Disabled Persons, Rights of

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

In 1975, Congress passed, and President Gerald Ford signed, landmark legislation known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHCA). At that [Page 244]time, the EHCA was the most comprehensive federal legislation that provided educational rights for students with disabilities. The EHCA was not an independent act but was an amendment to previous legislation that provided funds to the states for educating students with disabilities. An important feature of the EHCA, as opposed to previous legislation, was that it was permanent, whereas earlier special education statutes expired if they were not reauthorized.

The EHCA was enacted partly in response to a number of federal lawsuits that had been filed seeking to secure educational rights for students with disabilities. In passing the EHCA, Congress found that the educational needs of millions of children with disabilities had not been met, because their disabilities had not been properly diagnosed, and appropriate educational services were not available; many children were excluded from the educational system, and resources within the public schools were not adequate.

The EHCA was given its current title, the IDEA, in 1990. As it now stands, the IDEA mandates a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) for all students with disabilities between the ages of 3 and 21. The law requires school personnel to develop individualized education programs (IEPs) in meetings with students' parents for any children who require special education and related services. The IDEA is very explicit as to how IEPs are to be developed and what they must contain. Further, the IDEA includes a detailed system of due process safeguards to protect the rights of students and guarantees that its provisions are enforced.

The IDEA has been amended every few years since the original enactment of the EHCA in 1975. An early amendment, the Handicapped Children's Protection Act (1986), added a clause to allow parents who prevail in litigation against their school boards to recover legal expenses. A second amendment passed that same year, the Education of the Handicapped Amendments of 1986, provided grants to states to provide services to children with disabilities from birth to age 2. The 1990 amendments, in addition to changing the statute's name, also included a provision to abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity to litigation.

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