NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                 Syllabus

FRANKLIN v. GWINNETT COUNTY PUBLIC
SCHOOLS et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eleventh circuit
No. 90-918.   Argued December 11, 1991-Decided February 26, 1992

Petitioner Franklin, a student in a high school operated by respondent
 school district, filed an action for damages in Federal District Court
 under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, alleging, inter
 alia, that she had been subjected to continual sexual harassment and
 abuse by a teacher, Andrew Hill.  After the complaint was filed, Hill
 resigned on the condition that all matters pending against him be
 dropped, and the school thereupon closed its investigation.  The
 District Court subsequently dismissed the complaint on the ground
 that Title IX does not authorize an award of damages, and the Court
 of Appeals affirmed.
Held:A damages remedy is available for an action brought to enforce
 Title IX.  Pp.4-15.
   (a)Title IX is enforceable through an implied right of action.
 Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677.  P.4.
   (b)The longstanding general rule is that absent clear direction to
 the contrary by Congress, the federal courts have the power to award
 any appropriate relief in a cognizable cause of action brought pursu-
 ant to a federal statute.  See, e. g., Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684;
 Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 246-247.  Pp.4-6.
   (c)This Court's adherence to the general rule has not eroded since
 Bell.  See, e. g., J. I. Ca. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 433-435.  In
 declaring that ``the question of who may enforce a statutory right is
 fundamentally different from the question of who may enforce a
 [constitutionally protected] right,'' Davis, 442 U.S., at 241, was not
 limiting the traditional presumption in favor of all appropriate relief
 to actions claiming constitutional violations.  Rather it was merely
 attempting to decide whether a litigant had a ``cause of action,'' a
 question that is analytically distinct from, and prior to, the one at
 issue:  what relief, if any a litigant is entitled to receive, see id., at
 239.  Nor did Guardians Assn. v. Civil Service Comm'n of New York
 City, 463 U.S. 582, and Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Darrone, 465
 U.S. 624, erode the traditional presumption.  In fact, those cases
 support it, since a clear majority in Guardians expressed the view
 that damages were available in an action seeking remedies for an
 intentional violation of a statute closely analogous to Title IX, while
 a unanimous Court in Darrone held that another such statute autho-
 rized the award of backpay.  Pp.6-9.
   (d)Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a
 Title IX suit.  Because the Cannon Court inferred a cause of action
 upon concluding that Title IX supported no express right of action,
 the silence of the pre-Cannon statutory text and legislative history
 on the issue of available remedies is neither surprising nor enlighten-
 ing.  Rather, the appropriate inquiry for the pre-Cannon period is the
 state of the law when Congress passed Title IX.  Since, at that time,
 the traditional presumption in favor of all available remedies was
 firmly established, and this Court had recently found implied rights
 of action in six cases and approved a damages remedy in three of
 them, the lack of any legislative intent to abandon the traditional
 presumption is amply demonstrated.  For the post-Cannon period,
 when Congress was legislating with full cognizance of that decision,
 analysis of the text and history of the two statutes enacted to amend
 Title IX-the Civil Rights Remedies Equalization Amendment of 1986
 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987-establishes that
 Congress validated Cannon's holding and made no effort to alter the
 traditional presumption.  Pp.9-11.
   (e)The argument that a damages award would unduly expand the
 federal courts' power into a sphere properly reserved to the Executive
 and Legislative Branches in violation of separation of powers princi-
 ples misconceives the difference between a cause of action and a
 remedy.  Unlike the finding of a cause of action, which authorizes a
 court to hear a case or controversy, the discretion to award appropri-
 ate relief involves no such increase in judicial power and, in fact,
 historically has been thought necessary to provide an important
 safeguard against legislative and executive abuses and to insure an
 independent judiciary.  Moreover, selective adjudication of the sort
 advocated here would harm separation of powers by giving judges the
 power to render inutile causes of action authorized by Congress
 through a decision that no remedy is available.  P.12.
   (f)Also rejected is the contention that the normal presumption in
 favor of all appropriate remedies should not apply because Title IX
 was enacted pursuant to Congress' Spending Clause power.  The
 Court's observation in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v.
 Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 28-29, that remedies are limited under
 Spending Clause statutes when the alleged violation is unintentional
 is based on the theory that an entity receiving federal funds lacks
 notice that it will be liable for damages for such a violation, see id.,
 at 17.  This notice problem does not arise in a case such as the
 present, where intentional discrimination is alleged and is proscribed
 by the statute in question.  Moreover, the notion that Spending
 Clause statutes do not authorize monetary awards for intentional
 violations is belied by the unanimous holding in Darrone, supra, at
 628.  P.13.
   (g)The assertion that Title IX remedies should nevertheless be
 limited to backpay and prospective relief diverges from this Court's
 traditional approach to deciding what remedies are available for
 violation of a federal right.  Both suggested remedies are equitable
 in nature, and it is axiomatic that a court should determine the
 adequacy of damages at law before resorting to equitable relief.
 Moreover, both suggested remedies are clearly inadequate in that
 they would provide Franklin no relief:  backpay because she was a
 student when the alleged discrimination occurred, and prospective
 relief because she no longer attends school in respondent system and
 Hill no longer teaches there.  P.14.
911 F.2d 617, reversed and remanded.

 White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Blackmun,
Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined.  Scalia, J.,
filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Rehnquist, C.
J., and Thomas, J., joined.
-------------------------------

 NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
 preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
 notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
 ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
 corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 90-918
--------
CHRISTINE FRANKLIN, PETITIONER v. GWINNETT
COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS and
WILLIAM PRESCOTT
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eleventh circuit
[February 26, 1992]

  Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
  This case presents the question whether the implied right
of action under Title IX of the Education Amendments of
1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681-1688 (Title IX), which this Court
recognized in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677
(1979), supports a claim for monetary damages.
                      I
  Petitioner Christine Franklin was a student at North
Gwinnett High School in Gwinnett County, Georgia,
between September 1985 and August 1989.  Respondent
Gwinnett County School District operates the high school
and receives federal funds.  According to the complaint filed
on December 29, 1988 in the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia, Franklin was subjected
to continual sexual harassment beginning in the autumn of
her tenth grade year (1986) from Andrew Hill, a sports
coach and teacher employed by the district.  Among other
allegations, Franklin avers that Hill engaged her in
sexually-oriented conversations in which he asked about her
sexual experiences with her boyfriend and whether she
would consider having sexual intercourse with an older
man, Complaint 10; First Amended Complaint, Exh. A,
p.3; that Hill forcibly kissed her on the mouth in the
school parking lot, Complaint 17; that he telephoned her
at her home and asked if she would meet him socially,
Complaint 21; First Amended Complaint, Exh. A, pp.4-5;
and that, on three occasions in her junior year, Hill inter-
rupted a class, requested that the teacher excuse Franklin,
and took her to a private office where he subjected her to
coercive intercourse.  Complaint 25, 27, 32.  The com-
plaint further alleges that though they became aware of
and investigated Hill's sexual harassment of Franklin and
other female students, teachers and administrators took no
action to halt it and discouraged Franklin from pressing
charges against Hill.  Complaint 23, 24, 35.  On April 14,
1988, Hill resigned on the condition that all matters
pending against him be dropped.  Complaint 36, 37.  The
school thereupon closed its investigation.  Complaint 37.
  In this action, the District Court dismissed the com-
plaint on the ground that Title IX does not authorize an
award of damages.  The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Franklin v. Gwinnett Cty. Public Schools, 911 F. 2d 617
(CA11 1990).  The court noted that analysis of Title IX and
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000d et
seq. (Title VI), has developed along similar lines.  Citing as
binding precedent Drayden v. Needville Independent School
Dist., 642 F. 2d 129 (CA5 1981), a decision rendered prior
to the division of the Fifth Circuit, the court concluded that
Title VI did not support a claim for monetary damages.
The court then analyzed this Court's decision in Guardians
Assn. v. Civil Service Comm'n of New York City, 463 U.S.
582 (1983), to determine whether it implicitly overruled
Drayden.  The court stated that the absence of a majority
opinion left unresolved the question whether a court could
award such relief upon a showing of intentional discrimina-
tion.  As a second basis for its holding that monetary
damages were unavailable, the court reasoned that Title IX
was enacted under Congress' Spending Clause powers and
that ``[u]nder such statutes, relief may frequently be limited
to that which is equitable in nature, with the recipient of
federal funds thus retaining the option of terminating such
receipt in order to rid itself of an injunction.''  Franklin, 911
F. 2d, at 621.  The court closed by observing it would
``proceed with extreme care'' to afford compensatory relief
absent express provision by Congress or clear direction from
this Court.  Id., at 622.  Accordingly, it held that an action
for monetary damages could not be sustained for an alleged
intentional violation of Title IX, and affirmed the District
Court's ruling to that effect.  Ibid.
  Because this opinion conflicts with a decision of the Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit, see Pfeiffer v. Marion
Center Area School Dist., 917 F. 2d 779, 787-789 (1990), we
granted certiorari, 501 U.S. ___ (1991).  We reverse.
                     II
  In Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677 (1979),
the Court held that Title IX is enforceable through an
implied right of action.  We have no occasion here to
reconsider that decision.  Rather, in this case we must
decide what remedies are available in a suit brought
pursuant to this implied right.  As we have often stated
question of what remedies are available under a statute
that provides a private right of action is ``analytically
distinct'' from the issue of whether such a right exists in the
first place.  Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 239 (1979).
Thus, although we examine the text and history of a statute
to determine whether Congress intended to create a right
of action, Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S. 560,
575-576 (1979), we presume the availability of all appropri-
ate remedies unless Congress has expressly indicated other-
wise.  Davis, supra, at 246-247.  This principle has deep
roots in our jurisprudence.
                      A
  ``[W]here legal rights have been invaded, and a federal
statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion,
federal courts may use any available remedy to make good
the wrong done.''  Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684 (1946).
The Court explained this longstanding rule as jurisdiction-
al, and upheld the exercise of the federal courts' power to
award appropriate relief so long as a cause of action existed
under the Constitution or laws of the United States.  Ibid.
  The Bell Court's reliance on this rule was hardly revolu-
tionary.  From the earliest years of the Republic, the Court
has recognized the power of the judiciary to award appro-
priate remedies to redress injuries actionable in federal
court, although it did not always distinguish clearly
between a right to bring suit and a remedy available under
such a right.  In Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163
(1803), for example, Chief Justice Marshall observed that
our government ``has been emphatically termed a govern-
ment of laws, and not of men.  It will certainly cease to
deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy
for the violation of a vested legal right.''  This principle
originated in the English common law, and Blackstone
described ``it is a general and indisputable rule, that where
there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy, by suit
or action at law, whenever that right is invaded.''  3
W. Blackstone, Commentaries 23 (1783).  See also Ashby v.
White, 1 Salk. 19, 21, 87 Eng. Rep. 808, 816 (Q.B. 1702) (``If
a statute gives a right, the common law will give a remedy
to maintain that right . . .'').
  In Kendall v. United States, 12 Pet. 524 (1838), the Court
applied these principles to an act of Congress that accorded
a right of action in mail carriers to sue for adjustment and
settlement of certain claims for extra services but which did
not specify the precise remedy available to the carriers.
After surveying possible remedies, which included an action
against the postmaster general for monetary damages, the
Court held that the carriers were entitled to a writ of
mandamus compelling payment under the terms of the
statute.  ``It cannot be denied but that congress had the
power to command that act to be done,'' the Court stated;
``and the power to enforce the performance of the act must
rest somewhere, or it will present a case which has often
been said to involve a monstrous absurdity in a well
organized government, that there should be no remedy,
although a clear and undeniable right should be shown to
exist.  And if the remedy cannot be applied by the circuit
court of this district, it exists nowhere.''  Id., at 624.  Dooley
v. United States, 182 U.S. 222, 229 (1901), also restated
``the principle that a liability created by statute without a
remedy may be enforced by a common-law action.''
  The Court relied upon this traditional presumption again
after passage of the Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1893,
ch. 196, 27 Stat. 531.  In Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby,
241 U.S. 33 (1916), the Court first had to determine
whether the Act supported an implied right of action.  After
answering that question in the affirmative, the Court then
upheld a claim for monetary damages:  ``A disregard of the
command of the statute is a wrongful act, and where it
results in damage to one of the class for whose especial
benefit the statute was enacted, the right to recover the
damages from the party in default is implied, according to
a doctrine of the common law . . . .''  Id., at 39.  The
foundation upon which the Bell v. Hood Court articulated
this traditional presumption, therefore, was well settled.
See also Texas & New Orleans R. Co. v. Railway & Steam-
ship Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 569 (1930).
                      B
  Respondents and the United States as amicus curiae,
however, maintain that whatever the traditional presump-
tion may have been when the Court decided Bell v. Hood,
it has disappeared in succeeding decades.  We do not agree.
In J.I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426 (1964), the Court
adhered to the general rule that all appropriate relief is
available in an action brought to vindicate a federal right
when Congress has given no indication of its purpose with
respect to remedies.  Relying on Bell v. Hood, the Borak
Court specifically rejected an argument that a court's
remedial power to redress violations of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 was limited to a declaratory judg-
ment.  377 U.S., at 433-434.  The Court concluded that the
federal courts ``have the power to grant all necessary
remedial relief'' for violations of the Act.  Id., at 435.  As
Justice Clark's opinion for the Court observed, this holding
closely followed the reasoning of a similar case brought
under the Securities Act of 1933, in which the Court had
stated:
   ```The power to enforce implies the power to make
   effective the right of recovery afforded by the Act.  And
   the power to make the right of recovery effective
   implies the power to utilize any of the procedures or
   actions normally available to the litigant according to
   the exigencies of the particular case.'''  Id., at 433-434
   (quoting Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311
   U.S. 282, 288 (1940)).

That a statute does not authorize the remedy at issue ``in so
many words is no more significant than the fact that it does
not in terms authorize execution to issue on a judgment.''
Id., at 288.  Subsequent cases have been true to this
position.  See, e. g., Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc.,
396 U.S. 229, 239 (1969), stating that the ``existence of a
statutory right implies the existence of all necessary and
appropriate remedies''; Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 255
(1978), upholding damages remedy under 42 U.S.C. 1983
even though the enacting Congress had not specifically
provided such relief.
  The United States contends that the traditional presump-
tion in favor of all appropriate relief was abandoned by the
Court in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 (1979), and that
the Bell v. Hood rule was limited to actions claiming
constitutional violations.  The United States quotes lan-
guage in Davis to the effect that ``the question of who may
enforce a statutory right is fundamentally different from the
question of who may enforce a right that is protected by the
Constitution.''  Davis, 442 U.S., at 241.  The Government's
position, however, mirrors the very misunderstanding over
the difference between a cause of action and the relief
afforded under it that sparked the confusion we attempted
to clarify in Davis.  Whether Congress may limit the class
of persons who have a right of action under Title IX is
irrelevant to the issue in this lawsuit.  To reiterate, ``the
question whether a litigant has a `cause of action' is
analytically distinct and prior to the question of what relief,
if any, a litigant may be entitled to receive.''  Id., at 239.
Davis, therefore, did nothing to interrupt the long line of
cases in which the Court has held that if a right of action
exists to enforce a federal right and Congress is silent on
the question of remedies, a federal court may order any
appropriate relief.  See id., at 247, n.26 (contrasting Brown
v. General Services Administration, 425 U.S. 820 (1976)).
  Contrary to arguments by respondents and the United
States that Guardians Assn.  v. Civil Service Comm'n of
New York City, 463 U.S. 582 (1983), and Consolidated Rail
Corp. v. Darrone, 465 U.S. 624 (1984), eroded this tradition-
al presumption, those cases in fact support it.  Though the
multiple opinions in Guardians suggest the difficulty of
inferring the common ground among the Justices in that
case, a clear majority expressed the view that damages
were available under Title VI in an action seeking remedies
for an intentional violation, and no Justice challenged the
traditional presumption in favor of a federal court's power
to award appropriate relief in a cognizable cause of action.
See Guardians, 463 U.S., at 595 (White, J., joined by
Rehnquist, J.); id., at 607-611 (Powell, J., concurring in
judgment, joined by Burger, C.J.); id., at 612, and n.1
(O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 624-628
(Marshall, J., dissenting); id., at 636 (Stevens, J., dissent-
ing, joined by Brennan and Blackmun, JJ.).  The correct-
ness of this inference was made clear the following Term
when the Court unanimously held that the 1978 amend-
ment to 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973-which had
expressly incorporated the ``remedies, procedures, and
rights set forth in title VI'' (29 U.S.C. 794a(a)(2))-auth-
orizes an award of backpay.  In Darrone, the Court ob-
served that a majority in Guardians had ``agreed that
retroactive relief is available to private plaintiffs for all
discrimination . . . that is actionable under Title VI.''  465
U.S., at 630, n.9.  The general rule, therefore, is that absent
clear direction to the contrary by Congress, the federal
courts have the power to award any appropriate relief in a
cognizable cause of action brought pursuant to a federal
statute.                     III
  We now address whether Congress intended to limit
application of this general principle in the enforcement of
Title IX.  See Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 378 (1983);
Wyandotte Transp. Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191, 200
(1967).  Because the cause of action was inferred by the
Court in Cannon, the usual recourse to statutory text and
legislative history in the period prior to that decision
necessarily will not enlighten our analysis.  Respondents
and the United States fundamentally misunderstand the
nature of the inquiry, therefore, by needlessly dedicating
large portions of their briefs to discussions of how the text
and legislative intent behind Title IX are ``silent'' on the
issue of available remedies.  Since the Court in Cannon
concluded that this statute supported no express right of
action, it is hardly surprising that Congress also said
nothing about the applicable remedies for an implied right
of action.
  During the period prior to the decision in Cannon, the
inquiry in any event is not ```basically a matter of statutory
construction,''' as the United States asserts.  Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 8 (quoting Transamerica
Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U.S. 11, 15 (1979)).
Rather, in determining Congress's intent to limit applica-
tion of the traditional presumption in favor of all appropri-
ate relief, we evaluate the state of the law when the
legislature passed Title IX.  Cf. Merrill Lynch, Pierce,
Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U.S. 353, 378 (1982).
In the years before and after Congress enacted this statute,
the Court ``follow[ed] a common-law tradition [and] regard-
ed the denial of a remedy as the exception rather than the
rule.''  Id., at 375 (footnote omitted).  As we outlined in Part
II, this has been the prevailing presumption in our federal
courts since at least the early nineteenth century.  In
Cannon, the majority upheld an implied right of action in
part because in the decade immediately preceding enact-
ment of Title IX in 1972, this Court had found implied
rights of action in six cases.  In three of those cases, the
Court had approved a damages remedy.  See, e. g., J.I. Case
Co., 377 U.S., at 433, Wyandotte Transp. Co., supra, at 207;
Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U.S. 229 (1969).
Wholly apart from the wisdom of the Cannon holding,
therefore, the same contextual approach used to justify an
implied right of action more than amply demonstrates the
lack of any legislative intent to abandon the traditional
presumption in favor of all available remedies.
  In the years after the announcement of Cannon, on the
other hand, a more traditional method of statutory analysis
is possible, because Congress was legislating with full
cognizance of that decision.  Our reading of the two amend-
ments to Title IX enacted after Cannon leads us to conclude
that Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available
in a suit brought under Title IX.  In the Civil Rights
Remedies Equalization Amendment of 1986, 42 U.S.C.
2000d-7, Congress abrogated the States' Eleventh Amend-
ment immunity under Title IX, Title VI, 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act
of 1975.  This statute cannot be read except as a validation
of Cannon's holding.  A subsection of the 1986 law provides
that in a suit against a State, ``remedies (including reme-
dies both at law and in equity) are available for such a
violation to the same extent as such remedies are available
for such a violation in the suit against any public or private
entity other than a State.''  42 U.S.C. 2000d-7(a)(2).  While
it is true that this savings clause says nothing about the
nature of those other available remedies, cf. Milwaukee v.
Illinois, 451 U.S. 304, 329, n.22 (1981), absent any contrary
indication in the text or history of the statute, we presume
Congress enacted this statute with the prevailing tradition-
al rule in mind.
  In addition to the Civil Rights Remedies Equalization
Amendment of 1986, Congress also enacted the Civil Rights
Restoration Act of 1987, Pub. L. 100-259, 102 Stat. 28
(1988).  Without in any way altering the existing rights of
action and the corresponding remedies permissible under
Title IX, Title VI, 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the
Age Discrimination Act, Congress broadened the coverage
of these antidiscrimination provisions in this legislation.  In
seeking to correct whatonsidered to be an unacceptable
decision on our part in Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S.
555 (1984), Congress made no effort to restrict the right of
action recognized in Cannon and ratified in the 1986 Act or
to alter the traditional presumption in favor of any appro-
priate relief for violation of a federal right.  We cannot say,
therefore, that Congress has limited the remedies available
to a complainant in a suit brought under Title IX.
                     IV
  Respondents and the United States nevertheless suggest
three reasons why we should not apply the traditional
presumption in favor of appropriate relief in this case.
                      A
  First, respondents argue that an award of damages
violates separation of powers principles because it unduly
expands the federal courts' power into a sphere properly
reserved to the Executive and Legislative Branches.  Brief
for Respondents 22-25.  In making this argument, respon-
dents misconceive the difference between a cause of action
and a remedy.  Unlike the finding of a cause of action,
which authorizes a court to hear a case or controversy, the
discretion to award appropriate relief involves no such
increase in judicial power.  See generally Note, Federal
Jurisdiction in Suits for Damages Under Statutes Not
Affording Such Remedy, 48 Colum. L. Rev. 1090, 1094-1095
(1948).  Federal courts cannot reach out to award remedies
when the Constitution or laws of the United States do not
support a cause of action.  Indeed, properly understood,
respondents' position invites us to abdicate our historic
judicial authority to award appropriate relief in cases
brought in our court system.  It is well to recall that such
authority historically has been thought necessary to provide
an important safeguard against abuses of legislative and
executive power, see Kendall v. United States, 12 Pet. 524
(1838), as well as to insure an independent judiciary.  See
generally Katz, The Jurisprudence of Remedies:  Constitu-
tional Legality and the Law of Torts in Bell v. Hood, 117 U.
Pa. L. Rev. 1, 16-17 (1968).  Moreover, selective abdication
of the sort advocated here would harm separation of powers
principles in another way, by giving judges the power to
render inutile causes of action authorized by Congress
through a decision that no remedy is available.
                      B
  Next, consistent with the Court of Appeals's reasoning,
respondents and the United States contend that the normal
presumption in favor of all appropriate remedies should not
apply because Title IX was enacted pursuant to Congress's
Spending Clause power.  In Pennhurst State School and
Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 28-29 (1981), the Court
observed that remedies were limited under such Spending
Clause statutes when the alleged violation was unintention-
al.  Respondents and the United States maintain that this
presumption should apply equally to intentional violations.
We disagree.  The point of not permitting monetary
damages for an unintentional violation is that the receiving
entity of federal funds lacks notice that it will be liable for
a monetary award.  See id. at 17.  This notice problem does
not arise in a case such as this, in which intentional
discrimination is alleged.  Unquestionably, Title IX placed
on the Gwinnett County Schools the duty not to discrimi-
nate on the basis of sex, and ``when a supervisor sexually
harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate's sex,
that supervisor `discriminate[s]' on the basis of sex.''
Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64
(1986).  We believe the same rule should apply when a
teacher sexually harasses and abuses a student.  Congress
surely did not intend for federal monies to be expended to
support the intentional actions it sought by statute to
proscribe.  Moreover, the notion that Spending Clause
statutes do not authorize monetary awards for intentional
violations is belied by our unanimous holding in Darrone.
See 465 U.S., at 628.  Respondents and the United States
characterize the backpay remedy in Darrone as equitable
relief, but this description is irrelevant to their underlying
objection:  that application of the traditional rule in this
case will require state entities to pay monetary awards out
of their treasuries for intentional violations of federal
statutes.
                      C
  Finally, the United States asserts that the remedies
permissible under Title IX should nevertheless be limited
to backpay and prospective relief.  In addition to diverging
from our traditional approach to deciding what remedies
are available for violation of a federal right, this position
conflicts with sound logic.  First, both remedies are equita-
ble in nature, and it is axiomatic that a court should
determine the adequacy of a remedy in law before resorting
to equitable relief.  Under the ordinary convention, the
proper inquiry would be whether monetary damages
provided an adequate remedy, and if not, whether equitable
relief would be appropriate.  Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138
U.S. 146, 150 (1891).  See generally C. McCormick, Law of
Damages 1 (1935).  Moreover, in this case the equitable
remedies suggested by respondent and the Federal Govern-
ment are clearly inadequate.  Backpay does nothing for
petitioner, because she was a student when the alleged
discrimination occurred.  Similarly, because Hill-the
person she claims subjected her to sexual harassment-no
longer teaches at the school and she herself no longer
attends a school in the Gwinnett system, prospective relief
accords her no remedy at all.  The government's answer
that administrative action helps other similarly-situated
students in effect acknowledges that its approach would
leave petitioner remediless.
                      V
  In sum, we conclude that a damages remedy is available
for an action brought to enforce Title IX.  The judgment of
the Court of Appeals, therefore, is reversed and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
                                  So ordered.
-------------------------------

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 90-918
--------
CHRISTINE FRANKLIN, PETITIONER v. GWINNETT
COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS and
WILLIAM PRESCOTT
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for teventh circuit
[February 26, 1992]

  Justice Scalia, with whom the Chief Justice and
Justice Thomas join, concurring in the judgment.
  The substantive right at issue here is one that Congress
did not expressly create, but that this Court found to be
``implied.''  See Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S.
677 (1979).  Quite obviously, the search for what was
Congress's remedial intent as to a right whose very exis-
tence Congress did not expressly acknowledge is unlikely to
succeed, see ante, at 9-10; it is ``hardly surprising,'' as the
Court says, ibid., that the usual sources yield no explicit
answer.
  The Court finds an implicit answer, however, in the
legislators' presumptive awareness of our practice of using
``any available remedy'' to redress violations of legal rights.
Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684 (1946); see ante, at 10-11.
This strikes me as question-begging.  We can plausibly
assume acquiescence in our Bell v. Hood presumption when
the legislature says nothing about remedy in expressly
creating a private right of action; perhaps even when it says
nothing about remedy in creating a private right of action
by clear textual implication; but not, I think, when it says
nothing about remedy in a statute in which the courts
divine a private right of action on the basis of ``contextual''
evidence such as that in Cannon, which charged Congress
with knowledge of a court of appeals' creation of a cause of
action under a similarly worded statute.  See Cannon,
supra, at 696-698.  Whatever one thinks of the validity of
the last approach, it surely rests on attributed rather than
actual congressional knowledge.  It does not demonstrate an
explicit legislative decision to create a cause of action, and
so could not be expected to be accompanied by a legislative
decision to alter the application of Bell v. Hood.  Given the
nature of Cannon and some of our earlier ``implied right of
action'' cases, what the Court's analytical construct comes
down to is this: Unless Congress expressly legislates a more
limited remedial policy with respect to rights of action it
does not know it is creating, it intends the full gamut of
remedies to be applied.
  In my view, when rights of action are judicially ``implied,''
categorical limitations upon their remedial scope may be
judicially implied as well.  Cf. Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66,
84-85.  Although we have abandoned the expansive rights-
creating approach exemplified by Cannon, see Touche Ross
& Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S. 560, 575-576 (1979); Trans-
america Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U.S. 11, 18,
23-24 (1979)-and perhaps ought to abandon the notion of
implied causes of action entirely, see Thompson v. Thomp-
son, 484 U.S. 174, 191 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring in
judgment)-causes of action that came into existence under
the ancien regime should be limited by the same logic that
gave them birth.  To require, with respect to a right that is
not consciously and intentionally created, that any limita-
tion of remedies must be express, is to provide, in effect,
that the most questionable of private rights will also be the
most expansively remediable.  As the United States puts it,
``[w]hatever the merits of `implying' rights of action may be,
there is no justification for treating [congressional] silence
as the equivalent of the broadest imaginable grant of
remedial authority.''  Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 12-13.
  I nonetheless agree with the Court's disposition of this
case.  Because of legislation enacted subsequent to Cannon,
it is too late in the day to address whether a judicially
implied exclusion of damages under Title IX would be
appropriate.  The Civil Rights Remedies Equalization
Amendment of 1986, 42 U. S. C. 2000d-7(a)(2), must be
read, in my view, not only ``as a validation of Cannon's
holding,'' ante, at 11, but also as an implicit acknowledg-
ment that damages are available.  See 42 U. S. C. 2000d-
7(a)(1) (withdrawing the States' Eleventh Amendment
immunity); 2000d-7(a)(2) (providing that, in suits against
States, ``remedies (including remedies both at law and in
equity) are available for [violations of Title IX] to the same
extent as such remedies are available for such a violation
in the suit against any public or private entity other than
a State'').  I therefore concur in the judgment.
-------------------------------
