OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
No. 01-298. Argued February 25, 2002—Decided May 13, 2002
Petitioner, a professor in the Georgia state university system, filed a state-court suit against respondents—the system's board of regents (herein-after Georgia or State) and university officials in their personal capacities and as state agents—alleging that the officials had violated state tort law and 42 U. S. C. § 1983 when they placed sexual harassment allegations in his personnel files. The defendants removed the case to Federal District Court and then sought dismissal. Conceding that a state statute had waived Georgia's sovereign immunity from state-law suits in state court, the State claimed Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in the federal court. The District Court held that Georgia had waived such immunity when it removed the case to federal court. In reversing, the Eleventh Circuit found that, because state law was unclear as to whether the state attorney general had the legal authority to waive Georgia's Eleventh Amendment immunity, the State retained the legal right to assert immunity, even after removal.
Held: A State waives its Eleventh Amendment immunity when it removes a case from state court to federal court. Pp. 617-624.
(a) Because this case does not present a valid federal claim against Georgia, see Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 66, the answer to the question presented is limited to the context of state-law claims where the State has waived immunity from state-court proceedings. Although absent a federal claim, the Federal District Court might remand the state claims against the State to state court, those claims remain pending in the federal court, which has the discretion to decide the remand question in the first instance. Thus, the question presented is not moot. Pp. 617-618.
(b) This Court has established the general principle that a State's voluntary appearance in federal court amounts to a waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity, Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447; Gardner v. New Jersey, 329 U. S. 565, 574; Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 200 U. S. 273, 284, and has often cited with approval the cases embodying that principle, see, e. g., College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 681, n. 3. Here, Georgia was brought involuntarily into the case as a defendant in state
613
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