finding with respect to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , that "[t]he question whether Congress . . . intended to create a private right of action [is] definitively answered in the negative where a statute by its terms grants no private rights to any identifiable class[,] and . . . . a plaintiff suing under an implied right of action still must show that the statute manifests an intent to create not just a private right but also a private remedy." (emphasis in original) (internal citations and quotations omitted)
How later courts described this case
- finding with respect to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , that "[t]he question whether Congress . . . intended to create a private right of action [is] definitively answered in the negative where a statute by its terms grants no private rights to any identifiable class[,] and . . . . a plaintiff suing under an implied right of action still must show that the statute manifests an intent to create not just a private right but also a private remedy." (emphasis in original) (internal citations and quotations omitted)
- concluding that no § 1983 damages claim could be brought by individuals against a state for violation of the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and noting that “[i]n legislation enacted pursuant to the spending power, the typical remedy for state noncompliance with federally imposed conditions is not a private cause of action for noncompliance but rather action by the Federal Government to terminate funds to the State” (internal quotations omitted)
- explaining that Con *623 gress often means to preclude a private right of action in statutes where it employs an administrative enforcement scheme that achieves “expertise, uniformity, widespread consultation, and resulting administrative guidance,” while “avoiding] the comparative risk of inconsistent interpretations and misincentives that can arise out of an occasional inappropriate application of the statute in a private action for damages”
- holding that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) does not "confer enforceable rights" under § 1983 because "[u]nlike the individually focused terminology of Titles VI and IX (`no person shall be subjected to discrimination'), FERPA's provisions speak only to the Secretary of Education, directing that `no funds shall be made available' to any `educational agency or institution' which has a prohibited `policy or practice'"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Breyer,
with whom Justice Souter joins, concurring in the judgment.
The ultimate question, in respect to whether private individuals may bring a lawsuit to enforce a federal statute, through 42 U. S. C. § 1983 or otherwise, is a question of congressional intent. In my view, the factors set forth in this Court’s §1983 cases are helpful indications of that intent. See, e. g., Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U. S. 329, 340-341 (1997); Suter v. Artist M., 503 U. S. 347, 357 (1992); Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn., 496 U. S. 498, 509-511 (1990); Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418, 423-427 (1987). But the statute books are too many, the laws too diverse, and their purposes too complex, for any single legal formula to offer more than general guidance. I would not, in effect, predetermine an outcome through the use of a presumption — such as the majority’s presumption that a right is conferred only if set forth “unambiguously” in the statute’s “text and structure.” See ante, at 280, 288.
At the same time, I do not believe that Congress intended private judicial enforcement of this statute’s “school record privacy” provisions. The Court mentions most of the considerations I find persuasive: The phrasing of the relevant prohibition (stating that “[n]o funds shall be made available” to institutions with a “policy or practice” of permitting the release of “education records”), see ante, at 288, n. 6, 288-289; the total absence (in the relevant statutory provision) of any reference to individual “rights” or the like, see ante, at 287; the related provisions that make clear, by creating administrative enforcement processes, that the Spending Clause was not simply a device to obtain federal jurisdiction, *292 see ante, at 289-290; and later statutory insistence upon centralized federal enforcement at the national, not the regional, level, see ante, at 290.
I would add one further reason. Much of the statute’s key language is broad and nonspecific. The statute, for example, defines its key term, “education records,” as (with certain enumerated exceptions) “those records, files, documents, and other materials which (i) contain information directly related to a student; and (ii) are maintained by an educational . . . institution.” 20 U. S. C. § 1232g(a)(4)(A). This kind of language leaves schools uncertain as to just when they can, or cannot, reveal various kinds of information. It has led, or could lead, to legal claims that would limit, or forbid, such practices as peer grading, see Owasso Independent School Dist. No. I — 011 v. Falvo, 534 U. S. 426 (2002), teacher evaluations, see Moore v. Hyche, 761 F. Supp. 112 (ND Ala. 1991), school “honor society” recommendations, see Price v. Young, 580 F. Supp. 1 (ED Ark. 1983), or even roll call responses and “bad conduct” marks written down in class, see Tr. of Oral Arg. in Falvo, supra, O. T. 2001, No. 00-1073, pp. 37-38. And it is open to interpretations that invariably favor confidentiality almost irrespective of conflicting educational needs or the importance, or common sense, of limited disclosures in certain circumstances, say, where individuals are being considered for work with young children or other positions of trust.
Under these circumstances, Congress may well have wanted to make the agency remedy that it provided exclusive — both to achieve the expertise, uniformity, widespread consultation, and resulting administrative guidance that can accompany agency decisionmaking and to avoid the comparative risk of inconsistent interpretations and misincentives that can arise out of an occasional inappropriate application of the statute in a private action for damages. This factor, together with the others to which the majority refers, convinces me that Congress did not intend private judicial enforcement actions here.