In the 1972 Amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress, acting under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, authorized federal courts to award money damages in favor of a private individual against a state government found to have subjected that person to employment discrimination on the basis of
I
Petitioners in No. 75-251 sued in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of all present and retired male employees of the State of Connecticut. Their amended complaint asserted, inter alia, that certain provisions in the State's statutory retirement benefit plan discriminated against them because of their sex, and therefore contravened Title VII of the 1964 Act, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. IV). Title VII, which originally did not include state and local governments,
The District Court held that the Connecticut State Employees Retirement Act violated Title VII's prohibition against sex-based employment discrimination. 390 F.Supp. 278, 285-288 (1974).
On petitioners' appeal,
II
In Edelman this Court held that monetary relief awarded by the District Court to welfare plaintiffs, by reason of wrongful denial of benefits which had occurred previous to the entry of the District Court's determination of their wrongfulness, violated the Eleventh Amendment. Such an award was found to be indistinguishable from a monetary award against the State itself which had been prohibited in Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 464 (1945). It was therefore controlled by that case rather than by Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), which permitted suits against state officials to obtain prospective relief against violations of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Edelman went on to hold that the plaintiffs in that case could not avail themselves of the doctrine of waiver expounded in cases such as Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U.S. 184 (1964), and Employees v. Missouri Public Health Dept., 411 U.S. 279 (1973), because the necessary predicate for that doctrine was congressional
All parties in the instant litigation agree with the Court of Appeals that the suit for retroactive benefits by the petitioners is in fact indistinguishable from that sought to be maintained in Edelman, since what is sought here is a damages award payable to a private party from the state treasury.
Our analysis begins where Edelman ended, for in this Title VII case the "threshold fact of congressional authorization," id., at 672, to sue the State as employer is clearly present. This is, of course, the prerequisite found present in Parden and wanting in Employees. We are aware of the factual differences between the type of state activity involved in Parden and that involved in the present case, but we do not think that difference is material for our purposes. The congressional authorization involved in Parden was based on the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause; here, however, the
As ratified by the States after the Civil War, that Amendment quite clearly contemplates limitations on their authority. In relevant part, it provides:
The substantive provisions are by express terms directed at the States. Impressed upon them by those provisions are duties with respect to their treatment of private individuals. Standing behind the imperatives is Congress' power to "enforce" them "by appropriate legislation."
The impact of the Fourteenth Amendment upon the relationship between the Federal Government and the States, and the reach of congressional power under § 5, were examined at length by this Court in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880). A state judge had been arrested and indicted under a federal criminal statute
Ex parte Virginia's early recognition of this shift in the federal-state balance has been carried forward by more recent decisions of this Court. See, e. g., South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308 (1966); Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 238-239 (1972).
There can be no doubt that this line of cases has sanctioned intrusions by Congress, acting under the Civil War Amendments, into the judicial, executive, and legislative spheres of autonomy previously reserved to the States. The legislation considered in each case was grounded on the expansion of Congress' powers— with the corresponding diminution of state sovereignty— found to be intended by the Framers and made part of the Constitution upon the States' ratification of those
It is true that none of these previous cases presented the question of the relationship between the Eleventh Amendment and the enforcement power granted to Congress under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But we think that the Eleventh Amendment, and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies, see Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890), are necessarily limited by the enforcement provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In that section Congress is expressly granted authority to enforce "by appropriate legislation" the substantive provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, which themselves embody significant limitations on state authority. When Congress acts pursuant to § 5, not only is it exercising legislative authority that is plenary within the terms of the constitutional grant, it is exercising that authority under one section of a constitutional Amendment whose other sections by their own terms embody limitations on state authority. We think that Congress may, in determining what is "appropriate legislation" for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, provide for private suits against States or state officials which are constitutionally impermissible in other contexts.
III
In No. 75-283, the state officials contest the Court of Appeals' conclusion that an award of attorneys' fees in
The judgment in No. 75-251 is
Reversed.
The judgment in No. 75-283 is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring in the judgment.
This suit was brought by present and retired employees of the State of Connecticut against the State Treasurer, the State Comptroller, and the Chairman of the State Employees' Retirement Commission. In that circumstance, Connecticut may not invoke the Eleventh Amendment, since that Amendment bars only federal-court suits against States by citizens of other States. Rather, the question is whether Connecticut may avail itself of the nonconstitutional but ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity as a bar to a claim for damages under Title VII. In my view Connecticut may not assert sovereign immunity for the reason I expressed in dissent in Employees v. Missouri Public Health Dept., 411 U.S. 279, 298 (1973): The States surrendered that immunity, in Hamilton's words, "in the plan of the Convention" that formed the Union, at least insofar as the States granted Congress
I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.
In my opinion the commerce power is broad enough to support federal legislation regulating the terms and conditions of state employment and, therefore, provides the necessary support for the 1972 Amendments to Title VII, even though Congress expressly relied on § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But I do not believe plaintiffs proved a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and because I am not sure that the 1972 Amendments were "needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment," see Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 651, I question whether § 5 of that Amendment is an adequate reply to Connecticut's Eleventh Amendment defense. I believe the defense should be rejected for a different reason.
Even if the Eleventh Amendment does cover a citizen's
The Eleventh Amendment issue presented is whether the court has power to enter a judgment payable immediately out of trust assets which subsequently would be reimbursed from the general revenues of the State. Although I have great difficulty with a construction of the Eleventh Amendment which acknowledges the federal court's jurisdiction of a case and merely restricts the kind of relief the federal court may grant,
The holding in Edelman does not necessarily require the same result in this case; this award will not be paid directly from the state treasury, but rather from two
With respect to the fee issue, even if the Eleventh Amendment were applicable, I would place fees in the same category as other litigation costs. Cf. Fairmont Co. v. Minnesota, 275 U.S. 70.
FootNotes
"It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
"(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
"(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
The express exclusion of "a State or political subdivision thereof" provided in § 701 (b) of the former was stricken by § 2 (2) of the latter, 86 Stat. 103, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Section 2 (5) of the 1972 Amendments, 86 Stat. 103, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e (f) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), amended § 701 (f) of the 1964 Act, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e (f), to include within the definition of "employee" those individuals "subject to the civil service laws of a State government, governmental agency or political subdivision."
The 1972 Amendments retained the right of an individual aggrieved by an employer's unlawful employment practice to sue on his or her own behalf, upon satisfaction of the statutory procedural prerequisites, and made clear that that right was being extended to persons aggrieved by public employers. See 1972 Amendments, § 4 (a), 86 Stat. 104, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000e-5 (a)-(g) (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
"If the court finds that the respondent has intentionally engaged in or is intentionally engaging in an unlawful employment practice charged in the complaint, the court may enjoin the respondent from engaging in such unlawful employment practice, and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement or hiring of employees, with or without back pay (payable by the employer, employment agency, or labor organization, as the case may be, responsible for the unlawful employment practice), or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate. Back pay liability shall not accrue from a date more than two years prior to the filing of a charge with the Commission."
"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
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