274
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 96-1866. Argued March 25, 1998—Decided June 22, 1998
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. Gebser and her mother, also a petitioner here, filed suit raising, among other things, a claim for damages against Lago Vista under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which provides in pertinent part that a person cannot "be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance," 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a). The Federal District Court granted Lago Vista summary judgment. 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.
Held: Damages may not be recovered for teacher-student sexual harassment in an implied private action under Title IX unless a school district official who at a minimum has authority to institute corrective measures on the district's behalf has actual notice of, and is deliberately indifferent to, the teacher's misconduct. Pp. 280-293.
(a) The express statutory means of enforcing Title IX is administrative, as the statute directs federal agencies who distribute education funding to establish requirements in furtherance of the nondiscrimination mandate and allows agencies to enforce those requirements, including ultimately by suspending or terminating federal funding. The Court held in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, that Title IX is also enforceable through an implied private right of action. In Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S. 60, the Court established that monetary damages are available in such an action, but made no effort to delimit the circumstances in which that remedy
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