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In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

The words were Chief Justice Earl Warren’s in the 1954 Supreme Court decision that outlawed public school segregation. Now the Brown decision has taken on fresh legal currency for another deprived group—the estimated 1,200,000 school-age children who are classified as retarded. In many school jurisdictions the least able of the retarded youngsters are placed in the dead-end category of “uneducable and untrainable” by school psychologists. Once that label is applied to a child, the schools are relieved of their obligation to train him.

A three-judge federal court in Philadelphia this month ordered Pennsylvania to assure an education for all retarded children in the state. Further, the court set a 90-day deadline for the state to identify every retarded child denied a public education, and it gave educational authorities until Sept. 1 of next year to begin actual teaching. Perhaps 5,000 Pennsylvania children will benefit from the ruling next fall. The decision is expected to encourage suits around the country and will ultimately affect tens of thousands of retarded children.

The court’s action was an impressive victory for the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children, which brought a class suit against the state last January. Attorney Thomas Gilhool cited Warren’s language in the Brown case and argued that the exclusionary practices violated the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. With the help of expert testimony from such authorities as Dr. Ignacy Goldberg, Secretary of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Mental Deficiency, Gilhool attacked the myth that some children with low IQs are incapable of learning. The testimony indicated that 29 out of 30 retarded children could achieve self-sufficiency through education and that the remaining one could be taught to care for himself to some degree.

Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp applauded the decision, saying that it “recognized the relative ineffectiveness of IQ tests as a gauge of the development potential of a retarded child.” The court order itself was agreed to by the state education authorities. It is the local school board, often lacking specialized teachers and proper equipment, that decides which children, if any, to exclude. Now it is up to the state to set basic educational policies and to require local authorities to meet them.

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