Georgia State Conference of Branches of NAACP v. State of Georgia
Review important legislation:
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13th Amendment: (Library of Congress)
o Amendment that abolished slavery
o "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
th
14 amendment: (Library of Congress)
o Prohibits states from denying any person life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law or to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the law.
 Education is a property right, therefore it is unconstitutional for any state
to deny a student of an equal opportunity to access free and public
education
Section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973:
o states that "no qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall be
excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under"
any program or activity that either receives Federal financial assistance or is
conducted by any Executive agency
 This includes educational services if the school is receiving federal
funding
Prior cases:
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Hobson v. Hansen was the first to challenge the disproportionate assignment of minority
children (specifically African American) to lower ability tracks
o The judge noted that the tracking system was rigid and the lower tracks offered
inferior educational opportunities and children were grouped based on biased
group ability tests
o The judge found that this was a violation of the 14th amendment and ordered that
the placement system be abolished
 Neither federal law nor Georgia state law mandate or prohibit ability
grouping
 Ability groupings were not found to be unconstitutional, however the way
students were being grouped and the fact that the lower groups were
receiving inferior levels of education was unconstituntional
Larry P. v. Riles (1979) (Reschley et al., 1988)
o Involved a class of African American children in California who had been or
would be wrongly placed and maintained in special education
o They challenged the placement process of using IQ tests
o They claimed that IQ tests in their present form are biased and that using them
discriminates against African American children.
o They thought that the use of IQ tests resulted in misplacement of African
American children in special classes which leads to stigma, inadequate education,
and failure to develop the skills necessary to succeed in society
o The courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and the court stated that this process was
violating the students civil rights and it was violating section 504.
Current case:
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The case of Georgia was a class action suit filed on the behalf of 45 students (LEAGEL)
o The defendants listed in this case were: State of Georgia, the state superintendent
of schools, the state board of education, and Americus, Bleckley, Burke, Coweta,
Crisp, Evans, Jefferson, lee, Liberty, Miller Thomaston, Pelham and Vidalia
school districts
o There were two causes of action:
 They alleged that the use of achievement grouping in the Georgia public
schools is intended to achieve or result in intra-school racial segregation.
 This is a violation of the 13th and 14th amendment
 Second, black children in Georgia are assigned to EMR (educable
mentally retarded) programs in a discriminatory manner.
 Violation of the 13th and 14th amendment and section 504 of the
rehabilitation act of 1973
 Evidence was shown that students were being assigned to groups based on
achievement rather than ability
 This resulted in a disproportionate number of African American
students being assigned to lower-achievement groups
o The courts held that ability grouping that resulted in within-school segregation
may be permissible IF the school district can demonstrate that its grouping
practices will remedy the results of past segregation by providing better
educational opportunities for children.
 The courts ruled in favor of the schools because they were able to show
that their achievement groupings were flexible and likely to benefit
students because the instruction was matched with ability
 They then provided evidence that pupils in the lower track were
benefiting from the grouping which lead to enhanced educational
opportunities for African American Students.
o Comparison of Black and White Mildly Retarded Students From Marshall v.
Georgia (Reschely, D. J. & kicklighter, R. J., 1985)
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A random sample of black and white students from the districts in the
Marshall v. Georgia case were compared on numerous variables including
preplacement evaluation, classification and placement in special education
On almost all variables, black and white students were the same
 The data suggested that white children had slightly greater
impairment
 Only one student of the 69 evaluated was misplaced in the mildly
mentally retarded category
 Although 68 of the students were appropriately placed there was
evidence that prepraplacement evaluations were below standards
for best practice.
Cases after the fact:
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Simmons v. Hooks, 1994 (Simmon V. Hooks)
o The claim was brought forward by the parents of Simmons saying that their child
had been discriminated and segregated due to race through ability grouping in the
schools
o Georgia was sited and the same ruling was made
Differences between Hobson and Marshall: (Reschley, et al., 1988)
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In Hobson IQ testing was used to formulate groups whereas skill acquisition in basal
curricula was used in Marshall
The assignment to groups in Marshall was flexible in that it was easy for student to move
from one group to the next, however groups in Hobson were rigid
In Marshall the groupings led to enhanced educational opportunities instead of lowered
educational opportunities
o The instruction matched the students’ ability level
o This was evident through test scores and other educational data collected showing
that the minority students were improving through this instruction
How should we group to achieve excellence with equity? (Grossen, B., 1996)
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Review of achievement grouping and tracking found that grouping arrangements alone is
not the primary variable in school effectiveness
Research showed that mixed-age grouping based on achievement is effective for
instruction in reading and math
Equity is clearly served when the growth rates of children starting at low achievement
levels matches or exceeds the growth rates of children starting at high achievement
levels.
Effect on School Psychology:
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Gold & Richards address whether labeling African American children as having a
learning disability is advantageous given the general overrepresentation of African
American children in special education
They argue that labeling African American children can be counterproductive due to the
extra baggage associated with being labeled causing it to be a burden too heavy to carry
According to Patton (1998) many people still ask the question of whether the
overrepresentation of African American children in special education is really a problem
o There is over 20 years of data that show that overrepresentation of minorities in
special education is still occurring which means that many children are getting
misdiagnosed, mislabeled, and not receiving appropriate educational services
Relevance to school psychologists and Clinical psychologists
o School psychologists are the ones that will be doing the testing and assessments
of children to help decide if a student should be placed in special education
 It is important for us to get a good background history when conducting an
assessment and remembering that every test we administer will have
cultural bias in it
 Once these two things are done the results of the testing should then be
interpreted within in the context of culture and the child’s previous
exposures
 This is especially important to consider with the growing number of ELL
students and minority population in the US
 These factors are also important for clinical psychologists not working in
the schools to take into consideration
 Although not all of their reports and decisions will directly affect
children in the schools if they don’t have a multicultural mindset in
doing evaluations they can inappropriate place individuals in
services that are not appropriate.
o This can include rehabilitation services, disability
evaluations, competency evaluations, etc.
o As school psychologists we also have the unique opportunity to education teachers
and administrators on these issues
 Teachers will be responsible at some schools for administering screening
tools like DIBELS so it is important that they know the history of minority
over representation in lower level services
Reflection:
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From what we had learned in class I realized overrepresentation of minorities in special
education had once been a problem, but until researching it further I wasn’t aware that it
was a continuing problem in the schools and as advocates for children it is our job to
work to reverse this problem
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Previously I have not had to do research on lawsuits, so when I started this process I was
unaware of where to go to get reliable information. However after completing this project
I have resources that I can use in the future when I need to look up specific court cases of
legislation.
References
Gold, M. E. & Richards, H. (2012). To label or not to label: The special education question for
African Americans. Educational Foundations, 26, 143-156.
Grossen, B. (1996). How should we group to achieve excellence with equity? National Center to
Improve the Tools of Educators, 1-18.
Jacob, S., Decker, D. M., & Hartshorne, T. S. (2011). Ethics and Law. Hoboken, New Jersey:
Wiley.
LEAGEL. GA. STATE CONF. OF BR. OF NAACP V. STATE OF GA. Retrieved from:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/19852178775F2d1403_11977
Patton, J. M. (1998). The disproportionate representation of African Americans in special
education. The Journal of Special Education 32, 25-31.
Reschley, D. J. & Kicklighter, R. J. (1985). Comparison of black and white mildly retarded
students from Marshall v. Georgia. Retrieved from: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED270938
Reschly, D. J., Kicklighter, R., & McKee, P. (1988). Recent placement litigation: I. Regular
education grouping: Comparison of Marshall (1984, 1985) and Hobson (1967,1969).
School Psychology Review, 17(1), 9-21.
Reschly, D. J., Kicklighter, R., & McKee, P. (1988). Recent placement litigation: II. Minority
EMR overrepresentation: Comparison of Larry P. (1979, 1984, 1986) with Marshall
(1984, 1985) and S-1 (1986). School Psychology Review, 17(1), 2-38.
Simmon v. Hooks. 843 F. Supp. (1994). Retrieved from:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15366944577577798413&q=Simmons+v.+Hooks
&hl=en&as_sdt=800006&as_vis=1
The Library of Congress. (2013, November 19th). Primary Document in American History.
Retrieved from: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs.html
U.S. Department of Justice. (2009, July). A Guide to Disability Rights Law. Retrieved from:
http://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm#anchor65610