Press Releases

CVS Health Partners with Disability Community in Commitment to Affordable and Equitable Access to Health Care

November 10, 2021
CVS Health, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and the National Council on Independent Living today announced that they are working together to seek policy solutions to protect equitable access to health care for all Americans and continue to protect the fundamental rights of people with disabilities. [...]

Disability and HIV Leaders Call on CVS Board to Drop Supreme Court Bid to Gut Civil Rights

November 3, 2021
Signatories demanding that CVS cease and desist include: the Honorable Dr. Judith Heumann, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and is featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution; Jeff Crowley, who served as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy for President Obama, the Honorable Tony Coelho, former member of Congress and a primary sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the leadership of more than one dozen national disability and HIV organizations. [...]

Kaiser and DMHC Face Lawsuit for Discriminatory Failure to Cover Wheelchairs

October 7, 2021
The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund ("DREDF") and Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP ("RBGG") filed a class action lawsuit in federal court against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and the California Department of Managed Health Care ("DMHC") challenging disability discrimination in insurance coverage of wheelchairs. Health plans administered by Kaiser and endorsed by DMHC do not provide effective coverage of wheelchairs needed by people with disabilities. [...]

Complaint Filed on Behalf of Students with Disabilities for Discrimination from New California Distance Learning Law

September 21, 2021
The State of California is excluding students with disabilities from alternatives to in-person classes, forcing vulnerable students and their families to choose between risking COVID-19 exposure or remaining at home without access to the educational services they need to learn and succeed. California’s newly adopted AB 130 limits alternatives to in-person classes to independent studies. Alarmingly, families of students with disabilities have found that California’s Independent Study Program is effectively closed to them because of the program design or lack of needed accommodations. As a result, the state education system is denying students with disabilities the alternative to in-person classes that state law provides to other students.

DREDF joined Disability Rights California, Vanaman German LLP, and The Arc of California to file this civil rights complaint with to the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking an end to this unlawful discrimination under the American with Disabilities Act. [...]

Black, English Learners and Disabled Students Denied Constitutional Right to Public Education, Lawsuit Charges

September 13, 2021
SAN FRANCISCO – The State of California and Pittsburg Unified School District have maintained a separate, unequal, and illegal educational system where Black students, children of color with disabilities and English learners have been segregated in substandard learning environments, excluded from classrooms altogether through the use of unwarranted suspensions and expulsions, and as a result, denied their constitutional right to a public education. [...]

Disability, Patients’ Rights Groups Issue Joint Statement Opposing the Expansion of Assisted Suicide in Observance of Suicide Prevention Month

September 2, 2021
Berkeley, California – In observance of Suicide Prevention Month this September, disability and patients' rights leaders from California and across the United States joined together in solidarity to voice clear, unequivocable opposition to a lawsuit which seeks to relax already weak safeguards which protect against bias and abuse in physician-assisted suicide. [...]

Court Denies Motion to Dismiss Legal Case Against Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD)

June 29, 2021
(Riverside, CA) - On June 17, 2021, a federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD), District Superintendent Martinrex Kedziora, Riverside County, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and several individual school police officers sued over the violent handcuffing of a 12-year-old Black student (C.B.) with disabilities could proceed. The Court denied Defendants' motions to have the case dismissed. [...]

Injunctive Relief and Damages Sought for Black Student with Disabilities Who Was Handcuffed, Forcibly Detained by Moreno Valley Campus Security Officers and Riverside County Sheriffs

February 4, 2021
Disability Rights California, Barajas & Rivera APC, and Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction and damages against the Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD), District Superintendent Martinrex Kedziora, Riverside County, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco for harm caused to an 11-year-old Black student (C.B.) injured by school police. The initials of the child and his parents have been abbreviated to protect their identities. [...]