Georgia Advocacy Office, et al v. The State of Georgia, et al

In 2017, parents of children with disabilities, the Center for Public Representation, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Georgia Advocacy Office, The Arc, DLA Piper LLP, and the Goodmark Law Firm filed a class action lawsuit in federal court alleging that the State of Georgia has discriminated against thousands of public school students with disabilities by providing them with a separate and unequal education via the State’s Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Supports Program (GNETS). The complaint, filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges that the State, in denying GNETS students the opportunity to be educated with their non-disabled peers in neighborhood schools, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

GNETS systematically segregates students with disability-related behaviors across the state. At the time the lawsuit was filed, approximately 3,000 students with disabilities, a disproportionate number of whom are students of color, were in the GNETS programs. Most of the GNETS centers are housed in completely separate schools. Other GNETS centers are inside regular schools but typically are housed in locked wings or have separate entrances, effectively operating as a separate school within the school. GNETS students are not only segregated from their non-disabled peers but also receive an inferior education. GNETS students often are not taught by properly trained and certified teachers; many are primarily taught through computers. Students cannot access the basic classes they need to earn a diploma, resulting in a graduation rate for GNETS students far lower than the rate for students generally. Many GNETS centers do not provide access to basic school services like gyms, libraries, or science labs. In addition, GNETS students are deprived of important co-curricular opportunities that other students enjoy, such as playing sports or participating in the school play. Learn more about GNETS with these infographics.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated GNETS and found that it violates Title II of the ADA by (1) unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities from their peers and (2) providing opportunities to GNETS students that are unequal to those provided to other students throughout the state. The investigation eventually culminated in a 2016 lawsuit by DOJ against the State.

On March 19, 2020, the Court denied the State of Georgia’s Motion to Dismiss the GNETS case. The Court accepted the arguments made by CPR and its co-counsel in their brief opposing the Motion to Dismiss and a supplemental brief submitted after oral argument that Plaintiffs should be allowed to prove that the GNETS system violates the rights of students with disabilities under the ADA, Section 504, and the U.S. Constitution.

In December, 2023, Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification and partial summary judgment and Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. On September 27, 2024, the court issued a decision against Plaintiffs, finding that Plaintiffs lack standing on all claims. The court found that Plaintiffs had not shown that they were unnecessarily institutionalized or at risk of unnecessary institutionalization and on that basis, found that Plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue their Olmstead claims. As to Plaintiffs’ claims that they were denied an equal educational opportunity in violation of the ADA and the U.S. Constitution, the court found that Plaintiffs had provided evidence that they were or would be injured by the unequal services and opportunities in GNETS, but that their injuries were not traceable to State Defendants nor redressable by the court, since the state did not exercise sufficient control over GNETS. The court dismissed the case with prejudice.

On October 25, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Reconsideration, asking the court to reconsider its ruling based on several significant errors. The errors include: the court analyzing a plaintiff who was dismissed from the case and ignoring a newly added plaintiff who is currently in GNETS; failing to properly consider the standing of organizational plaintiffs The Arc and the Georgia protection and advocacy agency; not considering the obligations of all defendants including the state Medicaid agency; and making improper factual determinations on a motion for summary judgment.

As to the parallel DOJ case, the court granted DOJ’s motion for partial summary judgment on August 16, 2024, finding that “. . . the State is subject to the Integration Mandate [of the ADA] and grants DOJ’s motion for partial summary judgment and…denies the State’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of standing.” The decision was initially issued under seal, but the publicly issued order can be read here.

A note of interest is that the state defendants filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, –U.S.–, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024). The state filed a similar Notice in the DOJ case. The Loper Bright decision changed the way courts should consider administrative agencies’ interpretation of statutes such as the ADA. The state argued that it could escape liability for discriminating against GNETS students under the ADA because Plaintiffs had argued that the state defendants “administer” GNETS, and that word is only found in the ADA regulations and not in the statute itself. Both the DOJ and Plaintiffs in the GAO case responded that the ADA regulations remain valid and that the state’s control over, and corresponding ADA obligations with respect to, GNETS did not change because of Loper Bright. In their respective summary judgment decisions, both courts declined to address whether Loper Bright applied (see GAO v. Georgia summary judgment decision p. 73 n. 21 and U.S. v. Georgia summary judgment decision p. 35 n. 14).