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In any event, as the principal opinion ultimately concedes, in more recent cases Young has been applied "[e]ven if there is a prompt and effective remedy in a state forum." Ante, at 274. When a plaintiff seeks prospective relief to end an ongoing violation of federal rights, ordinarily the Eleventh Amendment poses no bar. Milliken, 433 U. S., at 289–290. Yet the principal opinion unnecessarily questions this basic principle of federal law, finding it "difficult to say States consented to these types of suits in the plan of the Convention. ... For purposes of the Supremacy Clause, it is simply irrelevant whether the claim is brought in state or federal court.” Ante, at 274-275. We have frequently acknowledged the importance of having federal courts open to enforce and interpret federal rights. See Green v. Mansour, 474 U. S., at 68 ("[T]he availability of prospective relief of the sort awarded in Ex parte Young gives life to the Supremacy Clause. Remedies designed to end a continuing violation of federal law are necessary to vindicate the federal interest in assuring the supremacy of that law"); Pennhurst, 465 U. S., at 105 ("[T]he Young doctrine has been accepted as necessary to permit the federal courts to vindicate federal rights and hold state officials responsible to the supreme authority of the United States. . . . Our decisions repeatedly have emphasized that the Young doctrine rests on the need to promote the vindication of federal rights" (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). There is no need to call into question the importance of having federal courts interpret federal rights-particularly as a means of serving a federal interest in uniformity to decide this case. Nor does acknowledging the interpretive function of federal courts suggest that state courts are inadequate to apply federal law.

In casting doubt upon the importance of having federal courts interpret federal law, the principal opinion lays the groundwork for its central conclusion: that a case-by-case balancing approach is appropriate where a plaintiff invokes the Young exception to the Eleventh Amendment's jurisdic

Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.

tional bar, even when a complaint clearly alleges a violation of federal law and clearly seeks prospective relief. The principal opinion characterizes our modern Young cases as fitting this case-by-case model. Ante, at 278-280. While it is true that the Court has decided a series of cases on the scope of the Young doctrine, these cases do not reflect the principal opinion's approach. Rather, they establish only that a Young suit is available where a plaintiff alleges an ongoing violation of federal law, and where the relief sought is prospective rather than retrospective. Compare Milliken, supra, at 289-290, with Green, supra, at 68 (Eleventh Amendment bars notice relief where plaintiffs alleged no ongoing violation of federal law); Pennhurst, supra, at 106 (Eleventh Amendment bars suit alleging violation of state rather than federal law); Edelman, 415 U. S., at 668 (Eleventh Amendment bars relief for past violation of federal law). The principal opinion properly notes that the Court found some of the relief awarded by the lower court in Edelmanan order requiring state officials to release and remit federal benefits-barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Ante, at 278; see Edelman, supra, at 668. It then states that the Court did not consider the propriety of other relief awarded below-an injunction requiring state officials to abide by federal requirements-because the State conceded that such relief was proper under Young. Ante, at 278. The principal opinion appears to suggest that the Court could have found such relief improper in the absence of this concession. surely the State conceded this point because the law was well established. Indeed, Edelman is consistently cited for the proposition that prospective injunctive relief is available in a Young suit. See, e. g., Milliken, supra, at 289. Similarly, by focusing on the Court's statement in Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332, 349 (1979), that the state officials did not object to preparing or sending notice of class members' possible remedies under state administrative procedures, ante, at 278-279, the principal opinion implies that the Court upheld

But

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the prospective relief granted there because the relief was not particularly invasive. But the question in Quern was whether the notice relief was more like the prospective relief allowed in typical Young suits, or more like the retrospective relief disallowed in Edelman. 440 U. S., at 347. The Quern Court permitted the relief to stand not because it was inconsequential, but because it was adjudged prospective. Finally, the principal opinion explains this Court's decision in Milliken-which upheld an order requiring a State to pay for a comprehensive education for children who had been subjected to segregation-by focusing on the fact that the federal interests implicated by the claim in that case were particularly strong. Ante, at 279–280. Again, however, the Court upheld the relief not because the complaint sought to vindicate civil liberties, but because the remedy was prospective rather than retrospective. 433 U. S., at 289. Our case law simply does not support the proposition that federal courts must evaluate the importance of the federal right at stake before permitting an officer's suit to proceed.

Nor can I agree with the principal opinion's attempt to import the inquiry employed in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), into our Young jurisprudence. Ante, at 280. In the Bivens context, where the issue is whether an implied remedy for money damages exists in a suit against a federal official for a constitutional violation, we have declined to recognize such a remedy where we have identified "special factors counselling hesitation." 403 U. S., at 396. In likening Young actions to Bivens actions, the principal opinion places great weight on a single citation in the Court's opinion last Term in Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996). There, relying on Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U. S. 412, 423 (1988), we noted that where Congress has created a remedial scheme for the enforcement of a federal right, we may not supplement that scheme in a suit against a federal officer with a judicially created remedy. We reasoned that the same general princi

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That is, where Congress

ple should apply in Young cases. prescribes a detailed remedial scheme for enforcement of a statutory right, a court should not lift the Eleventh Amendment bar to apply its "full remedial powers" in a suit against an officer in a manner inconsistent with the legislative scheme. 517 U. S., at 75. The single citation to a Bivens case in Seminole Tribe by no means establishes that a caseby-case balancing approach to the Young doctrine is appropriate or consistent with our jurisprudence.

In sum, the principal opinion replaces a straightforward inquiry into whether a complaint alleges an ongoing violation of federal law and seeks relief properly characterized as prospective with a vague balancing test that purports to account for a "broad" range of unspecified factors. Ante, at 280. In applying that approach here, the principal opinion relies on characteristics of this case that do not distinguish it from cases in which the Young doctrine is properly invoked, such as the fact that the complaint names numerous public officials and the fact that the State will have a continuing interest in litigation against its officials. Ante, at 269-270, 282-283. These factors cannot supply a basis for deciding this case. Every Young suit names public officials, and we have never doubted the importance of state interests in cases falling squarely within our past interpretations of the Young doctrine.

While I do not subscribe to the principal opinion's reformulation of the appropriate jurisdictional inquiry for all cases in which a plaintiff invokes the Young doctrine, I nevertheless agree that the Court reaches the correct conclusion here. The Young doctrine rests on the premise that a suit against a state official to enjoin an ongoing violation of federal law is not a suit against the State. Where a plaintiff seeks to divest the State of all regulatory power over submerged lands-in effect, to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction to quiet title to sovereign lands-it simply cannot be said that the suit is not a suit against the State. I would not narrow

SOUTER, J., dissenting

our Young doctrine, but I would not extend it to reach this case. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II-A, and III of the Court's opinion.

JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.

Congress has implemented the Constitution's grant of federal-question jurisdiction by authorizing federal courts to enforce rights arising under the Constitution and federal law. The federal courts have an obligation to exercise that jurisdiction, and in doing so have applied the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), that in the absence of some congressional limitation a federal court may entertain an individual's suit to enjoin a state officer from official action that violates federal law. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho claims that officers of the State of Idaho are acting to regulate land that belongs to the Tribe under federal law, and the Tribe prays for declaratory and injunctive relief to halt the regulation as an ongoing violation of that law.1 The Tribe's suit falls squarely within the Young doctrine, and the District Court had an obligation to hear it.

The response of today's Court, however, is to deny that obligation. The principal opinion would redefine the doctrine, from a rule recognizing federal jurisdiction to enjoin state officers from violating federal law to a principle of equitable discretion as much at odds with Young's result as with the foundational doctrine on which Young rests. JUSTICE O'CONNOR charts a more limited course that wisely rejects the lead opinion's call for federal jurisdiction contingent on case-by-case balancing, but sets forth a rule denying jurisdiction here on Eleventh Amendment grounds because the

1The Tribe originally sought to quiet its claim of title as against the State itself, but the claim was dismissed as barred by the Eleventh Amendment, see 42 F. 3d 1244, 1254 (CA9 1994), and we denied certiorari to review the dismissal. See 517 U. S. 1133 (1996).