A well-known New York attorney who called herself the “special education muckraker” as she investigated schools and helped parents advocate for their kids has died at 65.

Dee Alpert published her own website where she regularly posted scathing findings from school audits and reports. She often had access to leaked materials and was known to encourage reporters to hunt for documents she knew officials did not want to release.

“Dee was the most intense and dedicated advocate I’ve ever known,” wrote one friend of her passing. “She’d obtain massive amounts of research and federal and state documents, digest them, and figure out where things were corrupt or going wrong. She had the ear of people who could act on her information, although sadly, many times politics trumped the needs and rights of disabled students.”

In one post on her website, titled “Abu Ghraib on the Hudson,” Alpert wrote about proposed policies in New York to allow seclusion of students with disabilities, which she feared would lead to the use of corporal punishment. Her work helped draw national attention to the issue, reports The Wall Street Journal. To read more click here.

Alpert was also key in the recent prosecution of Stacy Lore, who faked her credentials as a behavior analyst and billed a Norwalk, Conn. school district more than $150,000 for services she was not qualified to provide.

Read more stories like this one. Sign up for Disability Scoop's free email newsletter to get the latest developmental disability news sent straight to your inbox.