Legal aspects of special education with respect to program inclusion or exclusion based solely on disabilities

With the advent of the civil rights movement in America in the 1960's, equality of education for all students has been in the forefront of judicial decisions. With the passage of numerous public laws, Congress has provided definitions of the rights of individuals with disabilities and guarantees of due process. However, by not clearly defining these rights, Congress left clarification to the courts and created problems for educators and administrators. The procedure used in this study involved analysis of judicial decisions, case law and federal and selected state statutes. Primary sources were state and federal court decisions involving exceptional children and children with disabilities. Students attended either elementary or secondary public schools; no cases involving private schools were included. No cases involving public or private community college, college or university students were reviewed