Advocacy Updates

Today, CPR and partners filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) over Nebraska’s ongoing failure to provide access for Nebraskans with disabilities to TestNebraska. The State’s COVID-19 testing program currently requires the ability to access and use the internet and then the ability to drive to a testing site.

Today, in response to the first federal complaint challenging discriminatory hospital “no-visitor” policies, filed by CPR and partners last month, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announced a resolution making clear that federal law requires hospitals and the state agencies overseeing them to modify policies to ensure patients with disabilities can safely access the in-person supports needed to benefit from medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We stand with protesters in communities across the country -- including in the Twin Cities, Atlanta, Louisville, Columbus, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Washington, D.C.-- demanding justice and accountability for the murder of George Floyd. The institutional racism that has long infected this country cannot stand. We need to do more as allies. We are listening. As disability lawyers fighting for change, we have a responsibility to change a system that has repeatedly failed to deliver justice for all. We commit to working to understand and address our own implicit bias, to address racism in our work, and to be better allies – to listen, to hear, and to act.

Around the country, hospitals and other health care facilities have enacted strict no-visitor policies to contain the spread of COVID-19 that don't include exceptions for people with disabilities who need support from family members or staff to have equal access to medical treatment. To help combat the discrimination people with disabilities are facing as a result of these policies, CPR, together with CommunicationFirst, The Arc, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Bazelon Center, and DREDF, has released Evaluation Framework for Hospital Visitor Policies.

Today CPR, along with 18 other national disability rights organizations, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court defending the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which provides important protections for people with disabilities. In March, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case, formerly known as Texas v. US and now known as California v. Texas, which it will hear next term.

CPR and partners filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR) today regarding the failure to provide people with disabilities with reasonable accommodations to hospital no-visitor policies in effect during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first OCR complaint filed regarding a state’s hospital visitor policies during this pandemic, and follows several other complaints filed by CPR and partners regarding states’ discriminatory medical rationing policies.

CPR and a coalition of more than 20 interested organizations and individuals respond to the recently revised Massachusetts Crisis Standards of Care

Many states and hospitals are relying on the use of Crisis Standard of Care plans to inform providers how to make decisions on the allocation and re-allocation of scarce medical resources. These plans should be carefully scrutinized to ensure that people with disabilities are not subject to discrimination. CPR, together with The Arc, Bazelon Center, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Visiting Scholar Ari Ne’eman, and Professor Sam Bagenstos, developed an evaluation framework to assist stakeholders in evaluating Crisis Standards of Care in their states.

The Center for Public Representation supported partners in Pennsylvania and Utah in complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR) regarding illegal disability discrimination in treatment rationing protocols being developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Center for Public Representation, together with The Arc of the United States, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, and Professor Samuel Bagenstos, released critical guidance to states and healthcare providers about how to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities if rationing access to COVID-19 treatment becomes necessary. The guidance is endorsed by 90 national disability and health advocacy organizations.