Cite as: 524 U. S. 274 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Wallace B. Jefferson argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Ellen B. Mitchell and N. Mark Ralls.*
Justice OTMConnor delivered the opinion of the Court. The question in this case is when a school district may be held liable in damages in an implied right of action under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq. (Title IX), for the sexual harassment of a student by one of the district's teachers. We conclude that damages may not be recovered in those circumstances unless an official of the school district 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.
I
In the spring of 1991, when petitioner Alida Star Gebser was an eighth-grade student at a middle school in respondent Lago Vista Independent School District (Lago Vista), she joined a high school book discussion group led by Frank Wal-drop, a teacher at Lago Vista's high school. Lago Vista received federal funds at all pertinent times. During the book discussion sessions, Waldrop often made sexually suggestive comments to the students. Gebser entered high school in the fall and was assigned to classes taught by Waldrop in both semesters. Waldrop continued to make inappropriate
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the National Education Association by Michael D. Simpson and Laurence Gold; and for the National Women's Law Center et al. by Jacqueline R. Denning, Nancy L. Perkins, and Marcia D. Greenberger.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Insurance Association by William J. Kilberg, Craig A. Berrington, and Phillip L. Schwartz; for the Kentucky School Boards Association by Michael A. Owsley and Regina Abrams; for the National School Boards Association et al. by Lisa A. Brown, Gwendolyn H. Gregory, and Cynthia Jahn; and for the TASB Legal Assistance Fund by Carolyn M. Hanahan.
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