University of Chicago, U. We subsequently established in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, U. In Franklin , a high school student alleged that a teacher had sexually abused her on repeated occasions and that teachers and school administrators knew about the harassment but took no action, even to the point of dissuading her from initiating charges.
See id. We face that issue squarely in this case. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, U. We believe the same rule should apply when a teacher sexually harasses and abuses a student. Brief for Petitioners 36 quoting Dept. That rule is an expression of respondeat superior liability, i. Second, petitioners and the United States submit that a school district should at a minimum be liable for damages based on a theory of constructive notice, i. Both standards would allow a damages recovery in a broader range of situations than the rule adopted by the Court of Appeals, which hinges on actual knowledge by a school official with authority to end the harassment.
That reference to Meritor was made with regard to the general proposition that sexual harassment can constitute discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX, see Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. See U. See Meritor , supra , at In this case, moreover, petitioners seek not just to establish a Title IX violation but to recover damages based on theories of respondeat superior and constructive notice.
It is that aspect of their action, in our view, which is most critical to resolving the case. Congress therefore has directly addressed the subject of damages relief under Title VII and has set out the particular situations in which damages are available as well as the maximum amounts recoverable.
With respect to Title IX, however, the private right of action is judicially implied, see Cannon , U. In addition, although the general presumption that courts can award any appropriate relief in an established cause of action, e. Hood, U. We made no effort in Franklin to delimit the circumstances in which a damages remedy should lie. Because the private right of action under Title IX is judicially implied, we have a measure of latitude to shape a sensible remedial scheme that best comports with the statute.
See, e. Employers Ins. Sandberg, U. That endeavor inherently entails a degree of speculation, since it addresses an issue on which Congress has not specifically spoken. Gilbertson, U. To guide the analysis, we generally examine the relevant statute to ensure that we do not fashion the parameters of an implied right in a manner at odds with the statutory structure and purpose.
See Musick, Peeler , U. Those considerations, we think, are pertinent not only to the scope of the implied right, but also to the scope of the available remedies. See Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. Lewis, U. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, U.
We believe the same rule should apply when a teacher sexually harasses and abuses a student. Petitioners and the United States submit that, in light of Franklin's comparison of teacher-student harassment with supervisor-employee harassment, agency principles should likewise apply in Title IX actions. Specifically, they advance two possible standards under which Lago Vista would be liable for Waldrop's conduct.
First, relying on a "Policy Guidance" issued by the Department of Education, they would hold a school district liable in damages under Title IX where a teacher is "'aided in carrying out the sexual harassment of students by his or her position of authority with the institution,'" irrespective of whether school district officials had any knowledge of the harassment and irrespective of their response upon becoming aware.
Brief for Petitioners 36 quoting Dept. That rule is an expression of respondeat superior liability, i. Second, petitioners and the United States submit that a school district should at a minimum be liable for damages based on a theory of constructive notice, i. Both standards would allow a damages recovery in a broader range of situations than the rule adopted by the.
Court of Appeals, which hinges on actual knowledge by a school official with authority to end the harassment. Whether educational institutions can be said to violate Title IX based solely on principles of respondeat superior or constructive notice was not resolved by Franklin's citation of Meritor. That reference to Meritor was made with regard to the general proposition that sexual harassment can constitute discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX, see Oncale v.
Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. In fact, the school district's liability in Franklin did not necessarily turn on principles of imputed liability or constructive notice, as there was evidence that school officials knew about the harassment but took no action to stop it. See U. Moreover, Meritor's rationale for concluding that agency principles guide the liability inquiry under Title VII rests on an aspect of that statute not found in Title IX:.
Title VII, in which the prohibition against employment discrimination runs against "an employer," 42 U. See Meritor, supra, at Title IX contains no comparable reference to an educational institution's "agents," and so does not expressly call for application of agency principles.
In this case, moreover, petitioners seek not just to establish a Title IX violation but to recover damages based on theories of respondeat superior and constructive notice. It is that aspect of their action, in our view, that is most critical to resolving the case. Congress therefore has directly addressed the subject of damages relief under Title VII and has set out the particular situations in which damages are available as well as the maximum amounts recoverable. With respect to Title IX, however, the private right of action is judicially.
In addition, although the general presumption that courts can award any appropriate relief in an established cause of action, e. Hood, U. We made no effort in Franklin to delimit the circumstances in which a damages remedy should lie. Because the private right of action under Title IX is judicially implied, we have a measure of latitude to shape a sensible remedial scheme that best comports with the statute.
See, e. Employers Ins. Sandberg, U. That endeavor inherently entails a degree of speculation, since it addresses an issue on which Congress has not specifically spoken. Gilbertson, U. To guide the analysis, we generally examine the relevant statute to ensure that we do not fashion the scope of an implied right in a manner at odds with the statutory structure and purpose.
See Musick, Peeler, U. Those considerations, we think, are pertinent not only to the scope of the implied right, but also to the scope of the available remedies. See Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. Lewis, U. We suggested as much in Franklin, where we recognized "the general rule that all appropriate relief is available in an action brought to vindicate a federal right," but indicated that the rule must be reconciled with congressional purpose.
The "general rule," that is, "yields where necessary to carry out the intent of Congress or to avoid frustrating the purposes of the statute involved. S, at "[A] private remedy should not be implied if it would frustrate the underlying purpose of the legislative scheme". Applying those principles here, we conclude that it would "frustrate the purposes" of Title IX to permit a damages recovery against a school district for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student based on principles of respondeat superior or constructive notice, i.
Because Congress did not expressly create a private right of action under Title IX, the statutory text does not shed light on Congress' intent with respect to the scope of available remedies. Franklin, U. Instead, "we attempt to infer how the [] Congress would have addressed the issue had the Central Bank of Denver, N. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. Bell, U. As a general matter, it does not appear that Congress contemplated unlimited recovery in damages against a funding recipient where the recipient is unaware of discrimination in its programs.
When Title IX was enacted in , the principal civil rights statutes containing an express right of action did not provide for recovery of monetary damages at all, instead allowing only injunctive and equitable relief. See It was not until that Congress made damages available under Title VII, and even then, Congress carefully limited the amount recoverable in any individual case, calibrating the maximum recovery to the size of the employer. See 42 U. Adopting petitioners' position would amount, then, to allowing unlimited recovery of damages under Title IX where Congress has not spoken on the subject of either the right or the remedy, and in the face of evidence that when Congress expressly considered both in Title VII it restricted the amount of damages available.
Congress enacted Title IX in with two principal objectives in mind: "[T]o avoid the use of federal resources to support discriminatory practices" and "to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. The two statutes operate in the same manner, conditioning an offer of federal funding on a promise by the recipient not to discriminate, in what amounts essentially to a contract between the Government and the recipient of funds.
See Guardians, U. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, U. That contractual framework distinguishes Title IX from Title VII, which is framed in terms not of a condition but of an outright prohibition. Title VII applies to all employers without regard to federal funding and aims broadly to "eradicat[e] discrimination throughout the economy. Title VII, moreover, seeks to "make persons whole for injuries suffered through past discrimination. Thus, whereas Title VII aims centrally to compensate victims of discrimination, Title IX focuses more on "protecting" individuals from discriminatory practices carried out by recipients of federal funds.
Cannon, supra, at That might explain why, when the Court first recognized the implied right under Title IX in Cannon, the opinion referred to injunctive or equitable relief in a private action, see U.
Title IX's contractual nature has implications for our construction of the scope of available remedies. When Congress attaches conditions to the award of federal funds under its spending power, U. See Franklin, supra, at ; Guardians, supra, at White, J. Our central concern in that regard is with ensuring that "the receiving entity of federal funds [has] notice that it will be liable for a monetary award.
Justice White's opinion announcing the Court's judgment in Guardians Assn. Civil Servo Comm'n of New York City, for instance, concluded that the relief in an action under Title VI alleging unintentional discrimination should be prospective only, because where discrimination is unintentional, "it is surely not obvious that the grantee was aware that it was administering the program in violation of the [condition].
We confront similar concerns here. If a school district's liability for a teacher's sexual harassment rests on principles of constructive notice or respondeat superior, it will likewise be the case that the recipient of funds was unaware of the discrimination. It is sensible to as-. See Rosa H. We think it unlikely that it further agreed to suffer liability whenever its employees discriminate on the basis of sex". Most significantly, Title IX contains important clues that Congress did not intend to allow recovery in damages where liability rests solely on principles of vicarious liability or constructive notice.
Title IX's express means of enforcement-by administrative agencies-operates on an assumption of actual notice to officials of the funding recipient. The statute entitles agencies who disburse education funding to enforce their rules implementing the nondiscrimination mandate through proceedings to suspend or terminate funding or through "other means authorized by law. Significantly, however, an agency may not initiate enforcement proceedings until it "has advised the appropriate person or persons of the failure to comply with the requirement and has determined that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means.
In the event of a violation, a funding recipient may be required to take "such remedial action as [is] deem[ed] necessary to overcome the effects of [the] discrimination. While agencies have conditioned continued funding on providing equitable relief to the victim, see, e. Gwinnett County School District, O. In Franklin, for instance, the Department of Education found a violation of Title IX but determined that the school district came into compliance by virtue of the offending teacher's resignation and the district's institution of a grievance procedure for sexual harassment complaints.
Presumably, a central purpose of requiring notice of the violation "to the appropriate person" and an opportunity for voluntary compliance before administrative enforcement proceedings can commence is to avoid diverting education funding from beneficial uses where a recipient was unaware of discrimination in its programs and is willing to institute prompt corrective measures.
The scope of private damages relief proposed by petitioners is at odds with that basic objective. When a teacher's sexual harassment is imputed to a school district or when a school district is deemed to have "constructively" known of the teacher's harassment, by assumption the district had no actual knowledge of the teacher's conduct.
Nor, of course, did the district have an opportunity to take action to end the harassment or to limit further harassment. It would be unsound, we think, for a statute's express system of enforcement to require notice to the recipient and an opportunity to come into voluntary compliance while a judicially implied system of enforcement permits substantial liability without regard to the recipient's knowledge or its corrective actions upon receiving notice.
Manor Drug Stores, U. Moreover, an award of damages in a particular case might well exceed a recipient's level of federal funding. See Tr. Where a statute's express enforcement scheme hinges its most severe sanction on notice and unsuccessful efforts to obtain compliance, we cannot attribute to Congress the intention to have implied an enforcement scheme that allows imposition of greater liability without comparable conditions.
Because the express remedial scheme under Title IX is predicated upon notice to an "appropriate person" and an opportunity to rectify any violation, 20 U.
Consequently, in cases like this one that do not involve official policy of the recipient entity, we hold that a damages remedy will not lie under Title IX unless an official who at a minimum has authority to address the alleged discrimination and to institute corrective measures on the recipient's behalf has actual knowledge of discrimination in the recipient's programs and fails adequately to respond.
We think, moreover, that the response must amount to deliberate indifference to discrimination. The administrative enforcement scheme presupposes that an official who is advised of a Title IX violation refuses to take action to bring the recipient into compliance.
The premise, in other words, is an official decision by the recipient not to remedy the violation. That framework finds a rough parallel in the standard of deliberate indifference. Under a lower standard, there would be a risk that the recipient would be liable in dam-. See Board of Comm'rs of Bryan Cty. Brown, U. Harris, U. Harker Heights, U. The only official alleged to have had information about Waldrop's misconduct is the high school principal.
That information, however, consisted of a complaint from parents of other students charging only that Waldrop had made inappropriate comments during class, which was plainly insufficient to alert the principal to the possibility that Waldrop was involved in a sexual relationship with a student. Lago Vista, moreover, terminated Waldrop's employment upon learning of his relationship with Gebser. See post, at , n. Where a school district's liability rests on actual notice principles, however, the knowledge of the wrongdoer himself is not pertinent to the analysis.
Petitioners focus primarily on Lago Vista's asserted failure to promulgate and publicize an effective policy and grievance procedure for sexual harassment claims. Lago Vista's alleged failure to comply with the. And in any event, the failure to promulgate a grievance procedure does not itself constitute "discrimination" under Title IX. Of course, the Department of Education could enforce the requirement administratively: Agencies generally have authority to promulgate and enforce requirements that effectuate the statute's nondiscrimination mandate, 20 U.
We have never held, however, that the implied private right of action under Title IX allows recovery in damages for violation of those sorts of administrative requirements. The number of reported cases involving sexual harassment of students in schools confirms that harassment unfortunately is an all too common aspect of the educational experience. No one questions that a student suffers extraordinary harm when subjected to sexual harassment and abuse by a teacher, and that the teacher's conduct is reprehensible and undermines the basic purposes of the educational system.
The issue in this case, however, is whether the independent misconduct of a teacher is attributable to the school district that employs him under a specific federal statute designed primarily to prevent recipients of federal financial assistance from using the funds in a discriminatory manner.
Our decision does not affect any right of recovery that an individual may have against a school district as a matter of state law or against the teacher in his individual capacity under state law or under 42 U.
Until Congress speaks directly on the subject, however, we will not hold a school district liable in damages under Title IX for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student absent actual notice and de-.
The question that the petition for certiorari asks us to address is whether the Lago Vista Independent School District respondent is liable in damages for a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of , 20 U.
Title IX. The Court provides us with a negative answer to that question because respondent did not have actual notice of, and was not deliberately indifferent to, the odious misconduct of one of its teachers.
As a basis for its decision, the majority relies heavily on the notion that because the private cause of action under Title IX is "judicially implied," the Court has "a measure of latitude" to use its own judgment in shaping a remedial scheme. See ante, at This assertion of lawmaking authority is not faithful either to our precedents or to our duty to interpret, rather than to revise, congressional commands.
Moreover, the majority's policy judgment about the appropriate remedy in this case thwarts the purposes of Title IX. It is important to emphasize that in Cannon v. The decision represented our considered judgment about the intent of the Congress that enacted Title IX in After noting that Title IX had been patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of , which had been interpreted to include a private right of action, we concluded that Congress intended to authorize the same private enforcement of Title IX.
Petitioner Gebser, a high school student in respondent Lago Vista Independent School District, had a sexual relationship with one of her teachers. She did not report the relationship to school officials. After the couple was discovered having sex and the teacher was arrested, Lago Vista terminated his employment. During this time, the district had not distributed an official grievance procedure for lodging sexual harassment complaints or a formal antiharassment policy, as required by federal regulations.
In affirming, the Fifth Circuit held that school districts are not liable under Title IX for teacher-student sexual harassment unless an employee with supervisory power over the offending employee actually knew of the abuse, had the power to end it, and failed to do so, and ruled that petitioners could not satisfy that standard.
The Court held in Cannon v. University of Chicago, U. In Franklin v.
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