make reasonable modifications to such policies and to allow a person to bring someone else to support them when necessary to accommodate the person’s disability. Read the guide (PDF).
Yesterday (May 7) the Bazelon Center joined the Connecticut Legal Rights Project in a federal class action lawsuit addressing the spread of COVID-19 in two Connecticut psychiatric hospitals, where patients face grave risks to their health and safety as a result of the facilities failure to take adequate measures to protect residents, in violation of the Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other laws. The plaintiffs ask the state to take steps to ensure the safety of patients in two state psychiatric hospitals by discharging individuals to community services and ensuring adequate safety measures for those remaining in the hospitals. Read the complaint.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormous health risks for people confined in psychiatric hospitals. Today (April 15), the Bazelon Center released a statement urging states and localities to decrease the number of individuals in psychiatric hospitals during this pandemic by reducing admissions and accelerating discharges. Read a copy of the statement (PDF)
Together with other partners, the Bazelon Center today (April 9) released a tool for evaluating Crisis Standard of Care plans that ration scarce medical resources, in order to determine whether they comply with federal laws prohibiting disability discrimination. The tool contains six questions that are useful for scrutinizing these rationing plans. It is a companion to the guidance (PDF) that we and our partners released on April 3, 2020 applying HHS Office of Civil Rights’ bulletin concerning disability discrimination in medical rationing schemes. The tool, “Evaluation Framework For Crisis Standard of Care Plans,” is available to download (PDF). (Updated 11/30/20)
On April 8, in response to a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) by the Alabama Disability Advocacy Program (ADAP), the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and other disability rights advocates, the state of Alabama has withdrawn its discriminatory ventilator rationing policy and instructed hospitals across the state that they cannot discriminate against people with disabilities in accessing treatment. The previous policy placed the lives of disabled adults and children at serious risk, in violation of federal law, by ordering hospitals to “not offer mechanical ventilator support for patients” with “severe or profound mental retardation,” “moderate to severe dementia,” and “severe traumatic brain injury.” Read the Press Release (PDF) and read the original complaint (PDF).
Today, April 6, 2020, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law released a statement urging all jurisdictions to: (1) Immediately release a majority of the individuals with mental illness held in jails, and (2) Take immediate steps to divert from jail the majority of individuals with mental illness who are arrested. Read the Bazelon Center Statement (PDF).
The Bazelon Center and partners released today (April 3) a guidance document for states and hospitals on avoiding disability discrimination in the event of rationing of life-saving medical treatment. The guidance is based on the bulletin that the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights issued on March 28 concerning the requirements of federal disability rights laws in the context of rationing scarce medical treatment. The guidance explains how the principles in HHS’s bulletin would apply in practical terms, what those principles mean for covered entities developing and implementing rationing protocols, and what concrete steps can be taken to comply with federal law. The guidance is endorsed by nearly 90 national disability rights organizations. Read the press release (PDF) and the guidance (PDF) here.
On Tuesday, March 24, the Bazelon Center, together with the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, the Arc of the United States, the Center for Public Representation, and Samuel Bagenstos, filed a complaint today with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) contending that Alabama’s ventilator rationing plan discriminates against people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other laws. The complainants are ADAP and The Arc, on behalf of Alabamians with intellectual and cognitive disabilities who will likely die if medical professionals are allowed to withhold health care services from them on the basis of their disabilities. The complaints ask HHS to take immediate action to address this discrimination and assist local jurisdictions and providers to develop non-discriminatory approaches before there are lethal consequences to application of these illegal policies. The day before, we filed a complaint challenging Washington state’s discriminatory scheme to ration COVID-19 treatment. Read the Press Release (PDF)..
On Friday, March 27, we filed two additional complaints for the states of Kansas (PDF) and Tennessee (PDF). Read more about our Kansas complaint (PDF) and the Tennessee complaint (PDF).
January 30, 2020 – On February 3, 2020, the Coalition for Smart Safety, a coalition of mental health, disability, civil rights, education, and privacy groups convened by the Bazelon Center and the National Disability Rights Network, together with the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Rights Task Force, is hosting congressional briefings titled Debunking the Myths: Mental Health and Gun Violence. The House side briefing, presented in conjunction with Representatives Langevin and Napolitano, will be at 1 pm. The Senate side briefing, presented in cooperation with Senators Blumenthal and Casey, will be at 3 pm. See the invitations for details on the speakers and RSVP.
2/3/20 – Debunking The Myths: Mental Health and Gun Violence (PDF) – 1 PM House-side Briefing Invite and RSVP (PDF)
2/3/20 – Debunking The Myths: Mental Health and Gun Violence – 3 PM Senate-side Briefing Invite and RSVP (PDF)
October 1, 2019 – The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law has released a report describing the essential community mental health services that must be expanded to divert people with significant psychiatric disabilities from the criminal justice system: Diversion to What? Evidence-Based Mental Health Services That Prevent Needless Incarceration (PDF).
Diversion to What? is designed to provide guidance to stakeholders engaged in efforts to reduce incarceration of people with psychiatric disabilities, laying out the types of services that should be the focus of such efforts. The report describes what those services do and how they are structured, and identifies the evidence demonstrating their success in reducing incarceration.
Download the “Diversion to What?” (PDF). The Bazelon Center gratefully acknowledges essential support for this report provided by the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge and the Ford Foundation.
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FROM FACEBOOKThank you U.S. House of Representatives for passing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Jennifer Mathis, The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law's Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy and co-chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities CCD Rights Task Force, urged the house of representatives to support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, H.R. 1065. This bill prohibits employment practices that fail to extend reasonable accommodations to qualified employees affected by a pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. This act is not only important for pregnant women, but for our national economy and people with disabilities. See our Letter here bit.ly/3osTPpf Learn more about the Act here: bit.ly/2RhHhod ... See MoreSee Less
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We applaud President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will nominate Catherine Lhamon for Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. We are proud to have worked with her over the years to protect the rights of youth. Learn more about her: bit.ly/3yb0UPk ... See MoreSee Less
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WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Catherine Lhamon for Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of2 days ago ·
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