A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools: The U.S. Supreme Court and Students With Disabilities

In April 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in A.J.T v. Osseo Area Schools , Independent School District No. 279 . The case involved a lawsuit centering on Ava, a teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy. Her parents alleged the district discriminated against Ava when it refused to appropriately accommodate her unique needs. Because Ava attended school in Minnesota, which is in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, her parents had to satisfy the eighth circuit court’s standard requiring that school district personnel had to act on bad faith or use gross misjudgment, before they could prevail in an educational discrimination case. In ruling in favor of the parents, the Supreme Court emphatically held that children with disabilities seeking relief for education-related discrimination do not need to satisfy a more stringent legal test than in other contexts in which plaintiffs sue for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. We discuss the principles of this case and its significant implications regarding the rights of students with disabilities and their parents.