Opinion of the court
Justice Byron White delivered the opinion of the Court, which was unanimous except for Part III.
In an opinion by White, joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, and Sandra Day O'Connor, it was held that (1) Title IX applied to the college, even though it accepted no direct assistance, since it did enroll students who received BEOGs, (2) for Title IX enforcement purposes, the education program or activity at the college receiving federal financial assistance was the college's financial aid program, and not the entire college, (3) federal assistance to the college's financial aid program could be terminated solely because the college had refused to execute an assurance of compliance with Title IX, and (4) the application of Title IX to the college did not infringe the First Amendment rights of the college or its students.
Concurring and dissenting opinions
Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger and Sandra Day O'Connor, concurred, expressing the view that the above holdings were dictated by the language and legislative history of Title IX and the regulations of the Department of Education.
John Paul Stevens concurred in part and concurred in the result, stating that he was unable to join in holding 2 above because he considered it an advisory opinion unnecessary to the overall decision and because it was predicated on speculation rather than evidence.
William Brennan joined by Thurgood Marshall concurred in part and dissented in part, expressing the view that the program-specific language in Title IX was designed to insure that the reach of the statute is dependent upon the scope of federal financial assistance provided to the college, so that when the financial assistance is clearly intended to serve as federal aid for the entire college, the college as a whole should be covered by the prohibition on sex discrimination.
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.
Hillsdale College is a private, conservative, Christian liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan. It was founded in 1844 by members of the Free Will Baptists. Hillsdale's required core curriculum includes courses on the Great Books, the U.S. Constitution, biology, chemistry, and physics.
Grove City College (GCC) is a private, conservative Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1876 as a normal school, the college emphasizes a humanities core curriculum and offers 60 majors and six pre-professional programs with undergraduate degrees in the liberal arts, sciences, business, education, engineering, and music. The college has always been formally non-denominational, but in its first few decades its students and faculty were dominated by members of the Presbyterian Church, to the extent that it was sometimes described as having a de facto Presbyterian affiliation; in more recent decades, it and the Presbyterian Church have moved apart.
James Andrew Wynn is an American jurist. He serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and formerly served on both the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), was a 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld an Ohio program that used school vouchers. The Court decided that the program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as long as parents using the program were allowed to choose among a range of secular and religious schools.
The term Solomon Amendment has been applied to several provisions of U.S. law originally sponsored by U.S. Representative Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY).
The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, or Grove City Bill, is a United States legislative act that specifies that entities receiving federal funds must comply with civil rights legislation in all of their operations, not just in the program or activity that received the funding. The Act overturned the precedent set by the Supreme Court decision in Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555 (1984), which held that only the particular program in an educational institution receiving federal financial assistance was required to comply with the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, not the institution as a whole.
Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case which established limits on freedom of religion in the United States.
A Pell Grant is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with exceptional financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree, or who are enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating institutions. Originally known as a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, it was renamed in 1980 in honor of Democratic U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. A Pell Grant is generally considered the foundation of a student's financial aid package, to which other forms of aid are added. The Federal Pell Grant program is administered by the United States Department of Education, which determines the student's financial need and through it, the student's Pell eligibility. The U.S. Department of Education uses a standard formula to evaluate financial information reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for determining the student's Expected Family Contribution (EFC).
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education of undocumented immigrant children in the United States and an independent school district's attempt to charge an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each student to compensate for lost state funding. The Court found that any state restriction imposed on the rights afforded to children based on their immigration status must be examined under a rational basis standard to determine whether it furthers a substantial government interest.
National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, 525 U.S. 459 (1999), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the NCAA's receipt of dues payments from colleges and universities which received federal funds, was not sufficient to subject the NCAA to a lawsuit under Title IX.
In the United States, federal assistance, also known as federal aid, federal benefits, or federal funds, is defined as any federal program, project, service, or activity provided by the federal government that directly assists domestic governments, organizations, or individuals in the areas of education, health, public safety, public welfare, and public works, among others.
The Tower Amendment was a 1974 proposed amendment to the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, named after Texas Republican Senator John Tower, who introduced it. The Tower Amendment was intended to modify Title IX.
Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that states participating in Medicaid are not required to fund medically necessary abortions for which federal reimbursement was unavailable as a result of the Hyde Amendment, which restricted the use of federal funds for abortion. The Court also held that the funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment did not violate the Fifth Amendment or the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), was a United States Supreme Court case challenging the legality of Christmas decorations on town property.
Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455 (1973), is a United States Supreme Court decision in the area of constitutional law which the court held that a state cannot provide aid to a private school which discriminates on the basis of race.
Barr v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 146 (1964), is a United States Supreme Court decision that reversed the breach of peace and criminal trespass convictions of five African Americans who were refused service at a lunch counter of a department store. The Court held that there was insufficient evidence to support the breach of peace convictions, and reversed the criminal trespass convictions for the reasons stated in another case that was decided that same day, Bouie v. City of Columbia, which held that the retroactive application of an expanded construction of a criminal statute was barred by due process of ex post facto laws.
In the early colonial history of the United States, higher education was designed for men only. Since the 1800s, women's positions and opportunities in the educational sphere have increased. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, women have surpassed men in number of bachelor's degrees and master's degrees conferred annually in the United States and women have continuously been the growing majority ever since, with men comprising a continuously lower minority in earning either degree. The same asymmetry has occurred with Doctorate degrees since 2005 with women being the continuously growing majority and men a continuously lower minority.
The federal government of the United States has limited authority to act on education, and education policy serves to support the education systems of state and local governments through funding and regulation of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. The Department of Education serves as the primary government organization responsible for enacting federal education policy in the United States.
