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UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Opinion of the Court

victims of gender-motivated violence. The United States
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc,
struck down § 13981 because it concluded that Congress
lacked constitutional authority to enact the section’s civil
remedy. Believing that these cases are controlled by our
decisions in United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549 (1995),
United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629 (1883), and the Civil
Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), we afﬁrm.

I

Petitioner Christy Brzonkala enrolled at Virginia Poly-
technic Institute (Virginia Tech) in the fall of 1994.
In Sep-
tember of that year, Brzonkala met respondents Antonio
Morrison and James Crawford, who were both students
at Virginia Tech and members of its varsity football team.
Brzonkala alleges that, within 30 minutes of meeting Mor-
rison and Crawford, they assaulted and repeatedly raped her.
After the attack, Morrison allegedly told Brzonkala, “You
better not have any . . . diseases.” Complaint ¶ 22.
In the
months following the rape, Morrison also allegedly an-
nounced in the dormitory’s dining room that he “like[d] to
get girls drunk and . . . .”
Id., ¶ 31. The omitted portions,
quoted verbatim in the briefs on ﬁle with this Court, consist
of boasting, debased remarks about what Morrison would
do to women, vulgar remarks that cannot fail to shock and
offend.

Brzonkala alleges that this attack caused her to become
severely emotionally disturbed and depressed. She sought
assistance from a university psychiatrist, who prescribed

Getchell, Jr., J. William Boland, and Robert L. Hodges; for the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Theodore M. Cooperstein and
Lisa Kemler; for the Paciﬁc Legal Foundation by Anne M. Hayes and M.
Reed Hopper; for the Women’s Freedom Network by Robert L. King; and
for Rita Gluzman by Alan E. Untereiner.

Michael P. Farris ﬁled a brief for the Center for the Original Intent of

the Constitution as amicus curiae.