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Page Number: 8.0

4 

ENDREW F. v. DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DIST. RE–1 

Opinion of the Court 

preter  in  all  of  her  classes.    Contending  that  the  school 
district’s  refusal  to  furnish  an  interpreter  denied  Amy  a 
FAPE,  Amy’s  parents  initiated  administrative  proceed-
ings,  then  filed  a  lawsuit  under  the  Act.    Rowley,  458 
U. S., at 184–185. 

The  District  Court  agreed  that  Amy  had  been  denied  a
FAPE.  The  court  acknowledged  that  Amy  was  making 
excellent progress in school: She was “perform[ing] better
than the average child in her class” and “advancing easily 
Id.,  at  185  (internal  quotation
from  grade  to  grade.” 
marks  omitted).  At  the  same  time,  Amy  “under[stood]
considerably less of what goes on in class than she could if 
she were not deaf.”  Ibid. (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  Concluding  that  “it  has  been  left  entirely  to  the 
courts  and  the  hearings  officers  to  give  content  to  the 
requirement  of  an  ‘appropriate  education,’ ”  483  F. Supp.
528, 533 (SDNY 1980), the District Court ruled that Amy’s 
education was not “appropriate” unless it provided her “an
opportunity  to  achieve  [her]  full  potential  commensurate
with the opportunity provided to other children.”  Rowley, 
458 U. S., at 185–186 (internal quotation marks omitted). 
The  Second  Circuit  agreed  with  this  analysis  and 
affirmed. 

In  this  Court,  the  parties  advanced  starkly  different
understandings of the FAPE requirement.  Amy’s parents
defended  the  approach  of  the  lower  courts,  arguing  that
the school district was required to provide instruction and
services  that  would  provide  Amy  an  “equal  educational 
opportunity” relative to children without disabilities.  Id., 
at  198  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).   The  school 
district,  for  its  part,  contended  that  the  IDEA  “did  not 
create  substantive  individual  rights”;  the  FAPE  provision 
was  instead  merely  aspirational.    Brief  for  Petitioners  in 
Rowley, O. T. 1981, No. 80–1002, pp. 28, 41. 

Neither position carried the day.  On the one hand, this 
Court rejected the view that the IDEA gives  “courts carte