The US Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that public school students with disabilities may pursue discrimination lawsuits under the same standard of proof that applies when people sue other institutions for discrimination based on disability claims, sweeping aside a higher legal standard used by some lower courts.

Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the heightened test as textually unsupported. He stated: “Together [students with disabilities] face daunting challenges on a daily basis… We hold today that those challenges do not include having to satisfy a more stringent standard of proof than other plaintiffs.” The justices vacated a ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and sent the case back for new proceedings under the easier “deliberate indifference” benchmark.

The decision came in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, a case brought by Ava Tharpe, a Minnesota teenager whose rare form of epilepsy leaves her alert only after midday. When her new school district refused to provide evening instruction, she received about two-thirds of the classroom time her peers enjoyed. The lower courts said the family could sue only if it showed officials acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment,” a demanding standard unique to educational services cases.

Ava Tharpe’s lawyers framed the case as nothing less than a pivotal moment for disability rights. The lawyers called it “an exceptionally important issue for children with disabilities and their families,” warning that educational discrimination “often has life-altering consequences for children with disabilities.” Their brief pressed the point further: “It is inconceivable that when Congress enacted laws to combat disability discrimination, it silently singled out school-age children — perhaps the most vulnerable subset of people with disabilities—for disfavored treatment.”

The school district pushed back, arguing that the case was more about a disagreement than discrimination. While acknowledging that Ava’s parents “disagree with some decisions the District made,” the district maintained that their frustrations did “not evince discriminatory intent under any standard used in any circuit.”

For four decades, several court circuits had required disabled children to prove “bad faith or gross misjudgment” in education cases, a rule traceable to the Eighth Circuit’s 1982 Monahan v. State of Nebraska decision. Thursday’s opinion swept that doctrine away, aligning schools with municipalities, transit systems, hospitals, and other public entities that face liability under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and §504 of the Rehabilitation Act whenever they act with deliberate indifference to a known need for accommodation.

“Students with disabilities should not be subject to unfair legal barriers that prevent them from vindicating their rights simply because the discrimination they face occurs in schools,” said Zoe Brennan-Krohn, the director of the ACLU’s Disability Rights Program. She added: “This ruling is a critical step toward ensuring that all students with disabilities receive the support to which they are legally entitled, allowing them to learn, thrive, and participate fully in their education.”

Although the court stuck to the narrow question of which standard applies to education-based disability lawsuits, some justices suggested they’re ready to tackle deeper questions in the future. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote separately to express skepticism about whether plaintiffs should ever be able to sue under these laws without proving intent to discriminate. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her own concurring opinion, firmly rejected that idea, emphasizing that disability discrimination often stems from neglect, not animus.