Title IX Requires Physical Presence “in the United States” and Ex parte Young Does Not Permit “Instatement” Relief That Creates a New State-Funded Position

I. Introduction

In Mark Charlton-Perkins v. Univ. of Cincinnati (6th Cir. Aug. 5, 2026), the Sixth Circuit addressed a hiring-search cancellation after a university department’s committee recommended Dr. Mark Charlton-Perkins, a U.S. citizen residing in the United Kingdom, for an assistant professor role. The record reflected faculty commentary raising concerns about his gender and departmental “diversity,” and separately, alleged conflict-of-interest issues tied to the committee chair’s prior collaboration with him.

Charlton-Perkins sued the University of Cincinnati under Title IX and sued two administrators—Kenneth Petren (Dean) and George Uetz (Department Head)—under the Equal Protection Clause via 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking damages and an injunction requiring his instatement into a job the university never ultimately filled (and never reposted).

The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for defendants, but did so on grounds that materially sharpen doctrine in three areas: (1) Title IX’s territorial limitation (“no person in the United States”); (2) sovereign immunity limits on Ex parte Young relief where the requested injunction would force creation and funding of a new state position (instatement); and (3) qualified immunity where no clearly established law makes it “obvious” that canceling a hiring search to avoid potential discrimination liability violates equal protection.

II. Summary of the Opinion

  • Title IX: The court held that Title IX protects only a “person in the United States,” meaning a person physically present within U.S. territory when subjected to the alleged discrimination. Because Charlton-Perkins resided in the United Kingdom when the decision was made, announced, and learned, he was outside Title IX’s protection.
  • Official-capacity § 1983 claims (injunction): Sovereign immunity barred the requested instatement injunction because it would directly burden the state treasury by requiring creation and funding of a position that does not exist, and because such an equity suit is too remote from historically recognized suits against a sovereign.
  • Individual-capacity § 1983 claims (damages): Qualified immunity applied because Charlton-Perkins failed to identify clearly established law prohibiting the officials’ conduct, and the case did not fit the “obvious case” exception.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Shape the Holding)

1. Statutory interpretation and “ordinary meaning”

The court framed Title IX as a question of first impression in the circuit and anchored interpretation in the “ordinary meaning” approach: Food Mktg. Inst. v. Argus Leader Media (text as starting point) and Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co. (ordinary meaning reflects legislative purpose), reinforced by the “apply the statute as written” principle from In re Corrin.

2. “In the United States” as territorial language

The court relied heavily on two recent Supreme Court decisions construing similar “in” + geographic-location language as territorial:

  • Trump v. Barbara: Interpreting “born … in the United States” as “territory,” and reading adjacent jurisdictional language as tied to territorial dominion. The Sixth Circuit used Barbara to support that “in the United States” is geographically focused.
  • Mullin v. Al Otro Lado: Construing “arrives in the United States” to require actual entry; the court cited the Court’s “everyday speech” analysis that “in” denotes “within the limits, bounds, or area of.”

3. Spending Clause “clear statement” constraints

Because Title IX is Spending Clause legislation, the court reinforced the requirement that funding recipients must be clearly alerted to conditions: Davis ex rel. LaShonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ. (Title IX as Spending Clause), Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman (clear voice requirement), Landor v. La. Dep't of Corrs. & Pub. Safety (Spending Clause “contract” framing and clear notice), and Sixth Circuit federalism concerns in Kentucky v. Yellen. The remedial/notice lens was sharpened with Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C. and Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy.

This body of precedent did not merely “support” a textual reading—it functioned as a structural argument: even if the text were arguable, Spending Clause notice principles cut strongly against expanding liability to discrimination against persons abroad.

4. Rejecting “absurdity” as a basis to expand Title IX extraterritorially

The court acknowledged the absurdity canon via Donovan v. FirstCredit, Inc., but emphasized its narrowness (absurdity must be obvious) using Pub. Citizen v. Dep't of Justice (Kennedy, J., concurrence) and Nixon v. Mo. Mun. League (unhappy consequences insufficient). The court rejected the district court’s “day-traveler” hypothetical as unlikely under the court’s discrimination-timing framing, and criticized the district court’s alternative “location of conduct” approach as producing far more sweeping (and implausible) global exposure.

5. Sovereign immunity and the limits of Ex parte Young

The sovereign-immunity analysis drew from:

  • Edelman v. Jordan (no retroactive treasury liability); Sixth Circuit “ancillary effect” cases Turker v. Ohio Dep't of Rehab. and Corr., Ernst v. Rising (en banc; injunction cannot directly require payments), and Barton v. Summers (primary thrust test).
  • Ex parte Young itself, filtered through modern and historical limits: Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo S.A. v. All. Bond Fund, Inc. (equitable powers tied to tradition), Trump v. CASA (no “novel remedies” without equitable pedigree), and the sovereign-immunity premise from Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt and Hans v. Louisiana.
  • The court distinguished “reinstatement” precedent Diaz v. Mich. Dep't of Corr. and treated it as not controlling for “instatement.” It analogized the plaintiff’s requested relief to the fisc-impact in Ernst v. Rising, while contrasting it with minimal-cost relief like Ashford v. Univ. of Mich..

The opinion also used historical discussions of officer suits and equity limits, citing In re Sawyer, and explored understandings of Ex parte Young as an antisuit-injunction analogue, including references to Va. Office for Prot. & Advoc. v. Stewart (Kennedy, J., concurrence), Hopkins v. Clemson Agric. Coll., Ga. R.R. & Banking Co. v. Redwine, and Younger v. Harris.

6. Qualified immunity and the “obvious case” doctrine

The court applied standard qualified-immunity sequencing and burdens from Pearson v. Callahan and Sexton v. Cernuto, and evaluated “clearly established” law under Wright v. City of Euclid. It rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on cases that were not “obvious case” authorities (Williams v. Maurer; Moderwell v. Cuyahoga County), and treated “obviousness” as cabined by District of Columbia v. Wesby and Brosseau v. Haugen.

As benchmarks for truly egregious “obvious” violations, the court cited: Hope v. Pelzer, Taylor v. Riojas, Jackson v. City of Cleveland, and Grawrey v. Drury, then emphasized proportionality concerns via DeLanis v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville & Davison Cnty..

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Title IX’s territorial scope: “person in the United States” means physical presence

The court’s core move was straightforward: Title IX’s coverage clause includes a geographic limitation, and “in the United States” is ordinarily a statement of location. It rejected attempts to convert the phrase into a citizenship-based or job-location-based concept, reasoning that:

  • The ordinary meaning of “in” when paired with a geographic place refers to being within that territory.
  • Supreme Court interpretive examples in Trump v. Barbara and Mullin v. Al Otro Lado reinforced a territorial meaning.
  • Congress often distinguishes “citizen” from “person in the United States” in other statutes—supporting that the latter is not a proxy for citizenship.
  • Spending Clause clear-statement rules make it especially inappropriate to expand liability beyond the statute’s plain geographic limit.

Importantly, the court also refused to adopt a broader “conduct-location” test. It viewed that approach as effectively globalizing Title IX: any foreign applicant, never entering the U.S., could sue based on a U.S.-based hiring decision—an expansion the court viewed as inconsistent with Title IX’s text and Spending Clause notice principles.

2. Sovereign immunity: “instatement” is materially different from “reinstatement”

The opinion announces a practical and administrable distinction:

  • Reinstatement typically restores a plaintiff to an existing position and has (at most) incidental treasury effects, consistent with Diaz v. Mich. Dep't of Corr..
  • Instatement (as framed here) would force the State to create and fund a position that does not exist. That is not “ancillary”; it is the “primary thrust” and resembles a direct fiscal mandate barred by Ernst v. Rising and Edelman v. Jordan.

The court added a second, independent limitation: even if one could plausibly fit reinstatement within the modern Ex parte Young ecosystem, the requested remedy must be tethered to traditionally recognized equitable practice. Using Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo S.A. v. All. Bond Fund, Inc. and Trump v. CASA, the court treated “instatement” as too far from historically available suits against sovereigns and too much like affirmative, treasury-burdening relief rather than the negative/defensive posture that historically animated Ex parte Young.

3. Qualified immunity: canceling a search was not “obviously” unconstitutional absent precedent

The court’s qualified-immunity holding turned less on whether gender considerations appeared in the record and more on the doctrine’s demand for notice: even if the conduct was questionable, the plaintiff did not identify precedent placing the constitutional question “beyond debate.”

The court also declined to treat the case as an “obvious case.” It distinguished classic “obviousness” contexts (extreme conditions of confinement, fabricated evidence, severe excessive force) from an administrator’s decision to cancel a search amid allegations that continuing could expose the institution to discrimination claims by multiple contenders.

C. Impact

1. Title IX: a significant territorial limitation for globally mobile applicants

The decision meaningfully constrains Title IX claims where the plaintiff is abroad at the time of the challenged decision (even if the institution is U.S.-based and federally funded, and even if the job would be in the U.S.). Future litigants will have to confront:

  • Pleading and proof about timing and location: The opinion emphasizes the plaintiff’s location when the decision was made, communicated, and learned—suggesting location is not a technicality but a core element of Title IX coverage.
  • Channeling of employment-discrimination disputes: With Title IX constrained territorially and with the Supreme Court considering whether Title IX provides an employment-discrimination cause of action (Crowther v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. Sys. of Ga.), plaintiffs may lean more heavily toward Title VII (where available) or state-law remedies.

2. Sovereign immunity: narrowing the remedial toolbox against state universities

By distinguishing instatement from reinstatement, the opinion gives state defendants a strong jurisdictional defense against injunctions that would require new state outlays, especially where a job was never filled or has been eliminated. Plaintiffs seeking equitable relief against state universities may need to tailor remedies toward: (a) negative injunctive relief, (b) reinstatement to an extant position, or (c) non-fiscal corrective measures (e.g., record expungement-type relief).

3. Qualified immunity: reinforcing the demand for on-point authority in novel hiring-process fact patterns

The ruling underscores that even when discriminatory motives are suggested in communications, plaintiffs must still identify precedent clearly establishing the unlawfulness of the specific action taken (here, cancellation of a search rather than hiring a different candidate). This may encourage litigants to develop more targeted “clearly established” arguments rather than relying on generalized anti-discrimination principles.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • “Person in the United States” (Title IX): The court treated this as a geographic filter—Title IX protects people who are physically within U.S. territory when they are subjected to the discrimination. Citizenship alone does not satisfy the phrase.
  • Spending Clause “clear statement” rule: When Congress attaches conditions to federal funds, states must have clear notice of those conditions. If a statute’s text suggests a territorial limit, courts are reluctant to expand it in ways states could not have anticipated when accepting funds.
  • Sovereign immunity and Ex parte Young: You often can sue state officers (not the state itself) for prospective relief to stop an ongoing violation. But courts draw a line when the requested injunction functions like a direct demand for state treasury payments.
  • Reinstatement vs. instatement: Reinstatement usually returns a person to an already-existing job; instatement (as used here) would require creating and funding a job that does not exist. The latter is more likely to be treated as an impermissible fiscal burden on the state.
  • Qualified immunity: Officials are immune from damages unless the unlawfulness was clearly established. It is not enough to show “this seems wrong”; the plaintiff must show precedent that would have made the illegality apparent to a reasonable official.

V. Note on the Concurrence (Murphy, J.): A Causation Fault Line to Watch

Judge Murphy agreed with the outcome but warned that parties often assume Title VII’s “motivating factor” framework automatically applies to Title IX and § 1983 employment-discrimination analogues. The concurrence emphasized textual differences:

  • Title VII expressly allows liability when sex was “a motivating factor” even if other factors also motivated the decision.
  • Title IX’s “on the basis of sex” and § 1983’s “subjects, or causes to be subjected” language may instead demand at least but-for causation, and perhaps more.

The concurrence flagged tensions among lines of cases (including Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle and Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp.) and suggested future litigants should brief causation carefully rather than treating employment-discrimination doctrines as interchangeable across statutes and constitutional claims.

VI. Conclusion

Charlton-Perkins v. Univ. of Cincinnati establishes (in the Sixth Circuit) a clear territorial reading of Title IX’s “person in the United States” limitation, foreclosing Title IX coverage for plaintiffs residing abroad when the discriminatory decision occurs. It also draws a consequential remedial boundary in sovereign-immunity doctrine: Ex parte Young does not extend to instatement relief that would require a state to create and fund a new position. Finally, the decision reinforces that qualified immunity will shield officials in novel hiring-process disputes absent on-point authority or truly extreme “obvious” illegality.