[Image of a person in a wheelchair being included. Credit to Pixabay]

On July 10, 2026, the United States District Judge ordered the United States Department of Justice to restore remote work accommodations for two employees with disabilities while their lawsuits are still pending. 

Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the United District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted two federal employees with disabilities a preliminary injunction in their lawsuit challenging the Department’s cancellation of remote work (or “telework” in United States federal policy) accommodations.

The Department of Justice mandated in-office work for its employees in early 2025, following President Donald Trump’s executive order that required all executive branch agencies to cancel remote work agreements.

In response, plaintiffs Kimberly Panian and Hoi Yee “Cherry” Baxter filed a lawsuit in June 2026 challenging the Department of Justice 2025 return-to-office orders.

Panian has Type 1 diabetes and severe migraines and Baxter has State IV lung cancer.

Both plaintiffs claim that they have been working remotely for years with no performance issues before they were required to return to the office without reasonable accommodations by the blanket order.    

After being forced to return to the office full-time, Baxter alleged that working in person jeopardizes her health and her life. 

Although Judge Giles’ ruling is temporary, it is meaningful because it recognizes that return-to-office orders may unfairly harm workers with disabilities.

By these mandates, workers with disabilities are faced with choices of putting their health and sometimes their lives at risk by going into the office or exhausting their sick leaves, getting disciplined, or possibly losing their jobs.   

Flexible working arrangements, such as remote work options, can make a significant difference in the employability of people with disabilities as well as their physical and mental well-being while working.    

However, with the end of the pandemic, there has been a decline in remote working jobs.

According to an analysis of Adzuna job vacancy data, only one in twenty-three job adverts on Adzuna, or 4.3 percent, were fully remote in the financial years of 2024 to 2025. 

When compared to the 8.7 percent during the peak of the pandemic (2020 to 2021), it shows that remote job opportunities declined by about half.

According to the Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study published in February 2026, researchers at the Lancaster University also found that there has been a decrease in remote jobs, threatening to shut people with disabilities out of work.

The same study reported that more than eight in ten respondents, all workers with disabilities, said access to home working was essential or very important when looking for a new job.

It also highlighted that according to participants of the study, forty-six percent wanted to work remotely full-time, especially disabled women and disabled carers.

The study recommends that employers should ensure that workplaces are accessible for employees with disabilities.

It also advocates that the government should promote more remote and hybrid opportunities to help increase the employment of disabled people. 

However, as more employers, both public and private, bring employees back to the office, access to employment appears to be becoming more difficult for workers with disabilities.