Does the Section 504 lawsuit put my child’s 504 plan at risk?

A group of states sued over part of a federal rule connected to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The case is called Texas v. Kennedy — it used to be called Texas v. Becerra. Originally, 17 states joined the lawsuit. By the time it closed, only five were still part of it.

Section 504 protects students with disabilities from discrimination. It also requires schools to give them equal access to learning and school buildings.

The states originally asked the court to declare Section 504 unconstitutionalopens in a new tab. They dropped that request in 2025. The lawsuit then focused on a narrower issue: whether the existing Section 504 rules about the right to get services in your own home or community instead of an institution should be removed. On September 23, 2026, a court ruled that the rules should be removed. More on that below.

This lawsuit is not part of what’s happening with the U.S. Department of Education. They’re separate situations involving different laws and types of programs.  But both affect how the federal government supports and protects students with disabilities.

Here are some answers to help you keep up with the news.

Here’s where the case stands as of late September 2026. 

On September 23, 2026, the judge ruled. The court approved the settlement between the five remaining states and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The case is now closed.

The ruling removed the “community integration” rule from the 2024 Section 504 regulations. That rule had protected people’s right to get services in their own home or community instead of being placed in an institution. It’s based on a 1999 Supreme Court case called Olmstead v. L.C.

The ruling doesn’t change the underlying law. The Olmstead decision, Section 504, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are all still in effect. What changed is the specific federal rule that helped enforce that right. That rule is gone now. So the government has less power to enforce this right going forward.

This happened after the five states in the case — Texas, Alaska, Louisiana, Montana, and Florida — joined HHS in asking the court to approve the settlement. They filed this request on September 1, 2026.

The states argued that community integration was never actually required by the law in the first place. They said that the government overstepped when it wrote the rule.

The states weren’t asking a court to say that people with disabilities don’t deserve this right. And the ruling doesn’t say that either. But now that the court approved the settlement, the federal government isn’t required to enforce it the way it did for the past 25 years. The underlying law hasn’t changed. But the rule that put it into actual practice is now gone. 

This is a separate issue from your child’s 504 plan (more on that below). This lawsuit is part of a larger movement challenging long-relied upon disability rights. That’s why disability groups are speaking up against it.

If your child’s only involvement with Section 504 is a school 504 plan, this ruling doesn’t put that at risk. Here’s why:

• The states aren’t trying to strike down Section 504 anymore. They dropped that claim back in 2025. And the ruling doesn’t touch it either. 

• School 504 plans come from a different set of rules. They’re built on the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations, not the Department of Health and Human Services rule that this case was about. Those education rules were never part of this lawsuit. Only Congress can change the actual laws of Section 504, ADA, or IDEA.

While your child’s legal right to a 504 plan hasn’t changed, this ruling matters for all people with disabilities, including people who rely on Medicaid. That’s because some of the rules that helped the federal government enforce the integration mandate are gone now. How this plays out will likely depend on where you live and how your state responds, since states control a lot of local health and social services.

Some families are in both situations at once. For example, a student might have a 504 plan for classroom accommodations. That same student might also get a Medicaid-funded personal care aide so they can keep living at home instead of in a care facility. For that family, the 504 plan itself isn't at risk. But the Medicaid-funded home care could be, since it depended partly on the rule that was just removed.

On April 21, the judge in the 504 lawsuit responded to the states’ second status report, agreeing to extend the pause in the case. The states are required to file their next status report by July 21.

On April 11, the 17 states that brought the 504 lawsuit Texas v. Becerra filed a status report opens in a new tabwith the court. In it, they said they have “no intention” of asking the court to declare the civil rights law that covers 504 plans unconstitutional, despite what it still says in the suit. The report states:

Plaintiffs further clarify that they have no intention to seek any relief from this Court on Count 3 (Section 504 is Unconstitutional) of their Complaint, including that in their Demand for Relief at d–e, ECF No. 1. And nothing in Plaintiffs’ Complaint seeks to restrain the disbursement of federal funds from the Department on the basis that Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is unconstitutional, or to otherwise prevent the Federal Government from allocating spending or applying the provisions of the Rehabilitation Act to any recipients of such funds.

A 504 plan is an individual program of school supports for students with disabilities. Each plan is tailored to meet a student’s specific needs. It includes all of the accommodations, assistive technology and tools, and services the school must provide to that student. The purpose is to remove barriers to learning and to provide access to the school environment as a whole.

While 504s are formal programs, there’s no standard template for them. Some schools don’t actually put them into writing.

504 plans are different from IEP plans. They’re not part of special education. They provide supports, not specialized instruction. But both of these programs are designed to give students a free appropriate public education (FAPE) so they can learn alongside their peers. 

Section 504 is part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the country’s first civil rights law for people with disabilities. It protects people with disabilities from discrimination in places that get federal funding. This includes in schools.

President Nixon signed the Act into law in 1973. But it wasn’t implemented for four years. The law lacked regulations and enforcement timelines until 1977, when people with disabilities famously protestedopens in a new tab, including a sit-in that lasted nearly a month.

In September, Texas filed a lawsuitopens in a new tab against the government after the Biden administration added gender dysphoriaopens in a new tab as a protected disability under Section 504. Sixteen other states joined the suit.

The states originally asked the court to declare Section 504 unconstitutional. But they dropped that request in 2025. The lawsuit has since narrowed to focus on a different part of the 2024 rule: the requirement that people with disabilities be able to get services in their own home or community rather than in an institution. This is referred to as the “integration mandate.” On September 23, 2026, the court approved a settlement that removed the integration mandate from the rule and closed the case.

Separately, in December 2025, HHS proposed removing gender dysphoria from the rule’s list of protected conditions. That process isn’t part of this lawsuit.

These are the other states that originally filed the suit along with Texas:

• Alaska

• Alabama

• Arkansas

• Florida

• Georgia

• Indiana

• Iowa

• Kansas

• Louisiana

• Missouri

• Montana

• Nebraska

• South Carolina

• South Dakota

• Utah

• West Virginia

Most of these states have since withdrawn from the lawsuit. The five that remained — Texas, Alaska, Louisiana, Montana, and Florida — reached a settlement with HHS. The court approved it on September 23, 2026, and the case is now closed.