National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
101 federal appellate · 28 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 276 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez (2007), Muehler v. Mena (2005)
101 federal appellate · 28 district · 4 state decisions
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedSmith v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 1681 (§ 901 of the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972) · 20 U.S.C. § 1682 (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972) · 20 U.S.C. § 1687 (§ 908 of the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972) · 29 U.S.C. § 794 · 42 U.S.C. § 2000D · 42 U.S.C. § 6102
Relies on Cannon v. University of Chicago · Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools · United States v. Bestfoods · National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian · Grove City College v. Bell
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 276 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Entities that receive federal assistance, whether directly or through an intermediary, are recipients within the meaning of Title IX; entities that only benefit economically from federal assistance are not.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[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.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Second, Smith argues that when a recipient cedes controlling authority over a federally funded program to another entity, the controlling entity is covered by Title IX regardless whether it is itself a recipient. As in Roberts v. Galen of Va., Inc. , [ 525 U.S. 249 ,] 253-254, 119 S.Ct. 685 , 142 L.Ed.2d 648 [ (1999) ], and United States v. Bestfoods , 524 U.S. 51 , 72-73, 118 S.Ct. 1876 , 141 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998), we do not decide in the first instance issues not decided below.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.