Inclusion Daily Express -- State: Judge Cannot Force Fernald To Stay Open

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State: Judge Cannot Force Fernald To Stay Open
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
June 1, 2007

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS--Officials with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation filed papers Thursday arguing that a federal judge does not have the authority to require the state to keep Fernald Developmental Center open.

In February of 2003, then-Governor Mitt Romney announced that the institution would be closed by October 2004 and its residents moved to other state-run facilities or into homes in the community. He hinted that closing Fernald was his first step in de-institutionalizing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

But, employees and family members of institution residents, determined to stop the closure, have worked effectively to slow down that process.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro, who oversaw Fernald's operations from 1972 to 1993 following a class action lawsuit over poor treatment at the facility, is considering a motion by the parents group, the Fernald League for the Retarded, to keep the institution open indefinitely.

According to the Boston Herald, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, the secretary of Health and Human Services, wrote that ordering the state to keep the institution open "would interfere with the department's responsibility and authority to make appropriate decisions about the future of Fernald -- decisions which, by law, are entrusted to the commonwealth and not the court."

The Arc of Massachusetts and other advocacy groups are supporting the state's efforts to close Fernald, believed to be the oldest institution housing people with intellectual disabilities in the Western Hemisphere.

The institution was originally founded as the "Massachusetts School for the Feeble Minded" by social reformer Samuel Gridley Howe in 1848. It was later renamed for a former superintendent of the facility.

Related:
"Opinion: Why the Fernald center should close" (Boston Globe)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/0601a.htm
"Fernald Developmental Center -- Oldest Institution In the Americas" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ma/fernald.htm

Copyright © 2007 Inonit Publishing
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