Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SUPREME COURT DOCKET—Court grants cert to answer whether Title IX covers employees of federally funded educational institutions, (May 19, 2026)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The Court has been asked to resolve a circuit split over the answer to whether Title IX gives such employees a private right of action to sue for sex discrimination in employment.

In an order list released yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it was granting certiorari in Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, an appeal that bubbled up from the Eleventh Circuit. The Court is being asked to weigh in on “Whether Title IX provides employees of federally funded educational institutions a private right of action to sue for sex discrimination in employment.”

Below, the Eleventh Circuit had declared, in a split decision, that “Title IX does not provide an implied right of action for sex discrimination in employment,” in consolidated appeals brought by a former university art professor and a head women’s basketball coach. Although recognizing that the Supreme Court had held that Title IX provides an implied right of action for students who complain of sex discrimination by schools that receive federal funds and a private right of action for retaliation for an employee’s complaint about discrimination against students, the Eleventh Circuit observed that the Court “has never extended the implied private right of action under Title IX to claims of sex discrimination for employees of educational institutions.”

In the question presented by the employees on appeal, they note that in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, 544 U.S. 167 (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court held that employees of federally funded educational institutions may invoke Title IX's implied private right of action to bring claims for retaliation. After Jackson, they argued, every circuit that had considered the question had likewise concluded that a teacher could sue under Title IX for sex discrimination in employment. They argue that the Eleventh Circuit, in reaching the contrary conclusion, split with eight of the other courts of appeals, and instead joined pre-Jackson decisions from the Fifth and Seventh Circuits.

The docket is No. 25-183.

News: SupremeCourtNews SexDiscrimination CoverageLiability Discrimination PublicEmployees GCNNews