Charlotte Cravins’ son Landry turned 2 in January. He’s a smiley little boy who loves singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and recently got his first pair of glasses.

Landry was born with Down syndrome and has impaired vision. He receives publicly funded therapies that have helped him learn to crawl, to pull himself up to stand, and to use American Sign Language.

Landry lives with his parents and sister in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one of the eight states whose attorney general has chosen to remain in a lawsuit challenging a federal rule that protects accommodations for people with disabilities. States are asking a federal court in Texas to declare unconstitutional a part of federal law that requires states to provide services to disabled people in their communities, rather than in institutions, when appropriate.

Cravins, an attorney, has followed the case with increasing concern. If the states succeed, that could strip disabled people like her son of the right to publicly funded services that allow them to live in their own homes and neighborhoods, and instead push them into institutions such as state hospitals and nursing homes.

“Landry is a part of our family, a part of the community,” she said, “and to present his involvement in our family and in our community as a burden is unconscionable.”

The lawsuit is unusual. It began in 2024 with 17 Republican-led states suing the Biden administration over its inclusion of gender dysphoria as a protected disability under a portion of federal law known as Section 504. The states also challenged the constitutionality of Section 504 itself.

But the suit has since morphed into something different.

After President Donald Trump was reelected and his administration made clear it would not enforce the Biden rule protecting gender dysphoria, eight states pulled out of the lawsuit. Their attorneys general scrambled to distance themselves from it, amid a swift backlash from the disability community that warned the suit imperiled federal protections for all people with disabilities.

But in a surprising move, nine states chose to stick with the lawsuit anyway, and in January amended their complaint.

They’re now asking the court to strike down a part of Section 504 that requires states to provide disabled people with services in their communities whenever possible, rather than in institutions such as state hospitals and nursing homes.

It’s a maneuver that has shocked many in the disability rights community. Those who spoke with Stateline said they have not received answers from public officials about why the states are still pursuing the lawsuit after the Trump administration removed federal protections for gender dysphoria.

The Republican attorneys general from the states involved either did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment or referred Stateline to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the lawsuit. Paxton did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment.

Last week, a few days after Stateline reached out, Indiana dropped out of the lawsuit, leaving eight states remaining.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, said he remains concerned about “federal overreach into traditional state matters” but felt that Trump’s move in December to officially exclude gender dysphoria from Section 504 protections meant the lawsuit’s core objective had been reached.

“Our goal in this lawsuit was to remove President Biden’s ridiculous addition of gender dysphoria as a disability, which risked jeopardizing services for those who truly need them most,” Rokita said in a statement. He noted he has a child with a disability; his son has Angelman syndrome, which causes developmental delays.

But eight other states are pushing forward with the lawsuit: Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota and Texas.

Cravins, Landry’s mom, said she feels misled by Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, because Murrill initially framed the case as being about the inclusion of gender dysphoria and has not responded to questions about why her state remains involved after that’s no longer an issue.

“Other states left the lawsuit. Louisiana didn’t. Why?” Cravins asked. She said she’s written an open letter to Murrill about the case, with no response. “At this point, it seems that her issue is people with disabilities living in the community.”

States say in their revised complaint that updates to Section 504 unfairly restrict how they’re able to spend money and prevent them from deciding how best to care for their own residents. They say their budgets, strained by rising costs and workforce shortages, can’t always accommodate expensive service changes required by the law, and that with smaller Medicaid budgets they’re having to make hard choices. Removing the law’s “integration mandate” would give them more flexibility.

Disability rights advocates respond that if the court strikes down the integration rule, it will be harder for people with disabilities to get services in their communities. States won’t be required to provide those as a condition of receiving federal money.

And they worry the states’ efforts signal a return to darker times, when disabled people were hidden away, warehoused in institutions and far from family and friends.

“The reality is, the world was not built with us in mind, and there are people who would rather us not be here,” said Kaleigh Brendle, an advocate and college student who launched a nonprofit to push back against efforts to defang Section 504. “Us existing in the world makes people uncomfortable, with our braces, our canes, our wheelchairs, our differences.”

Nonpartisan, until recently

For decades, disability issues were largely nonpartisan. The two most consequential landmark federal disability rights laws were signed by Republican presidents: Richard Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act — which includes Section 504 — in 1973; George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

The requirement that states provide services for disabled people in their communities comes from the landmark 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates hailed that decision as a civil rights victory that has helped shift disability care from institutional “warehousing” to integrating disabled people into the fabric of their communities.

“Now the states’ lawsuit seeks to upend all of that,” said M. Geron Gadd, a senior attorney with the National Health Law Program who focuses on disability rights cases.

Gadd said that as a litigator, she’s seen states shift how they fight disability-related cases: Instead of disputing how laws apply in specific situations, states are increasingly challenging the thrust of the laws themselves.

“States seem to be much more offended by having to conform their programs and services to basic requirements of disability law,” said Gadd. And, she added, “it seems to have become politicized in ways that it had not been for decades.”

State efforts have echoed those at the federal level.

The Trump administration has been pushing a rule change that would penalize disabled adults who live with their families and deduct the value of their bedroom from the amount they receive in federal benefits. Last year, Trump administration officials abandoned a proposal to cut disability benefits for older workers after news reports and public outcry. The efforts have been made in the name of government efficiency and reducing red tape, particularly in safety-net programs.

And in April, the U.S. Department of Justice delayed a Biden-era deadline — based on the Americans with Disabilities Act — for state and local governments to update their web content to make it accessible for people with disabilities.

Disability rights advocates say the conservative-led states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services they are suing feel like two sides of the same coin, with disabled people and their families caught in the middle of the case, without a champion.

‘Something to fight back’

When Kaleigh Brendle was 17, she joined four other vision-impaired high school students in challenging a decision by the College Board — which administers Advanced Placement tests — to replace hard-copy Braille exams with a digital format during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They were successful. Brendle’s experience then, as well as her experiences pushing to get the accommodations she needed in school, drove her to advocate for disability rights nationally.

She named her new advocacy nonprofit Judy’s League, for Judy Heumann, a legendary disability rights activist known as the “Mother of the Disability Rights Movement.” Brendle likes to quote Heumann, who often said that disability can happen to anyone at any time.

Families and students with disabilities also worry the Republican states’ lawsuit could erode Section 504 protections for students if states were no longer required to provide services in public schools and could instead direct students to institutions.

As a student, Brendle received services locally that helped her learn to use a cane, to read Braille and to use accessible technology needed to complete school coursework.

At times she had to push for the accommodations she needed.

“But at least 504 gives you a leg to stand on,” she said. “It gives you something to fight back with.”

Similarly, Cravins worries her son Landry could have a hard time receiving services at his local school when he’s old enough to attend, even though he would be able to go to school with his peers with the right supports.

National disability rights groups — including the National Federation of the Blind, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund — have continued urging the public to speak out about the possible loss of rights.

“It feels like it’s up to us as individuals to try and convince these people in these positions of power to stop attacking us,” Brendle said.

Cascading effects

On Monday, the states asked the judge to decide the lawsuit without a trial. Over the next few months, the states and feds will file briefs with the court. Disability community groups and allies will have the chance to file briefs as well.

If the states prevail, it’s hard to say what the cascading legal impacts could be. A win could trigger further litigation. Other courts might interpret the law differently.

A number of state laws, programs and other efforts have been built on the integration mandate and could be affected as well, said Mike Oxford, a retired director of an independent living center in Topeka, Kansas, who has been a longtime disability rights advocate.

“I’ve seen people with significant disabilities become great lawyers, academics, corporate leaders, on and on,” he said. “That would not have happened” without the integration mandate.

Oxford said he has not gotten a response from Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach when he asked about the case. He doesn’t think that the attorneys general remaining in the case believe it’s still about gender dysphoria.

“It’s just totally ridiculous,” he said. “They’re lawyers. They signed the new complaint. They know what it does and doesn’t say.”

If the court strikes down the integration mandate, that doesn’t mean the entire law is invalidated or in-community services automatically cease.

But it does mean that if a family were denied services outside of an institution, they’d likely have to pursue litigation each time to fight the decision, Cravins said.

“I think it’s important for the average citizen to realize that laws only work when there is enforcement behind them,” she said.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.