Summary

Plaintiff Roderick Jackson worked for more than ten years as a physical education teacher and girls’ basketball coach for the Birmingham, Alabama school district. While serving as a high-school girls’ basketball coach, he discovered that the school district was denying the girls’ team the same funding and access to athletic equipment and facilities as the boys’ team, including a key to the sports facility. He began protesting the unequal treatment of the team to his supervisors, but they did not take corrective action. Instead, they gave him negative work evaluations and ultimately removed him from his coaching position. 

Mr. Jackson sued the school district in federal court in 2001, claiming that the school’s treatment of him violated Title IX. The school district moved to dismiss his complaint on the grounds that Title IX’s private cause of action did not include retaliation claims. The district court dismissed the case, finding that prior Eleventh Circuit precedent had rejected the existence of Title IX retaliation claims even though other courts of appeals had disagreed. Representing himself, Mr. Jackson appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, which agreed with the district court and upheld its dismissal of his complaint in 2002. 

NWLC began its representation of Mr. Jackson at this stage of the litigation, filing a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc with the Eleventh Circuit. After the Eleventh Circuit denied that petition, NWLC filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court on Mr. Jackson’s behalf. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2004, and O’Melveny & Myers LLP joined NWLC in briefing and arguing the merits of the case before the Court. 

The Supreme Court decided Jackson on March 29, 2005. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that Title IX encompasses claims of retaliation for complaining about sex discrimination. 

In so holding, the Court said it was immaterial that the statute’s text did not mention retaliation, as Congress worded the statute expansively to encompass a range of sex-based harms. The Court concluded that its past decisions “repeated[ly]” “construing ‘discrimination’ under Title IX broadly” compelled it to permit Jackson’s retaliation claim to proceed. Further, the Court noted, it would undermine Congress’s intent to prohibit sex discrimination if people complaining about it were not protected against retaliation. As the Court put it: “Reporting incidents of discrimination is integral to Title IX enforcement and would be discouraged if retaliation against those who report went unpunished. Indeed, if retaliation were not prohibited, Title IX’s enforcement scheme would unravel.”