Cite as: 503 U. S. 60 (1992)
Syllabus
closely analogous to Title IX, while a unanimous Court in Darrone held that another such statute authorized the award of backpay. Pp. 68-71. (d) Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a Title IX suit. Because the Cannon Court inferred a cause of action upon concluding that Title IX supported no express right of action, the silence of the pre-Cannon statutory text and legislative history on the issue of available remedies is neither surprising nor enlightening. Rather, the appropriate inquiry for the pre-Cannon period is the state of the law when Congress passed Title IX. Since, at that time, the traditional presumption in favor of all available remedies was firmly established, and this Court had recently found implied rights of action in six cases and approved a damages remedy in three of them, the lack of any legislative intent to abandon the traditional presumption is amply demonstrated. For the post-Cannon period, when Congress was legislating with full cognizance of that decision, analysis of the text and history of the two statutes enacted to amend Title IX—the Civil Rights Remedies Equalization Amendment of 1986 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987—establishes that Congress validated Cannon's holding and made no effort to alter the traditional presumption. Pp. 71-73. (e) The argument that a damages award would unduly expand the federal courts' power into a sphere properly reserved to the Executive and Legislative Branches in violation of separation of powers principles misconceives the difference between a cause of action and a remedy. Unlike the finding of a cause of action, which authorizes a court to hear a case or controversy, the discretion to award appropriate relief involves no such increase in judicial power and, in fact, historically has been thought necessary to provide an important safeguard against legislative and executive abuses and to insure an independent Judiciary. Moreover, selective adjudication of the sort advocated here would harm separation of powers by giving judges the power to render inutile causes of action authorized by Congress through a decision that no remedy is available. Pp. 73-74.
(f) Also rejected is the contention that the normal presumption in favor of all appropriate remedies should not apply because Title IX was enacted pursuant to Congress' Spending Clause power. The Court's observation in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 28-29, that remedies are limited under Spending Clause statutes when the alleged violation is unintentional is based on the theory that an entity receiving federal funds lacks notice that it will be liable for damages for such a violation, see id., at 17. This notice problem does not arise in a case such as the present, where intentional discrimination is alleged and is proscribed by the statute in question. Moreover, the notion that Spending Clause statutes do not authorize monetary awards
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