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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Advocacy, Information, & Resources

A Message from Us

Disability Rights Maryland (DRM) is working hard to stand together with Marylanders with disabilities and will continue to do all that we can to provide excellent services to our communities during this challenging time.

For legal assistance, we encourage you to call our intake department using the phone numbers listed below:

Phone: 410-727-6352 (EXT. 0)

Toll Free: 1-800-233-7201

TTY: 410-235-5387

Please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as possible. Please note that return calls may be made from blocked numbers since staff are working remotely.

Subscribe to our email list and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with our COVID-19 related updates and advocacy.


How We Can Help

Disability Rights Maryland recognizes the serious threat to the health, safety, and legal rights of people with disabilities posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19).  Although DRM’s offices are currently closed, our staff is working remotely to ensure we continue to protect the rights of people with disabilities throughout Maryland.

Please contact us if you:

  • Have questions about your legal rights during this time
  • Are unable to access critical information
  • Wish to speak with an attorney about a disability-related legal issue

We also need to hear from you about how institutions and services throughout the state are managing the impact of COVID-19.  To ensure the safety of individuals with disabilities residing in facilities or receiving services in the community, employees, and our staff, we are gathering information from people who have been in facilities (including psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment centers) or involved in providing or receiving community-based services to tell us your concerns.

Please contact us if you observe or have problems, including:

In a facility:

    • You have not been given information about the signs of COVID-19, how to stay safe, and how staff will help you stay safe. 
    • Staff and visitors are coming into the facility with symptoms of COVID-19 (coughing, fever, shortness of breath) or are not being screened for symptoms at the door. Information about COVID-19 should be posted at the entrance and around the facility. 
    • There are staffing shortages in the facility. 
    • You live in a small facility or group home where someone is sick and you can’t get physical distance to be safe. 
    • Staff are not being careful with personal hygiene to protect against COVID-19 (washing hands frequently or using hand sanitizer, staying 6 feet away when possible, wearing protective gear if caring for someone who is ill). 
    • You don’t have access to medications, food or other necessary items.  
    • You don’t have access to needed services.
    • You are being abused or neglected, including extreme isolation, lack of human contact, and/or over–medication.
    • You are being pressured to sign a do-not-resuscitate order (DNR).
    • You are being denied aggressive treatment.
    • You are in a high-risk group for complications from COVID-19 and/or are experiencing increased barriers to transitioning to a community placement.
    • For youth in RTCs, you do not have access to education or IEP services.

In the community:

    • Your in-home assistance staffing changes or is not available. 
    • Your staffing has been impacted by COVID-19 and your needs are not being met. 
    • Your staff is not careful with personal hygiene (washing hands often, staying 6-feet away when possible, wearing protective gear to stop the spread of infection). 
    • You can’t get your medications. 
    • You don’t have access to food or supplies you need. 
    • You can’t access necessary telehealth services because you don’t have needed technology, phone minutes or internet services;
    • You are being pressured to sign a do-not-resuscitate order (DNR).
    • You are being denied aggressive treatment.
    • For youth, you don’t have access to education or IEP services.

Last Updated: April 7, 2020

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Disability Right Maryland’s Munib Lohrasbi Honored as a part of the 2019 Choice Advocate Team of the Year

Munib Lohrasbi, attorney for Disability Rights Maryland (DRM), is being honored by NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland as a part of their 2019 Choice Advocate Team of the Year. The prestigious recognition is given to advocates who have worked tirelessly for the passage of Maryland laws that prohibit forced solitary confinement of pregnant inmates (the first if its kind the U.S.) and juveniles.

Munib started as an OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow at DRM in November, 2017, and is currently an active attorney- campaigning for change on major community issues. “It is a privilege to work with a group of advocates who are so passionate about impacting change,” stated Munib, “and creating a more just society. I’m honored to be recognized as part of NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland’s 2019 Choice Advocate Team of the Year.”

In a recent project, Munib investigated conditions for incarcerated pregnant women at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCIW), the only State correctional facility for women in Maryland. The review focused on the use of restrictive housing, or confinement in a cell for 22 hours or more per day. Munib and his professional colleagues were alarmed that women were jailed without adequate access to mental health programming or services. Going forward, the goal is to improve access to correctional mental health services and to reduce or eliminate the use of restrictive housing, particularly for individuals with serious mental illnesses who are at the greatest risk of harm.

To read the full report detailing Munib’s findings at MCIW and recommendations for reform visit https://disabilityrightsmd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/MCIW_Report-Final.pdf

If you have questions, or if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, you can contact Munib directly at MunibL@DisabilityRightsMD.org or 443-692-2491.

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National Disability Voter Registration Week

The REV UP Campaign coordinates National Disability Voter Registration Week (NDVRW) each year on the third week of July to increase the political power of people with disabilities while also engaging candidates and the media to recognize the disability community. REV UP stands for Register! Educate! Vote! Use your Power!

On Monday, July 15th DRM kicked off National Disability Voter Registration Week by providing a Voter Registration and Rights training and voter registration session for The League for People with Disabilities advocacy group. Many thanks to the staff from the Baltimore City Board of Elections who brought Maryland’s accessible voting technology, the Ballot Marking Devices, “BMDs.” They provided a demonstration on how to use the BMD, offered an opportunity for the advocates to practice using the devices themselves and answered questions. Staff from the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Civil Rights were also in attendance and shared information about upcoming events.

According to a study conducted by Rutgers University, voter turnout surged by 8.5 points in 2018 among citizens with disabilities relative to the 2014 midterm elections, and it is expected to increase during the 2020 elections.

It is important for people with disabilities to be registered voters so they can elect officials who have their best interest at heart, and vote for policies that will improve their quality of life.

“Everyone with disabilities in the United States benefits from the rights and protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)”, said Voting Advocate, Tracy Wright. “We all need to do our best to protect it.”

Visit our website for more resources https://disabilityrightsmd.org/voting/

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The Civil Rights Crisis in Our Schools

The termschool to prison pipelinerefers to the link between school failure, zero-tolerance discipline policies, exclusionary discipline, school-based arrest, and the likelihood that youth who have these experiences in school will become involved in the juvenile, and later, adult criminal justice systems. Children of color and children with disabilities are overrepresented at all stops on the school to prison pipeline, beginning with exclusionary discipline and academic failure in early childhood.

The fact that Black children and children with disabilities are suspended and expelled more often than other children for the same offenses reflects the same inequalities that exist in the adult world. We live in a society where the rate at which Black men are subject to imprisonment is unparalleled, and where people with disabilities are at disproportionate risk of lethal encounters with law enforcement.[i] The deaths of Freddie Gray and Ethan Saylor indicate that Maryland is no exception.

Although the overall number of suspensions and expulsions are down across Maryland, the disproportionate impact of school exclusion and push-out of children with disabilities and children of color continues. According to Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) data, in 2014-2015, there were 70,404 total suspensions and expulsions. Students with disabilities represented 12% of the population, but 27% of suspensions and expulsions were of students with disabilities. In the same year, Black students made up 35% of the population but 62% of the suspensions and expulsions were of Black students.[ii] Nationally, the data is even more troubling, with Black students 3.8 times as likely to be suspended as white students, and children with disabilities more than 2 times as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities, according to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Unfortunately, the requirement that districts track, reduce and eliminate disproportionate suspensions of students with disabilities and students of color has not been implemented. MSDE is now considering methods of measuring disproportionality, but after two years, has not yet begun measuring it.

Don’t some students need to be removed?

Violent or dangerous behavior in school is never acceptable, and there are times when a student must be removed from a learning environment to ensure the student’s safety and that of other students. However, according to MSDE data, most suspensions are not for violent actions. Rather, the majority of suspensions statewide fall into the categories of disrespect, insubordination, and disruption.  Restorative practices can address these categories of behavior effectively. “Restorative practices” are a way of affecting behavior and school “climate” that focuses on relationships and having individuals repair wrongs they have committed. If our goal is to change inappropriate behavior, suspension has not been proven to make schools safer.[v] What suspension has been proven to do, however, is increase the likelihood of substance abuse, school failure, dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. [vi]

Students with Disabilities

We know that students with disabilities are more frequently suspended and/or expelled from school, but why? When schools fail to identify students with disabilities, when disability is misunderstood or underestimated, or when students with disabilities do not have effective, appropriate academic instruction, challenging behavior can result.

Schools have specific legal obligations regarding students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. These include identifying students who have disabilities, providing a free and appropriate public education to all children, even those who are suspended; questioning whether problematic behavior is a “manifestation” of the child’s disability before suspending them; and providing positive behavior supports.[vii] Too often, school systems fail to meet these obligations and respond to the resulting behavior issues in a manner that discriminates against that student due to their disability. Without access to legal representation, many low-income families of children with disabilities are unsuccessful in getting help for their children in situations where disability is misunderstood, underestimated, or not properly addressed.

Alternatives to Suspension

For students with disabilities, there are already systems in place that are underutilized for addressing problem behavior, including correctly identifying students with disabilities through the existing special education process and planning for appropriate accommodations and services for those students. Functional behavior assessments (FBA) and behavior intervention plans (BIP), which are in use to varying degrees throughout the state for both students with disabilities and students without them, aim to identify the main problematic behaviors and the “function” of those behaviors, and direct adults how to respond in a consistent, specific way to teach and reward appropriate “replacement” behaviors. Other programs aim to teach children the skills they are lacking in order to resolve conflicts.

There are also research-based methods of improving school climate and reducing the need to suspend so many children. These alternatives have costs associated with them, but those costs are less than the economic and social costs of school drop-out and incarceration. It is up to the community to demand that education budgets include funding for these restorative justice programs. Two examples of many are Community Conferencing and Holistic Life Foundation. Community Conferencing reports that 98% of Community Conferences resulted in a written agreement between the parties, with 95% compliance to those agreements. Holistic Life Foundation reports an overall reduction in the stress levels of students, many of whom have experienced high levels of trauma. Importantly, these programs teach students critical life skills that will ensure their success, rather than their failure, beyond school. Finally, teachers report that their training should include more information about behavior and classroom management.[viii]

Given the alternatives and the damaging impact of suspension, other school systems including New York and Minneapolis have determined that children in pre-kindergarten to 2nd grade—or four-six-year-olds—should not be suspended. Maryland should follow suit, especially given that in 2014-2015, almost 3000 four, five, and six-year-olds were suspended in Maryland, mostly for minor misbehavior.

While Disability Rights Maryland and other organizations represent some children whose civil rights have been violated in the school discipline process, a vast gap exists between the number of students who are removed from school inappropriately and the number of students we can serve. We rely on pro bono attorneys to help bridge the gap. Disability Rights Maryland’s pro bono program provides training and technical assistance to attorneys willing to assist a student and their family. Please consider volunteering your time to represent these students.

Nicole Joseph is an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland and co-chair of the Maryland Coalition to Reform School Discipline. Fazia Hasan contributed to this post.

[i] NAACP, Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet; Perry, David and Carter-Long Lawrence, How Misunderstanding Disability Leads to Police Violence. The Atlantic, May 2014.

[ii] Maryland State Department of Education, Suspension, Expulsion, and Health Related Exclusions in Maryland Public Schools 2014-2015, available at http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/planningresultstest/doc/20142015Student/2014-2015_Suspensions.pdf

[iii] Maryland State Board of Education, School Discipline and Academic Success: Related Parts of Maryland’s Education reform. (July 2012) Available at http://marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/42ED8EDA-AF34-4058-B275-03189163882D/32853/SchoolDisciplineandAcademicSuccessReportFinalJuly2.pdf.

[iv] COMAR 13A.08.01.-04.

[v] Steinberg, M.P., Allensworth, E., & Johnson, D.W. (2015). What conditions support safety in urban schools? The influence of school organizational practices on student and teacher reports of safety in Chicago. In Losen, D.J. (Ed.) Closing the School Discipline Gap: Equitable Remedies for Excessive Exclusion. New York: Teachers College Press.

[vi] Tracy J. Evans-Whipp, et al., Longitudinal Effects of School Drug Policies on Student Marijuana Use in Washington State and Victoria, Australia. American Journal of Public Health: Vol. 105, No. 5 (2015); Krezmien, M. and Leone, P. Suspension, Race, and Disability: Analysis of Statewide Practices and Reporting, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (2006); Leone, P. et al., School failure, race and disability: Promoting positive outcomes, decreasing vulnerability for involvement with the juvenile delinquency system, The National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice (2003).

[vii] 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(3); providing a free and appropriate public education to all children, even those who are suspended, 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et seq., 34 CFR 300, 34 CFR 300.101(a); and questioning whether problematic behavior is a “manifestation” of the child’s disability before suspending them, 34 CFR 300.530 (e); and providing positive behavior supports.

[viii] American Federation of Teachers, Reclaiming the Promise: A new path forward on school discipline practices. Available at http://www.aft.org/position/school-discipline#sthash.DJf7GIID.dpuf

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Dara

DRM represented “Dara,” a young woman with mental illness who lives in a supportive housing program. The program terminated Dara’s lease after she intervened in a fight to protect a friend who was being assaulted in her building. DRM investigated and found that the building, which serves young adults who are formerly homeless or aging out of foster care, was very chaotic because the program had stopped providing building security, and Dara’s case manager was refusing to intervene when she asked for help or indicated she did not feel safe. DRM was able to negotiate a solution whereby the supportive housing program allowed Dara to move to an independent apartment of her choosing with continued rental assistance. DRM also advocated for the program to train its staff about the principles of trauma informed care.

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