Cite as: 524 U. S. 274 (1998)
Stevens, J., dissenting
a high school student who had been sexually harassed by a sports coach/teacher to recover damages from the school district. That conclusion was supported by two considerations. In his opinion for the Court, Justice White first relied on the presumption that Congress intends to authorize "all appropriate remedies" unless it expressly indicates otherwise. Id., at 66.3 He then noted that two amendments 4 to Title IX enacted after the decision in Cannon had validated Cannon's holding and supported the conclusion that "Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a suit brought under Title IX." 503 U. S., at 72. Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment, agreed that Congress' amendment of Title IX to eliminate the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity, see 42 U. S. C. § 2000d-7(a)(1), must be read "not only 'as a validation of Cannon's holding,' ante, at 72, but also as an implicit acknowledgment that damages are available." 503 U. S., at 78.
3 "In Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803), for example, Chief Justice Marshall observed that our Government 'has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.' This principle originated in the English common law, and Blackstone described it as 'a general and indisputable rule, that where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy, by suit or action at law, whenever that right is invaded.' 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 23 (1783). See also Ashby v. White, 1 Salk. 19, 21, 87 Eng. Rep. 808, 816 (Q. B. 1702) ('If a statute gives a right, the common law will give a remedy to maintain that right . . .')." Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S., at 66-67; see also id., at 67 (" 'A disregard of the command of the statute is a wrongful act, and where it results in damage to one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted, the right to recover the damages from the party in default is implied, according to a doctrine of the common law' ") (quoting Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33, 39 (1916)).
4 See Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d-7 (abrogating the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity); Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, 20 U. S. C. § 1687 (defining "program or activity" broadly).
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