Cite as: 521 U. S. 261 (1997)
Opinion of O’Connor, J.
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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