Education Law

Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing plaintiffs’ (special ed student and his parents) IDEA, Rehabilitation Act and ADA actions alleging that defendants-School District and various school officials denied plaintiff-student free appropriate public education when defendants denied student study guides and extra time to complete tests and homework that his IEP required. Plaintiffs could name School District (as opposed to School Bd.) as proper defendant, and defendants alleged failure to follow IEP is sufficient for student to state cause of action under IDEA. Student also alleged adequate Rehabilitation Act and ADA claims, where, in addition to alleged IDEA violation, student asserted that defendants attempted to push him out of his classes and required that he perform tasks that his autism prevented him from doing, which in turn resulted in him missing school. Also, plaintiffs-parents stated sufficient IDEA claim where they alleged that defendants intentionally kept them from participating in special ed procedures and precluded them from obtaining school records. Fact that student had turned 18 at time of filing of instant lawsuit did not preclude parents from filing IDEA action where student had signed Delegation of Rights form.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-University’s motion for summary judgment in action under Americans with Disabilities Act and section 502 of Rehabilitation Act, alleging that defendant failed to accommodate plaintiff-student’s post-traumatic stress disorder when it terminated him from its doctoral program. Record showed that defendant had provided reasonable accommodations by giving plaintiff additional time to complete required tests, as well as giving plaintiff multiple opportunities to retake exams, and that termination did not take place until plaintiff had failed certain test four times. Ct., though, emphasized that it owed no special deference to academic decisions when analyzing allegations under discrimination statutes, although it recognized that academic judgments often rest on necessarily subjective judgments about academic potential that are rooted in First Amendment values. In this case, plaintiff failed to show that his evaluators were not involved in bona fide professional assessment of his potential in particular academic program.