Supreme Court Affirms Rights of Student with Disabilities
In a unanimous decision in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a teenage girl with epilepsy and her family, who alleged that her Minnesota school district failed to provide equal educational access under federal disability laws.
The family argued that A.J.T.’s school district failed to provide the accommodations she needed to access a full school day—something she had previously received in Kentucky. When the district refused to offer evening instruction, A.J.T. ended up receiving only about 65% of the instructional time given to her peers.
The case centered on the legal standard required to prove discrimination in education-related disability lawsuits. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts held that plaintiffs in such cases need only show that a school acted with “deliberate indifference,” rejecting the school district’s argument for a higher bar of “bad faith or gross misjudgment.”
This ruling aligns education-related claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act with the standard used in other disability discrimination cases. The Court emphasized that the ruling, while narrow, was a critical safeguard to ensure students with disabilities are not held to an unfair burden in asserting their rights.