Larry+P.+v.+Riles


 * Case || Larry P. vs. Riles ||
 * Date || 1979 ||
 * Citation || 793 F.2d 969 (9th Cir.) ||
 * Outcome || Established the legal precedent that tests administered to minority children must have been validated for use with that population. ||
 * Story || Larry P. was a young African American child who was diagnosed as having educable mental retardation (EMR) and was receiving services in a self-contained classroom for children with EMR. The evaluation for eligibility used the IQ test results as the sole criterion for placing children in classrooms for children with EMR.

Larry P. vs. Riles was a California class-action case that focused on IQ testing of young black children, and argued that those children had been inappropriately placed in Educable Mentally Retarded (EMR) classrooms solely on the basis of an IQ score. The case also argued that the IQ tests were culturally discriminatory against black children, as a disproportionate number of black children had been placed in EMR classrooms. From 1968 until trial in 1977, black children had been significantly overrepresented in E.M.R. classes. For example, in 1968-69, black children were about 9% of the state school population, yet accounted for 27% of the E.M.R. population.

The court held that IQ tests were culturally biased against black children and banned California school systems from using them when evaluating black children for special education, and required the use of a versatile evaluation approach for them. The court went further by requiring record-keeping and data-collection systems so that schools could track the numbers of minority children in EMR classrooms and justify the presence of black children in those settings. The Larry P. case established the legal precedent that tests administered to minority children must have been validated for use with that population. It provides the legal precedent against cultural bias in testing. ||
 * Link(s) || __ [|story] __ ||