Petitioner's complaints allege that her applications for admission to medical school were denied by the respondents because she is a woman.1 Accepting the truth of those allegations for the purpose of its decision, the Court of Appeals held that petitioner has no right of action against respondents that may be asserted in a federal court. 559 F.2d 1063. We granted certiorari to review that holding. 438 U.S. 914, 98 S.Ct. 3142, 57 L.Ed.2d 1159.

Only two facts alleged in the complaints are relevant to our decision. First, petitioner was excluded from participation in the respondents' medical education programs because of her sex. Second, these education programs were receiving federal financial assistance at the time of her exclusion. These facts, admitted arguendo by respondents' motion to dismiss the complaints, establish a violation of § 901(a) of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 hereinafter Title IX).2

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance . . . ."3

The statute does not, however, expressly authorize a private right of action by a person injured by a violation of § 901. For that reason, and because it concluded that no private remedy should be inferred, the District Court granted the respondents' motions to dismiss. 406 F.Supp. 1257, 1259.

The Court of Appeals agreed that the statute did not contain an implied private remedy. Noting that § 902 of Title IX establishes a procedure for the termination of federal financial support for institutions violating § 901, the Court of Appeals concluded that Congress intended that remedy to be the exclusive means of enforcement.4 It recognized that the statute was patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (hereinafter Title VI),5 but rejected petitioner's argument that Title VI included an implied private cause of action. 559 F.2d, at 1071-1075.

After the Court of Appeals' decision was announced, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641, which authorizes an award of fees to prevailing private parties in actions to enforce Title IX.6 The court therefore granted a petition for rehearing to consider whether, in the light of that statute, its original interpretation of Title IX had been correct. After receiving additional briefs, the court concluded that the 1976 Act was not intended to create a remedy that did not previously exist.7 The court also noted that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had taken the position that a private cause of action under Title IX should be implied,8 but the court disagreed with that agency's interpretation of the Act. In sum, it adhered to its original view, 559 F.2d, at 1077-1080.

The Court of Appeals quite properly devoted careful attention to this question of statutory construction. As our recent cases particularly Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26—demonstrate, the fact that a federal statute has been violated and some person harmed does not automatically give rise to a private cause of action in favor of that person. Instead, before concluding that Congress intended to make a remedy available to a special class of litigants, a court must carefully analyze the four factors that Cort identifies as indicative of such an intent.9 Our review of those factors persuades us, however, that the Court of Appeals reached the wrong conclusion and that petitioner does have a statutory right to pursue her claim that respondents rejected her application on the basis of her sex. After commenting on each of the four factors, we shall explain why they are not overcome by respondents' countervailing arguments.

* First, the threshold question under Cort is whether the statute was enacted for the benefit of a special class of which the plaintiff is a member. That question is answered by looking to the language of the statute itself. Thus, the statutory reference to "any employee of any such common carrier" in the 1893 legislation requiring railroads to equip their cars with secure "grab irons or handholds," see 27 Stat. 532, 531, made "irresistible" the Court's earliest "inference of a private right of action"—in that case in favor of a railway employee who was injured when a grab iron gave way. Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U.S. 33, 40, 36 S.Ct. 482, 484, 60 L.Ed. 874.10

Similarly, it was statutory language describing the special class to be benefited by § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 196511 that persuaded the Court that private parties within that class were implicitly authorized to seek a declaratory judgment against a covered State. Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 554-555, 89 S.Ct. 817, 825-826, 22 L.Ed.2d 1.12 The dispositive language in that statute—"no person shall be denied the right to vote for failure to comply with [a new state enactment covered by, but not approved under, § 5]"—is remarkably similar to the language used by Congress in Title IX. See n. 3, supra.

The language in these statutes—which expressly identifies the class Congress intended to benefit—contrasts sharply with statutory language customarily found in criminal statutes, such as that construed in Cort, supra, and other laws enacted for the protection of the general public.13 There would be far less reason to infer a private remedy in favor of individual persons if Congress, instead of drafting Title IX with an unmistakable focus on the benefited class, had written it simply as a ban on discriminatory conduct by recipients of federal funds or as a prohibition against the disbursement of public funds to educational institutions engaged in discriminatory practices.14

Unquestionably, therefore, the first of the four factors identified in Cort favors the implication of a private cause of action. Title IX explicitly confers a benefit on persons discriminated against on the basis of sex, and petitioner is clearly a member of that class for whose special benefit the statute was enacted.

Second, the Cort analysis requires consideration of legislative history. We must recognize, however, that the legislative history of a statute that does not expressly create or deny a private remedy will typically be equally silent or ambiguous on the question. Therefore, in situations such as the present one "in which it is clear that federal law has granted a class of persons certain rights, it is not necessary to show an intention to create a private cause of action, although an explicit purpose to deny such cause of action would be controlling." Cort, 422 U.S., at 82, 95 S.Ct., at 2090 (emphasis in original).15 But this is not the typical case. Far from evidencing any purpose to deny a private cause of action, the history of Title IX rather plainly indicates that Congress intended to create such a remedy.

Title IX was patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.16 Except for the substitution of the word "sex" in Title IX to replace the words "race, color, or national origin" in Title VI, the two statutes use identical language to describe the benefited class.17 Both statutes provide the same administrative mechanism for terminating federal financial support for institutions engaged in prohibited discrimination.18 Neither statute expressly mentions a private remedy for the person excluded from participation in a federally funded program. The drafters of Title IX explicitly assumed that it would be interpreted and applied as Title VI had been during the preceding eight years.19

In 1972 when Title IX was enacted, the critical language in Title VI had already been construed as creating a private remedy. Most particularly, in 1967, a distinguished panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit squarely decided this issue in an opinion that was repeatedly cited with approval and never questioned during the ensuing five years.20 In addition, at least a dozen other federal courts reached similar conclusions in the same or related contexts during those years.21 It is always appropriate to assume that our elected representatives, like other citizens, know the law; in this case, because of their repeated references to Title VI and its modes of enforcement, we are especially justified in presuming both that those representatives were aware of the prior interpretation of Title VI and that that interpretation reflects their intent with respect to Title IX.

Moreover, in 1969, in Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 89 S.Ct. 817, 22 L.Ed.2d 1, this Court had interpreted the comparable language in § 5 of the Voting Rights Act as sufficient to authorize a private remedy.22 Indeed, during the period between the enactment of Title VI in 1964 and the enactment of Title IX in 1972, this Court had consistently found implied remedies—often in cases much less clear than this.23 It was after 1972 that this Court decided Cort v. Ash and the other cases cited by the Court of Appeals in support of its strict construction of the remedial aspect of the statute.24 We, of course, adhere to the strict approach followed in our recent cases, but our evaluation of congressional action in 1972 must take into account its contemporary legal contest. In sum, it is not only appropriate but also realistic to presume that Congress was thoroughly familiar with these unusually important precedents from this and other federal courts and that it expected its enactment to be interpreted in conformity with them.

It is not, however, necessary to rely on these presumptions. The package of statutes of which Title IX is one part also contains a provision whose language and history demonstrate that Congress itself understood Title VI, and thus its companion, Title IX, as creating a private remedy. Section 718 of the Education Amendments authorizes federal courts to award attorney's fees to the prevailing parties, other than the United States, in private actions brought against public educational agencies to enforce Title VI in the context of elementary and secondary education.25 The language of this provision explicitly presumes the availability of private suits to enforce Title VI in the education context.26 For many such suits, no express cause of action was then available; hence Congress must have assumed that one could be implied under Title VI itself.27 That assumption was made explicit during the debates on § 718.28 It was also aired during the debates on other provisions in the Education Amendments of 197229 and on Title IX itself,30 and is consistent with the Executive Branch's apparent understanding of Title VI at the time.31

Finally, the very persistence—before 1972 and since, among judges and executive officials, as well as among litigants and their counsel,32 and even implicit in decisions of this Court33— of the assumption that both Title VI and Title IX created a private right of action for the victims of illegal discrimination and the absence of legislative action to change that assumption provide further evidence that Congress at least acquiesces in, and apparently affirms, that assumption. See n. 7, supra. We have no doubt that Congress intended to create Title IX remedies comparable to those available under Title VI and that it understood Title VI as authorizing an implied private cause of action for victims of the prohibited discrimination.34

Third, under Cort, a private remedy should not be implied if it would frustrate the underlying purpose of the legislative scheme. On the other hand, when that remedy is necessary or at least helpful to the accomplishment of the statutory purpose, the Court is decidedly receptive to its implication under the statute.35 Title IX, like its model Title VI, sought to accomplish two related, but nevertheless somewhat different, objectives. First, Congress wanted to avoid the use of federal resources to support discriminatory practices; second, it wanted to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Both of these purposes were repeatedly identified in the debates on the two statutes.36

The first purpose is generally served by the statutory procedure for the termination of federal financial support for institutions engaged in discriminatory practices.37 That remedy is, however, severe and often may not provide an appropriate means of accomplishing the second purpose if merely an isolated violation has occurred.38 In that situation, the violation might be remedied more efficiently by an order requiring an institution to accept an applicant who had been improperly excluded.39 Moreover, in that kind of situation it makes little sense to impose on an individual, whose only interest is in obtaining a benefit for herself, or on HEW, the burden of demonstrating that an institution's practices are so pervasively discriminatory that a complete cut-off of federal funding is appropriate. The award of individual relief to a private litigant who has prosecuted her own suit is not only sensible but is also fully consistent with—and in some cases even necessary to—the orderly enforcement of the statute.40

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which is charged with the responsibility for administering Title IX, perceives no inconsistency between the private remedy and the public remedy.41 On the contrary, the agency takes the unequivocal position that the individual remedy will provide effective assistance to achieving the statutory purposes. See n. 8,supra. The agency's position is unquestionably correct.42

Fourth, the final inquiry suggested by Cort is whether implying a federal remedy is inappropriate because the subject matter involves an area basically of concern to the States. No such problem is raised by a prohibition against invidious discrimination of any sort, including that on the basis of sex. Since the Civil War, the Federal Government and the federal courts have been the " 'primary and powerful reliances' " in protecting citizens against such discrimination. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 464, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 1218, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (emphasis in original), quoting F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court 65 (1928). Moreover, it is the expenditure of federal funds that provides the justification for this particular statutory prohibition. There can be no question but that this aspect of theCort analysis supports the implication of a private federal remedy.

In sum, there is no need in this case to weigh the four Cort factors; all of them support the same result. Not only the words and history of Title IX, but also its subject matter and underlying purposes, counsel implication of a cause of action in favor of private victims of discrimination.

Respondents' principal argument against implying a cause of action under Title IX is that it is unwise to subject admissions decisions of universities to judicial scrutiny at the behest of disappointed applicants on a case-by-case basis. They argue that this kind of litigation is burdensome and inevitably will have an adverse effect on the independence of members of university committees.

This argument is not original to this litigation. It was forcefully advanced in both 1964 and 1972 by the congressional opponents of Title VI and Title IX,43 and squarely rejected by the congressional majorities that passed the two statutes. In short, respondents' principal contention is not a legal argument at all; it addresses a policy issue that Congress has already resolved.

History has borne out the judgment of Congress. Although victims of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin have had private Title VI remedies available at least since 1965, see n. 21, supra, respondents have not come forward with any demonstration that Title VI litigation has been so costly or voluminous that either the academic community or the courts have been unduly burdened. Nothing but speculation supports the argument that university administrators will be so concerned about the risk of litigation that they will fail to discharge their important responsibilities in an independent and professional manner.44

Respondents advance two other arguments that deserve brief mention. Starting from the premise that Title IX and Title VI should receive the same construction, respondents argue (1) that a comparison of Title VI with other Titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 demonstrates that Congress created express private remedies whenever it found them desirable;45 and (2) that certain excerpts from the legislative history of Title VI foreclose the implication of a private remedy.46

Even if these arguments were persuasive with respect to Congress' understanding in 1964 when it passed Title VI, they would not overcome the fact that in 1972 when it passed Title IX, Congress was under the impression that Title VI could be enforced by a private action and that Title IX would be similarly enforceable. See supra, at 696-699. "For the relevant inquiry is not whether Congress correctly perceived the then state of the law, but rather what its perception of the state of the law was." Brown v. GSA, 425 U.S. 820, 828, 96 S.Ct. 1961, 1966, 48 L.Ed.2d 402. But each of respondents' arguments is, in any event, unpersuasive.

The fact that other provisions of a complex statutory scheme create express remedies has not been accepted as a sufficient reason for refusing to imply an otherwise appropriate remedy under a separate section. See, e. g., J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 84 S.Ct. 1555, 12 L.Ed.2d 423; Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191, 88 S.Ct. 379, 19 L.Ed.2d 407. Rather, the Court has generally avoided this type of "excursion into extrapolation of legislative intent," Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S., at 83 n. 14, 95 S.Ct., at 2090, unless there is other, more convincing, evidence that Congress meant to exclude the remedy. See National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.S., at 458-461, 94 S.Ct., at 693-694.

With one set of exceptions, the excerpts from the legislative history cited by respondents as contrary to implication of a private remedy under Title VI, were all concerned with a procedure for terminating federal funding.47 None of them evidences any hostility toward an implied private remedy to terminate the offending discrimination. They are consistent with the assumption expressed frequently during the debates that such a judicial remedy—either through the kind of broad construction of state action under § 1983 adopted by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, 323 F.2d 959 (1963),48 or through an implied remedy49—would be available to private litigants regardless of how the fund-cutoff issue was resolved.

The only excerpt relied upon by respondents that deals precisely with the question whether the victim of discrimination has a private remedy under Title VI was a comment by Senator Keating. In it, he expressed disappointment at the administration's failure to include his suggestion for an express remedy in its final proposed bill.50 Our analysis of the legislative history convinces us, however, that neither the administration's decision not to incorporate that suggestion expressly in its bill, nor Senator Keating's response to that decision, is indicative of a rejection of a private right of action against recipients of federal funds. Instead, the former appears to have been a compromise aimed at protecting individual rights without subjecting the Government to suits,51 while the latter is merely one Senator's isolated expression of a preference for an express private remedy.52 In short, neither is inconsistent with the implication of such a remedy. Nor is there any other indication in the legislative history that any Member of Congress voted in favor of the statute in reliance on an understanding that Title VI did not include a private remedy.

When Congress intends private litigants to have a cause of action to support their statutory rights, the far better course is for it to specify as much when it creates those rights. But the Court has long recognized that under certain limited circumstances the failure of Congress to do so is not inconsistent with an intent on its part to have such a remedy available to the persons benefited by its legislation. Title IX presents the atypical situation in which all of the circumstances that the Court has previously identified as supportive of an implied remedy are present. We therefore conclude that petitioner may maintain her lawsuit, despite the absence of any express authorization for it in the statute.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Chief Justice BURGER concurs in the judgment.

Mr. Justice REHNQUIST, with whom Mr. Justice STEWART joins, concurring.

Having joined the Court's opinion in this case, my only purpose in writing separately is to make explicit what seems to me already implicit in that opinion. I think the approach of the Court, reflected in its analysis of the problem in this case and cases such as Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 98 S.Ct. 1670, 56 L.Ed.2d 106 (1978), Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975), and National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.S. 453, 94 S.Ct. 690, 38 L.Ed.2d 646 (1974), is quite different from the analysis in earlier cases such as J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 84 S.Ct. 1555, 12 L.Ed.2d 423 (1964). The question of the existence of a private right of action is basically one of statutory construction. See ante, at 688. And while state courts of general jurisdiction still enforcing the common law as well as statutory law may be less constrained than are federal courts enforcing laws enacted by Congress, the latter must surely look to those laws to determine whether there was an intent to create a private right of action under them.

We do not write on an entirely clean slate, however, and the Court's opinion demonstrates that Congress, at least during the period of the enactment of the several Titles of the Civil Rights Act tended to rely to a large extent on the courts to decide whether there should be a private right of action, rather than determining this question for itself. Cases such as J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, supra, and numerous cases from other federal courts, gave Congress good reason to think that the federal judiciary would undertake this task.

I fully agree with the Court's statement that "[w]hen Congress intends private litigants to have a cause of action to support their statutory rights, the far better course is for it to specify as much when it creates those rights." Ante, at 717. It seems to me that the factors to which I have here briefly adverted apprise the lawmaking branch of the Federal Government that the ball, so to speak, may well now be in its court. Not only is it "far better" for Congress to so specify when it intends private litigants to have a cause of action, but for this very reason this Court in the future should be extremely reluctant to imply a cause of action absent such specificity on the part of the Legislative Branch.

Mr. Justice WHITE, with whom Mr. Justice BLACKMUN joins, dissenting.

In avowedly seeking to provide an additional means to effectuate the broad purpose of § 901 of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, to end sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs, the Court fails to heed the concomitant legislative purpose not to create a new private remedy to implement this objective. Because in my view the legislative history and statutory scheme show that Congress intended not to provide a new private cause of action, and because under our previous decisions such intent is controlling,1 I dissent.

* The Court recognizes that because Title IX was explicitly patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq., it is difficult to infer a private cause of action in the former but not in the latter. I have set out once before my reasons for concluding that a new private cause of action to enforce Title VI should not be implied, University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 379, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2794, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (separate opinion of WHITE, J.), and I find nothing in the legislative materials reviewed by the Court that convinces me to the contrary. Rather, the legislative history, like the terms of Title VI itself, makes it abundantly clear that the Act was and is a mandate to federal agencies to eliminate discrimination in federally funded programs. Although there was no intention to cut back on private remedies existing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to challenge discrimination occurring under color of state law, there is no basis for concluding that Congress contemplated the creation of private remedies either against private parties who previously had been subject to no constitutional or statutory obligation not to discriminate, or against federal officials or agencies involved in funding allegedly discriminatory programs.

The Court argues that because funding termination, authorized by § 602, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, is a drastic remedy, Congress must have contemplated private suits in order directly and less intrusively to terminate the discrimination allegedly being practiced by the recipient institutions. But the Court's conclusion does not follow from its premise because funding termination was not contemplated as the only—or even the primary agency action to end discrimination. Rather, Congress considered termination of financial assistance to be a remedy of last resort, and expressly obligated federal agencies to take measures to terminate discrimination without resorting to termination of funding.

Title VI was enacted on the proposition that it was contrary at least to the "moral sense of the Nation"2 to expend federal funds in a racially discriminatory manner. This proposition was not new, for every President since President Franklin Roosevelt had, by Executive Order, prohibited racial discrimination in hiring in certain federally assisted programs.3 Further, Congress was aware that most agencies dispensing federal funds already had "authority to refuse or terminate assistance for failure to comply with a variety of requirements imposed by statute or by administrative action."4 But Congress was plainly dissatisfied with agency efforts to ensure the nondiscriminatory use of federal funds;5 and the predicate for Title VI was the belief that "the time [had] come . . . to declare a broad principle that is right and necessary, and to make it effective for every Federal program involving financial assistance by grant, loan or contract."6

Far from conferring new private authority to enforce the federal policy of nondiscrimination, Title VI contemplated agency action to be the principal mechanism for achieving this end. The proponents of Title VI stressed that it did not "confer sweeping new authority, of undefined scope, to Federal departments and agencies," but instead was intended to require the exercise of existing authority to end discrimination by fund recipients, and to furnish the procedure for this purpose.7 Thus, § 601 states the federal policy of nondiscrimination, and § 602 mandates that the agencies achieve compliance by refusing to grant or continue assistance or by "any other means authorized by law." Under § 602, cutting off funds is forbidden unless the agency determines "that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means." As Senator Humphrey explained:

"[Title VI] encourages Federal departments and agencies to be resourceful in finding ways of ending discrimination voluntarily without forcing a termination of funds needed for education, public health, social welfare, disaster relief, and other urgent programs. Cutoff of funds needed for such purposes should be the last step, not the first, in an effective program to end racial discrimination." 110 Cong.Rec. 6546 (1964).8

To be sure, Congress contemplated that there would be litigation brought to enforce Title VI. The "other means" provisions of § 602 include agency suits to enforce contractual antidiscrimination provisions and compliance with agency regulations, as well as suits brought by the Department of Justice under Title IV of the 1964 Act, where the recipient is a public entity.9 Congress also knew that there would be private suits to enforce § 601; but these suits were not authorized by § 601 itself but by 42 U.S.C. § 1983.10 Every excerpt from the legislative history cited by the Court shows full awareness that private suits could redress discrimination contrary to the Constitution and Title VI, if the discrimination were imposed by public agencies; not one statement suggests contemplation of lawsuits against recipients not acting under color of state law.11 Senator Humphrey was quite correct in asserting that the individual's "right to go to court and institute suit" for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment or § 601, see ante, at 712-714, n. 49, was not limited by the presence of alternative enforcement mechanisms in § 602. Section 1983 provides a private remedy for deprivations under color of state law of any rights "secured by the Constitution and laws," and nothing in Title VI suggests an intent to create an exception to this historic remedy for vindication of federal rights as against contrary state action.12 The legislative history shows, however, that Congress did not intend to add to this already existing private remedy. Particularly, Congress did not intend to create a private remedy for discrimination practiced not under color of state law but by private parties or institutions.13

The Court further concludes that even if it cannot be persuasively demonstrated that Title VI created a private right of action, nonetheless this remedy should be inferred in Title IX because prior to its enactment several lower courts had entertained private suits to enforce the prohibition on racial discrimination in Title VI. Once again, however, there is confusion between the existing § 1983 right of action to remedy denial of federal rights under color of state law—which, as Congress recognized,14 would encompass suits to enforce the nondiscrimination mandate of § 601—and the creation of a new right of action against private discrimination. In the case the Court relies upon most heavily, Bossier Parish School Board v. Lemon, 370 F.2d 847 (CA5), cert. denied, 388 U.S. 911, 87 S.Ct. 2116, 18 L.Ed.2d 1350 (1967), the plaintiff class had alleged racial discrimination in violation of both Title VI and the Fourteenth Amendment, and, accordingly, the Attorney General was allowed to intervene under Title IV of the 1964 Act. In concluding that plaintiffs could sue to enforce § 601, the Court of Appeals expressed its view that the prohibition merely repeated "the law as laid down in hundreds of decisions, independent of the statute." 370 F.2d, at 852. Clearly, the defendant was in violation of "the law . . . independent of the statute" only because it was a state entity, and the court was correct in concluding that § 602 did not withdraw the already existing right to sue to enforce this prohibition. However, to the extent the court based its holding on the proposition that an individual protected by a statute always has a right to enforce that statute,15 it was in error;16 and an erroneous interpretation of Title VI should not be compounded through importation into Title IX under the guise of effectuating legislative intent. There is not one statement in the legislative history indicating that the Congress that enacted Title IX was aware of the Bossier litigation, much less that it adopted the particular theory relied on to uphold plaintiffs' standing in that case.17

The Court's reliance on § 718 of the 1972 Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1617, is likewise misplaced. That provision authorizes attorney's fees to the prevailing party other than the United States upon the entry of a final order by a federal court "against a local educational agency, a State (or any agency thereof), or the United States (or any agency thereof), for failure to comply with any provision of this chapter"—which deals with emergency school aid, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1619—"or for discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States as they pertain to elementary and secondary education." Based on this provision, it is argued that Title VI itself must have authorized private actions. However, whatever may be the value of the opinion of Congress in 1972 as to the meaning of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the attorney's fees provision—far from intimating the existence of a remedy against private discrimination—refers only to suits against public institutions. Insofar as the provision refers to "discrimination . . . in violation of Title VI," one must strain to conclude that this was meant to encompass private suits against federal agencies whose mandate under Title VI was to enforce § 601's nondiscrimination provision applicable to all recipients of federal funds. Rather, in referring to Title VI and the Fourteenth Amendment, § 718 did no more than provide for fees in § 1983 suits brought to end discrimination under color of state law.18

The legislative intent not to create a new private remedy for enforcement of Title VI or Title IX cannot be ignored simply because in other cases involving analogous language the Court has recognized private remedies. The recent cases inferring a private right of action to enforce various civil rights statutes relied not merely upon the statutory language granting the right sought to be enforced, but also upon the clear compatibility, despite the absence of an explicit legislative mandate, between private enforcement and the legislative purpose demonstrated in the statute itself. Having concluded that 42 U.S.C. § 1982 prohibited private as well as public racial discrimination in the sale or lease of property, the Court had little choice but to hold that aggrieved individuals could enforce this prohibition, for there existed no other remedy to redress such violations of the statute.19 The Court's reliance onAllen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 89 S.Ct. 817, 22 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969), is equally unwarranted. The cause of action there recognized—for declaratory relief that a voting change is subject to the authorization requirements of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c—served to trigger the enforcement mechanism provided in the statute itself. The Court pointedly declined to infer a private cause of action to enforce the suspension requirement of § 4 of the Act, 393 U.S., at 552554, 89 S.Ct., at 825; nor may those allegedly discriminated against bring suit to test voting changes in covered units against the substantive standard of § 5, either directly or through judicial review of the Attorney General's preclearance decision, Morris v. Gressette, 432 U.S. 491, 97 S.Ct. 2411, 53 L.Ed.2d 506 (1977). The cause of action granted today is of a very different nature. It does not trigger the enforcement scheme provided in §§ 902 and 903, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1682, 1683, but entirely displaces that scheme in favor of a different approach.20

Congress decided in Title IX, as it had in Title VI, to prohibit certain forms of discrimination by recipients of federal funds. Where those recipients were acting under color of state law, individuals could obtain redress in the federal courts for violation of these prohibitions. But, excepting post-Civil War enactments dealing with racial discrimination in specified situations, these forms of discrimination by private entities had not previously been subject to individual redress under federal law, and Congress decided to reach such discrimination not by creating a new remedy for individuals, but by relying on the authority of the Federal Government to enforce the terms under which federal assistance would be provided. Whatever may be the wisdom of this approach to the problem of private discrimination, it was Congress' choice, not to be overridden by this Court.

Mr. Justice POWELL, dissenting.

I agree with Mr. Justice WHITE that even under the standards articulated in our prior decisions, it is clear that no private action should be implied here. It is evident from the legislative history reviewed in his dissenting opinion that Congress did not intend to create a private action through Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. It also is clear that Congress deemed the administrative enforcement mechanism it did create fully adequate to protect Title IX rights. But as mounting evidence from the courts below suggests, and the decision of the Court today demonstrates, the mode of analysis we have applied in the recent past cannot be squared with the doctrine of the separation of powers. The time has come to reappraise our standards for the judicial implication of private causes of action.1

Under Art. III, Congress alone has the responsibility for determining the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts. As the Legislative Branch, Congress also should determine when private parties are to be given causes of action under legislation it adopts. As countless statutes demonstrate, including Titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,2 Congress recognizes that the creation of private actions is a legislative function and frequently exercises it. When Congress chooses not to provide a private civil remedy, federal courts should not assume the legislative role of creating such a remedy and thereby enlarge their jurisdiction.

The facts of this case illustrate the undesirability of this assumption by the Judicial Branch of the legislative function. Whether every disappointed applicant for admission to a college or university receiving federal funds has the right to a civil-court remedy under Title IX is likely to be a matter of interest to many of the thousands of rejected applicants. It certainly is a question of vast importance to the entire higher educational community of this country. But quite apart from the interests of the persons and institutions affected, respect for our constitutional system dictates that the issue should have been resolved by the elected representatives in Congress after public hearings, debate, and legislative decision. It is not a question properly to be decided by relatively uninformed federal judges who are isolated from the political process.

In recent history, the Court has tended to stray from the Art. III and separation-of-powers principle of limited jurisdiction. This, I believe, is evident from a review of the more or less haphazard line of cases that led to our decision in Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975). The "four factor" analysis of that case is an open invitation to federal courts to legislate causes of action not authorized by Congress. It is an analysis not faithful to constitutional principles and should be rejected. Absent the most compelling evidence of affirmative congressional intent, a federal court should not infer a private cause of action.

* The implying of a private action from a federal regulatory statute has been an exceptional occurrence in the past history of this Court. A review of those few decisions where such a step has been taken reveals in almost every case special historical circumstances that explain the result, if not the Court's analysis. These decisions suggest that the doctrine of implication applied by the Court today not only represents judicial assumption of the legislative function, but also lacks a principled precedential basis.

The origin of implied private causes of actions in the federal courts is said to date back to Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U.S. 33, 36 S.Ct. 482, 60 L.Ed. 874 (1916). A close look at the facts of that case and the contemporary state of the law indicates, however, that Rigsby's reference to the "inference of a private right of action," id., at 40, 36 S.Ct. at 484, carried a far different connotation than the isolated passage quoted by the Court, ante, at 689 n. 10, might suggest. The narrow question presented for decision was whether the standards of care defined by the Federal Safety Appliance Act's penal provisions applied to a tort action brought against an interstate railroad by an employee not engaged in interstate commerce at the time of his injury. The jurisdiction of the federal courts was not in dispute, the action having been removed from state court on the ground that the defendant was a federal corporation. See Moore v. Chesapeake & O. R. Co., 291 U.S. 205, 215 n. 6, 54 S.Ct. 402, 406, 78 L.Ed. 755 (1934). Under the regime of Swift v. Tyson, 16 Pet. 1, 41 U.S. 1, 10 L.Ed. 865 (1842), then in force, the Court was free to create the substantive standards of liability applicable to a common-law negligence claim brought in federal court. The practice of judicial reference to legislatively determined standards of care was a common expedient to establish the existence of negligence. See Thayer, Public Wrong and Private Action, 27 Harv.L.Rev. 317 (1914). Rigsby did nothing more than follow this practice, and cannot be taken as authority for the judicial creation of a cause of action not legislated by Congress. Moore v. Chesapeake & O. R. Co., supra, at 215-216, 54 S.Ct. at 406; Jacobson v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 206 F.2d 153, 157-158 (CA1 1953) (Magruder, C. J.), aff'd per curiam, 347 U.S. 909, 74 S.Ct. 474, 98 L.Ed. 1067 (1954).

For almost 50 years after Rigsby, this Court recognized an implied private cause of action in only one other statutory context.3 Four decisions held that various provisions of the Railway Labor Act of 1926 could be enforced in a federal court. The case for implication of judicial remedies was especially strong with respect to this Act, as Congress had repealed its predecessor, Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920, after Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Railroad Labor Board, 261 U.S. 72, 43 S.Ct. 278, 67 L.Ed. 536 (1923), and Pennsylvania Federation v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 267 U.S. 203, 45 S.Ct. 307, 69 L.Ed. 574 (1925), had held that judicial enforcement of its terms was not available. Convinced that Congress had meant to accomplish more through the 1926 Act, and faced with the absence of an express administrative or judicial enforcement mechanism, the Court in Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 50 S.Ct. 427, 74 L.Ed. 1034 (1930), upheld an injunction enforcing the Act's prohibition of employer interference in employees' organizational activities. Buttressed by 1934 amendments to the Act that indicated congressional approval of this step, the Court in Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U.S. 515, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789 (1937), extended judicial enforcement to the Act's requirement that an employer bargain with its employees' authorized representative. Finally, in Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944), and Tunstall v. Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 323 U.S. 210, 65 S.Ct. 235, 89 L.Ed. 187 (1944), the Court further held that the duty of a union not to discriminate among its members also could be enforced through the federal courts.4 In each of these cases enforcement of the Act's various requirements could have been restricted to actions brought by the Board of Mediation (later the Mediation Board), rather than by private parties. But whatever the scope of the judicial remedy, the implication of some kind of remedial mechanism was necessary to provide the enforcement authority Congress clearly intended.5

During this same period, the Court frequently turned back private plaintiffs seeking to imply causes of action from federal statutes. See, e. g., Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647, 83 S.Ct. 1441, 10 L.Ed.2d 605 (1963); T. I. M. E., Inc. v. United States, 359 U.S. 464, 79 S.Ct. 904, 3 L.Ed.2d 952 (1959); General Committee v. Southern Pacific Co., 320 U.S. 338, 64 S.Ct. 142, 88 L.Ed. 85 (1943); General Committee v. Missouri-K.-T. R. Co., 320 U.S. 323, 64 S.Ct. 146, 88 L.Ed. 76 (1943); Switchmen v. National Mediation Board, 320 U.S. 297, 64 S.Ct. 95, 88 L.Ed. 61 (1943). Throughout these cases, the focus of the Court's inquiry generally was on the availability of means other than a private action to enforce the statutory duty at issue. Even in cases where the statute might be said to have been enacted for the benefit of a special class comprising the plaintiff, the factor to which the Court today attaches so much importance, ante, at 689-693, and n. 13, the Court refused to create a private action if Congress had provided some other means of enforcing such duties. See, e. g., Switchmen v. National Mediation Board, supra, at 300-301, 64 S.Ct. at 96-97.

A break in this pattern occurred in J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 84 S.Ct. 1555, 12 L.Ed.2d 423 (1964). There the Court held that a private party could maintain a cause of action under § 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in spite of Congress' express creation of an administrative mechanism for enforcing that statute. I find this decision both unprecedented6 and incomprehensible as a matter of public policy. The decision's rationale, which lies ultimately in the judgment that "[p]rivate enforcement of the proxy rules provides a necessary supplement to Commission action," 377 U.S., at 432, 84 S.Ct., at 1560, ignores the fact that Congress, in determining the degree of regulation to be imposed on companies covered by the Securities Exchange Act, already had decided that private enforcement was unnecessary. More significant for present purposes, however, is the fact that Borak, rather than signaling the start of a trend in this Court, constitutes a singular and, I believe, aberrant interpretation of a federal regulatory statute.

Since Borak, this Court has upheld the implication of private causes of actions derived from federal statutes in only three extremely limited sets of circumstances. First, the Court in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968); Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, 396 U.S. 229, 90 S.Ct. 400, 24 L.Ed.2d 386 (1969); and Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975), recognized the right of private parties to seek relief for violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1982. But to say these cases "implied" rights of action is somewhat misleading, as Congress at the time these statutes were enacted expressly referred to private enforcement actions.7 Furthermore, as in the Railway Labor Act cases, Congress had provided no alternative means of asserting these rights. Thus, the Court was presented with the choice between regarding these statutes as precatory or recognizing some kind of judicial proceeding.

Second, the Court in Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 89 S.Ct. 817, 22 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969), permitted private litigants to sue to enforce the preclearance provisions of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As the Court seems to concede, this decision was reached without substantial analysis,ante, at 690, and n. 12, and in my view can be explained only in terms of this Court's special and traditional concern for safeguarding the electoral process.8 In addition, as Mr. Justice WHITE notes, the remedy implied was very limited, thereby reducing the chances that States would be exposed to frivolous or harassing suits.9

Finally, the Court in Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., 404 U.S. 6, 92 S.Ct. 165, 30 L.Ed. 128 (1971), ratified 25 years of lower-court precedent that had held a private cause of action available under the Securities and Exchange Commission's Rule 10b-5. As the Court concedes, ante, at 692 n. 13, this decision reflects the unique history of Rule 10b-5, and did not articulate any standards of general applicability.

These few cases applying Borak must be contrasted with the subsequent decisions where the Court refused to imply private actions. In Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U.S. 134, 85 S.Ct. 292, 13 L.Ed.2d 190 (1964), the Court refused to permit private suits in derogation of administrative remedies to enforce Title IV of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, in spite of that statute's command, inter alia, that "every member in good standing . . . shall have the right to vote for or otherwise support the candidate or candidates of his choice . . . ." 29 U.S.C. § 481(e).10 In National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.S. 453, 94 S.Ct. 690, 38 L.Ed.2d 646 (1974), the Court reversed a lower court's implication of a private action to challenge violations of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, in light of the Attorney General's express enforcement authority. And in Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Barbour, 421 U.S. 412, 95 S.Ct. 1733, 44 L.Ed.2d 263 (1975), we refused to allow private actions under the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970, which also was enforceable by administrative proceedings and Government suits.11

It was against this background of almost invariable refusal to imply private actions, absent a complete failure of alternative enforcement mechanisms and a clear expression of legislative intent to create such a remedy, that Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975), was decided. In holding that no private action could be brought to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 610 (1970 ed. and Supp. III), a criminal statute, the Court referred to four factors said to be relevant to determining generally whether private actions could be implied. 422 U.S., at 78, 95 S.Ct., at 208712. As Mr. Justice WHITE suggests, ante, at 718-719, and n. 1, these factors were meant only as guideposts for answering a single question, namely, whether Congress intended to provide a private cause of action. The conclusion in that particular case was obvious. But, as the opinion of the Court today demonstrates, the Cort analysis too easily may be used to deflect inquiry away from the intent of Congress, and to permit a court instead to substitute its own views as to the desirability of private enforcement.

Of the four factors mentioned in Cort, only one refers expressly to legislative intent. The other three invite independent judicial lawmaking. Asking whether a statute creates a right in favor of a private party, for example, begs the question at issue. What is involved is not the mere existence of a legal right, but a particular person's right to invoke the power of the courts to enforce that right.13 See n. 1, supra. Determining whether a private action would be consistent with the "underlying purposes" of a legislative scheme permits a court to decide for itself what the goals of a scheme should be, and how those goals should be advanced. See Note, 43 Ford.L.Rev. 441, 454-455, 458 (1974). Finally, looking to state law for parallels to the federal right simply focuses inquiry on a particular policy consideration that Congress already may have weighed in deciding not to create a private action.

That the Cort analysis too readily permits courts to override the decision of Congress not to create a private action is demonstrated conclusively by the flood of lower-court decisions applying it. Although from the time Cort was decided until today this Court consistently has turned back attempts to create private actions, see Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 99 S.Ct. 1705, 60 L.Ed.2d 208; Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 98 S.Ct. 1670, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978); Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, 430 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 926, 51 L.Ed.2d 124 (1977), other federal courts have tended to proceed in exactly the opposite direction. In the four years since we decided Cort, no less than 20 decisions by the Courts of Appeals have implied private actions from federal statutes. Local 714, Amalgamated Transit Union v. Greater Portland Transit Dist., 589 F.2d 1 (CA1 1978) (§ 13(c) of Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964); Bratton v. Shiffrin, 585 F.2d 223 (CA7 1978) (§ 1007(a) of Federal Aviation Act of 1958), cert. pending, No. 78-1398; Redington v. Touche Ross & Co., 592 F.2d 617 (CA2) (§ 17(a) of Securities Exchange Act of 1934), cert. granted, 439 U.S. 979, 99 S.Ct. 563, 59 L.Ed.2d --- (1978); Lodge 1858, AFGE v. Webb, 188 U.S.App.D.C. 233, 580 F.2d 496 (§ 203 of National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958), cert. denied sub nom. Government Employees v. Frosch, 439 U.S. 927, 99 S.Ct. 311, 58 L.Ed.2d 319 (1978); Riggle v. California, 577 F.2d 579 (CA9 1978) (Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act); Lewis v. Transamerica Corp., 575 F.2d 237 (CA9) (§ 206 of Investment Advisers Act of 1940), cert. granted, 439 U.S. 952, 99 S.Ct. 348, 58 L.Ed.2d 343 (1978); Davis v. Southeastern Community College, 574 F.2d 1158 (CA4 1978) (§ 504 of Rehabilitation Act of 1973), cert. granted, 439 U.S. 1065, 99 S.Ct. 830, 59 L.Ed.2d 30 (1979); Benjamins v. British European Airways, 572 F.2d 913 (CA2 1978) (Art. 28(1) of Warsaw Convention), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1114, 99 S.Ct. 1016, 59 L.Ed.2d 72 (1979); Abrahamson v. Fleschner, 568 F.2d 862 (CA2 1977) (§ 206 of Investment Advisers Act of 1940), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 913, 98 S.Ct. 2253, 56 L.Ed.2d 414 (1978); Association of Data Processing Service Orgs. v. Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 568 F.2d 478 (CA6 1977) (§ 11(e) of Federal Home Loan Bank Act); Wilson v. First Houston Investment Corp., 566 F.2d 1235 (CA5 1978) (§ 206 of Investment Advisers Act of 1940), cert. pending, No. 77-1717; New York Stock Exchange, Inc. v. Bloom, 183 U.S.App.D.C. 217, 562 F.2d 736 (1977) (§§ 16 and 21 of Glass-Steagall Act), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 942, 98 S.Ct. 1520, 55 L.Ed.2d 538 (1978); Daniel v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 561 F.2d 1223 (CA7 1977) (§ 17(a) of Securities Act of 1933), rev'd on other grounds, 439 U.S. 551, 99 S.Ct. 790, 58 L.Ed.2d 808 (1979); United Handicapped Federation v. Andre, 558 F.2d 413 (CA8 1977) (§ 504 of Rehabilitation Act of 1973); Nedd v. United Mine Workers, 556 F.2d 190 (CA3 1977) (§ 302 of Labor Management Relations Act, 1947), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1013, 98 S.Ct. 727, 54 L.Ed.2d 757 (1978); Kipperman v. Academy Life Ins. Co., 554 F.2d 377 (CA9 1977) (39 U.S.C. § 3009); Kampmeier v. Nyquist, 553 F.2d 296 (CA2 1977) (§ 504 of Rehabilitation Act of 1973); Lloyd v. Regional Transportation Authority, 548 F.2d 1277 (CA7 1977) (same); McDaniel v. University of Chicago and Argonne, 548 F.2d 689 (CA7 1977) (§ 1 of Davis-Bacon Act), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1033, 98 S.Ct. 765, 54 L.Ed.2d 780 (1978); Hughes v. Dempsey-Tegeler & Co., 534 F.2d 156 (CA9) (§ 6 of Securities Exchange Act of 1934), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 896, 97 S.Ct. 259, 50 L.Ed.2d 180 (1976). It defies reason to believe that in each of these statutes Congress absentmindedly forgot to mention an intended private action. Indeed, the accelerating trend evidenced by these decisions attests to the need to re-examine the Cort analysis.

In my view, the implication doctrine articulated in Cort and applied by the Court today engenders incomparably greater problems than the possibility of occasionally failing to divine an unexpressed congressional intent. If only a matter of statutory construction were involved, our obligation might be to develop more refined criteria which more accurately reflect congressional intent. "But the unconstitutionality of the course pursued has now been made clear" and compels us to abandon the implication doctrine of Cort. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 77-78, 58 S.Ct. 817, 822, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938).

As the above-cited 20 decisions of the Courts of Appeals illustrate, Cort allows the Judicial Branch to assume policymaking authority vested by the Constitution in the Legislative Branch. It also invites Congress to avoid resolution of the often controversial question whether a new regulatory statute should be enforced through private litigation. Rather than confronting the hard political choices involved, Congress is encouraged to shirk its constitutional obligation and leave the issue to the courts to decide.14 When this happens, the legislative process with its public scrutiny and participation has been bypassed, with attendant prejudice to everyone concerned. Because the courts are free to reach a result different from that which the normal play of political forces would have produced, the intended beneficiaries of the legislation are unable to ensure the full measure of protection their needs may warrant. For the same reason, those subject to the legislative constraints are denied the opportunity to forestall through the political process potentially unnecessary and disruptive litigation. Moreover, the public generally is denied the benefits that are derived from the making of important societal choices through the open debate of the democratic process.

The Court's implication doctrine encourages, as a corollary to the political default by Congress, an increase in the governmental power exercised by the federal judiciary. The dangers posed by judicial arrogation of the right to resolve general societal conflicts have been manifest to this Court throughout its history. See Schlesinger v. Reservists to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 222, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 2932, 41 L.Ed.2d 706 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 188-197, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 2952-2957, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974) (POWELL, J., concurring); Eccles v. Peoples Bank, 333 U.S. 426, 432, 68 S.Ct. 641, 644, 92 L.Ed. 784 (1948); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 345-348, 56 S.Ct. 466, 482-483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 362, 31 S.Ct. 250, 255, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911); Sinking-Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700, 718, 25 L.Ed. 496 (1879) ("One branch of the government cannot encroach on the domain of another without danger. The safety of our institutions depends in no small degree on a strict observance of this salutary rule"); Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409, 1 L.Ed. 436 (1792). As the Court observed only last Term:

"Our system of government is, after all, a tripartite one, with each branch having certain defined functions delegated to it by the Constitution. While '[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,' Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803), it is equally—and emphatically—the exclusive province of the Congress not only to formulate legislative policies and mandate programs and projects, but also to establish their relative priority for the Nation. Once Congress, exercising its delegated powers, has decided the order of priorities in a given area, it is for the Executive to administer the laws and for the courts to enforce them when enforcement is sought.

* * * * *

"Our individual appraisal of the wisdom or unwisdom of a particular course consciously selected by the Congress is to be put aside in the process of interpreting a statute. Once the meaning of an enactment is discerned and its constitutionality determined, the judicial process comes to an end. We do not sit as a committee of review, nor are we vested with the power of veto." TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 194-195, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2301-2302, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978).

See also United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U.S. 159, 179, 98 S.Ct. 364, 375, 54 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977) (STEVENS, J., dissenting) ("The principle of limited federal jurisdiction is fundamental . . .").15

It is true that the federal judiciary necessarily exercises substantial powers to construe legislation, including, when appropriate, the power to prescribe substantive standards of conduct that supplement federal legislation. But this power normally is exercised with respect to disputes over which a court already has jurisdiction, and in which the existence of the asserted cause of action is established.16 Implication of a private cause of action, in contrast, involves a significant additional step. By creating a private action, a court of limited jurisdiction necessarily extends its authority to embrace a dispute Congress has not assigned it to resolve. Cf. Jacobson v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 206 F.2d 153 (CA1 1953) (Magruder, C. J.), aff'd per curiam, 347 U.S. 909, 74 S.Ct. 474, 98 L.Ed. 1067 (1954); Note, Implying Civil Remedies From Federal Regulatory Statutes, 77 Harv.L.Rev. 285, 286-287 (1963).17 This runs contrary to the established principle that "[t]he jurisdiction of the federal courts is carefully guarded against expansion by judicial interpretation . . . ," American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 17, 71 S.Ct. 534, 542, 95 L.Ed. 702 (1951), and conflicts with the authority of Congress under Art. III to set the limits of federal jurisdiction. Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U.S. 182, 63 S.Ct. 1019, 87 L.Ed. 1339 (1943); Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U.S. 226, 43 S.Ct. 79, 67 L.Ed. 226 (1922); Sheldon v. Sill, 8 How. 441, 12 L.Ed. 1147 (1850); United States v. Nourse, 6 Pet. 470, 8 L.Ed. 467 (1832); Wechsler, The Courts and the Constitution, 65 Colum.L.Rev. 1001, 1004-1008 (1965).

The facts of this case illustrate how the implication of a right of action not authorized by Congress denigrates the democratic process. Title IX embodies a national commitment to the elimination of discrimination based on sex, a goal the importance of which has been recognized repeatedly by our decisions. See, e. g., Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 99 S.Ct. 1760, 60 L.Ed.2d 297; Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 99 S.Ct. 1102, 59 L.Ed.2d 306 (1979); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199, 97 S.Ct. 1021, 51 L.Ed.2d 270 (1977); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 93 S.Ct. 1764, 36 L.Ed.2d 583 (1973); Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971). But because Title IX applies to most of our Nation's institutions of higher learning, it also trenches on the authority of the academic community to govern itself, an authority the free exercise of which is critical to the vitality of our society. See University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 311, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2759, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (opinion of POWELL, J.); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 87 S.Ct. 675, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 263, 77 S.Ct. 1203, 1218, 1 L.Ed.2d 1311 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result) Murphy, Academic Freedom—An Emerging Constitutional Right, 28 Law & Contemp.Prob. 447 (1963); Note, Academic Freedom and Federal Regulation of University Hiring, 92 Harv.L.Rev. 879 (1979). Arming frustrated applicants with the power to challenge in court his or her rejection inevitably will have a constraining effect on admissions programs. The burden of expensive, vexatious litigation upon institutions whose resources often are severely limited may well compel an emphasis on objectively measured academic qualifications at the expense of more flexible admissions criteria that bring richness and diversity to academic life.18 If such a significant incursion into the arena of academic polity is to be made, it is the constitutional function of the Legislative Branch, subject as it is to the checks of the political process, to make this judgment.19

Congress already has created a mechanism for enforcing the mandate found in Title IX against gender-based discrimination. At least in the view of Congress, the fund-termination power conferred on HEW is adequate to ensure that discrimination in federally funded colleges and universities will not be countenanced. The current position of the Government notwithstanding,20 overlapping judicial and administrative enforcement of these policies inevitably will lead to conflicts and confusion; our national goal of equal opportunity for men and women, as well as the academic community, may suffer. A federal court should resolve all doubts against this kind of self-aggrandizement, regardless of the temptation to lend its assistance to the furtherance of some remedial end deemed attractive.

In sum, I believe the need both to restrain courts that too readily have created private causes of action, and to encourage Congress to confront its obligation to resolve crucial policy questions created by the legislation it enacts, has become compelling. Because the analysis suggested by Cort has proved inadequate to meet these problems, I would start afresh. Henceforth, we should not condone the implication of any private action from a federal statute absent the most compelling evidence that Congress in fact intended such an action to exist. Where a statutory scheme expressly provides for an alternative mechanism for enforcing the rights and duties created, I would be especially reluctant ever to permit a federal court to volunteer its services for enforcement purposes. Because the Court today is enlisting the federal judiciary in just such an enterprise, I dissent.