Student Sex Bias Damage Suits OKd : Education: Before the high court ruling, schools that violated Title IX faced only a loss of federal funds. The case involved allegations of coerced sexual encounters.

The Supreme Court, in a decision hailed by women’s rights advocates, ruled Wednesday that students who are victims of sex discrimination or harassment in schools may be entitled to damage awards.

The unanimous ruling comes 20 years after Congress outlawed sex discrimination in schools through Title IX of the federal education laws.

Although that measure had a broad impact on American education because it forced high schools and universities to open up athletic programs to women, among other things, not until Wednesday was the law interpreted as giving student victims of discrimination or harassment a right to monetary damages.

Until now, schools or colleges found to have violated Title IX were threatened only with a loss of federal funds.

“With this decision, girls and women finally have a powerful weapon to fight sex discrimination in education,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington.

In the case decided Wednesday, a young Atlanta woman is seeking damages from her high school, where, she alleges, a male teacher harassed her and coerced her into having sex with him on school grounds. The ruling permits the civil lawsuit that stemmed from the allegations to go to trial.

Women’s rights lawyers said they expect to use the ruling not only to combat sexual harassment in schools, but also to seek damages from educational institutions that fail to provide equal athletic programs for women.

School and university lawyers said they feared that the ruling in the case (Christine Franklin vs. Gwinnett County Schools, 90-918) could result in multimillion-dollar damage verdicts against local school districts as well as institutions of higher learning.

“I could see her (the plaintiff) winning $6 million in this kind of case,” said Gwendolyn Gregory, an attorney for the National School Boards Assn. She noted that school systems and colleges may be held liable for sexual harassment by teachers even if officials were unaware of the conduct. “All they (plaintiffs’ lawyers) have to show is that it happened,” Gregory said.

In the Franklin case, the high court was called upon to decide whether Congress meant to give federal judges the power to award damages for sex discrimination.

The Title IX law of 1972 contained no such provision.

In his terse opinion for the court, Justice Byron R. White said there is a “traditional presumption” that “where there is a right, there is a remedy.” Only a damage verdict could provide such a remedy, the court ruled.

Female teachers and other school employees already are protected under other federal anti-discrimination laws, and in 1991 Congress gave them the right to win damages from their employers.

In 1986, Franklin was a ninth-grader at North Gwinnett High School when a teacher, Andrew Hill, allegedly began making sexual advances to her.

A high school coach, Hill was said in court papers to have a reputation for pursuing female students and would often “borrow” them from their classes. On three occasions, Franklin alleged that Hill forced her to have intercourse with him on school grounds.

Other teachers were said to have been aware of the problem and to have confronted the principal. Although Hill denied the allegations, he eventually resigned. Franklin’s allegations have never gone to trial.

She pressed her complaint and filed a lawsuit seeking damages from the school district. However, a federal judge in Atlanta dismissed her suit, ruling that Title IX did not permit damage awards, and an appeals court upheld that conclusion.

The 1972 law said only that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Violators could lose their federal funding, the Title IX law said.

In 1979, the high court ruled that Title IX gave female victims of discrimination a right to file lawsuits--for example, to force colleges to change their admission or scholarship policies. But no court has awarded a female student damages for sex discrimination at a school or college.

The Bush Administration filed a brief supporting the Gwinnett school district. There is no “free-floating presumption” that damages can be awarded whenever a right is violated, the Justice Department argued.

But the high court disagreed. “The general rule is that absent clear direction to the contrary by Congress, the federal courts have the power to award any appropriate relief in a (complaint) brought pursuant to a federal statute,” White said.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a separate opinion. Scalia questioned whether the court in 1979 should have allowed lawsuits under Title IX but agreed that, unless that decision was reversed, Franklin is entitled to seek damages.

Wednesday’s ruling did not say whether a statistical disparity, such as lower spending on women’s sports teams, also could prove illegal discrimination. Nor did the court spell out how damages might be calculated.

Nonetheless, women’s rights leaders said they were surprised and delighted by the outcome. Some noted that the sexual harassment case came before the court only weeks after the allegations of Anita Faye Hill in Thomas’ confirmation hearings put a national spotlight on the problem.

“This decision reflects a new national awareness, a direct result of the outcry against sexual harassment, that has swept the country in the last several months,” said Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women.