Deaf man’s case against school taken up

US high court to hear former Sturgis student’s complaint

The U.S. Supreme Court has said it would hear arguments brought by a deaf Michigan man who wants to sue his former school district for failing to provide him a suitable teacher who knew sign language for more than a decade and inflating his grades when he could neither read nor write.

Miguel Perez, an immigrant who moved to the U.S. with his family as a child and is now in his 20s, has been trying for years to press a claim for compensatory damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against the Sturgis Public School District in southwest Michigan.

But lower courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, have rejected that claim, saying Perez never exhausted the administrative review required first under another federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

No date has been set for oral arguments before the Supreme Court.

In court filings, Perez’s lawyers said Sturgis’ failure to provide him a suitably trained instructor for 12 years — during which time he received grades of As and Bs and was listed on the honor roll — led to a situation where he could neither read nor write and failed to learn basic facts, such as the difference between mammals and reptiles and the meaning of slavery. When the instructor he did have was reassigned much of the day, he was given online instruction, despite the fact he could neither read nor write, lawyers said.

His inability to learn or communicate with others, they said, made him “an academic and social outcast.” But because of his grades, he and his family believed he was going to gradu

Slotkin has nearly matched the just over $9 million she raised in her last election in 2020, when she won reelection in what is the current Michigan 8th Congressional District even as former President Donald Trump won there as well. She is one of only a handful of Democrats in Congress who won in districts where Trump also won in ’20.

The newly drawn 7th District in mid-Michigan, which is anchored in Lansing, is considered somewhat more friendly to Democrats than the 8th District Slotkin has represented for two 2-year terms but could still easily be in play in a year when Republicans are expected to have an advantage in U.S. House races nationwide. As such, outside funding has been flooding into what has been the toughestfought congressional race in the state at least since the August primary.

A review of FEC records indicated nearly $12 million has been spent on the race by outside sources on both sides, with the top spenders being the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, at just over $4 million spent on Slotkin’s behalf, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, working to help Barrett, having pumped just under $4 million into the race.