Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 339

524US2

Unit: $U87

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294 GEBSER v. LAGO VISTA INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.

Stevens, J., dissenting

authorizing an implied private cause of action for victims of
the prohibited discrimination”).1 As long as the intent of
Congress is clear, an implicit command has the same legal
force as one that is explicit. The fact that a statute does not
authorize a particular remedy “in so many words is no more
signiﬁcant than the fact that it does not in terms authorize
execution to issue on a judgment recovered under [the stat-
ute].” Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311 U. S. 282,
288 (1940).2

In Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S.
60 (1992), we unanimously concluded that Title IX authorized

1 We explained: “In 1972 when Title IX was enacted, the critical lan-
guage in Title VI had already been construed as creating a private
remedy . . . .
It is always appropriate to assume that our elected repre-
sentatives, like other citizens, know the law; in this case, because of their
repeated references to Title VI and its modes of enforcement, we are espe-
cially justiﬁed in presuming both that those representatives were aware
of the prior interpretation of Title VI and that that interpretation reﬂects
their intent with respect to Title IX.”
441 U. S., at 696–698. We also
observed that “during the period between the enactment of Title VI in
1964 and the enactment of Title IX in 1972, this Court had consistently
found implied remedies—often in cases much less clear than this.
It was
after 1972 that this Court decided Cort v. Ash[, 422 U. S. 66 (1975),] and
the other cases cited by the Court of Appeals in support of its strict con-
struction of the remedial aspect of the statute. We, of course, adhere to
the strict approach followed in our recent cases, but our evaluation of
congressional action in 1972 must take into account its contemporary legal
contest.
In sum, it is not only appropriate but also realistic to presume
that Congress was thoroughly familiar with these unusually important
precedents from this and other federal courts and that it expected its
enactment to be interpreted in conformity with them.”
Id., at 698–699
(footnotes omitted).

2 In Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Darrone, 465 U. S. 624 (1984),
we unanimously concluded that comparable language in the statute pro-
hibiting discrimination against the handicapped by federal grant recipients
authorized a private right of action for the recovery of backpay. That
decision, like Cannon, relied on the fact that the comparable language in
Title VI had authorized a private remedy. See 465 U. S., at 626, 635.