Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U.S. 60, 13 (1992)

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72

FRANKLIN v. GWINNETT COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Opinion of the Court

courts since at least the early 19th century. In Cannon, the majority upheld an implied right of action in part because in the decade immediately preceding enactment of Title IX in 1972, this Court had found implied rights of action in six cases.7 In three of those cases, the Court had approved a damages remedy. See, e. g., J. I. Case Co., 377 U. S., at 433; Wyandotte Transportation Co., supra, at 207; Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U. S. 229 (1969). Wholly apart from the wisdom of the Cannon holding, therefore, the same contextual approach used to justify an implied right of action more than amply demonstrates the lack of any legislative intent to abandon the traditional presumption in favor of all available remedies.

In the years after the announcement of Cannon, on the other hand, a more traditional method of statutory analysis is possible, because Congress was legislating with full cognizance of that decision. Our reading of the two amendments to Title IX enacted after Cannon leads us to conclude that Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a suit brought under Title IX. In the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986, 100 Stat. 1845, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d-7, Congress abrogated the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity under Title IX, Title VI, § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975. This statute cannot be read except as a validation of Cannon's holding. A subsection of the 1986 law provides that in a suit against a State, "remedies (including remedies both at law and in equity) are available for such a violation to the same extent as such remedies are available for such a violation in the suit against any public or private entity other than a

7 J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426 (1964); Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U. S. 191 (1967); Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969); Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U. S. 229 (1969); and Superintendent of Ins. of New York v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U. S. 6 (1971).

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