Endrew F. v. Douglas County School Dist. RE-1 (15-827)

argument 15-827

Endrew F. v. Douglas County School Dist. RE-1

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 1m 6 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What standard does the Court propose for evaluating IDEA’s “substantial educational benefit”?

John G. Roberts 0:00

You will hear argument this uh this morning in case fifteen eighty twenty seven, Andrew F versus Douglas County School District. Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Fisher 0:10

Mr Chief Justice, may it please the court. The IDEA does not permit a school district to provide a child with a disability a barely more than de minimis educational benefit. Rather, what the Act requires is for the school to provide instruction and related services to the child that are reasonably calculated to provide substantially equal educational opportunities. The school district's primary response to our argument is that the standard I just described to you does not appear anywhere in the operative text of the IDEA. So let me get right to the

John G. Roberts 0:44

also didn't appear anywhere in the original petition, did it? I'm looking at Uh footnote eight and your your opening brief, where you Note that s substantial educational benefit was the standard that was discussed in the petition and then the significantly different one in your your opening brief.

Mr. Fisher 1:00

Well Mr. Chief Justice, we don't intend it to be significantly different. What we do intend, as we described in that footnote, is to give more detail as to how the standard works. But

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1:09

the standard you are asking us to adopt substantially equal opportunity. That does appear someplace. It it it appears in Justice Blackman's concurring opinion in Rowley. And the the court itself did not uh adopt that formulation, did not adopt substantially equal opportunity. So you asking us to adopt a standard that the majority already had before it and didn't adopt. Justice Ginsburg,

Mr. Fisher 1:44

yes, Justice Blackman proposed a standard similar to the one that we offered the Court today, but that was nineteen eighty two. And Congress has amended the IDEA twice, in 1997 and in 2004. And in the findings and purposes, it now describes the way the Act works with exactly the words I am giving you equal educational opportunity.

John G. Roberts 2:03

That raises a concern under the spending clause. I mean the spending clause operations are pretty clear. The Federal Government proposes a deal to the States. If the State want the money, they have to agree to these provisions. And now you are saying that the content of those provisions, though, is changed by new legislation. And I just wonder whether that puts some strain on the idea that the States have agreed to these provisions when they accepted the offer under the spending clause?

Mr. Fisher 2:30

No, I don't think it does. I think it's critical to get to the text for exactly the reason you say, Mr Chief Justice. We know from Rowley that there's a substantive guarantee in the IDEA. And we know from Rowley, uh even in 1982, the way the act was put together, that that substantive guarantee must track the way that the IEP provisions, the individual educational program provisions work. That's a page 203 and 204 of Rowley. So to get to the text and exactly what the state agrees to, you start with the FAPE definition, the definition for free appropriate public education. Uh we all agree on that. Sub D of that definition says that The school has to provide an education quote in conformity with the IEP plan.

Mr. Fisher 3:14

Then to understand what that means, again, this is straight out of Rally and straight out of the text, you turn to what the IEP provisions provide. And those are laid out at pages fifty-two A and fifty-three A of the government's appendix. Uh and in a nutshell, what they say over and over again is that Standards, generally speaking, for children with disabilities should be aimed at the general educational curriculum. So what you do is you start with a general educational curriculum that applies to all kids, then you identify the child's disability and how it impacts that child's ability to participate and progress in that general educational curriculum. How does that work

John G. Roberts 3:53

I'm sorry, how does that work uh with Uh students whose disabilities generally wouldn't allow them in in their own with their own potential to follow the general uh educational curriculum. I understand y how it worked in Rowley, where you were dealing with someone with a sp particular disability, but one that was um