The special safeguards and standards under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for disciplinary "removals," or suspensions and expulsions, are complicated and controversial. The manifestation-determination (M-D) requirement plays a central role in this special framework (Zirkel, 2003). The 2004 Amendments of the IDEA made significant changes in the discipline provisions, particularly in the specifications for the M-D requirement. The new M-D criteria changed from a primary focus on the appropriateness of the IEP and a secondary focus on control and consequences to two causal factors: (1) whether the student's disability caused, or had a substantial relationship to, the conduct subject to discipline; or (2) whether said conduct was the direct result of the district's failure to implement the Individualized Education Program (IEP). This article presents a practical analysis of the new M-D criteria based on a systematic synthesis of the previous pertinent published case law. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)