In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

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No. 02-3655

REID L., et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 01 C 4180—Robert W. Gettleman, Judge.

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ARGUED MAY 13, 2003—DECIDED FEBRUARY 18, 2004

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Before ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD, and EVANS, Circuit

Judges.

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge. This is the second

time we have been asked to consider an effort to block the

promulgation and implementation of new rules designed

to bring the Illinois system of special education teacher certification into compliance with the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.

This court’s earlier opinion in this case, Reid L. v. Illinois

State Board of Education, 289 F.3d 1009 (7th Cir. 2002)

(Reid I), sets forth most of the facts relevant to the present

appeal. For convenience, however, we review the key points

here.
2 No. 02-3655

After extensive litigation between the Illinois State Board

of Education (ISBE) and a group of special education

teachers and students who live within the Chicago Public

School district (known as the Corey H. parties), the district

court entered a remedial decree against the ISBE. That

decree was designed to bring the Illinois system of special

education teacher certification into compliance with various

requirements of the IDEA, particularly its directive that

students be educated in the least restrictive environment,

20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5). Corey H. v. Bd. of Educ. of the City

of Chicago, 995 F. Supp. 900 (N.D. Ill. 1998). Unhappy with

the new certification rules being developed for the state of

Illinois, a group of special education teachers and students

who live outside the Chicago Public School district (known

collectively as the Reid L. parties) tried unsuccessfully to

intervene directly in the Corey H. litigation and block

implementation of the new certification rules. In Reid I, we

affirmed the district court’s order denying the Reid L.

plaintiffs’ motions to intervene, and we affirmed the district

court’s denial of a preliminary injunction to stop the new

rules from going into effect. In this successive appeal, we

affirm the district court’s dismissal of the Reid L. plaintiffs’

claims for lack of standing.

I

Under the ISBE rules that were in effect before this

litigation, special education teachers were trained and certified in eight disability categories: learning disabilities,

social/emotional disorders, educable mentally handicapped,

trainable mentally handicapped, physically handicapped,

blind/visually impaired, deaf/hard of hearing, and speech/

language handicapped. The district court found that because teachers were trained and certified to teach by category of disability, they were unable to service disabled

children in integrated settings, in violation of the least
No. 02-3655 3

restrictive environment mandate of the IDEA, 20 U.S.C.

§ 1412(a)(5). Corey H., 995 F. Supp. at 909-12. Antiquated

certification categories, combined with inadequate training

and teacher education in Illinois (geared to the certification

categories) impermissibly supported the categorical segregation of children with disabilities. Id.

The ISBE chose not to pursue the lawsuit after the Corey

H. decision. Instead, it entered into a settlement agreement

with the Corey H. parties, which the district court approved

on June 18, 1999, following extensive notice and a public

hearing. Under the settlement agreement, the ISBE was to

have the primary responsibility of developing special

education teacher certification rules, in cooperation with

the Chicago Board of Education and the Corey H. parties.

Any such rules, however, remained subject to the court’s

jurisdiction to ensure that the plan eventually adopted was

consistent with the permanent injunction the court had

already entered against the ISBE forbidding further

violations of the IDEA. Corey H., 995 F. Supp. at 918. 

The ISBE then set out to work with Illinois parents,

advocates for students with disabilities, and educators,

to revamp the teacher certification rules. It created advisory panels, which conducted public statewide hearings and consulted with numerous outsiders, including

teachers, universities, and professional associations. This

process elicited a wide range of views—so wide that the

ISBE realized that it was not likely to find a consensus

solution. In coming up with its final proposal, the ISBE took

a number of factors into account, including the following:

the number of students with disabilities in more than one

category; the need to train teachers for a new system; the

possible effect of a new system on the supply of special

education teachers; the effect of a new system on the ability

of local school districts to deliver services to disabled

students; the length of time needed to implement any new

system; and the likely effect of a new system on existing
4 No. 02-3655

teachers. With all this in mind, the ISBE staff developed a

proposal that contemplated one certificate (Learning

Behavior Specialist 1, or LBS1) for five of the former categorical certificates (learning disability, social/emotional

disorder, educable mentally handicapped, trainable mentally handicapped, and physically handicapped), and separate certificates for specialists teaching students who have

vision impairments, hearing impairments, or early childhood or speech language disorder. This was the proposal the

district court approved.

The court also appointed a monitor to assist it in overseeing both the Chicago Board’s and the ISBE’s compliance

with their respective settlement agreements. In keeping

with the monitor’s recommendation, on September 12, 2000,

the district court ordered the ISBE to file its proposed

certification rules as peremptory rules with the Joint

Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) in the Illinois

General Assembly, following the normal procedures established by the Illinois Administrative Procedure

Act (IAPA). See 5 ILCS 100/5-50 (describing peremptory

rulemaking). It concluded that this was proper because

these rules were “required as a result of federal law, federal

rules and regulations, [or] an order of a court,” 5 ILCS

100/5-50, not as a “consent order[ ] or other court order[ ]

adopting settlements negotiated by the agency,” id. As

noted earlier, the fact that the ISBE developed the rules at

all was a result of the district court’s decision on liability,

and thus was because of “an order of a court.” 

On October 26, 2000, the ISBE published the certification

rules under its peremptory rulemaking authority. At that

point, a tug-of-war at the state level emerged. In January

2001, JCAR suspended the rules, claiming that they

constituted a serious threat to the public interest

and welfare. The district court judge then met with the

Corey H. parties and certain members of the Illinois

General Assembly to decide what to do, but these efforts at
No. 02-3655 5

consensus also failed. On February 21, 2001, JCAR again

announced that the rules were suspended. On February 27,

2001, exercising the power to act independently of the ISBE

that it had reserved in both the ruling on liability and in

the settlement agreement, the court ordered the ISBE to

implement the rules immediately without referral to JCAR.

The Illinois General Assembly attempted to stop the

implementation of the rules, voting to continue indefinitely

the suspension of the rules and passing a joint resolution of

both houses on May 31, 2001.

At the same time, the court ordered the ISBE to conduct public hearings on another set of rules, the Rules for

Transition to the New Special Education Certification

Structure (transition rules). The transition rules outlined

the procedure by which teachers holding certificates under

the old system would become requalified as holders of the

LBS1 certificate. Essentially, they created a three-year

grace period for such teachers, giving them time to acquire

any additional training they might need. During that interim period, the Illinois school district could assign a

transitional teacher to teach students outside his or her

prior categorical certificate, with procedural safeguards in

place to ensure that students continued to receive a free

appropriate education. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415; see also Corey

H., 995 F. Supp. at 906-07 (describing procedural safeguards under the IDEA). On June 28, 2001, the court ordered the ISBE to implement the transition rules. 

At around this time, the Reid L. parties had filed an

action for declaratory and injunctive relief, contending that

both the new certification rules and the transition rules

were unlawful under the IDEA and IAPA. The district court

denied the Reid L. parties’ request for preliminary injunctive relief, and we affirmed. In Reid I, we expressed our

doubt that the Reid L. parties had standing and agreed

with the district court that the likelihood of success on the

merits of their claims was slim. The ISBE subsequently
6 No. 02-3655

moved in the district court to dismiss the Reid L. parties’

complaint, which the district court had stayed pending our

decision in Reid I. On September 10, 2002, the district court

granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, finding that the

Reid L. parties lacked standing to pursue their claims, and

that their complaint failed to state a claim upon which

relief could be granted. This appeal followed.

II

We review motions to dismiss for lack of standing de novo.

Help at Home, Inc. v. Med. Capital, L.L.C., 260 F.3d 748,

752 (7th Cir. 2001). In ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack

of standing, the district court must accept as true all

material allegations of the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences therefrom in the plaintiff’s favor, unless

standing is challenged as a factual matter. Retired Chicago

Police Assoc. v. City of Chicago, 76 F.3d 856, 862 (7th Cir.

1996). In the latter situation, the district court may find the

facts, and our review is for clear error. The plaintiffs, as the

parties invoking federal jurisdiction, bear the burden of

establishing the required elements of standing. Lee v. City

of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 468 (7th Cir. 2003). “Those

elements are (i) an injury in fact, which is an invasion of a

legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized

and, thus, actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (ii) a causal relation between the injury and the

challenged conduct, such that the injury can be fairly traced

to the challenged action of the defendant; and (iii) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Id. (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S.

555, 560-61 (1992)). 

In this case, there are two groups of plaintiffs: students

and teachers. The student-plaintiffs claim that the new

certification rules violate their right to a “free appropriate

education,” 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1). The teacher-plaintiffs
No. 02-3655 7

claim that the new certification rules were adopted in violation of Illinois’s rulemaking procedures under the IAPA,

5 ILCS 100 et seq. We consider each set of plaintiffs in turn.

The student-plaintiffs argue that they are injured because, under the new certification rules, students with disabilities will be taught by less qualified teachers and will

thus be denied their right to a “free appropriate public

education.” 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1). This harm will occur in

two different ways, in their view. First, during the transition period, because teachers may be assigned to students

with disabilities outside their prior certification, these students may be taught by teachers not yet trained to meet

their needs. Second, under the permanent certification

standards, teachers on whole will be less qualified, because

they will be required to demonstrate knowledge of many

disability areas and therefore will be unable to meet students’ specific needs.

All of these claims, however, are entirely speculative, and

as such, they do not demonstrate an injury in fact. Lujan,

504 U.S. at 561. With respect to the claims based on the

permanent rules, they are based largely on disagreement

over pedagogical theory. Reid I, 289 F.3d at 1019. There is

no reason to assume that the student-plaintiffs as a group

would not receive an “appropriate” education under a less

categorical certification system, particularly where a less

categorical certification system has been found by the

district court to be necessary to comply with IDEA’s

directive that students be taught in the least restrictive

environment. Reid I, 289 F.3d at 1013-14.

More importantly, the IDEA is not concerned with group

rights; it is concerned with the education of each individual

student. Even if, under the new rules and transition rules,

a particular student with disabilities was misplaced with

teachers not qualified to meet her needs, procedural

safeguards under the IDEA remain in place to correct the
8 No. 02-3655

error. (Indeed, some misplacements occur under any system; it is not as if parents never challenged educational

plans or teacher assignments under the prior system.)

These procedural safeguards include:

an opportunity for the parents of a child with a disability to examine all records relating to such child and

to participate in meetings with respect to the identification, evaluation, and educational placement of the

child, and the provision of a free appropriate public

education to such child, and to obtain an independent

educational evaluation of the child.

20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(1). It is through these procedural

safeguards that the IDEA provides for the enforcement of

a “free appropriate public education” to individual children

with disabilities. For this reason, the student-plaintiffs

have not identified an injury in fact from either the transitional or new rules that is “actual or imminent” and their

claims were properly dismissed for lack of standing.

Even if the teacher-plaintiffs can show a concrete injury that is legally cognizable (a point on which we do not

rule), they cannot survive the causation or redressability

requirements of standing. The teacher-plaintiffs’ injury

stems from how the new certification rules were implemented—that they were implemented in violation of the

IAPA state legislative procedures. But it was the district

court, not the ISBE, that was responsible for the ultimate

decision to implement the new rules without regard to state

procedures. As we noted earlier, the district court compelled

the ISBE to develop the new rules. It tried using the ISBE’s

peremptory rulemaking authority under the IAPA, but in

the end after JCAR suspended the rules, the district court

ordered the ISBE to implement the rules notwithstanding

JCAR’s opposition. Reid I, 289 F.3d at 1021 (stating that it

was the federal court that “stepped in and mooted any point

about compliance with state administrative procedures.
No. 02-3655 9

Rather than using these procedures, the court simply

ordered on February 27, 2001, that the rules were to go into

effect.”). For these reasons, the teacher-plaintiffs’ injury is

not traceable to “the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct” and is not “likely to be redressed by the requested

relief.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751 (1984). Therefore,

the teacher-plaintiffs also lack standing.

III 

Because the student-plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate

an injury-in-fact, and the teacher-plaintiffs have failed to

demonstrated causation or redressability, this action was

properly dismissed for lack of standing. We therefore

express no opinion on the question whether the Reid L.

plaintiffs’ complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief

may be granted.

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

A true Copy:

Teste: 

 ________________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—2-18-04