Supreme Court to Decide If Title IX Covers Work Bias Claims (1)

Former Georgia university employees secured a US Supreme Court review of whether Title IX of a federal education law allows staff at federally funded schools to bring sex discrimination claims, an issue that divides lower courts.

The justices on Monday granted the petitioners’ request to examine a US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decision that Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments Act only provides a private right of action for students to bring sex bias claims. The majority of the 12 active-service judges on the circuit court last year declined to rehear the dispute en banc, keeping a three-judge circuit panel’s ruling in place.

The high court’s review could resolve a split among federal appellate courts on the issue and also clarify whether Title IX may give workers an implied right to sue for job bias, after its 2005 Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education decision recognizing that the law covers employees’ allegations of retaliation.

The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth circuits permit employees to pursue sex bias claims against educational institutions under Title IX, former Augusta University art professor Thomas Crowther and former Georgia Tech women’s basketball coach MaChelle Joseph argued in their petition. The Fifth and Seventh Circuits held otherwise, the filing said.

A high court decision overturning the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling that Congress created Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as the only appropriate remedy for school employees to bring bias claims would expose public schools and universities to sex discrimination lawsuits under both laws, legal scholars said. Title VII prohibits bias in employment based on gender, race, and several other categories.

This would also allow plaintiffs to bypass Title VII’s requirement that workers must first file sex bias charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a relevant state agency before going to court for relief, said Peter Lake, a higher education law and policy scholar at Stetson University College of Law.

“Folks have been waiting a long time for the Supreme Court to resolve the Title VII-Title IX employment discrimination conundrum,” Lake said. “It’s been a vexatious challenge for a long time to figure out how to reconcile the statutes if we can.”

“I detect that the Supreme Court realizes that employers—particularly education employers—are really in a sticky wicket here, having the law vary so much” by circuits, he added.

Gregory Dubinsky, a partner at Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP who’s representing the petitioners, issued a statement lauding the Supreme Court for granting certiorari.

Georgia’s Office of the Attorney General, which represents the state university system, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Bias Claims

At the Eleventh Circuit, Crowther sought to revive claims that his school conducted an improper Title IX investigation into sexual misconduct allegations by students because of anti-male bias and then declined to renew his contract.

Meanwhile, Joseph accused her university of bias and retaliation when she was fired after she complained that the women’s basketball team was shortchanged funding and resources compared to the men’s team, including higher coaches’ salaries.

The universities denied the allegations, and they told the justices that review is unnecessary.

Ruling for the two former employees would create a judicial right of action under Title IX for workplace bias, undermining Congress’ established framework in Title VII for employment discrimination, they said. The universities also accused Crowther and Joseph of misrepresenting how other circuits addressed the issue.

The two laws differ in scope, beyond the procedural charge-filing distinction. Educational institutions that accept federal funding are subject to Title IX. Meanwhile, Title VII is much broader, covering most employers with 15 or more workers.

Michael Selmi, an employment discrimination law scholar at Arizona State College of Law, said Title IX “is rarely used” in workplace bias litigation cases but offers the same advantages for plaintiffs bringing racial discrimination claims as Section 1981, which prohibits racial bias in contracting.

A plaintiff can recover up to $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages total under Title VII. Title IX, like Section 1981, has no statutory caps on compensatory damages.

“As a result, Title IX could be helpful for sex discrimination plaintiffs that fall within its purview,” he said.

Textualist Approach

The high court’s increasingly strict textualist approach of examining cases by focusing on a statute’s plain meaning, as well as congressional intent, will also come to play, Lake said.

They “suggest that the winds are blowing favorably to the Justice Department” and the university’s position that private rights of action must be explicitly created by Congress rather than implied by federal courts, he said.

The US Solicitor General’s Office backed the Eleventh Circuit, but told the justices in an amicus brief that the high court had requested that they must resolve the circuit split.

“Admittedly, the timing of Title IX and the 1972 amendments to Title VII is curious, but the court has to read far beyond the language and the unexpressed intent of Congress to conclude that Title VII is the exclusive remedy,” Selmi said.

Anne Marie Lofaso, a constitutional and employment discrimination law professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, said most circuits initially thought that Jackson settled the question until a split later emerged.

Justice Clarence Thomas will be an important figure to watch, as he wrote the dissent in that case, joined by three other justices. He argued in part that Congress didn’t use any express language in Title IX to support the majority’s ruling.

“Ten years ago, I would say this is a slam dunk—that there’s a private right of action,” Lofaso said. “The Supreme Court has really changed in the past decade.”

The case is Crowther v. Board of Regents of University System of Georgia, U.S., No. 25-183, petition granted 5/18/26.