The Case About Amy

7. "Full Potential" in the Court

"Full Potential" in the Court With the decision ofthe three-judge circuit court favoring the Rowleys and the strong dissent ofJudge Mansfield, the case had begun to attract the attention of the major media. Two days after the decision was announced, the New York Times carried a lead editorial with the arresting title, "Going Wrong with Handicapped Rights."It was a curious editorial, which did not mention the Rowleys by name and gave few particulars of the case. It began in the familiar "sounds good ... but" editorial vein. "It sounds humane for a Federal Appeals Court to rule that the schools of Peekskill, New York, are legally obliged to provide a personal sign-language interpreter for a bright, partly-deaf 8-year-old pupil. But even the judges who so read the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 recoiled from the precedent; they were not saying all deaf children, they insisted. Maybe not. The trend, however, is alarmingly clear. A humane Federal benefit is turning into a state and local obligation with no sign that the Federal Government means to pay for what it decrees."* This "viewing with alarm" tone was sustained throughout the editorial. The Times noted that New York State's outlays had "doubled" (from when was not clear) to $300 million a year. The federal government, the editorial writer noted, was paying only 12 percent ofthe additional costs ofspecial education nationally, rather than the 40 percent it had promised to pay. After noting, almost as though in passing, that handicapped children had • New York Times,]uly19, 1980,p.16. CopyrightJa~aterial "Full Potential" in the Court been neglected by our educational system in the past and that they are "entitled to the best possible instruction," it got down to its conclusions. ''It is perverse for Congress and the courts to define an 'appropriate education ' only for the handicapped and write rules that result in the deprivation ofother children. The allocation ofscarce local resources is necessarily a political matter, best left to local government. If Washington wants to help, the right way would be through special education grants that can be used at local discretion. lt is no favor to the handicapped to make them the beneficiaries ofunique rhetorical rights and the object oflocal resentment." The editorial was given immediate circulation among members of the Hendrick Hudson Board of Education by Superintendent Charles Eible, who noted that the Times had editorially "expressed its concern" over the Rowley decision and that "Judge Mansfield agreed with the position taken by the district and in fact praised the district for its major effort on Amy's behalf." He added, that after studying the decision with school district attorney Raymond Kuntz, he would call a meeting of the board "to review various options and decide on a future course of action." * From Floral Park, on July 21, Michael Chatoff sent a letter to the New York Times, in which he chided the editorial board for its description of Amy. "She is not 'partly' deaf, whatever that means. She is severely deafshe cannot process linguistic communications through hearing alone." Chatoff then attempted to set the record straight on what the Rowleys sought. ''You talk about providing handicapped children with the 'best possible education' but the plaintiffs never argued for such a standard and the district court and court of appeals specifically rejected such a standard. They adopted the standard enunciated in federal law, that each child is entitled to an equal educational opportunity, that child's disability notwithstanding . In the case ofa child who is deaf, that means the provision ofservices that will provide the child with the same opportunity as other children to understand what is said in the classroom. A more reasonable standard cannot be imagined." The Times did not publish the letter. In the light ofwhat subsequently happened, the Times editorial is worth a closer, critical perusal. First of all it minimized the disability involved, Amy's deafness, by describing her as "partly" deaf. Then it singled out individuals with disabilities as having been placed in a category ofneed above and beyond all other students. What could one make ofthis sentence-"lt • Memo to Board ofEducation, Hendrick Hudson Central School District, from Charles Eible, July 21, 1980. 127 Copyrighted Material Chapter 7 is perverse for Congress and the courts to define an 'appropriate' education only [author's emphasis] for the handicapped and write rules that result...