News and Alerts

Today, CPR and Massachusetts signed a landmark Settlement Agreement that will provide residential programs so that thousands of people with disabilities who are unnecessarily segregated in nursing facilities can return to their families and communities.

The Center for Public Representation, a national legal advocacy organization for people with disabilities, today announced the appointment of Kathryn L. Rucker as legal director. A longtime senior attorney at CPR, Rucker is succeeding Steven J. Schwartz, CPR’s founder, who has served over the decades as executive director and legal director. He will remain on staff as senior counsel.

CPR, Disability Rights Center of Kansas (DRCK), and the AARP Legal Foundation developed an Olmstead/PASRR lawsuit to challenge the unnecessary segregation of persons with psychiatric disabilities in specialized mental health nursing facilities.  

The Center for Public Representation is saddened and angered by the killing of Ryan Gainer, a 15-year-old Black youth with autism, by police officers in Southern California nine days ago.

On January 3, 2024, CPR and its co-counsel team filed litigation on behalf of Medicaid-eligible children in Georgia who are being deprived of the mental health services they need to treat their conditions and to remain at home with their families.

CPR Annual Appeal | December 2023

On November 17, 2023, CPR submitted written testimony in support of legislation that would ban the use of aversive interventions in Massachusetts, including contingent electric shock, and urged the legislature to expand the bill’s protections to all people with disabilities.  

On November 13, 2023, CPR joined other members of the Consortium of Constituents with Disabilities (CCD) in commenting on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) proposed update to its regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits disability discrimination by recipients of federal funding.

Read important updates on CPR's work in our October newsletter.

At two sessions with the senior leadership of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, including Assistant Attorney General Kristin Clarke, CPR’s Legal Director, Steven Schwartz, discussed several key ADA enforcement priorities for people with disabilities.