Many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities rely on direct support professionals (DSPs) to lead full and independent lives in their communities. The work DSPs do is vital, but due to years of systemic-failures, they’re often underpaid leading to vacancies and high turnover. It’s a crisis that affects people with disabilities and their families every day. DSPs and people with disabilities deserve more.
Through a review of Rocky Myers’ case in Alabama and a discussion with The Arc’s legal director, this episode explores the Supreme Court’s opinion in Atkins and later decisions holding that executing people with intellectual disability violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Individuals with IDD are dramatically over-represented in prisons and jails and face unique barriers. Powerful laws exist to protect them, but prisoners need accessible resources to assist them in advocating for their rights. This article explores recommendations to ensure equity for prisoners with IDD.
This document explores how advocates have used, and are beginning to use in new ways, the “integration mandate” of the Americans with Disabilities Act to advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities to avoid unnecessary entanglement with the criminal justice system.
State: West Virginia
Filed: 2020
Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia
Plaintiffs: Parents of children with disabilities in Kanawha County Schools
Defendant: Kanawha County School District
Counsel: The Arc, Mountain State Justice, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Disability Rights West Virginia, Latham & Watkins
Overview: In 2020, The Arc, along with other local and national disability advocacy organizations filed a class action complaint in federal court alleging that Kanawha County Schools (KCS) has failed to educate children with disabilities, including autism, intellectual or developmental disabilities, mental health concerns, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Specifically, the groups assert that KCS—the public school district serving the Charleston metro area—has failed to provide behavioral and academic supports to students with disabilities and is instead segregating them into separate schools and classrooms, or sending them home because KCS schools will not educate them. The advocates allege that KCS has violated federal laws protecting students with disabilities.
As described in the complaint, scores of children with disabilities enrolled in KCS have been separated unnecessarily from mainstream classrooms in their schools. Instead, the students are segregated for years in separate classrooms where they interact only with other students with disabilities, and receive an inferior education; placed on “homebound” status where they may only receive a few hours of tutoring each week; or suspended or even expelled from school for behaviors that are caused by their disabilities. The students are not receiving critical behavioral supports that can help them be successful in the general education classroom with their classmates without disabilities.
Specifically, the complaints allege that KCS is: 1) violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by failing to provide children with disabilities with the special education they need to receive a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive environment; and 2) violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), and the West Virginia Human Rights Act by failing to educate children with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, and denying them equal educational opportunity.
Amended Federal Court Complaint
Motion for Class Certification
Order Granting Class Certification
Fourth Circuit Amicus Brief on Behalf of Civil Law Professors
Fourth Circuit Amicus Brief on Behalf of Disability Rights Groups
Fourth Circuit Amicus Brief on Behalf of Educational Officials
Fourth Circuit Amicus Brief on Behalf of Civil Rights Groups
Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss
Fourth Circuit Decision on Class Certification
Judge Rules Kanawha County Special Education Lawsuit Can Proceed as Class Action
Washington Post: ‘Warehousing at its worst’: Rights groups say W.Va. school system gives inferior education to special-needs students
West Virginia Record: Special needs student sues Kanawha County Schools for not properly providing for students
Charleston Gazette-Mail: Judge allows Kanawha students with disabilities case to become a class-action lawsuit
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