O'Connor v. Board of Education of School District 23 a-384’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Wainwright v., Delo v. Stokes (1990)
2 federal appellate ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 1681 (§ 901 of the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972)
Relies on Caban v. Mohammed · HOLTZMAN Et Al. v. SCHLESINGER Et Al. · Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. British American Commodity Options Corp
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) General. No person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, be treated differently from another person or otherwise be discriminated against in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics offered by a recipient, and no recipient shall provide any such athletics separately on such basis. (b) Separate Teams. Notwithstanding the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section, a recipient may operate or sponsor separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport. However, where a recipient operates or sponsors a team in a particular sport for members of one sex but operates no such team for members of the other sex, and athletic opportunities for members of that sex have previously been limited, members of the excluded sex must be allowed to tryout for the team offered unless the sport involved is a contact sport. For the purpose of this part, contact sports include boxing, wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, football, basketball and other sports the purpose of major activity of which involves bodily contact. (c) Equal Opportunity. A recipient which operates or sponsors interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics shall provide equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes. In determining whether equal opportunities are available the Director will consider, among other factors: (1) Whether the s”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Judge Marshall found the maximization of participation in sports to be a compelling state interest. It is therefore certainly an important governmental objective. In Judge Marshall’s opinion, the MacArthur system was not the least restrictive alternative. Even he, however, conceded that the sex-based classification substantially furthered the governmental objective, thus satisfying the equal protection clause. Judge Marshall’s decision cannot be upheld on the basis of the alleged arbitrariness of the MacArthur program. As Justice Stevens held, in denying the application for a stay, In my opinion, the question whether the discrimination is justified cannot depend entirely on whether the girls’ program will offer Karen opportunities that are equal in all respects to the advantages she would gain from the higher level of competition in the boys’ program. The answer must depend on whether it is permissible for the defendants to structure their athletic programs by using sex as one criterion for eligibility. If the classification is reasonable in substantially all of its applications, I do not believe that the general rule can be said to be unconstitutional simply because it appears arbitrary in an individual case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“if Karen will probably succeed on the merits, she would suffer greater harm than would the defendants by allowing her to try out for the boys' team.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.