In Texas, state law requires most people under age 25 to attend a state-licensed private driver education school to obtain a driver’s license. None of the schools accommodate deaf students. So a number of deaf students sued the Texas Education Agency (TEA) arguing it was required to bring the driver education schools into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).    

In Ivy v. Morath the Supreme Court was supposed to decide when state and local governments are responsible for ensuring that a private actor complies with the ADA. The Court dismissed the case concluding it was moot most likely because Texas claimed that four of the students suing completed the driver education course and one moved out of state.

The ADA states that no qualified individual with a disability may be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of public entity “services, programs, or activities” because of a disability. The Fifth Circuit concluded that the ADA does not apply to the TEA because it does not provide “services, programs, or activities.” “Here, the TEA itself does not teach driver education, contract with driver education schools, or issue driver education certificates to individual students.”

A dissenting judge concluded the TEA was responsible for enforcing the ADA in this case because “even though the driving schools perform the actual day-to-day instruction, instruction is but one component of the broader program of driver education that is continually overseen and regulated in discrete detail by TEA.”

The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief on the side of neither party. It argued that the test shouldn’t be whether the state or local government is providing the service but instead whether a private actor may fairly be said to be implementing a service, program, or activity of the public entity. Agreeing with the majority opinion (and disagreeing with the dissenting opinion) in this case, the SLLC brief also argues that no amount of regulation or licensing of a private actor requires a state or local government to enforce the ADA against a private actor.

It is likely that the Court will accept another case raising this issue soon. It has been litigated in other contexts, including state lotteries, taxi cabs, and liquor stores.

Richard A. Simpson, Tara Ward, and Emily Hart, Wiley Rein, wrote the SLLC amicus brief which was joined by  the Council of State Governments, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, United States Conference of Mayors, International City/County Management Association, and the International Municipal Lawyers Association.