The Lessons of the Evans Case and Advocacy for Children with Disabilities in DC
A little over 40 years ago, on February 23, 1976, Evans v. Washington brought claims of mistreatment against Forest Haven, the city’s premiere institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This historic class action case not only highlighted the unconscious biases that led to low and high levels of government failure that stripped people with intellectual and developmental disabilities of basic protections of human rights, it also exposed the extent to which unchecked discrimination will go…