The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a unanimous win to a Minnesota teenager with severe epilepsy and her parents, ruling that they can continue their lawsuit against the local school district for allegedly denying her equal educational access.

At issue was whether students with disabilities must meet an unusually high legal burden to prove discrimination in public schools. In A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, the district argued that the family needed to show “bad faith” or “gross misjudgment” — a far tougher standard than what applies to most other disability discrimination cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for all nine justices, flatly rejected that argument. He ruled that families only need to show “deliberate indifference” — the same standard applied in other federal disability rights claims under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“Together they face daunting challenges on a daily basis,” Roberts wrote of children with disabilities and their families. This decision, he said, ensures those challenges “do not include having to satisfy a more stringent standard of proof” than others bringing similar claims.

The case stemmed from the experiences of Ava Tharpe, whose severe epilepsy made it difficult for her to attend regular daytime classes. After moving from Kentucky to Minnesota, Ava’s parents requested the same nighttime school accommodations she had previously received. The Osseo Area Schools district denied the request, resulting in Ava getting only about 65% of her peers’ instructional time.

A federal judge — and later the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit — sided with the school, applying the tougher “bad faith or gross misjudgment” requirement. The Tharpe family appealed to the Supreme Court, pointing out that other federal appeals courts used the lower “deliberate indifference” standard in similar cases.

The family’s legal team argued that Congress never intended to single out school-aged children for a more burdensome standard of proof, calling it “inconceivable” that lawmakers would weaken protections for “perhaps the most vulnerable subset of people with disabilities.”

Disability rights groups had warned that a win for the district could have made it far harder for Americans with disabilities to win education-related discrimination cases nationwide.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, Ava’s family can now return to the lower courts to pursue their case — a ruling advocates say is critical for ensuring public schools remain fully accountable under federal disability laws.