Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 338.0

524US2

Unit: $U87

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

293

Stevens, J., dissenting

liberate indifference. We therefore afﬁrm the judgment of
the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter, Justice

Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

The question that the petition for certiorari asks us to ad-
dress is whether the Lago Vista Independent School District
(respondent) is liable in damages for a violation of Title IX of
the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq.
(Title IX). The Court provides us with a negative answer
to that question because respondent did not have actual no-
tice of, and was not deliberately indifferent to, the odious
misconduct of one of its teachers. As a basis for its decision,
the majority relies heavily on the notion that because the
private cause of action under Title IX is “judicially implied,”
the Court has “a measure of latitude” to use its own judg-
ment in shaping a remedial scheme. See ante, at 284. This
assertion of lawmaking authority is not faithful either to our
precedents or to our duty to interpret, rather than to revise,
congressional commands. Moreover, the majority’s policy
judgment about the appropriate remedy in this case thwarts
the purposes of Title IX.

I

It is important to emphasize that in Cannon v. University
of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677 (1979), the Court confronted a ques-
tion of statutory construction. The decision represented
our considered judgment about the intent of the Congress
that enacted Title IX in 1972. After noting that Title IX
had been patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which had been interpreted to include a private right
of action, we concluded that Congress intended to authorize
the same private enforcement of Title IX.
441 U. S., at 694–
698; see also id., at 703 (“We have no doubt that Congress
intended to create Title IX remedies comparable to those
available under Title VI and that it understood Title VI as