Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 350.0

524US2

Unit: $U87

[09-15-00 14:31:25] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 274 (1998)

305

Stevens, J., dissenting

The Secretary of Education has promulgated regulations di-
recting grant recipients to adopt such policies and dissemi-
nate them to students.15 A rule providing an afﬁrmative
defense for districts that adopt and publish such policies
pursuant to the regulations would not likely be helpful to
respondent, however, because it is not at all clear whether
respondent adopted any such policy,16 and there is no evi-
dence that such a policy was made available to students, as
required by regulation.17

A theme that seems to underlie the Court’s opinion is a
concern that holding a school district liable in damages might
deprive it of the beneﬁt of the federal subsidy—that the
damages remedy is somehow more onerous than a possible
termination of the federal grant. See, e. g., ante, at 290
(stating that “an award of damages in a particular case might
It is pos-
well exceed a recipient’s level of federal funding”).
sible, of course, that in some cases the recoverable damages,
in either a Title IX action or a state-law tort action, would

15 The school district must “adopt and publish grievance procedures pro-
viding for prompt and equitable resolution of student and employee com-
plaints” of discrimination.
34 CFR § 106.8(b) (1997). The district also
must inform students and their parents of Title IX’s antidiscrimination
requirement.

§ 106.9.

16 Factual questions remain with respect to whether respondent had
an adequate antidiscrimination policy. Compare App. 44a–45a (afﬁdavit
of superintendent/Title IX coordinator Virginia Collier) (stating that the
district had a policy) with Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judg-
ment, Record 332; id., Exh. 2 (Collier deposition), at 42, 44 (stating that
the district had no formal policy).

17 The district’s superintendent stated that she did not remember if any
handbook alerting students to grievance procedures was disseminated to
students. App. 72a–73a (Collier deposition). Moreover, Gebser herself
stated: “If I had known at the beginning what I was supposed to do when
a teacher starts making sexual advances towards me, I probably would
have reported it.
I was bewildered and terriﬁed and I had no idea where
to go from where I was.”

Id., at 64a–65a.