Scholar argues that courts should adopt a systemic violation exception to IDEA’s exhaustion requirement.
Federal law requires that students with disabilities receive an education tailored to their individual needs. Schools may provide services such as speech therapy, classroom aides, or technologies that help with reading and communication. Yet enforcing students’ rights to an accessible education often means that families must go through a series of arduous school-run meetings and hearings before bringing their concerns to court.
In a recent article, Chris Yarrell, a staff attorney at the Center for Law and Education, advocates changing this current process, known as exhaustion of administrative remedies, by which families must give schools the first chance to address problems through internal procedures such as mediation or due process hearings before they can file lawsuits in court. Yarrell argues that courts should create an exception for systemic violations of students’ educational rights, such as when schools unnecessarily segregate students with disabilities, by allowing these families to seek immediate remedies through litigation.
In 2004, Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to ensure that students with disabilities can obtain a free appropriate public education. To achieve this goal, IDEA requires that all students with disabilities be educated in the least restrictive environment, meaning that they should learn alongside their peers in general classrooms whenever their needs can be met with sufficient support.
Yarrell argues that this approach benefits all students, with and without disabilities. Yarrell notes that inclusion leads to higher academic achievement and improved communication skills for students with disabilities, while fostering greater social awareness and empathy among their peers.
To enforce students’ rights to learn alongside their peers without disabilities, IDEA directs families to pursue administrative remedies, such as mediations with school administrators and resolution sessions, before filing any lawsuits. Yarrell notes that this exhaustion requirement gives schools the first opportunity to address disputes and allows education experts to resolve issues turning to courts.
Although exhaustion is intended to resolve disputes efficiently, Yarrell argues that it is better suited for individualized claims. He explains that families contesting a single child’s education plan may benefit from mediations or hearings, but that these proceedings cannot address systemic issues, such as the overuse of segregated classrooms. Yarrell contends that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities face systemic barriers beyond the reach of individualized claims, a gap that reflects how states’ broad discretion under IDEA can perpetuate inequitable outcomes.
Yarrell notes that IDEA does not define what qualifies as a “most significant cognitive disability,” leaving states broad discretion in classification that leads to inconsistent practices across states. For example, in Massachusetts, vague criteria for identifying students with the most significant cognitive disabilities have contributed to patterns that run counter to IDEA’s integration goals, including the overidentification and segregation of students with disabilities, Yarrell argues.
To show how these classifications translate into education disparities, Yarrell points to federal testing inequities. Federal law dictates that every student, including those with disabilities, take part in state-wide assessments to monitor their academic progress. States are limited to testing no more than 1 percent of students on alternate academic standards, which are intended for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Yarrell notes that Massachusetts has exceeded this 1 percent cap every academic year since 2017–2018.
Massachusetts also requires students to pass a comprehensive exam to graduate high school. Because students classified with significant cognitive disabilities are held to different standards and are far more likely to be educated in separate classrooms, many students are not prepared for Massachusetts’ graduation assessment, Yarrell contends. He argues that this system sets students with disabilities up to fail and results in lower graduation rates.
He also argues that the effects of Massachusetts’s overclassification and segregation of disabled students extends beyond high school. Students who do not receive a standard diploma face reduced access to higher education and lower rates of employment. According to Yarrell, these outcomes illustrate how systemic placement and assessment practices can undermine IDEA’s core purpose of ensuring meaningful educational opportunities for all students.
Yarrell argues that problems such as those in Massachusetts underscore why exhaustion can be ill-suited for systemic challenges. Even when state practices undermine IDEA’s basic goals, administrative remedies such as mediations remain focused on individual students and cannot remedy structural patterns. Yarrell argues that this disconnect between systemic harms and individualized remedies demonstrates why a consistent exception for systemic violations is so important.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that families can pursue remedies not available under IDEA, such as monetary damages, without first exhausting IDEA’s administrative procedures. But the Court left unresolved another critical issue: whether exhaustion is necessary when administrative proceedings would be futile, such as in cases alleging systemic violations.
This gap has divided the federal courts of appeals, Yarrell notes. Some courts require exhaustion in nearly all circumstances, even when doing so imposes significant delays on families. Others recognize exhaustion exceptions for systemic or structural claims. Still, uncertainty about what constitutes a systemic violation has produced inconsistent outcomes.
Yarrell proposes that all courts adopt the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s view of the systemic violation exception. Under the Ninth Circuit’s standard, claims are considered systemic when challenging policies that undermine the reliability of IDEA’s dispute-resolution procedures or when those processes require structural changes to educational programs.
Yarrell argues that this approach provides a workable framework for courts by preserving exhaustion for individualized disputes while ensuring that families can bypass administrative processes when they cannot offer meaningful relief. He notes that Massachusetts illustrates precisely the kind of systemic harm the Ninth Circuit’s test is designed to capture: segregation and evaluation practices that risk denying students a free appropriate public education.
The Ninth Circuit’s definition remains consistent with IDEA’s purpose, Yarrell emphasizes. He argues that practices that undermine efforts to promote inclusive classrooms or track students into failure threaten IDEA’s integrity. Yarrell concludes that adopting the Ninth Circuit standard would better balance the efficiency goals of exhaustion with the need to remedy systemic practices that undermine IDEA’s protections.
