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Full-Text Articles in Law

Accidentally On Purpose: Intent In Disability Discrimination Law, Mark C. Weber Jan 2015

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 …


In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber Jan 2014

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …


Idea Class Actions After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Mark C. Weber Jan 2014

Idea Class Actions After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Wal-Mart v. Dukes overturned the certification of a class of a million and a half female employees alleging sex discrimination in Wal-Mart’s salary and promotion decisions. The Supreme Court ruled that the case did not satisfy the requirement that a class have a common question of law or fact, and said that the remedy sought was not the type of relief available under the portion of the class action rule permitting mandatory class actions. Over the last two years, courts have struggled with how to apply the ruling, especially how to apply it beyond its immediate context of employment discrimination …


"All Areas Of Suspected Disability", Mark C. Weber Jan 2013

"All Areas Of Suspected Disability", Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires school districts to assess children “in all areas of suspected disability.” It further provides that each child’s individualized education program (IEP) must contain measurable annual goals designed to “meet each of the child’s . . . educational needs that result from the child’s disability,” and a statement of special education and related services that will be provided for the child “to advance appropriately toward attaining annual goals.” Courts have strictly enforced these requirements in the last several years, remedying violations of IDEA when school districts fail to assess in all areas of …


Common-Law Interpretation Of Appropriate Education: The Road Not Taken In Rowley, Mark C. Weber Jan 2012

Common-Law Interpretation Of Appropriate Education: The Road Not Taken In Rowley, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Thirty years old in 2012, Board of Education v. Rowley is the case that established a some-benefit or floor-of-opportunity standard for the services public school districts must provide to children who have disabilities. But the some-benefit approach is by no means the only one the Court could have adopted. It could have endorsed the view of the lower courts that each child with a disability must be given the opportunity to achieve his or her potential commensurate with the opportunity offered other children. Or it could have adopted a standard based on achievement of the child’s full potential or the …


Settling Idea Cases: Making Up Is Hard To Do, Mark C. Weber Jan 2010

Settling Idea Cases: Making Up Is Hard To Do, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Like most other legal disputes, most cases brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) settle. But although IDEA, the federal law governing special education, was enacted a generation ago, litigants still lack guidance how the mechanisms of settlement should work, what the settlement agreement should look like, and what to do if one side of the dispute fails to live up to its agreement. Settling an IDEA case entails unique issues—and unique pitfalls—that make the topic even more challenging than the settlement of other cases. IDEA has a mediation provision with extensive requirements and a one-of-a-kind prehearing settlement …


Special Education From The (Damp) Ground Up: Children With Disabilities In A Charter School-Dependent Educational System, Mark C. Weber Jan 2010

Special Education From The (Damp) Ground Up: Children With Disabilities In A Charter School-Dependent Educational System, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Hurricane Katrina created the need and the opportunity to reconstitute the New Orleans public school system. Educational reformers took advantage of the destruction of existing institutions to build a new system based on educational choice and dependent on charter schools to provide the choices. The disaster also created the need and opportunity to rebuild the system of special education in the city, but education for children with disabilities appears to have been an afterthought. Reports have surfaced of children being steered away from charter schools or inadequately served there. This paper asks what principles should guide reformers in establishing education …


The Idea Eligibility Mess, Mark C. Weber Jan 2009

The Idea Eligibility Mess, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees students with disabilities a free public education appropriate to their needs, but students must meet the definition of “child with a disability” to be eligible for that entitlement. The law governing special education eligibility, however, is charitably characterized as a mess. There are several sources of the current eligibility confusion. First, recent court cases have reached conflicting conclusions about how much adverse educational impact the child’s disabling condition must have, what constitutes a sufficient need for special education, and when children with emotional disabilities are eligible. Second, long-established methods for assessing learning …


Services For Private School Students Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act: Issues Of Statutory Entitlement, Religious Liberty, And Procedural Regularity, Mark C. Weber Jan 2007

Services For Private School Students Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act: Issues Of Statutory Entitlement, Religious Liberty, And Procedural Regularity, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Government support for private schooling has been a topic of public discussion from the beginning of the administration of President George Bush. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (“Improvement Act”) amends the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) with regard to (among other things) publicly funded services for children with disabilities who attend private schools. This Article describes the private school student provisions of the new law, demonstrating that the Improvement Act represents continuity in the field of special education services for children in private education. The Article then takes up three issues regarding services for private …