Grandson v. University of Minnesota

• Decision Date: 12 April 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-1817,99-1817
• Citation: 272 F.3d 568
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2001) JULIE GRANDSON, PLAINTIFF - APPELLANT, JENNIFER A. THOMPSON; RENATA D. LINDAHL; GINGER M. JEFFRIES, INDIVIDUALLY AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED, PLAINTIFFS - APPELLANTS, v. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS - APPELLEES. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 568

272 F.3d 568 (8th Cir. 2001)

JULIE GRANDSON, PLAINTIFF - APPELLANT, JENNIFER A. THOMPSON; RENATA D. LINDAHL; GINGER M. JEFFRIES, INDIVIDUALLY AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED, PLAINTIFFS - APPELLANTS, v. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS - APPELLEES.

No. 99-1817

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: April 12, 2001

Filed: November 20, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Wollman, Chief Judge, McMILLIAN and Loken, Circuit Judges.

Loken, Circuit Judge

These are two actions against the University of Minnesota, its Board of Regents, and current and former administrators of the University's Duluth campus ("UMD") under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688 ("Title IX"). Plaintiffs seek injunctive and damage relief for UMD's alleged unequal treatment of female student athletes. They appeal the district court's¹ orders striking the class action allegations in the second suit for failure to file a timely motion for class certification; denying those plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint to assert claims for money damages; and granting summary judgment dismissing all the individual plaintiffs' claims.² We conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in striking the class action allegations. We agree with the district court that the individual plaintiffs lack standing to seek injunctive relief, and that their damage claims do not satisfy the rigorous standards of Gebser v. Lago Vista Ind. Sch. Dist., 524 U.S. 274 (1998). Accordingly, we affirm.

I. Background.

A. Title IX. Patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX prohibits gender discrimination in education programs receiving federal financial assistance, including athletic programs. Section 901 provides that "[n]o 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." 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Section 902 authorizes federal funding agencies to promulgate regulations providing for the termination of federal funding of any non-complying program or activity, "Provided, however, That no such action shall be taken until the department or agency concerned has advised the appropriate person or persons of the failure to comply with the requirement and has determined that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means." 20 U.S.C. § 1682. Pursuant to this authority, the Department of Education has promulgated regulations addressing equal opportunity issues in the provision of athletic scholarships and programs. See 34 C.F.R. §§ 106.37(c), 106.41.

Though Congress was silent on the question of private remedies, the Supreme Court has implied a private right of action to enforce Title IX, Cannon v. Univ. of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 717 (1979), and has authorized the award of money damages, Franklin v. Gwinnett County Pub. Sch., 503 U.S. 60, 76 (1992). However, in fashioning specific implied remedies, the Court recently cautioned, courts must "shape a sensible remedial scheme that best comports with the statute." Gebser, 524 U.S. at 284. In Gebser, the Court held that a school district is not liable for a teacher's sexual harassment unless it had actual notice of, and was deliberately indifferent to, the discrimination. The Court explained, 524 U.S. at 288-90:

Title IX's express means of enforcement -- by administrative agencies -- operates on an assumption of actual notice to officials of the funding recipient....

* * * * * *

It would be unsound, we think, for a statute's express system of enforcement to require notice to the recipient and an opportunity to come into voluntary compliance while a judicially implied system of enforcement permits substantial liability without regard to the recipient's knowledge or its corrective actions upon receiving notice.... Where a statute's express enforcement scheme hinges its most severe sanction on notice and unsuccessful efforts to obtain compliance, we cannot attribute to Congress the intention to have an implied enforcement scheme that allows imposition of greater liability without comparable conditions.

B. The Administrative Complaint Against UMD. UMD receives federal funding and therefore must comply with Title IX. In September 1996, before these lawsuits were filed, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education ("OCR") notified UMD that a Title IX complaint had been filed alleging that UMD and its athletic department were violating Title IX by:

not effectively accommodating the athletic interests and abilities of females;

failing to provide female athletes with proportional athletic financial assistance; and

failing to provide female athletes with equal opportunities for travel allowances, coaching, practice facilities, medical and training services, housing and dining, publicity services, and recruiting resources.

On April 2, 1997, UMD and OCR entered into an Agreement to resolve the September 1996 complaint. The Agreement required UMD to increase the squad size of its varsity teams for women, to provide women "equivalent opportunities to receive athletic financial assistance," and to provide women equivalent access to the other services and facilities enumerated in the complaint. The Agreement further required UMD to submit status reports to OCR on October 1, 1997, 1998, and 1999, and a final report on October 1, 2000, "documenting its full implementation of this Agreement." In November 2000, after UMD submitted those reports, OCR determined that UMD had fully implemented all provisions of the Agreement. OCR then terminated its administrative monitoring.

C. These Actions Commence. In February 1997, UMD student Julie Grandson filed the first action, seeking injunctive relief and compensatory damages for the scholarship and financial support she allegedly would have received as a member of the women's varsity soccer team had UMD not discriminated against female athletes. Three months later, Jennifer Thompson, Renata Lindahl, and Ginger M. Jeffries (collectively referred to as "Thompson Plaintiffs") filed the second action. The Thompson Plaintiffs purported to sue on behalf of a class of similarly situated female students. They sought injunctive relief requiring UMD to end gender discrimination in its intercollegiate athletic program by increasing the total number of participation opportunities for women and by adding an NCAA Division I women's team.

At the time these actions were filed, UMD fielded seven varsity athletic teams for men and seven for women. All the varsity teams competed at the NCAA Division II level, except for men's ice hockey which was a Division I team. In 1999, as part of its Title IX compliance efforts under the OCR Agreement, UMD added a Division I women's ice hockey team. Earlier this year, that team won the first NCAA National Championship for women's ice hockey. See "UMD Earns NCAA Title," MPLS. STAR TRIB., Mar. 26, 2001, at C1.

D. Procedural History. On June 30, 1997, the Thompson Plaintiffs sought leave to amend their complaint to assert claims for money damages. The district court deferred that motion pending resolution of UMD's motion to dismiss, which was denied on March 16, 1998. Shortly thereafter, the court entered a revised scheduling order, as requested by plaintiffs, which set July 21, 1998, as the deadline for filing dispositive motions. UMD moved to strike the Thompson Plaintiffs' class allegations because the motion for class certification -- a dispositive motion under the district court's local rules -- had not been timely filed.

Following a hearing on July 23, Magistrate Judge Jonathan Lebedoff recommended that the district court grant UMD's motion to strike the class allegations. The district court adopted this recommendation. Judge Lebedoff also denied the Thompson Plaintiffs' motion to add money damage claims as futile. The district court affirmed this order. Finally, on February 2, 1999, the district court granted summary judgment dismissing the individual plaintiffs' remaining claims. The court ruled that the four plaintiffs lacked standing to seek injunctive relief because they had not played a varsity sport or had exhausted their NCAA eligibility. The court dismissed Grandson's damage claim under Gebser because she did not allege that she complained to UMD officials about her alleged unequal treatment and did not support her allegation of disparate funding with "proof of intentional discrimination or deliberate disregard for women's athletics."

Describing these actions as suits "to end twenty years of pervasive and intentional gender discrimination in the intercollegiate athletic program" at UMD, plaintiffs appeal district court rulings striking their class allegations, denying their motion to add class-wide damage claims, and dismissing the individual claims for injunctive relief and damages.

II. Discussion.

Plaintiffs complain of widespread intentional discrimination in the funding of women's varsity sports, in the allocation of athletic scholarships to men and women athletes, and in the spending of an annual Women's Special Allocation appropriated by the Minnesota Legislature. Though plaintiffs do not disclose the specific relief they seek, it is apparent they envision injunctive relief that would have the district court function as a de facto super-athletic department director, plus sweeping class-wide damage relief for all UMD women students who might have benefitted from a more generous funding of women's athletics.

There have been a number of reported Title IX cases challenging women's collegiate athletic programs, but to our knowledge this is the first case in which (i) a class action was brought after the relevant federal funding agency lodged a...