Page:Veronica Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High School District (September 19, 2014) US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.djvu/41

This page has been validated.
OLLIER V. SWEETWATER UNION HIGH SCH. DIST.
41

California, 602 F.3d 957, 964 n.6 (9th Cir. 2010). Further, a private right of action under Title IX includes a claim for retaliation. As the United States Supreme Court has said: “Title IX’s private right of action encompasses suits for retaliation, because retaliation falls within the statute’s prohibition of intentional discrimination on the basis of sex. … Indeed, if retaliation were not prohibited, Title IX’s enforcement scheme would unravel.” Jackson, 544 U.S. at 178, 180. Nor is it a viable argument for Sweetwater to complain that only some members of the plaintiff’s class who attended CPHS when complaints were made can urge they engaged in protected activity. That the class includes students who were not members of the softball team at the time of retaliation, and who benefit from the relief, does not impair the validity of the relief. See Thompson v. N. Am. Stainless, LP, 562 U.S. 170, 131 S. Ct. 863, 870, 178 L. Ed. 2d 694 (2011) (holding that Title VII “enabl[es] suit by any plaintiff with an interest arguably sought to be protected.” (internal quotations and alteration omitted); Mansourian, 602 F.3d at 962 (approving a class of female wrestlers “on behalf of all current and future female” university students). The relief of injunction is equitable, and the district court had broad powers to tailor equitable relief so as to vindicate the rights of former and future students. See generally Dobbs on Remedies, §§ 2.4, 2.9.


Under Title IX, as under Title VII, “the adverse action element is present when ‘a reasonable [person] would have found the challenged action materially adverse, which in this context means it well might have dissuaded a reasonable [person] from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’” Id. at 726 (alterations in original) (quoting Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006)). Sweetwater does not argue—because it cannot