We Are On the Path to Eugenics
- Karen Monroy PhD PsyD
- Jul 6
- 4 min read
In my previous “You Can’t Change It Until You Name It” series, I laid out the history of eugenics: who they came for first—always disabled people—how people with intellectual and developmental disabilities were objectified as “not quite human,” and how ordinary people convinced themselves, It could never happen here.
It is way past time to wake up.
It is happening here. Now.
SUGARCOATING WHAT IS HAPPENING IS COMPLIANCE.
Four days before its 27th birthday, the Trump regime tried to gut the most important disability-rights ruling in American history.
On June 18, 2026, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel published a memo arguing that neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act requires states to provide community-based care instead of institutionalization. Four days later, on June 22, Olmstead v. L.C. turned 27.
You may have seen people saying, “Calm down. It’s not a law. It’s not an executive order.”
That is true.
It also misses the entire point.
OLC opinions tell the executive branch how to interpret and enforce the law. This memo argues that Olmstead only says a state cannot institutionalize someone without justification—but does not require states to fund the home-and-community-based services that keep disabled people out of institutions in the first place.
In plain language: the government is now arguing that the law may forbid locking disabled people away for no reason, but does not require support that allows them to live free.
That is the danger.
Olmstead began with two women, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, who were kept in a Georgia state hospital even after professionals agreed they could live in the community with support. In 1999, the Supreme Court held that unjustified institutional isolation of disabled people can be discrimination under the ADA.
For many in the disability community, Olmstead is our Brown v. Board of Education. It named segregation itself as the harm.
The “integration mandate” helped turn that right into real life: personal care attendants, home health aides, supported employment, day programs, respite care, and Medicaid waivers that allow older adults and disabled people to live at home, work, participate, love, laugh, and belong in their communities.
Without that mandate, home-and-community-based services become “optional.”
And “optional” is where services go to die.
This is not happening in isolation. Medicaid cuts are already putting pressure on states. Legal attacks on Section 504 and the integration mandate are moving through the courts. The DOJ memo lands directly in the middle of that fight, giving states political and legal cover to weaken community care.
This is how rights disappear: not always with one dramatic announcement, but through quiet memos, withdrawn enforcement, budget math, longer waitlists, fewer care hours, and families being told there is funding for a facility—but not for the support that would let their loved one stay home.
A right nobody in power will enforce is a right in name only.
And disabled people already face the steepest barriers to enforcing their own rights.
As a community, we cannot support those who oppress our loved ones. We cannot support policies that devalue their lives or threaten their ability to live in their communities. There is no moral justification for doing so.
Seventy-seven million people voted for this administration. Ninety million eligible voters did not vote. Another eighty million have been far too quiet.
Whichever group you fall into, it is time to change.
If you want your loved one alive, free, and thriving ten years from now, the time to act is today.
Start with simple conversations. Educate the people around you. Church. Bridge. Bowling. Golf. The gym. The grocery store. Wherever you are, you are now an advocate.
I carry small cards with names and phone numbers on them. I hand them out whenever I can, one conversation at a time.
When someone asks, “How are you?” I say:
“I’m very troubled. This government is targeting my loved one because of their disability. I would be grateful for your help.”
When someone asks, “What’s new?” I say:
“I need your help. I know everyone is busy living their lives, but my loved one is being treated as less than fully human. Will you help me spread the word that disabled people deserve to live, belong, and thrive in their communities like everyone else?”
Not everyone can do everything.
But everyone can do something.
Call your representatives. Tell them to protect Olmstead, defend the integration mandate, and fund community-based care.
Share this with three people who need to understand what is happening.
Support the organizations already fighting this: The Arc, AAPD, the Bazelon Center, DREDF, ASAN, the ACLU, the National Health Law Program, and disability-rights advocates across the country.
Watch Texas v. Kennedy. That is where the next legal fight is headed.
And ask the people around you this:
Do you or someone you love rely on home or community-based care?
What would it mean to lose it?
Olmstead is still the law. Disabled people still have rights.
THIS memo IS a threat— the government wrote it -telling itself it no longer has to defend you.
History has shown us what happens when society decides some lives are worth less than others.
We do not have the luxury of silence.
Not anymore.
We must refuse fascism, and eugenics dressed up as policy.
Sources
DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion (June 18, 2026)
CBS News on the memo
STAT on the memo
CMS / Medicaid.gov LTSS Rebalancing Brief, 2023 (HCBS users and per-user costs)
Statements from The Arc, AAPD, ACLU, Disability Rights California, and the wider disability community
National Health Law Program. Texas and Eight Other States Renew Attack on Section 504: https://healthlaw.org/news/texas-and-eight-other-states-renew-attack-on-section-504-and-the-right-of-disabled-people-to-live-in-their-communities/
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