Disability Law Commons^™

The Dimming Light Of The Idea: The Need To Reevaluate The Definition Of A Free Appropriate Public Education, Sarah Lusk

Pace Law Review

This paper has five parts. Part I examines Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), explains the definition of a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”), and explores IDEA’s protections for special-education students facing school discipline. Part II discusses the Supreme Court’s interpretation of IDEA and FAPE, as well as how lower courts have interpreted IDEA. Part III focuses on how schools implement IDEA and treat special-education students. Part IV explores the disproportionate effects of school suspension on disabled students and explains the negative impacts, such as the Pipeline. Part V argues that Congress and the Supreme Court must reevaluate what constitutes …

An Idea For Special Education: Why The Idea Should Have Primacy Over The Ada In Adjudicating Education Claims For Students With Disabilities, Angela Estrella-Lemus

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Accidentally On Purpose: Intent In Disability Discrimination Law, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

American disability discrimination laws contain few intent requirements. Yet courts frequently demand showings of intent in disability discrimination lawsuits. Intent requirements arose almost by accident: through a false statutory analogy; by repetition of obsolete judicial language; and by doctrine developed to avoid a nonexistent conflict with another law. Demanding that section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) claimants show intent imposes a burden not found in those statutes or their interpretive regulations. This Article provides reasons not to impose intent requirements for liability or monetary relief in section 504 and ADA cases concerning reasonable accommodations. It demonstrates that no …

Every Day Counts: Proposals To Reform The Idea's Due Process Structure, Elizabeth Shaver

Akron Law Faculty Publications

It is a core principle of special education legislation that the parents of children with disabilities can challenge the child’s educational programming through an administrative due process hearing. Yet, for years the special education due process structure has been criticized as inefficient, anti-collaborative, and prohibitively expensive. Those criticisms have given rise to widely varying proposals to reform special education due process, proposals that range from adding certain alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to a wholesale replacement of the due process structure. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of special education dispute resolution. The article first examines the lively debate among scholars …

Accidentally On Purpose: Intent In Disability Discrimination Law, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

American disability discrimination laws contain few intent requirements. Yet courts frequently demand showings of intent in disability discrimination lawsuits. Intent requirements arose almost by accident: through a false statutory analogy; by repetition of obsolete judicial language; and by doctrine developed to avoid a nonexistent conflict with another law. Demanding that section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) claimants show intent imposes a burden not found in those statutes or their interpretive regulations. This Article provides reasons not to impose intent requirements for liability or monetary relief in section 504 and ADA cases concerning reasonable accommodations. It demonstrates that no …

Every Day Counts: Proposals To Reform The Idea's Due Process Structure, Elizabeth Shaver

Elizabeth Shaver

It is a core principle of special education legislation that the parents of children with disabilities can challenge the child’s educational programming through an administrative due process hearing. Yet, for years the special education due process structure has been criticized as inefficient, anti-collaborative, and prohibitively expensive. Those criticisms have given rise to widely varying proposals to reform special education due process, proposals that range from adding certain alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to a wholesale replacement of the due process structure.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of special education dispute resolution. The article first examines the lively debate among scholars …