With the passing of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens at age 99, we recognize his enormous contributions to nearly every area of law. In the Title IX field, Justice Stevens is known for authoring the majority opinion in the case of Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677 (1979), which first recognized a private right of action for litigants claiming discrimination on the basis of sex in education.
Forty years ago, in Cannon, Justice Stevens wrote that a woman who was denied admission to medical school "because she is a woman" could seek a remedy under Title IX in the federal courts, even though the sparse text of Title IX was silent about the existence of a private right of action.
Cannon was a powerful decision for equality in education. Justice Stevens made clear that the same standards that applied to Title VI racial discrimination cases protected victims of discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX. Moreover, Stevens recognized that if no private right of action was available, then the law would be ineffective in achieving its purpose. Victims of sex discrimination would have to turn to a federal agency (now the Department of Education) for help, but that agency's remedy was too powerful; cutting off all funding to an institution in violation of Title IX would be "severe" and might not do anything to address an isolated violation. Courts could provide targeted relief to the victim of discrimination, a result that Stevens found “sensible” and "fully consistent with - and in some cases even necessary to - the orderly enforcement of the statute."
In the decades since Cannon, the private right of action recognized by Justice Stevens has reshaped America's educational landscape, providing a legal path for individuals to seek equality not just in admissions, but in all aspects of academic life.