270
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
U. S. 670, 685 (1982) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (recognizing the irony that a state official's conduct may be considered " 'state action' " for Fourteenth Amendment purposes yet not for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment). Indeed, the suit in Young, which sought to enjoin the state attorney general from enforcing state law, implicated substantial state interests. 209 U. S., at 174 ("[T]he manifest, indeed the avowed and admitted, object of seeking [the requested] relief [is] to tie the hands of the State") (Harlan, J., dissenting). We agree with these observations.
To interpret Young to permit a federal-court action to proceed in every case where prospective declaratory and injunctive relief is sought against an officer, named in his individual capacity, would be to adhere to an empty formalism and to undermine the principle, reaffirmed just last Term in Seminole Tribe, that Eleventh Amendment immunity represents a real limitation on a federal court's federal-question jurisdiction. The real interests served by the Eleventh Amendment are not to be sacrificed to elementary mechanics of captions and pleading. Application of the Young exception must reflect a proper understanding of its role in our federal system and respect for state courts instead of a reflexive reliance on an obvious fiction. See, e. g., Pennhurst, supra, at 102-103, 114, n. 25 (explaining that the limitation in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), of Young to prospective relief represented a refusal to apply the fiction in every conceivable circumstance).
B
Putting aside the acts of state officials which are plainly ultra vires under state law itself, see Pennhurst, supra, at 101-102, n. 11, there are, in general, two instances where Young has been applied. The first is where there is no state forum available to vindicate federal interests, thereby placing upon Article III courts the special obligation to ensure the supremacy of federal statutory and constitutional law. This is a most important application of the Ex parte Young
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