Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
David E. Lasker argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.*
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether defendants in a case filed in a state court, with claims "arising under" federal law, can remove that case to federal court—where some claims, made against a State, are subject to an Eleventh Amendment bar. We conclude that the defendants can remove the case to a federal court and that the court can decide the nonbarred claims.
I
In 1993, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections dismissed Keith Schacht, a prison guard, for stealing items from the Oakhill Correctional Institution, a state prison. In January 1996, Schacht filed a complaint in state court against the Department and several of its employees, both in their "personal" and in their "official" capacities. The complaint, in several different claims, alleged that the Department and its employees had deprived Schacht of "liberty" and "property" without "due process of law," thereby violating the Federal Constitution and civil rights laws. U. S. Const.,
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the State of Indiana et al. by Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, and Jon Laramore, Geoffrey Slaughter, and Anthony Scott Chinn, Deputy Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, James E. Ryan of Illinois, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Philip T. McLaughlin of New Hampshire, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, John Knox Walkup of Tennessee, Dan Morales of Texas, Jan Graham of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, and William U. Hill of Wyoming.
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