Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 328.0

524US2

Unit: $U87

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

283

Opinion of the Court

Court of Appeals, which hinges on actual knowledge by a
school ofﬁcial with authority to end the harassment.

Whether educational institutions can be said to violate
Title IX based solely on principles of respondeat superior or
constructive notice was not resolved by Franklin’s citation
of Meritor. That reference to Meritor was made with re-
gard to the general proposition that sexual harassment can
constitute discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX,
see Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S.
75, 80–81 (1998), an issue not in dispute here.
In fact, the
school district’s liability in Franklin did not necessarily turn
on principles of imputed liability or constructive notice, as
there was evidence that school ofﬁcials knew about the
harassment but took no action to stop it. See 503 U. S., at
63–64. Moreover, Meritor’s rationale for concluding that
agency principles guide the liability inquiry under Title VII
rests on an aspect of that statute not found in Title IX:
Title VII, in which the prohibition against employment dis-
crimination runs against “an employer,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e–
2(a), explicitly deﬁnes “employer” to include “any agent,”
§ 2000e(b). See Meritor, supra, at 72. Title IX contains
no comparable reference to an educational
institution’s
“agents,” and so does not expressly call for application of
agency principles.

In this case, moreover, petitioners seek not just to estab-
lish a Title IX violation but to recover damages based on
theories of respondeat superior and constructive notice.
It
is that aspect of their action, in our view, that is most critical
to resolving the case. Unlike Title IX, Title VII contains an
express cause of action, § 2000e–5(f), and speciﬁcally pro-
vides for relief in the form of monetary damages, § 1981a.
Congress therefore has directly addressed the subject of
damages relief under Title VII and has set out the particu-
lar situations in which damages are available as well as the
maximum amounts recoverable.
§ 1981a(b). With respect
to Title IX, however, the private right of action is judicially