Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 442

524US2

Unit: $U91

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)

397

Kennedy, J., concurring

the absence of a general consent to suit in all similar
causes of action. Since the state legislature may waive
state immunity only by general law, it is not to be pre-
sumed in the absence of clear language to the contrary,
that they conferred on administrative or executive ofﬁ-
cers discretionary power to grant or withhold consent in
individual cases. . . . It would seem, therefore, that no
properly authorized executive or administrative ofﬁcer
of the state has waived the state’s immunity to suit in
the federal courts.”
323 U. S., at 467–469 (footnotes
omitted).

See also Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 396, n. 2 (1975).

Notwithstanding the quoted language from Ford Motor
Co., the absence of speciﬁc authorization, it seems to me, is
not an insuperable obstacle to adopting a rule of waiver in
every case where the State, through its attorneys, consents
If the
to removal from the state court to the federal court.
States know or have reason to expect that removal will con-
stitute a waiver, then it is easy enough to presume that an
attorney authorized to represent the State can bind it to the
jurisdiction of the federal court (for Eleventh Amendment
purposes) by the consent to removal.

It is true as well that the Court’s recent cases have disfa-
vored constructive waivers of the Eleventh Amendment and
have required the State’s consent to suit be unequivocal.
Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 246–247
(1985); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S., at 673. The conduct
which may give rise to the waiver in the instance of removal
is far less equivocal than the conduct at issue in those cases,
however. Here the State’s consent amounted to a direct in-
vocation of the jurisdiction of the federal courts, an act
considerably more speciﬁc than the general participation in
a federal program found insufﬁcient in Atascadero and
Edelman.

These questions should be explored.

If it were demon-
strated that a federal rule ﬁnding waiver of the Eleventh