Excerpt: In T.O. v. Fort Bend Independent School District (Case No. 21-1014), lawyers for the family had urged the justices to take up the case because federal courts of appeals were divided about when and how public school students may assert federal constitutional claims alleging excessive force by school officials.
A coalition of disability rights groups, in a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the student, urged the court to take up the case, arguing that while corporal punishment has declined in Texas and other states that permit it, “the threat of excess force at school has shifted, not disappeared.”
“Today, children with disabilities far too often suffer physical and mental abuse in school,” says the brief by Disability Rights Texas and other groups. “They are struck, restrained, and isolated in numbers far beyond other children.”
Read the full Supreme Court Denies Appeal From 1st Grader With Disabilities Put In Chokehold by Teacher article on the Education Week Website.