Co.

We must decide, among other things, whether a parent may bring a claim for nominal damages under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

I

In the 1970s, there was considerable concern about the manner in which children with disabilities were educated in this country, particularly the tendency of educators to isolate them from their non-disabled peers. Congress responded by passing the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Pub.L. No. 94-142, 89 Stat. 773 (1975), which evolved into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. The goal of this landmark legislation was to “ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education” (a “FAPE”). 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (d). Congress, however, never sought to lay out a comprehensive definition of that term. Instead, it set out broad requirements, see, e.g., id. § 1412(a)(5) (requiring disabled children to be educated in the same classrooms as nondisabled children to the “maximum extent appropriate”), offered States funds in order to pursue them, and granted the United States Department of Education authority to monitor how those funds were…