Y.A. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs.

RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)

File Name: 25a0137p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

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Y.A., a minor by Next Friend, IBRAHIM ALZANDANI;

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W.A., a minor by Next Friend, NADHEM ALNAJAR;

│

A.M., a minor by Next Friend, ABRAHAM MUZIB,

│

Plaintiffs-Appellees, │

> No. 24-1855

│

v. │

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HAMTRAMCK PUBLIC SCHOOLS, et al., │

Defendants, │

│

│

MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, │

Defendant-Appellant. │

┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.

No. 2:23-cv-12817—Brandy R. McMillion, District Judge.

Argued: April 30, 2025

Decided and Filed: May 22, 2025

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and RITZ, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Neil Giovanatti, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Detroit,

Michigan, for Appellant. Kassem M. Dakhlallah, HAMMOUD, DAKHLALLAH &

ASSOCIATES, PLLC, Dearborn, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Bryan W. Beach, Neil

Giovanatti, Ticara D. Hendley, Marissa Wiesen, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY

GENERAL, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Kassem M. Dakhlallah, HAMMOUD,

DAKHLALLAH & ASSOCIATES, PLLC, Dearborn, Michigan, for Appellees.

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 2

_________________

OPINION

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SUTTON, Chief Judge. A group of parents claim that their local public school denied

their children access to essential special-education services. They sued the school district,

unsurprisingly. More surprisingly, they sued the State, based on its alleged failure to supervise

the school district and to provide more funding for it. The district court denied the State’s

motion to dismiss, holding that the relevant statute, the Americans with Disabilities Act,

abrogated its sovereign immunity under the Fourteenth Amendment. This interlocutory appeal

followed. We reverse.

I.

This case arises out of a small school district in Michigan. The City of Hamtramck, a

2.09-square-mile enclave of Detroit, runs eight public schools for its 2,900 students.

Since its incorporation as a municipality in 1922, Hamtramck has served as a new home

for many immigrants. In 1925, seven in ten residents were recent immigrants from Eastern

Europe, and the predominant language spoken in city schools was Polish. See JoEllen

McNergney Vinyard, For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit,

1805–1925, at 182–84 (1998); see also Arthur Evans Wood, Hamtramck: Then and Now 19–22,

115–25 (1955). The schools catered to the immigrant community to ensure that every child

could learn what it means to “live successfully in a democracy,” in a “social life” that “is

dynamic and not static.” Hamtramck Bd. of Ed., Public School Code 61, 66–68 (1927).

Dynamic indeed. Hamtramck today has few Polish speakers. But it remains a city of

immigrants. Almost half of its residents were born abroad, and more of its students speak Arabic

and Bengali at home than any other language. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community

Survey, tbls. B04006, B05006, DP02 (2023).

Trying to be “the world in two square miles,” as Hamtramck calls itself, sometimes

generates challenges. Some of its schools’ problems are familiar: limited funds, a shortage of

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 3

qualified teachers, and children left behind by the pandemic. Some are more unusual. Eight in

ten students in Hamtramck are below grade level in English, Mathematics, and Social Studies.

Seven in ten receive free school meals. Five in ten live in poverty. Two in ten graduate late

or not at all. And, of particular relevance, almost one in ten requires special education as a

result of a physical or intellectual disability. See generally District View, Hamtramck,

Michigan School Data, available at https://www.mischooldata.org/district-entity-view-page/?

LocationCode=82060 (last visited May 22, 2025).

Before us are three parents of children with disabilities, each of whom alleges that

Hamtramck has failed to make good on its promise of an education “specially designed” to meet

their child’s “unique needs.” 20 U.S.C. § 1401(29). The first, Ibrahim Alzandani, is the father

of Y.A., a seven-year-old boy with autism. Hamtramck promised Y.A. a full-time teacher’s aide.

But Y.A.’s assigned aide could spend only a few hours a day with him. Y.A., as a result, spent

most of first grade at home, unable to attend school.

The second parent, Nadhem Alnajar, tells a similar story. His nonverbal son, W.A., a

nine-year-old boy with autism, was routinely sent home after just one or two hours at school, and

sometimes placed in seclusion for students with “problem behaviors.” R.46 at 85 ¶ 170. The

school promised W.A.’s parents that he would receive special services, including speech therapy,

but those services did not materialize.

The third parent, Abraham Muzib, says school administrators told him that they do “not

provide service[s] to children with Down syndrome.” R.46-4 at 6. Hamtramck offered his

daughter A.M., age 5, only half-day preschool, and refused to evaluate her for additional

assistance.

All three families allege that Hamtramck’s failures caused setbacks in their children’s

education. Two of the parents initially turned to the State for help. A special advocate filed

complaints on behalf of Alzandani and Muzib with Michigan’s Department of Education,

outlining these shortcomings. In both cases, the department found that the school district

violated the child’s right to receive a free and appropriate public education. And in both cases,

the department put in place a corrective-action plan with backward-looking and forward-looking

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 4

components. Retrospectively, the district was required to compensate each student for the

educational opportunities lost as a result of its actions. For both children, that meant a set

number of additional hours of one-on-one educational services, provided at the district’s

expense. Prospectively, the district was required to fix the problems identified by each student

and to provide “[e]vidence of timely compliance.” R.46-3 at 12.

Neither parent claims that the district failed to provide the promised compensatory

services. But both allege (with little by way of factual detail) that the district “failed to

implement these corrective action plans” and that the State “failed to follow its monitoring and

enforcement duties.” R.46 at 68 ¶ 118. To this day, the parents claim, shortened school days,

limited additional services, and inadequate processes remain the norm for children with

disabilities in Hamtramck. They say that their experiences typify how the school district treats

its students.

The children and parents sued the school district and the State in this putative class

action. They claim that the defendants violated a number of federal laws: the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the

Rehabilitation Act. They seek damages under the last two statutes. And they seek injunctive

relief under all three statutes, specifically “an expert group” to “identify corrective measures”

and a special monitor “to oversee [their] implementation.” R.46 at 115 ¶ 271.

The school district moved to dismiss, as did the State. The State argued that the parents’

complaint failed to state a claim under all three statutes and that sovereign immunity barred the

parents’ ADA claim. The court denied the defendants’ motions. This interlocutory appeal by

the State concerns only its sovereign-immunity defense as to the ADA claim. See P.R. Aqueduct

& Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147 (1993).

II.

A.

When the Framers “split the atom of sovereignty,” they created something new. U.S.

Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 838 (1995) (Kennedy, J., concurring). The “genius

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 5

of their idea” was “that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one

federal, each protected from incursion by the other.” Id.

The challenge for this idea and for a Constitution “unprecedented in form and design,”

id., is that it soon led to questions unprecedented in form and design. One of those questions

arose just a few years after the Constitution’s ratification in Chisholm v. Georgia. 2 U.S. (2

Dall.) 419 (1793). A citizen of South Carolina wished to sue not a citizen of Georgia but the

State of Georgia itself. See id. at 420. In this “case of uncommon magnitude,” Justice Wilson

explained, “[o]ne of the parties . . . is a State; certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign”

and thus immune from a lawsuit. Id. at 453 (opinion of Wilson, J.). But a State is not a

sovereign in our political system, he reasoned. See id. at 454. “To the Constitution of the United

States the term SOVEREIGN, is totally unknown.” Id. “A State; useful and valuable as the

contrivance is,” he concluded, remains “the inferior contrivance of man.” Id. at 455. By a 4–1

vote, the Court agreed.

The people did not. Within two years, they overruled Chisholm. In 1795, the States

ratified the Eleventh Amendment, which bars exercise of “[t]he Judicial power of the United

States” against any suit “commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens

of another State”—the precise situation faced in Chisholm. U.S. Const. amend. XI. But the

amendment did not merely overrule Chisholm. James Madison described it as merely

“declaratory” of the States’ preexisting immunity, Letter from James Madison to Spencer Roane

(May 6, 1821), in 2 The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series 317, 320 (David B.

Mattern et al. eds., 2013), and the Supreme Court has done the same. The Court has long

“understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it says, but for the

presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms: that the States entered the

federal system with their sovereignty intact.” Blatchford v. Native Vill. of Noatak & Circle Vill.,

501 U.S. 775, 779 (1991); see also Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 728–29 (1999). The Eleventh

Amendment restored the state-federal balance.

It would take a civil war to alter that balance again. The Reconstruction Amendments

“were intended to be, what they really are, limitations of the power of the States and

enlargements of the power of Congress.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 345 (1880). That was

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 6

especially true of the Fourteenth Amendment. Not only did it require the States to provide “due

process” and “equal protection of the laws,” but it also granted Congress the “power to enforce”

its provisions “by appropriate legislation.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV. The Fourteenth

Amendment authorized Congress to intrude upon “spheres of autonomy previously reserved to

the States.” Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 455 (1976). That led the Court to hold that one

of the protections left intact in the original Constitution—each State’s sovereign immunity—had

to yield to “appropriate” “enforce[ment]” legislation enacted under the amendment. Id. at 456.

In a number of cases, the Court has grappled with what counts as “appropriate

legislation” to “enforce” the Fourteenth Amendment. City of Boerne v. Flores sets the

framework. 521 U.S. 507 (1997). At issue was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,

commonly known as RFRA, enacted in response to Employment Division v. Smith. 494 U.S. 872

(1990). Smith held that the Free Exercise Clause did not require the States to satisfy strict

scrutiny if they wished to deny religious exemptions from otherwise neutral laws. See id. at 890.

RFRA said otherwise. Congress sought to overrule Smith and subject such laws to strict scrutiny

anyway. See City of Boerne, 521 U.S. at 515–16. Did RFRA “enforce” the Fourteenth

Amendment? No, the Court held. “Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise

Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause.” Id. at 519. Congress “enforce[s]” a

constitutional right, the Court explained, only when its legislation is tailored “to remedy or to

prevent” unconstitutional conduct in a “congruen[t] and proportional[]” way—when, in short, it

enforces the guarantees as opposed to rewriting them. Id. at 520, 533. Anything more than that

violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

All of this places limits on Congress’s ability to abrogate the States’ sovereign immunity.

Congress may permit lawsuits against States to remedy violations of the Constitution. Such

lawsuits—think § 1983—directly remedy unconstitutional conduct. Fitzpatrick, 427 U.S. at 456.

And Congress may permit lawsuits against States for some “facially constitutional conduct,” but

only as part of a legislative scheme designed “to prevent and deter unconstitutional conduct.”

Nev. Dep’t of Hum. Res. v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721, 727–28 (2003). To determine whether such a

prophylactic statute passes muster, we consider “the extent of state conduct violating the

Fourteenth Amendment,” “the nature” of the constitutional problem, and “the scope of the

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 7

response Congress chose.” Allen v. Cooper, 589 U.S. 248, 261 (2020); see also, e.g., Fla.

Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd. v. Coll. Sav. Bank, 527 U.S. 627, 639–48 (1999).

“Strong measures appropriate to address one harm may be an unwarranted response to another,

lesser one.” City of Boerne, 521 U.S. at 530.

That brings us to this case. At issue is Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act,

which targets “State[s],” “local government[s],” and their instrumentalities, 42 U.S.C.

§ 12131(1), and expressly abrogates the States’ sovereign immunity under the Fourteenth

Amendment, id. § 12202; see United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151, 154 (2006). Title II

forbids state and local entities from excluding individuals with disabilities from their “services,”

“programs,” and “activities.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Given Title II’s broad sweep, from state

courts to state-owned hockey rinks, the Court has rejected the idea that the statute should be

evaluated “as an undifferentiated whole.” Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509, 530 (2004). We

must instead evaluate it on a “claim-by-claim basis,” asking whether Title II is appropriate

legislation based on the particular lawsuit before us. Georgia, 546 U.S. at 159. Once we pin

down the precise target of the allegation, we turn to whether the application of Title II is a

“congruent and proportional” response. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 374

(2001).

That requires us to proceed in three steps, Georgia tells us. 546 U.S. at 159. We first ask

whether the State violated Title II and, if so, identify precisely which aspects of its conduct did

so. Id. We then ask whether that conduct also violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. If it did,

our inquiry ends, as all agree that Congress may authorize a lawsuit “for conduct that actually

violates the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. Only if the State’s conduct violated Title II but not the

Fourteenth Amendment do we ask whether Congress’s attempt to abrogate sovereign immunity

as to that “class of conduct” is congruent and proportional to the task. Id.; see, e.g., Babcock v.

Michigan, 812 F.3d 531, 539 (6th Cir. 2016).

B.

We begin and end at the first step in today’s case. A claimant’s failure “to identify

conduct that violates” Title II, as we have said before, is “dispositive” of sovereign immunity.

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Babcock, 812 F.3d at 539; see also, e.g., Pickett v. Tex. Tech Univ. Health Scis. Ctr., 37 F.4th

1013, 1026 & n.2 (5th Cir. 2022). This complaint fails to state a claim against the State.

The operative provision of Title II, § 202, reads in full:

Subject to the provisions of this title, no qualified individual with a disability

shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied

the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be

subjected to discrimination by any such entity.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-336, § 202, 104 Stat. 327, 337

(codified at 42 U.S.C. § 12132). A “public entity,” in turn, includes the “State[s],” the “local

government[s],” and their “instrumentalit[ies],” such as school districts. Id. § 201(1), 104 Stat. at

337 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 12131(1)).

Title II focuses on the particular conduct of particular public entities. To be liable, an

entity must have denied someone access to one of its “services, programs, or activities” or

otherwise have “subjected” someone “to discrimination.” The relevant action, put another way,

must be taken “by [the] entity” in question. Title II thus mirrors the Rehabilitation Act, upon

which it was based, see Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, 599–600 (1999), and

which similarly limits its reach to “the operations” of a public entity (if federally funded), 29

U.S.C. § 794(a)–(b). Title II allows a person to sue a State for what the State does, not for what

another government does.

At issue in this case are Michigan’s schools. Are they a “service,” “program,” or

“activity” of the State? They are not. Under Michigan law, school districts undertake general

responsibility for public education, making them separate public entities suable under Title II.

Durant v. State Bd. of Educ., 381 N.W.2d 662, 671 (Mich. 1985). Each district is responsible to

the local voters, who elect the board. Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 380.384, .410. And each board has

considerable discretion in how it chooses to operate its district’s schools. The board, not the

State, determines whether new schools should be opened and old ones closed, id. § .11a(3)(a)(i),

who will teach and how much they will be paid, id. § .11a(3)(d), and—in most cases—what

students will learn, id. § .1282. The State, then, relies on each school district to “educat[e]

pupils” as it sees fit, id. § .11a(3)(a), and to “provide special education programs and services

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 9

designed to meet the individual needs of each student with a disability,” id. § .1751(1). Whether

a district does so well or poorly, it is the district that is to thank or to blame.

The school districts’ independence, in fact, explains why they may be sued in the first

place. The Supreme Court has long recognized that local governments, while “territorially a part

of the State,” remain “politically” separate from the State for purposes of sovereign immunity.

Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U.S. 529, 530 (1890). Just so for school districts. Mt. Healthy

City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280 (1977). School districts, much like local

governments, “exercise a slice of state power,” Lake Country Ests. v. Tahoe Reg’l Planning

Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 401 (1979) (quotation omitted), but they do not do so as the State’s mere

agent—they remain responsible to their local electorates, levy their own taxes, and operate their

schools largely as they see fit, Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 280. It is precisely because school

districts are not merely arms of the State, but truly independent entities, that they may not invoke

the State’s immunity as a bar to suit.

What helps the parents with their claims against the school district dooms their claim

against the State. Their complaint focuses on the educational benefits allegedly denied their

children. But it was not the State that reduced the children’s school days, denied them additional

services, and rejected appropriate accommodations. It was the school district that did that. The

State, in fact, agreed with the parents that the district deprived their children of an appropriate

public education and ordered the district to make the students whole. The parents may have a

Title II claim against Hamtramck Public Schools, the “public entity” that provided the “services”

and “activities” at issue. 42 U.S.C. § 12132. But they do not have a claim against the State.

The parents disagree. Because the State (partially) funds and supervises the school

districts, they argue, the districts’ failures are the State’s own. But this argument—that Title II

allows for supervisory liability—rewrites the statute. Title II, to repeat, limits its reach to the

actions of particular “public entit[ies].” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Judge Wilkinson put it well: “To

hold that a city or State by virtue of its funding authority is liable for injury caused solely by a

separate and independent corporate body is a novel and unprecedented theory.” Bacon v. City of

Richmond, 475 F.3d 633, 642 (4th Cir. 2007). The text of the statute “does not impose guarantor

liability or make funding entities ADA insurers for funding recipients.” Id. “To the contrary,”

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Title II “limits responsibility to public entities that discriminate against or exclude persons with

disabilities.” Id. In this case, the school district, not the State, allegedly discriminated against

children with disabilities. Ignoring the difference between the two entities would pave over

Congress’s careful separation of “public entity” between the “instrumentalit[ies]” of the States

and the States themselves. 42 U.S.C. § 12131(1).

The parents’ approach also would pave over the different approach taken in the rest of the

Act, not to mention other federal laws, with respect to supervisory liability. Compare Title I, in

which Congress barred discrimination against employees with disabilities. Id. § 12112(a).

Congress in that instance carefully defined an “employer” to include not only “governments,

governmental agencies, political subdivisions, . . . associations, [and] corporations” but also “any

agent” of such entities. Id. §§ 2000e(a)–(b), 12111(7). The same was true in Title III, in which

Congress required private businesses to accommodate customers with disabilities. Id. § 12182.

There, too, Congress chose to impose liability not only on the operator of a non-compliant public

accommodation, but also on the property’s owner. Id. § 12182(a) (“No individual shall be

discriminated against on the basis of disability . . . by any person who owns, leases (or leases to),

or operates a place of public accommodation.”). Titles I and III show that, when Congress

wished to impose supervisory liability, “it knew how to do so.” Thompson v. United States, 145

S. Ct. 821, 827 (2025) (quotation omitted); see also, e.g., 7 U.S.C. § 2020(a)(2) (making each

State liable for the distribution of food stamps, “whether the program is operated on a State-

administered or county-administered basis”).

Had Congress wished to work such a marked shift in the States’ internal governance

through Title II, we could fairly expect it to speak just as clearly. “No single tradition in public

education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools.” Milliken v.

Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 741 (1974). That tradition would come to an end under the parents’

approach. The States would face a stark choice: centralize all educational decisions in the state

capital or face liability for decisions made in hundreds of all-over-the-map localities. Cf. San

Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 49–50 (1973). Our Nation’s 13,000 school

districts would become mere administrative units executing directives from above, not

responsive bodies accountable to local voters. See Bacon, 475 F.3d at 642–43. We do not

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lightly presume that Congress intended such “federal superintendence of . . . decisions

traditionally entrusted to state governance.” Bowen v. Am. Hosp. Ass’n, 476 U.S. 610, 643

(1986) (plurality op.).

A State, we appreciate, could choose to design its government in a way that made this a

state issue, as opposed to a local one. But “choose” is the operative word. It is “a crucial axiom

of our government” that “the States have wide authority to set up their state and local

governments as they wish.” McMillian v. Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781, 795 (1997). Only

Hawaii, to date, has opted to abolish its local school districts and to run its public schools

centrally. In Michigan, local school boards run the local schools. “Local control of education,”

to quote the Michigan Supreme Court, “is a time-honored tradition in this state.” Durant, 381

N.W.2d at 670. That is not to say that the State plays no role. It does. See generally Mich.

Comp. Laws § 380.1703(1)–(2) (empowering the department of education to promulgate

regulations governing the delivery of special-education services). But the school district remains

the public entity that actually provides the “services” and “activities” at issue, 42 U.S.C.

§ 12132, not the State. While a State could be held liable if it seized authority over the public

schools or used its regulatory power to instruct a school district to violate Title II, it may not be

held liable simply because a district violated Title II of its own accord.

What about the doctrine of state action? In the constitutional context, it is true, we

sometimes attribute the actions of a private actor to the State. Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Co., 62

F.4th 278, 281–84 (6th Cir. 2023). But that doctrine (even assuming it applied here) would not

help the parents. It tells us when the action of a private party might be attributed to a

government. It does not tell us which government its actions ought to be attributed to. Nor are

these schools private parties in any case. To repeat, they belong to school districts, governmental

units in themselves with a separate legal status. True, the State created the school districts. But

the same is true for all local governments. We see no reason why the State would stand in loco

parentis to its school districts any more than it would to all its subdivisions—or any more than a

corporation would to its subsidiaries. Cf. Dewberry Grp. v. Dewberry Eng’rs Inc., 145 S. Ct.

681, 686–87 (2025) (describing the “usual rule” that “separately incorporated organizations are

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 12

separate legal units with distinct legal rights and obligations,” even if the entities have “a

common owner” or are otherwise “affiliated” (quotation omitted)).

The parents point to the IDEA, but it does not help them either. Under the IDEA, States

and school districts receive federal special-education funds. In exchange, States and school

districts agree to establish “elaborate and highly specific procedural safeguards” to give parents a

voice in their children’s education. Bd. of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 205 (1982). The State

in particular must exercise “general supervision” over local educational agencies to ensure they

comply with the statute’s requirements, 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(11), and “establish and maintain

procedures” through which parents may seek redress if a school fails to provide their child with a

free appropriate public education, id. § 1415(a).

From these provisions, the parents infer that the State is responsible for the actions of its

school districts. But the mere fact that “policy decision-making and supervision in certain areas

are reserved to the State” does not mean that local control is a “sham” or that education is a state

rather than “local function.” San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist., 411 U.S. at 51 n.108. Just as

“extensive” regulation does not transform a private utility into the State, Jackson v. Metro.

Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 350 (1974), oversight alone does not transform a local school into a

state school. The schools are the districts’ “services, programs, [and] activities,” 42 U.S.C.

§ 12132, not the State’s. The parents’ IDEA-cum-ADA claim does not win the day.

No more helpful is the parents’ reliance on precedents with respect to state universities.

In most States, it is true, the State maintains control over its public universities and assumes

“legal liability for judgments” against them. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Doe, 519 U.S. 425,

430–31 (1997). But that is why we call it the University of Michigan, not the University of Ann

Arbor. See Est. of Ritter ex rel. Ritter v. Univ. of Mich., 851 F.2d 846, 851 (6th Cir. 1988). Just

as Michigan may choose to operate its public universities, it may choose to delegate the

operation of its public schools. It is because each school district in Michigan is run locally that it

is more akin to “a county or city” than “an arm of the State,” like a state university. Mt. Healthy,

429 U.S. at 280.

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Nor does it help the parents to focus solely on the actions of the State. The State, sure

enough, undertakes a number of tasks related to special education: collecting data, allocating

funds, resolving complaints, and so on. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a). Even if we spotted the claim that

these tasks amount to “services” under Title II, they do not count as services that people with

disabilities could readily be “excluded from” or services that could themselves “subject[]” the

disabled “to discrimination.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. To the extent such a case exists, it assuredly is

not this one. As the parents’ complaint acknowledges, two of them turned to the State for help—

and got it. The State afforded them a hearing, promptly adjudicated their claims, and ruled in

their favor. It ordered the school district not only to compensate the children with one-on-one

educational services, but also to fix the problems identified by the parents and provide

“[e]vidence of timely compliance.” R.46-3 at 12; R.46-4 at 18.

The parents thus do not claim that the district failed to provide this additional instruction.

They instead allege generally that the State “failed to implement” these plans (presumably their

prospective aspects) and more broadly “failed to comply with its general supervisory

responsibilities.” R.46 at 68 ¶ 118, 108 ¶ 260. But these conclusory assertions do not suffice to

move past the pleading stage. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Even taken at face

value, moreover, the allegations still fail to show actions “by” the State that “excluded” children

with disabilities or “subjected [them] to discrimination,” as opposed to merely standing idly by

while a separate public entity (allegedly) acted improperly. 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Title II requires

more.

Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg does not alter our conclusion. 331 F.3d 261 (2d Cir. 2003).

The Second Circuit held that the State of New York was responsible under the ADA for its

municipalities’ implementation of federally funded social services. See id. at 287. The court

acknowledged that the ADA “on its face does not directly announce that [the] States will be

subject to supervisory liability,” id. at 285, but imposed such liability based on the “general rules

of contract,” “[t]he Justice Department’s interpretation” of the related Rehabilitation Act, and the

ADA’s legislative history, id. at 285–87 & n.17, 289 n.18. We do not lightly look away from the

statute’s text. Either way, Henrietta D., accurate or not, is distinguishable. Under New York

law, as the court explained, local social services agencies “act on behalf of and as agents for the

No. 24-1855 Y.A. et al. v. Hamtramck Pub. Schs. et al. Page 14

State.” Id. at 266 (quoting Beaudoin v. Toia, 380 N.E.2d 246, 247 (N.Y. 1978)). The same

cannot be said of school districts in Michigan. See Durant, 381 N.W.2d at 671. The State is

entitled to immunity.

***

One final note. It might give the reader pause that an appeal based on sovereign

immunity could turn on the merits of the underlying claim—what seems to be the transformation

of a Civil Rule 12(b)(1) appeal into a Civil Rule 12(b)(6) appeal. The first answer comes from

United States v. Georgia. Only after we have determined “which aspects of the State’s alleged

conduct violated Title II,” it says, may we look to the constitutional questions: whether the

State’s misconduct “also violated the Fourteenth Amendment,” and whether, if not, “Congress’s

purported abrogation of sovereign immunity as to that class of conduct is nevertheless valid” as

congruent and proportional. 546 U.S. at 159; see also, e.g., Pickett, 37 F.4th at 1026 & n.2.

Because the merits and jurisdiction “come intertwined,” Brownback v. King, 592 U.S. 209, 217

(2021) (quotation omitted), we may decide the former if it is necessary to decide the latter, see,

e.g., Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 257 n.5 (2006).

Georgia’s order of operations also makes sense. It permits us to avoid constitutional

questions where we can. See Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 346–47 (1936) (Brandeis, J.,

concurring). And it avoids the peril of resolving Title II’s validity in the abstract and instead

gauges the precise “class of cases” before us. Lane, 541 U.S. at 533; see also Georgia, 546 U.S.

at 159. Whether Congress permissibly exercised its enforcement power under the Fourteenth

Amendment turns not only on “the constitutional problem Congress faced” but also “the scope of

the response Congress chose.” Allen, 589 U.S. at 261. An assessment of the statute’s

application to the claimants and government entity at hand facilitates the last inquiry.

We reverse.