Willowbrook State School Lawsuit: Ruling, Decree, and Closure

The Willowbrook State School lawsuit was a federal class action filed on March 17, 1972, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, on behalf of roughly 5,000 residents of a Staten Island institution for people with intellectual disabilities. Captioned New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Rockefeller when filed, it produced a 1975 consent decree that forced New York to close Willowbrook, move residents into community homes, and accept court-supervised standards of care that remain enforceable today.¹

What Prompted the Lawsuit

Willowbrook sat on a 375-acre Staten Island campus originally built to house about 4,000 residents. By 1969 it held more than 6,200 people with intellectual disabilities.² Observers described residents lying on floors covered in feces, wearing rags or nothing, with inadequate toilets and widespread disease.³ A single attendant might be responsible for more than fifty residents. Physical abuse, improper restraint, and absence of medical, educational, and therapeutic programming were routine.

Senator Robert Kennedy toured the facility in 1965 and called it a “snake pit,” but nothing changed systemically.⁴ What made a lawsuit politically viable was a January 1972 television investigation. Dr. Michael Wilkins, a Willowbrook physician who had been fired for organizing reform with Dr. William Bronston, used his keys to let WABC-TV reporter Geraldo Rivera inside the building.⁵ Rivera’s footage, broadcast as Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace, showed the overcrowding and neglect to a national audience and generated the public pressure that made suit possible.

Who Filed the Case and What They Alleged

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society of Staten Island filed the complaint two months after the broadcast, on behalf of approximately 5,000 residents and their families.¹ The lead attorneys were Bruce J. Ennis and Christopher A. Hansen.⁶ The suit was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and named the governor and state officials responsible for Willowbrook. Because Nelson Rockefeller held the office at filing, the case was originally captioned NYSARC v. Rockefeller; it was retitled NYSARC v. Carey after Hugh Carey took office in 1975, and the caption has changed with each successive governor.

Plaintiffs argued that conditions at Willowbrook violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection guarantees. The specific failures alleged were absence of habilitation, inadequate medical care, no privacy, no protection from harm, and denial of public education to children with disabilities.²

Judge Judd’s 1973 Ruling

U.S. District Judge Orrin G. Judd took the case and personally inspected the institution. On April 10, 1973, he ruled that state officials had violated residents’ constitutional right to protection from harm and ordered immediate hiring of additional staff along with basic health and safety improvements.⁷ It was among the first federal decisions to recognize enforceable constitutional rights for people with intellectual disabilities held in state institutions. Judge Judd noted that the right could rest on the Eighth Amendment, the Due Process Clause, or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.²

What the 1975 Consent Decree Required

Rather than go to trial, the parties negotiated. On April 30, 1975, Judge Judd approved the Willowbrook Consent Judgment. Its central obligation was that New York “ready each resident for life in the community at large” and place them in the “least restrictive and most normal living conditions possible.”²

The decree’s principal terms:

Willowbrook’s population had to be cut to no more than 250 residents by 1981.
Residents were to move into small community residences capped at 15 beds (10 for some categories).⁸
Specific standards were set for living environment, programming, education, recreation, nutrition, medical and dental care, and therapy, regardless of degree of disability.²
Physical and chemical restraints were regulated, resident labor was conditioned, and research or experimental treatment was restricted.²
The state had to hire additional medical, therapeutic, and recreational staff.
A Review Panel, a Professional Advisory Board, and a Consumer Advisory Board were created to monitor compliance.⁷

Enforcement Struggles

Compliance was slow and contested. Judge Judd died in 1976, and Judge John R. Bartels took over the docket.⁹ The Review Panel lost its funding in 1980 when the state legislature refused to appropriate the money, and the Second Circuit declined to order the governor to restore it.¹⁰

A March 1981 state compliance report acknowledged failure on 137 of the decree’s 385 standards. Judge Bartels found continuing problems with sanitation, nutrition, staffing, and programming, and in July 1982 he ruled that the state had violated the decree. He rejected New York’s request to raise the community-residence cap from 15 beds to 50, extended the community-placement deadline to April 1985, and appointed Dr. Rudy Magnone as Special Master in place of the defunct Review Panel.⁸ The Second Circuit in 1983 upheld the Special Master’s appointment but sent the bed-cap question back to the district court under the Supreme Court’s new Youngberg v. Romeo standard.¹

The state pointed to a tight New York City housing market, federal building code requirements, and a “County of Origin” placement policy as obstacles. Whatever their merits, class members waited years longer for community homes.⁸

Closure of Willowbrook and the 1993 Permanent Injunction

The state announced closure plans in 1983. By March 31, 1986, the census at the facility, then renamed the Staten Island Developmental Center, reached 250, meeting the decree’s original target.¹¹ Governor Mario M. Cuomo declared Willowbrook “officially and forever closed” on September 17, 1987, one of 20 state institutions closed as New York shifted to community-based care.¹²

The litigation did not end with the buildings. In February 1987 the court approved a stipulation setting guidelines for placing remaining class members, and on March 11, 1993, the court entered the Willowbrook Permanent Injunction, which replaced the 1975 consent decree and every prior order in the case.¹¹ The permanent injunction guarantees class members lifelong rights to protection from harm, a safe and appropriate physical environment, high-quality community residential and treatment services in the least restrictive setting, and case management and advocacy.¹³

How the Case Shaped Disability Rights Law

The Willowbrook litigation ran alongside the Supreme Court’s June 1982 decision in Youngberg v. Romeo, which held that people involuntarily committed to state institutions retain Fourteenth Amendment liberty interests in reasonably safe conditions, freedom from unreasonable bodily restraint, and minimally adequate training for safety. The Court applied a “professional judgment” standard, presuming institutional decisions valid when made by qualified professionals unless they departed substantially from accepted standards.¹⁴ The Second Circuit’s 1983 Willowbrook ruling applied that framework directly to the state’s modification requests.⁸

Alongside Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Pennsylvania, where a federal court ordered another institution closed in 1977, Willowbrook helped reframe the treatment of people with intellectual disabilities from medical regulation to constitutional rights enforcement.¹⁵ The case is credited with helping accelerate several federal statutes:

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973), prohibiting disability discrimination in federally funded programs.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), guaranteeing public education in the least restrictive environment.
The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (1980), authorizing federal investigation of state institutions.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), requiring reasonable accommodations in employment, transportation, and public facilities.¹⁵

The consent decree also modeled a form of long-term judicial stewardship, with federal courts holding open monitoring roles over institutional conditions, that was later replicated in disability rights and prison reform litigation nationwide.¹⁵

Where the Case Stands Today

The case is still open. Now captioned NYSARC v. Hochul to reflect the current governor, the litigation remains active in the Eastern District of New York, with continuing filings on attorney fees and class member oversight.¹ The NYCLU and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest monitor and enforce the 1993 permanent injunction, and that role is mandated to continue until the death of the last class member.¹⁶

The New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, formed in the wake of the consent decree, administers services for surviving class members. As of 2020, more than 2,000 former Willowbrook residents were still living in state-operated homes.¹⁵ The Consumer Advisory Board created by the original decree still advocates for class members without family or guardians, making health care decisions and providing oversight for those it fully represents.¹⁷

Compliance problems persist. The NYCLU has reported vacancy rates for direct care staff between 25 and 40 percent, and a drift toward larger group settings rather than the fully integrated community placements the decree envisioned.¹³ Low wages for direct support professionals and a broader workforce shortage in developmental disability services echo the staffing gaps that defined Willowbrook itself.¹⁸

1
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Nysarc and Parisi v. Carey
2
Disability Justice. The Closing of Willowbrook
3
Disability Rights Tennessee. Willowbrook 51 Years Later
4
National Council on Disability. Forty Years After the Willowbrook Consent Decree
5
Southwest Journal of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep. Profiles in Medical Courage: Michael Wilkins and the Willowbrook State School
6
CaseMine. New York Association for Retarded Children v. Carey, 393 F. Supp. 715
7
CaseMine. New York State Association for Retarded Children v. Carey
8
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. New York State Association for Retarded Children v. Carey, 706 F.2d 956
9
New York Times. Judge Orrin G. Judd Dies; Cited Willowbrook Abuses
10
Albany Government Law Review. Willowbrook: Precedent or Promise
11
Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. Willowbrook Timeline
12
OPWDD. Willowbrook
13
NYCLU. 50 Years After Landmark Lawsuit, How Does NY Treat People With Developmental Disabilities
14
Justia. Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307
15
Critical Debates. Willowbrook State School: Institutional Abuse, Medical Ethics, and the Rise of Disability Rights
16
NYCLU. New York State Association for Retarded Children v. Paterson (Willowbrook Case) Monitoring and Enforcement
17
OPWDD. Summary of Rights: Willowbrook Class Members
18
AUCD Policy Talk. Personal Reflections on Fifty Years Since the Signing of the Willowbrook Consent Decree