United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted June 22, 2018*

Decided June 25, 2018

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

No. 17-3363

PATRICIA WILLIAMS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF 

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of 

Wisconsin.

No. 16-cv-830-bbc

Barbara B. Crabb,

Judge.

O R D E R

Patricia Williams, who receives vocational rehabilitation services from the 

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, sued the Department when it 

declined to assist her financially to become an attorney. The district court entered 

summary judgment for the Department. It correctly concluded that Williams furnished 

 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 17-3363 Page 2

no evidence that the Department had violated any of its obligations under Title I of the 

Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 720–753a, so we affirm.

The Department’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation administers vocational 

rehabilitation services using funds allocated through Title I of the Rehabilitation Act to 

assist “individuals with disabilities” in attaining gainful employment. 29 U.S.C. 

§ 720(a)(2). One service is the creation of an “individualized plan for employment,” 

which describes the client’s employment goal and the services that the Division will 

provide to reach that goal. 29 U.S.C. § 722(b)(4). The plan must be consistent with the 

client’s “unique strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, 

and informed choice” and must be approved by both the client and a qualified 

vocational rehabilitation counselor. Id. § 722(b)(3)(C), (4)(A).

Williams, who has anxiety and diabetes, decided in 2016 to pursue a goal of 

becoming a civil-rights attorney. She informed her counselor, Patrick Schultz, of that 

goal. Schultz raised several concerns. He noted that the Division typically could pay 

only $5,000 in tuition expenses, so he worried about how Williams would cover the 

remaining cost. He also asked Williams to research graduation and placement rates for 

the law schools to which she intended to apply, and to speak to attorneys. Furthermore, 

Williams suggested to Schultz that she may have an undiagnosed learning disability, so 

she would need to undergo testing for such a disorder before the Division could 

consider supporting a new employment plan.

Without taking any of these steps, Williams wrote an employment plan and 

submitted it to Schultz for signature. The plan contemplated that the Division would 

pay for all law-school tuition, books, supplies, a tutor, school clothes, an 

assistive-technology assessment, transportation, and parking. In response, Schultz sent 

Williams a denial letter, noting his concerns about her undiagnosed learning disability 

and the fact that Williams had not yet applied to or been accepted to any law schools.

Williams has challenged the denial of her employment plan. First she did so 

administratively, see 29 U.S.C. § 722(c)(5). After a hearing, an administrative law judge 

concluded that the Division had properly denied Williams’s proposed employment 

plan. The ALJ noted that the Division had to assess whether her employment goal was 

consistent with her strengths and capabilities, and thus needed to assess whether she 

had a learning disability. Because Williams had refused to undergo that assessment, the

Division permissibly declined to approve Williams’s plan.
No. 17-3363 Page 3

Her next step was this suit. See 29 U.S.C. § 722(c)(5)(J)(i). The district court 

eventually entered summary judgment on her claim that the Division violated the 

Rehabilitation Act by refusing to approve her employment plan. The judge concluded

that the Act did not require the Division to provide Williams with the precise services 

that she demanded. By the time of that court’s decision, Williams had finally submitted 

to psychological testing and been admitted to a law school. But those later 

developments did not undermine the propriety of the Division’s earlier denial based on 

Williams’s status at that time. 

On appeal Williams argues generally that she was “denied access to a job goal 

outcome” after “exercising [her] right” to develop an individualized plan for 

employment. Her appellate brief consists of unexplained block quotations from the Act 

and the Division’s manual. To the extent that she intends to argue that the Division was 

obligated to approve her self-created employment plan, her argument fails. 

We begin with the statute’s terms and conclude that the Division did not violate 

the Rehabilitation Act by declining to endorse Williams’s plan. Title I of the Act requires

vocational counselors to consider a client’s “informed choice” and “interests” in 

creating an employment plan, but they must also assess the client’s “strengths, 

resources ... abilities, [and] capabilities.” 29 U.S.C. § 722(b)(4)(A); see also Reaves v. Mo. 

Dep’t of Elementary & Secondary Educ., 422 F.3d 675, 681–82 (8th Cir. 2005).1 In a suit 

attacking whether an agency has followed these mandates, a reviewing court must base 

its decision on the preponderance of the evidence in the record. 29 U.S.C. § 722(c)(5)(J). 

The record evidence here warrants upholding the Division’s decision. At the time of its

decision, Williams did not allow the Division to evaluate her capabilities: she refused 

the Division’s request to test her ability to learn a law-school curriculum. Moreover, she 

had not applied to law school, much less been accepted, further preventing the Division 

 

1 The Department refers to our decision in Mallett v. Wisconsin Division of 

Vocational Rehabilitation, 130 F.3d 1245 (7th Cir. 1997). That case, if we were to follow it, 

would require us to reject Williams’s claim entirely because in it we held that covered 

persons had no private right of action to enforce Title I’s requirements. Id. at 1251. But 

we do not follow Mallett, and the Department should not have relied on it, because 

Congress expressly overturned it through a 1998 amendment to Title I that provided a

private right to bring civil actions to challenge decisions of vocational rehabilitation 

agencies. 29 U.S.C. § 722(c)(5)(J); see Millay v. Me. Dep’t of Labor, 762 F.3d 152, 155 

(1st Cir. 2014) (citing Workforce Investment Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-220, sec. 404, 

§ 102, 112 Stat. 936, 1146).
No. 17-3363 Page 4

from assessing her ability to achieve her goal of becoming a lawyer. And she has not 

identified any information that she supplied to the Division from which it could have 

reasonably assessed her relevant strengths. In light of her inactions, the Division’s

rejection of her plan was sound.

Williams replies that she has now satisfied her vocational counselor’s concerns, 

as she has taken a learning-disability assessment and been admitted to law school. We 

may assume that this is true, but these later developments do not call into question the 

Division’s decision, which occurred before Williams took these actions. Furthermore, 

nothing prevents Williams from using the new developments to work with the Division

to craft a mutually agreeable employment plan that reflects her currently assessable 

strengths.

AFFIRMED