Issues of State Autonomy: The Supreme Court, the Eleventh Amendment, and Section 1983

Abstract

The Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (now codified as 42 U.S.C. ? 19831) go to the heart of the federal relationship. The former limits national judicial power over the states. The latter enlarges national judicial power over the states. Because national supervision of the states treads more directly on state autonomy than does national entrance into areas previously occupied by the states, the U.S. Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment and section 1983 opinions are reasonably accurate barometers of its federalism attitudes. Despite the intermittent use of the Eleventh Amendment to bar suits against the state and an occasional refusal to expand section 1983, the Court in the 1970s chose contraction of the former and expansion of the latter. This pattern continued into 1980, when the Court further eroded the state's Eleventh Amendment protection by permitting federal courts to award attorneys fees against the state in section 1983 suits.2 Further, the Court transformed section 1983 from an instrument protecting basic constitutional and equal statutory rights into one protecting statutory benefits conferred as rights by joint federal-state programs, by authorizing private individuals to seek injunctive relief and monetary awards for state and local deviations from judicially defined national standards.3