May 24, 2007
Parents Have Independent, Substantive Rights Under IDEA: Winkelman v. Parma City School District. (Part 2 of 3).
On May 21st, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Winkelman v. Parma City School District. The court held that IDEA grants parents independent, enforceable rights (beyond mere procedural matters) regarding entitlement to a free appropriate public education for their children. In this, the second of three posts, I will analyze the majority opinion. In a third post I will analyze the concurring opinion.
(Readers may find the syllabus, opinion, and concurring opinion of the case at the website of my alma mater. The syllabus is not part of the opinion, but merely a summary for readers’ convenience.)
Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority in Winkelman, summarizes the principal dispute:
The question is whether parents, either on their own behalf or as representatives of the child, may proceed in court unrepresented by counsel though they are not trained or licensed as attorneys. Resolution of this issue requires us to examine and explain the provisions of IDEA to determine if it accords to parents rights of their own that can be vindicated in court proceedings, or alternatively, whether the Act allows them, in their status as parents, to represent their child in court proceedings.
(Emphasis added.)
That’s why, yesterday, I listed two legal issues:
1. Does IDEA grant parents independent, enforceable rights, which are not limited to procedural and reimbursement-related matters but encompass the entitlement to a free appropriate public education for their children?
2: Does IDEA entitle parents to litigate their child’s claims pro se?
As we’ll see, the majority only answered the first issue; the second remains unresolved.
Sometimes, different federal circuit – appellate – courts reach conflicting opinions on a matter of law. That’s what the court in Winkelman confronted. Just Kennedy explains:
Relying on its recent decision in Cavanaugh v. Cardinal Local School Dist., 409
F. 3d 753 (2005), the [Sixth Circuit] Court of Appeals entered an order dismissing the Winkelmans’ appeal unless they obtained counsel to represent Jacob….In Cavanaugh the Court of Appeals had rejected the proposition that IDEA allows nonlawyer parents raising IDEA claims to proceed pro se in federal court. The court ruled that the right to a free appropriate public education belongs to the child alone…not to both the parents and the child. It followed, the court held, that any right on which the [parents] could proceed on their own behalf would be derivative of the child’s right…so that parents bringing IDEA claims were not appearing on their
own behalf…As the court in Cavanaugh acknowledged, its decision brought the Sixth Circuit in direct conflict with the First Circuit, which had concluded, under a theory of statutory joint rights, that the Act accords to parents the right to assert IDEA claims on their own behalf…
Kennedy and the majority conclude that
Petitioners construe these various provisions to accord parents independent, enforceable rights under IDEA. We agree. The parents enjoy enforceable rights at the administrative stage, and it would be inconsistent with the statutory scheme to bar them from continuing to assert these rights in federal court.
Here’s why the majority decides the way it does:
IDEA defines one of its purposes as seeking to ensure that the “rights of children with disabilities and parents of such children are protected.” §1400(d)(1)(B). The word “rights” in the quoted language refers to the rights of parents as well as the rights of the child; otherwise the grammatical structure would make no sense.
The holding means that, since parents have independent, substantive rights under IDEA, the second issue before the court – can parents represent their children’s claims under IDEA in federal court without counsel – was not decided.
