Statement of the Department of Justice on Application of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C. to State and Local Governments’ Employment Service Systems for Individuals with Disabilities

6. Do the ADA and Olmstead apply to persons at serious risk of segregation in sheltered workshops?

A: The ADA and the Olmstead decision extend to persons at serious risk of institutionalization and segregation and are not limited to individuals currently in segregated settings. In the employment context, this includes individuals at risk of unnecessary segregation in sheltered workshops. Individuals need not wait until the harm of unnecessary segregation in a sheltered workshop occurs to receive the protections of the ADA and Olmstead. For example, public entities, including state and local education agencies, may be contributing to a pipeline to segregation if vocational rehabilitation counselors, caseworkers, and other supports are not available to assist youth with disabilities to prepare for and transition to competitive integrated employment. Moreover, such public entities need to ensure that students with disabilities can make informed choices prior to being referred for admission to sheltered workshops by, for example, offering timely and adequate transition services designed to allow students to understand and experience the benefits of work in an integrated setting. For instance, factors relevant to whether students with disabilities are at risk of institutionalization include whether a school, as part of the school curriculum, trains students with disabilities in tasks similar to those performed in sheltered workshops; encourages students with disabilities to participate in sheltered workshops; and/or routinely refers students to sheltered workshops as a postsecondary placement without offering such students opportunities to experience integrated employment. In the adult context, people with disabilities could show risk of segregation if a public entity systematically screens out adults with significant disabilities from vocational rehabilitation services, finding such persons “not competitively employable” because of their disability status, increasing the likelihood that such persons would have to receive employment services in a sheltered workshop in order to receive employment services at all.