Cite as: 518 U. S. 187 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
it. The equalization provision is susceptible of at least two interpretations other than the across-the-board leveling of liability and remedies that Lane proposes. Under the first such interpretation, as proposed by the Government, the "public . . . entit[ies]" to which the statute refers are "the non-federal public entities receiving federal financial assistance that are covered by" each of the statutes to which § 1003(a)(1) refers: The Rehabilitation Act, Title VI, Title IX, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975. Brief for Respondents 22. The Government's suggestion is a plausible one: that § 1003(a)(2) refers to municipal hospitals, local school districts, and the like, which are unquestionably subject to each of the Acts listed in § 1003(a)(1). Section 504 alone among the listed Acts, however, extends its coverage to "program[s] or activit[ies] conducted by any Executive agency."
Section 1003 is also open to a second interpretation, one similar to the "leveling" interpretation suggested by petitioner: By reference to "public or private entit[ies]," Congress meant only to subject the States to the scope of remedies available against either public or private § 504 defendants, whatever the lesser (or perhaps the greater) of those remedies might be. Lane's reading of the statute— one that would suggest that all § 504(a) defendants, including the States, are subject to precisely the same remedies for violations of that provision—would effectively read out of the statute the very language on which he seeks to rely. That is, if the same remedies are available against all governmental and nongovernmental defendants under § 504(a), the "public or private" language is entirely superfluous. Congress could have achieved the result Lane suggests simply by subjecting States to the same remedies available against "every other entity," without further elaboration. The fact that § 1003(a)(2) itself separately mentions public and private entities suggests that there is a distinction to be made in
199
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007