Court Opinion

ID: 9428893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:04.802696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.953187
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
Although I reach the same result as the Court does today, I read the legislative history and goals of the Education of the Handicapped Act differently. Congress unambiguously stated that it intended to “take a more active role under its responsibility for equal protection of the laws to guarantee that handicapped children are provided equal educational opportunity.” S. Rep. No. 94r-168, p. 9 (1975) (emphasis added). See also 20 U. S. C. § 1412(2)(A)(i) (requiring States to establish plans with the “goal of providing full educational opportunity to all handicapped children”).
As I have observed before, “[i]t seems plain to me that Congress, in enacting [this statute], intended to do more than merely set out politically self-serving but essentially meaningless language about what the [handicapped] deserve at the hands of state . . . authorities.” Pennhurst State School v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 32 (1981) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The clarity of the legislative *211intent convinces me that the relevant question here is not, as the Court says, whether Amy Rowley’s individualized education program was “reasonably calculated to enable [her] to receive educational benefits,” ante, at 207, measured in part by whether or not she “achieve[s] passing marks and advance^] from grade to grade,” ante, at 204. Rather, the question is whether Amy’s program, viewed as a whole, offered her an opportunity to understand and participate in the classroom that was substantially equal to that given her non-handicapped classmates. This is a standard predicated on equal educational opportunity and equal access to the educational process, rather than upon Amy’s achievement of any particular educational outcome.
In answering this question, I believe that the District Court and the Court of Appeals should have given greater deference than they did to the findings of the School District’s impartial hearing officer and the State’s Commissioner of Education, both of whom sustained petitioners’ refusal to add a sign-language interpreter to Amy’s individualized education program. Cf. 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e)(2) (requiring reviewing court to “receive the records of the administrative proceedings” before granting relief). I would suggest further that those courts focused too narrowly on the presence or absence of a particular service — a sign-language interpreter — rather than on the total package of services furnished to Amy by the School Board.
As the Court demonstrates, ante, at 184-185, petitioner Board has provided Amy Rowley considerably more than “a teacher with a loud voice.” See post, at 215 (dissenting opinion). By concentrating on whether Amy was “learning as much, or performing as well academically, as she would without her handicap,” 483 F. Supp. 528, 532 (SDNY 1980), the District Court and the Court of Appeals paid too little attention to whether, on the entire record, respondent’s individualized education program offered her an educational op*212portunity substantially equal to that provided her nonhandicapped classmates. Because I believe that standard has been satisfied here, I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed.