The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) safeguards the learning of students with disabilities and protects them from nondiscriminatory assessments that identify their disabilities and align them with the special education support and services required. However, when the IDEA is not adequately followed, students with disabilities are likely to be placed in inappropriate special education categories. The problem addressed by this descriptive qualitative study was the unawareness of principals' roles in special education placement that may contribute to the disproportional representation of elementary African American students in intellectual disability and emotional disturbance eligibility categories. The study was guided by the critical race theory. The study used the qualitative descriptive research design to investigate principals' roles in special education placement as a measure to mitigate the overrepresentation of African Americans in intellectual disability and emotional disturbance categories. The purposive sampling method was used to recruit eight participants. Data was collected using semi-structured online interviews through Zoom. It was found that there was an overrepresentation in identification of (your population in intellectual disability and emotional disturbance categories; school principals have the influential role of scrutinizing the special education placement cases and perceived failure in roles due to the delegation of tasks. School principals have the primary role of ensuring special education legislation is followed, distribution of resources available (human and other support services), and facilitating special education meetings. It was concluded that principals have critical roles in addressing the disproportional representation of African Americans in emotional disturbance and intellectual disability. The study recommends that school principals should use their influential roles in special education placement, be actively involved, closely follow the special education legislation, and ensure appropriate access to resources for the student and the special education committee. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]