Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

12-2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE)

Reader 1

John Pitney

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Rights Information

2025 Sophie Shaw W Wolters

Abstract

This paper argues that because the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was based on court rulings that emphasized procedural protections and due process rather than substantive levels of services, it has failed to guarantee an appropriate education for all children with disabilities. Leading up to the 1970s, most children with disabilities were excluded from education. Then, disability rights advocates capitalized on civil rights advancements by appealing to the equal protection principle. However, there are fundamental differences between the protections needed for children with disabilities and other historically marginalized groups. Establishing equality for individuals with disabilities requires more than access to the same facilities, but also individualized services tailored to each child’s needs so that they can reach their highest potential. By refusing to treat disability as a suspect classification under the Equal Protection Clause, the Supreme Court constrained the judiciary’s ability to define and enforce a substantive vision of equality for students with disabilities. Also, because education is not explicitly recognized as a constitutional right, the Court concluded that it lacked authority to impose a substantive national standard of educational quality. With limited capacity to enforce systemic reforms and little constitutional guidance to establish substantive education quality for children with disabilities, lower courts instead emphasized parents’ rights and local responsibility in shaping individualized services. As a result, enforcing educational equality for students with disabilities centered on procedural compliance rather than on whether children with disabilities were actually receiving meaningful educational benefits. However, landmark district court decrees embedded with these limitations helped shape the first federal legislation that guaranteed the right to Free Appropriate Education for all children with disabilities (later renamed the IDEA). By modeling legislation on these court decrees, Congress codified an ineffective enforcement structure that placed undue responsibility on parents to ensure their children received appropriate services. While the IDEA has successfully ended outright exclusion, it has failed to guarantee substantive equality. The IDEA’s inadequate enforcement mechanisms disproportionately leave children from low-income families and those in high-poverty schools without the quality services they need. Without congressional reform to strengthen public oversight and reduce the burden of parent-driven enforcement, the quality of special education services will continue to depend mainly on unequal district capacity and parental resources rather than on consistent federal support.

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