Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley Ex Rel. Rowley

Justice White,

with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join,

dissenting.

In order to reach its result in this case, the majority opinion contradicts itself, the language of the statute, and the legislative history. Both the majority’s standard for a “free appropriate education” and its standard for judicial review disregard congressional intent.

HH

The majority first turns its attention to the meaning of a “free appropriate public education.” The Act provides:

“The term ‘free appropriate public education’ means special education and related services which (A) have been provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge, (B) meet the standards of the State educational agency, (C) include an appropriate preschool, elementary, or secondary school education in the State involved, and (D) are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under section 1414(a)(5) of this title.” 20 U. S. C. §1401 (18).

The majority reads this statutory language as establishing a congressional intent limited to bringing “previously excluded handicapped children into the public education systems of the States and [requiring] the States to adopt procedures which would result in individualized consideration of and instruction for each child.” Ante, at 189. In its attempt to constrict the definition of “appropriate” and the thrust of the Act, the majority opinion states: “Noticeably absent from the language of the statute is any substantive standard prescribing the level of education to be accorded handicapped children. Certainly *213 the language of the statute contains no requirement like the one imposed by the lower courts — that States maximize the potential of handicapped children ‘commensurate with the opportunity provided to other children.’” Ante, at 189-190, quoting 483 F. Supp. 528, 534 (SDNY 1980).

I agree that the language of the Act does not contain a substantive standard beyond requiring that the education offered must be “appropriate.” However, if there are limits not evident from the face of the statute on what may be considered an “appropriate education,” they must be found in the purpose of the statute or its legislative history. The Act itself announces it will provide a “full educational opportunity to all handicapped children.” 20 U. S. C. § 1412 (2)(A) (emphasis added). This goal is repeated throughout the legislative history, in statements too frequent to be ‘“passing references and isolated phrases.’” 1 Ante, at 204, n. 26, quoting Department of State v. Washington Post Co., 456 U. S. 595, 600 (1982). These statements elucidate the meaning of “appropriate.” According to the Senate Report, for example, the Act does “guarantee that handicapped children are provided equal educational opportunity.” S. Rep. No. 94-168, p. 9 (1975) (emphasis added). This promise appears throughout the legislative history. See 121 Cong. Rec. 19482-19483 (1975) (remarks of Sen. Randolph); id., at 19504 (Sen. Humphrey); id., at 19505 (Sen. Beall); id., at 23704 (Rep. Brademas); id., at 25538 (Rep. Cornell); id., at 25540 (Rep. Grassley); id., at 37025 (Rep. Perkins); id., at *214 37030 (Rep. Mink); id., at 37412 (Sen. Taft); id., at 37413 (Sen. Williams); id., at 37418-37419 (Sen. Cranston); id., at 37419-37420 (Sen. Beall). Indeed, at times the purpose of the Act was described as tailoring each handicapped child’s educational plan to enable the child “to achieve his or her maximum potential.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-332, pp. 13, 19 (1975); see 121 Cong. Rec. 23709 (1975). Senator Stafford, one of the sponsors of the Act, declared: “We can all agree that education [given a handicapped child] should be equivalent, at least, to the one those children who are not handicapped receive.” Id., at 19483. The legislative history thus directly supports the conclusion that the Act intends to give handicapped children an educational opportunity commensurate with that given other children.

The majority opinion announces a different substantive standard, that “Congress did not impose upon the States any greater substantive educational standard than would be necessary to make such access meaningful.” Ante, at 192. While “meaningful” is no more enlightening than “appropriate,” the Court purports to clarify itself. Because Amy was provided with some specialized instruction from which she obtained some benefit and because she passed from grade to grade, she was receiving a meaningful and therefore appropriate education. 2

*215 This falls far short of what the Act intended. The Act details as specifically as possible the kind of specialized education each handicapped child must receive. It would apparently satisfy the Court’s standard of “access to specialized instruction and related services which are individually designed to provide educational benefit to the handicapped child,” ante, at 201, for a deaf child such as Amy to be given a teacher with a loud voice, for she would benefit from that service. The Act requires more. It defines “special education” to mean “specifically designed instruction, at no cost to parents or guardians, to meet the unique needs of a handicapped child . . . .” §1401(16) (emphasis added). 3 Providing a teacher with a loud voice would not meet Amy’s needs and would not satisfy the Act. The basic floor of opportunity is instead, as the courts below recognized, intended to eliminate the effects of the handicap, at least to the extent that the child will be given an equal opportunity to learn if that is reasonably possible. Amy Rowley, without a sign-language interpreter, comprehends less than half of what is said in the classroom — less than half of what normal children comprehend. This is hardly an equal opportunity to learn, even if Amy makes passing grades.

Despite its reliance on the use of “appropriate” in the definition of the Act, the majority opinion speculates that “Congress used the word as much to describe the settings in which *216 handicapped children should be educated as to prescribe the substantive content or supportive services of their education.” Ante, at 197, n. 21. Of course, the word “appropriate” can be applied in many ways; at times in the Act, Congress used it to recommend mainstreaming handicapped children; at other points, it used the word to refer to the content of the individualized education. The issue before us is what standard the word “appropriate” incorporates when it is used to modify “education.” The answer given by the Court is not a satisfactory one.

II

The Court’s discussion of the standard for judicial review is as flawed as its discussion of a “free appropriate public education.” According to the Court, a court can ask only whether the State has “complied with the procedures set forth in the Act” and whether the individualized education program is “reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.” Ante, at 206, 207. Both the language of the Act and the legislative history, however, demonstrate that Congress intended the courts to conduct a far more searching inquiry.

The majority assigns major significance to the review provision’s being found in a section entitled “Procedural safeguards.” But where else would a provision for judicial review belong? The majority does acknowledge that the current language, specifying that a court “shall receive the records of the administrative proceedings, shall hear additional evidence at the request of a party, and, basing its decision on the preponderance of the evidence, shall grant such relief as the court determines is appropriate,” § 1415(e)(2), was substituted at Conference for language that would have restricted the role of the reviewing court much more sharply. It is clear enough to me that Congress decided to reduce substantially judicial deference to state administrative decisions.

The legislative history shows that judicial review is not limited to procedural matters and that the state educational agencies are given first, but not final, responsibility for the *217 content of a handicapped child’s education. The Conference Committee directs courts to make an “independent decision.” S. Conf. Rep. No. 94-455, p. 50 (1975). The deliberate change in the review provision is an unusually clear indication that Congress intended courts to undertake substantive review instead of relying on the conclusions of the state agency.

On the floor of the Senate, Senator Williams, the chief sponsor of the bill, Committee Chairman, and floor manager responsible for the legislation in the Senate, emphasized the breadth of the review provisions at both the administrative and judicial levels:

“Any parent or guardian may present a complaint concerning any matter regarding the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child or the provision of a free appropriate public education to such child. In this regard, Mr. President, I would like to stress that the language referring to 'free appropriate education’ has been adopted to make clear that a complaint may involve matters such as questions respecting a child’s individualized education program, questions of whether special education and related services are being provided without charge to the parents or guardians, questions relating to whether the services provided a child meet the standards of the State education agency, or any other question within the scope of the definition of ‘free appropriate public education.’ In addition, it should be clear that a parent or guardian may present a complaint alleging that a State or local education agency has refused to provide services to which a child may be entitled or alleging that the State or local educational agency has erroneously classified a child as a handicapped child when, in fact, that child is not a handicapped child.” 121 Cong. Rec. 37415 (1975) (emphasis added).

There is no doubt that the state agency itself must make substantive decisions. The legislative history reveals that the *218 courts are to consider, de novo, the same issues. Senator Williams explicitly stated that the civil action permitted under the Act encompasses all matters related to the original complaint. Id., at 37416.

Thus, the Court’s limitations on judicial review have no support in either the language of the Act or the legislative history. Congress did not envision that inquiry would end if a showing is made that the child is receiving passing marks and is advancing from grade to grade. Instead, it intended to permit a full and searching inquiry into any aspect of a handicapped child’s education. The Court’s standard, for example, would not permit a challenge to part of the IEP; the legislative history demonstrates beyond doubt that Congress intended such challenges to be possible, even if the plan as developed is reasonably calculated to give the child some benefits.

Parents can challenge the IEP for failing to supply the special education and related services needed by the individual handicapped child. That is what the Rowleys did. As the Government observes, “courts called upon to review the content of an IEP, in accordance with 20 U. S. C. [§] 1415(e) inevitably are required to make a judgment, on the basis of the evidence presented, concerning whether the educational methods proposed by the local school district are ‘appropriate’ for the handicapped child involved.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13. The courts below, as they were required by the Act, did precisely that.

Under the judicial review provisions of the Act, neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals was bound by the State’s construction of what an “appropriate” education means in general or by what the state authorities considered to be an appropriate education for Amy Rowley. Because the standard of the courts below seems to me to reflect the congressional purpose and because their factual findings are not clearly erroneous, I respectfully dissent.

The Court’s opinion relies heavily on the statement, which occurs throughout the legislative history, that, at the time of enactment, one million of the roughly eight million handicapped children in the United States were excluded entirely from the public school system and more than half were receiving an inappropriate education. See, e. g., ante, at 189, 195, 196-197, n. 20. But this statement was often linked to statements urging equal educational opportunity. See, e. g., 121 Cong. Rec. 19502 (1975) (remarks of Sen. Cranston); id., at 23702 (remarks of Rep. Brademas). That is, Congress wanted not only to bring handicapped children into the schoolhouse, but also to benefit them once they had entered.

As further support for its conclusion, the majority opinion turns to Pennsylvania Assn. for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth, 334 F. Supp. 1257 (ED Pa. 1971), 343 F. Supp. 279 (1972) (PARC), and Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia, 348 F. Supp. 866 (DC 1972). That these decisions served as an impetus for the Act does not, however, establish them as the limits of the Act. In any case, the very language that the majority quotes from Mills, ante, at 193, 199, sets a standard not of some education, but of educational opportunity equal to that of non-handicapped children.

Indeed, Mills , relying on decisions since called into question by this Court’s opinion in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973), states:

“In Hobson v. Hansen, [ 269 F. Supp. 401 (DC 1967),] Judge Wright found that denying poor public school children educational opportunity equal to *215 that available to more affluent public school children was violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. A fortiori, the defendants’ conduct here, denying plaintiffs and their class not just an equal publicly supported education but all publicly supported education while providing such education to other children, is violative of the Due Process Clause.” 348 F. Supp., at 875 .

Whatever the effect of Rodriguez on the validity of this reasoning, the statement exposes the majority’s mischaracterization of the opinion and thus of the assumptions of the legislature that passed the Act.

“Related services” are “transportation, and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services ... as may be required to assist a handicapped child to benefit from special education.” § 1401(17).