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tionally discriminated against the petitioner, see 441 U. S., at 680. In Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Comm'n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582, the Court held that private individuals could not recover compensatory damages under Title VI except for intentional discrimination. Of the five Justices who also voted to uphold disparate-impact regulations, three expressly reserved the question of a direct private right of action to enforce them, id., at 645, n. 18. Pp. 282-284.
(c) Nor does it follow from the three points taken as given that Congress must have intended such a private right of action. There is no doubt that regulations applying § 601's ban on intentional discrimination are covered by the cause of action to enforce that section. But the disparate-impact regulations do not simply apply § 601—since they forbid conduct that § 601 permits—and thus the private right of action to enforce § 601 does not include a private right to enforce these regulations. See Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164, 173. That right must come, if at all, from the independent force of § 602. Pp. 284-286.
(d) Like substantive federal law itself, private rights of action to enforce federal law must be created by Congress. Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U. S. 560, 578. This Court will not revert to the understanding of private causes of action, represented by J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 433, that held sway when Title VI was enacted. That understanding was abandoned in Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 78. Nor does the Court agree with the Government's contention that cases interpreting statutes enacted prior to Cort v. Ash have given dispositive weight to the expectations that the enacting Congress had formed in light of the contemporary legal context. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U. S. 353, 378-379; Cannon, supra, at 698-699; and Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U. S. 174, distinguished. Pp. 286-288.
(e) The search for Congress's intent in this case begins and ends with Title VI's text and structure. The "rights-creating" language so critical to Cannon's § 601 analysis, 441 U. S., at 690, n. 13, is completely absent from § 602. Whereas § 601 decrees that "[n]o person . . . shall . . . be subjected to discrimination," § 602 limits federal agencies to "effectuat[ing]" rights created by § 601. And § 602 focuses neither on the individuals protected nor even on the funding recipients being regulated, but on the regulating agencies. Hence, there is far less reason to infer a private remedy in favor of individual persons, Cannon, supra, at 690-691. The methods § 602 expressly provides for enforcing its regulations, which place elaborate restrictions on agency enforcement, also suggest a congressional intent not to create a private remedy through
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