The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear a case determining if employees of a federally funded school may sue for sex discrimination under Title IX, something students at those schools may already do under federal law.
The high court granted review of Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia in its orders list, adding the case to its oral argument schedule for its next term. The case stems from a pair of sex discrimination claims brought by a women’s basketball coach at Georgia Tech, MaChelle Joseph, and an Augusta University art professor, Thomas Crowther, under Title IX, which were consolidated at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
Title IX, a 1972 landmark anti-discrimination law, ensures there is no sex-based discrimination in education programs or activities that receive federal funding, with its most visible results over the past 54 years being the expansion of women’s collegiate sports.
Joseph claimed that the women’s basketball program was not allocated the same resources as the men’s program and that she was fired after years of voicing those concerns. Crowther was fired after an investigation into an allegation of sexual harassment filed against him by a student, but he claims the school treated him differently throughout the investigation because he is a man and alleged the university declined to give him a hearing to plead his case. The federal appeals court dismissed both cases, finding “that Title IX does not provide an implied right of action for sex discrimination in employment.”
In their petition asking the Supreme Court to take up their appeal, Joseph and Crowther warned that the 11th Circuit’s ruling has “far-reaching implications” for Title IX and undermines the landmark law’s enforcement.
“It undermines the uniform enforcement of Title IX across the country,” the petition reads. “It threatens to destabilize enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions under other Spending Clause statutes that, like Title IX, lack explicit private rights of action but have long been interpreted by courts to allow individuals to sue for violations.”
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, calling on it to resolve the split among appeals courts and to uphold the 11th Circuit’s ruling.
“This Court has never recognized a private right of action for employment discrimination under Title IX,” the Justice Department’s filing to the high court said. “The statutory text and structure do not support expanding the right of action inferred in Cannon v. University of Chicago to reach such claims. ‘Congress, not this Court, should extend th[at] implied cause[] of action’ if it so chooses.”
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the case during its next term, which will begin in October. Oral arguments will likely be scheduled sometime between Oct. 5, 2026, and April 27, 2027.
SUPREME COURT TOSSES RACIAL REDISTRICTING RULINGS IN MISSISSIPPI AND NORTH DAKOTA
In the coming weeks, the high court will issue a ruling in another case where Title IX is at the center of the dispute, when it releases its decision in one of the two cases this term involving state laws barring biological men from women’s sports. In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Supreme Court will decide whether West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates either the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment or Title IX.
The West Virginia case was argued before the justices in January, immediately following arguments in Little v. Hecox, where the Supreme Court weighed whether Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which also bans biological men from women’s sports, violates the equal protection clause. Rulings in both cases are expected by the end of June.
