Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 319.0

524US2

Unit: $U87

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274

OCTOBER TERM, 1997

Syllabus

GEBSER et al. v. LAGO VISTA INDEPENDENT
SCHOOL DISTRICT

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fifth circuit

No. 96–1866. Argued March 25, 1998—Decided June 22, 1998

Petitioner Gebser, a high school student in respondent Lago Vista Inde-
pendent School District, had a sexual relationship with one of her teach-
ers. She did not report the relationship to school ofﬁcials. After the
couple was discovered having sex and the teacher was arrested, Lago
Vista terminated his employment. During this time, the district had
not distributed an ofﬁcial grievance procedure for lodging sexual harass-
ment complaints or a formal antiharassment policy, as required by fed-
eral regulations. Gebser and her mother, also a petitioner here, ﬁled
suit raising, among other things, a claim for damages against Lago Vista
under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which provides
in pertinent part that a person cannot “be subjected to discrimination
under any education program or activity receiving Federal ﬁnancial
assistance,” 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a). The Federal District Court granted
Lago Vista summary judgment.
In afﬁrming, the Fifth Circuit held
that school districts are not liable under Title IX for teacher-student
sexual harassment unless an employee with supervisory power over the
offending employee actually knew of the abuse, had the power to end
it, and failed to do so, and ruled that petitioners could not satisfy that
standard.

Held: Damages may not be recovered for teacher-student sexual harass-
ment in an implied private action under Title IX unless a school district
ofﬁcial who at a minimum has authority to institute corrective measures
on the district’s behalf has actual notice of, and is deliberately indiffer-
ent to, the teacher’s misconduct. Pp. 280–293.

(a) The express statutory means of enforcing Title IX is administra-
tive, as the statute directs federal agencies who distribute education
funding to establish requirements in furtherance of the nondiscrimina-
tion mandate and allows agencies to enforce those requirements, in-
cluding ultimately by suspending or terminating federal funding. The
Court held in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, that
Title IX is also enforceable through an implied private right of action.
In Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S. 60, the Court
established that monetary damages are available in such an action,
but made no effort to delimit the circumstances in which that remedy