Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating "on the basis of sex." In Cannon v. University of Chicago , 441 U.S. 677 (1979), this Court held that Title IX is privately enforceable by "victims of discrimination" through an implied right of action. And in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education , 544 U.S. 167 (2005), this Court held that employees of federally funded educational institutions may invoke Title IX's implied private right of action to bring claims for retaliation. Following Jackson , and until the decision below, "every ... circuit[] that has considered whether a teacher may sue under Title IX" for sex discrimination in their employment "has found they may." Pet App. 124a (Rosenbaum, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc ). Splitting with eight courts of appeals, the Eleventh Circuit held in the decision below that Title IX "do[es] not embrace a private right of action for employees." Pet. App. 21a. In so holding, the Eleventh Circuit joined pre- Jackson decisions from the Fifth and Seventh Circuits in an 8-3 split. The question presented is: Whether Title IX provides employees of federally funded educational institutions a private right of action to sue for sex discrimination in employment.

MaChelle Joseph served as head women's basketball coach at Georgia Tech from 2003 until her termination in March 2019. Throughout her tenure, she repeatedly complained that the university provided her program with inferior resources compared to the men's basketball team—including smaller facilities, less marketing support, lower staff salaries, and reduced travel budgets. Shortly after she filed a formal internal complaint alleging sex discrimination and retaliation in early 2019, Georgia Tech hired an outside investigator to examine complaints about her coaching conduct, placed her on administrative leave, and fired her weeks later based on the investigator's report finding she had created a harmful environment for players. Thomas Crowther taught art at Augusta University from 2006 until 2021. In Spring 2020, several students complained he had sexually harassed them, triggering a Title IX investigation. Crowther argued the investigation was biased against him as a male respondent—he was denied the identities of his accusers, most of his witnesses went uninterviewed, and he received his first negative performance review in nearly fifteen years while the investigation was still pending. After investigators found he had violated the university's sexual harassment policy, Augusta suspended him for a semester, declined to renew his contract while his appeal remained pending, and effectively terminated him. Both Joseph and Crowther sued under Title IX as employees of federally funded educational institutions, asserting that the statute's ban on sex discrimination entitled them to bring suit directly in federal court. In separate proceedings before the district court in the Northern District of Georgia, the court dismissed Joseph's Title IX employment-discrimination claims as precluded by Title VII while allowing other claims to proceed, and later granted summary judgment for the defendants on those remaining claims; in Crowther's case, the court denied the motion to dismiss his Title IX claims and certified that order for interlocutory appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit consolidated both appeals and, on November 7, 2024, held that Title IX does not provide an implied private right of action for employees alleging sex discrimination in employment—affirming the dismissal of Joseph's Title IX claims and reversing the denial of dismissal of Crowther's claims; the Eleventh Circuit denied rehearing en banc on April 8, 2025.