Georgia Archives

The Arc Submits Letter of Support for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act

September 16, 2024/in Advocate, Chapter of The Arc, Family member, Legal Professionals, Nonprofit professionals, Person with a disability Alabama, All States, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Distric of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Viginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin Children and Families, Education Advocacy Letters/by Robyn Linscott

Dear Member of Congress,

The Arc of the United States writes in strong support of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act (SICAA) H.R.2955 & S.1351.

The Arc of the United States has nearly 600 state and local chapters across the United States. These chapters provide a wide range of services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including individual and systems advocacy, public education, family support, systems navigation, support coordination services, employment, housing, support groups, and recreation. The Arc chapters are committed to improving the lives of people with IDD and their families, including the youth with disabilities who experience disproportionate harm at youth residential programs.

An estimated 120,000-200,000 of our nation’s most vulnerable youth are pipelined into youth residential programs each year by state child welfare and juvenile justice systems, mental health providers, federal agencies, school districts’ individualized education programs, and by parents. These facilities, including but not limited to boot camps, wilderness programs, therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment facilities, or group homes, cause harm at a higher rate to youth who are Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) and youth with disabilities.

These programs receive an estimated $23 billion dollars of public funds annually to purportedly “treat” the behavioral and psychological needs of vulnerable youth yet there are systemic reports of youth experiencing physical, emotional and sexual abuse including but not limited to prolonged solitary confinement, physical, chemical, and mechanical restraints, food and sleep deprivation, lack of access to the restroom or personal hygiene, “attack therapy,” forced labor, medical neglect, and being denied a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). Public records and news reports have documented more than 350 preventable child deaths in these programs.

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act aims to lift the curtains on this opaque industry by enhancing national data collection and reporting and facilitating information sharing among every agency who interact with these programs. Transparency and accountability are critical in our mission to ensure the safety and well-being of youth in institutional care settings.

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act will establish:

A Federal Work Group on Youth Residential Programs to improve the dissemination and implementation of data and best practices regarding the health and safety, care, treatment, and appropriate placement of youth in youth residential programs.
A complementary study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to examine the state of youth in youth residential programs and make recommendations for the coordination by Federal and State agencies of data on youth in youth residential programs; and the improvement of oversight of youth residential programs receiving Federal funding.

If you have any questions about the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act or would like further information, please email Rebecca Mellinger, Paris Hilton’s Head of Impact, at impact@1111media.co.

Respectfully,

Robyn Linscott

Director of Education and Family Policy

The Arc of the United States

Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church v. Kemp

May 26, 2021/in Advocate, Chapter of The Arc, Legal Professionals Georgia Civil rights Litigation/by Pam Katz

State: Georgia

Filed: 2021

Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

Plaintiffs: Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Women Watch Afrika, Latino Community Fund Georgia, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The Arc Georgia, Georgia Advocacy Office, and Georgia ADAPT.

Defendants: Governor Brian Kemp and other state and local election officials

Counsel: Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Wilmer Hale, Davis Wright Tremaine, The Arc of the United States

Overview: After Georgia voters turned out in record numbers for the 2020 presidential election and U.S. Senate elections in early 2021, state legislators passed a sweeping – and unconstitutional – voting law that threatened to massively disenfranchise voters, particularly voters of color and voters with disabilities. This lawsuit challenges multiple provisions of the law, also known as SB 202, including the following items.

A ban on “line warming,” where volunteers provide water and snacks to people waiting in long lines to vote, a common occurrence at precincts with a large population of voters of color.
A severe restriction on the use of mobile voting units, which have been used to address a shortage of accessible and secure polling locations that previously resulted in long lines of voters at existing and traditional polling locations.
Additional and onerous identification requirements for requesting and casting an absentee ballot.
A compressed period for requesting absentee ballots.
Restrictions on the use of secure ballot drop boxes.
Disqualification of provisional ballots cast in a voter’s county of residence but outside the voter’s precinct before 5 p.m. Previously, votes for all the races to which the person was eligible to vote on that precinct’s provisional ballot were counted.
A drastic reduction of early voting in runoff elections.

Voters with disabilities have received scant attention in Georgia’s battles over voting rights but have borne the brunt of historical and continuing discrimination and neglect in all spheres of public life. Rather than celebrating the strong turnout in the 2020 general election and runoffs, S.B. 202 doubles down on making voting even more inaccessible for the disability community.

The law was debated and passed by both houses of the Georgia Legislature and signed by Governor Brian Kemp, all in under seven hours. The legislation was passed despite state officials praising the recent elections for their integrity, safety, and security. The lawsuit describes how the law violates voter protections under the 14th and 15th Amendments as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The plaintiffs represented in the case include organizations whose get-out-the-vote activities will be negatively impacted by SB 202 and people most directly affected, such as Black voters, new citizens, religious communities, and people with limited English proficiency.

Young v. Georgia

October 10, 2020/in Advocate, Chapter of The Arc, Criminal Justice Professionals, Legal Professionals Georgia Criminal justice Litigation/by Pam Katz

State: Georgia

Filed: October 5, 2020

Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

Overview: This amicus brief challenges Georgia’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in determining intellectual disability in death penalty cases as creating a constitutionally unacceptable risk that defendants who have legitimate claims of intellectual disability will nonetheless be sentenced to death.

Excerpt: “Georgia was the first state in the Nation to establish a prohibition against executing individuals with ID thirteen years before the U.S. Supreme Court established a constitutional exemption in Atkins, and its leadership on the issue is to be commended…Despite Georgia’s early leadership on the issue, since Atkins not a single defendant in Georgia has been held to be exempt from execution due to ID pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 17-7-131.6 As set forth below, this onerous burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is inconsistent with the clinical diagnostic process and encourages jurors to default to stereotypes about people with ID.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

Georgia Supreme Court Decision

Related Media

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: High court to be asked to overturn intellectual disability threshold

Palmer v. Georgia

July 7, 2020/in Advocate, Chapter of The Arc, Criminal Justice Professionals, Legal Professionals, Victim Services Professionals Georgia Criminal justice Litigation/by Pam Katz

State: Georgia

Filed: July 6, 2020

Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

Overview: This amicus brief challenges Georgia’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in determining intellectual disability in death penalty cases as creating a constitutionally unacceptable risk that defendants who have legitimate claims of intellectual disability will nonetheless be sentenced to death.

Excerpt: “Georgia was the first state in the Nation to establish a prohibition against executing individuals with ID thirteen years before the U.S. Supreme Court established a constitutional exemption in Atkins, and its leadership on the issue is to be commended…Despite Georgia’s early leadership on the issue, since Atkins not a single defendant in Georgia has been held to be exempt from execution due to ID pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 17-7-131.6 As set forth below, this onerous burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is inconsistent with the clinical diagnostic process and encourages jurors to default to stereotypes about people with ID.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

Georgia Advocacy Office v. Georgia

July 24, 2019/in Advocate, Chapter of The Arc, Family member, Legal Professionals, Nonprofit professionals, Person with a disability, Service provider / DSP Georgia Civil rights, Education Litigation/by The Arc

State: Georgia

Filed: 2017

Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

Plaintiffs: Georgia Advocacy Office, The Arc, Parents of Children with Disabilities

Defendants: State of Georgia, Georgia Board of Education, Georgia Department of Education, Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, Georgia Department of Community Health

Counsel: Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Center for Public Representation, DLA Piper LLP, Georgia Advocacy Office, Goodmark Law Firm, The Arc

Overview: In 2017, parents of children with disabilities, The Arc, and the Georgia Advocacy Office filed a class action lawsuit in federal court alleging that the state of Georgia discriminated against thousands of public school students with disabilities by providing them with a separate and unequal education via the state’s Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Supports Program (GNETS). The complaint alleges that the state, in denying GNETS students the opportunity to be educated with their non-disabled peers in neighborhood schools, violates the ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Georgia is unique in having established a state-wide educational program—GNETS—that systematically segregates students with behavioral disabilities across the state. Over 5,000 students with disabilities, the disproportionate majority of whom are students of color, have been sent to the GNETS centers. Most of the GNETS centers are housed in completely separate schools (including some that were formerly schools for African-American students in the Jim Crow days). Other GNETS centers are inside regular schools but typically are housed in locked wings or have separate entrances, effectively operating as a separate school within the school. GNETS students are not only segregated from their non-disabled peers but also receive an inferior education. Typically, GNETS students are not taught by certified teachers; many are primarily taught through computers. Students cannot access the basic classes they need to earn a diploma, resulting in a graduate rate of GNETS students of only 10% (compared to a statewide rate of 80%). Many GNETS centers do not provide access to basic school services like gyms, libraries, or science labs. In addition, GNETS students are deprived of important co-curricular opportunities that other students enjoy, such as playing sports or participating in the school play. Parents and students have described GNETS as similar to a prison, with no way out.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated GNETS and found that it violates Title II of the ADA by (1) unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities from their peers and (2) providing opportunities to GNETS students that are unequal to those provided to other students throughout the state. The investigation eventually culminated in a 2016 lawsuit against the state alleging that the state’s administration of the GNETS system violates the ADA by “unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities from their peers” and providing “unequal” education opportunity to GNETS students. On August 11, 2017, the DOJ’s lawsuit was put on hold pending a decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding DOJ’s authority to bring suit. Throughout, the State has continued to defend the GNETS program.