Amid lawsuit, disability rights groups celebrate federal protections

Dozens of people gathered Monday near the state Capitol building in Helena to celebrate a longstanding federal disability rights policy now at the center of a national lawsuit backed by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Advocates say the policy, commonly referred to as Section 504, has been the backbone of disability protections and laws for decades. The section of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act helps guarantee that people with disabilities have equal access to federally-funded programs and institutions. 

“That is the very first law that all other civil rights laws for people with disabilities has been built on,” David Carlson, the executive director of Disability Rights Montana, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, told Montana Free Press in a Monday interview. “ The disability community understands deeply about the importance of [Section] 504.”

The lawsuit that eight states, including Montana, have signed onto argues that, under the Biden administration, Section 504 created unreasonable expectations around disability rights protections in state programs, including Medicaid and child welfare cases. 

The legal case, originally filed in 2024, was amended in January. In that filing, state attorneys general argued the federal policy now creates “a broad and nebulous requirement” to provide community-based services in federally funded programs and eliminate institutionalization for people with disabilities, “regardless of whether it is appropriate in a given case.”

In Montana, Knudsen and other attorneys argued, the state’s “unique rural and frontier geography and demographic characteristics make it impossible to provide every service in every community setting.”

But members and advocates of Montana’s disability community say that the impacts of the lawsuit would jeopardize disabled people’s civil rights across health care, education, housing and other public services. In April, dozens of Montana nonprofits and more than 1,000 individuals signed onto a letter calling on Knudsen to take Montana out of the current lawsuit. 

“Protecting community living aligns with Montana values: freedom, fiscal responsibility and strong families and communities,” the letter said. “Despite Montana valuing people with disabilities living in our communities, you decided unilaterally to bring a lawsuit on behalf of Montana to preserve the state’s right to use federal money in ways that would segregate people with disabilities in institutions away from our communities.”

In a Monday statement to MTFP about the lawsuit’s opposition, a spokesperson for Knudsen said that the critiques leveraged by disability rights advocates were off base.

“[B]ad faith actors are misconstruing the facts of the case to scare Montanans into believing the protections granted in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are at risk because of Texas v. Kennedy,” said Amanda Braynack, communications director for Knudsen. “In reality, former President Biden put those protections in jeopardy when he finalized this major change to the status quo, which was unconstitutional and threatened the very resources people with disabilities rely on.”

Carlson and other advocates say that Knudsen’s continued litigation over the law is misplaced. In an effort to raise awareness and celebrate the protections from Section 504, Carlson and others organized the Monday rally, saying they hoped the event will bring attention to people with disabilities.

“ We thought if an individual lawyer somewhere or an individual bureaucrat somewhere, or an individual politician somewhere, doesn’t have a lived experience with disability, how are they to know what’s important to people who live with disabilities?” Carlson said. “So we said, ‘Let’s get together and just be disabled in a big group and have fun.’”

The gathering, which took place for about an hour on the front lawn of the Joseph P. Mazurek Justice Building that houses Knudsen’s office, had tables and chairs set up, with activities and refreshments and big, gold “5-0-4” balloons floating in the background. 

Carlson said that most people are introduced to Section 504 through students or children who have disabilities and require a customized educational plan to support their needs. He said before federal protections were passed, disabled students had limited access to public schools and often faced institutionalization.

“ So any attack on 504 was very scary,” Carlson said. “ People who have children who are born with disabilities want their children to grow up in their homes, not in institutions.”

Devin Armstrong, a Missoula resident who uses a motorized wheelchair, told MTFP on Monday that Section 504 has helped him gain more autonomy. 

“[Section] 504 has basically given me an equal playing field in life,” Armstrong said. 

He added that he has had personal experience navigating the differences between community settings and more institutionalized forms of care. In recent years, Armstrong said he has been living in his own apartment after previously living in a nursing home.

“ I was in the dark spot there for a minute,” Armstrong said. “A nursing home is not a place for a 30-year-old to be … it’s just easier to thrive out in the community.”