Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services violated the law when it halted enforcement of existing anti-discrimination protections without providing the public any notice or an opportunity to comment. In November 2019, HHS proposed new rules to weaken the non-discrimination protections in a broad range of HHS-funded programs. Simultaneously, HHS announced that it would no longer enforce its current anti-discrimination protections that govern HHS grants. HHS violated the law by not providing the public any notice or an opportunity to comment on its refusal to uphold nondiscrimination rules; by relying on a mistaken legal analysis, and by failing to take into account the harms caused by nonenforcement.
This notice of non-enforcement invites federal grant recipients to deny services and discriminate against individuals –– putting already at-risk communities, such as homeless LGBTQ youth, older adults and foster children, in even greater danger of harm.