620
Opinion of the Court
In this case, the State was brought involuntarily into the case as a defendant in the original state-court proceedings. But the State then voluntarily agreed to remove the case to federal court. See 28 U. S. C. § 1446(a); Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Martin, 178 U. S. 245, 248 (1900) (removal requires the consent of all defendants). In doing so, it voluntarily invoked the federal court's jurisdiction. And unless we are to abandon the general principle just stated, or unless there is something special about removal or about this case, the general legal principle requiring waiver ought to apply.
We see no reason to abandon the general principle. Georgia points out that the cases that stand for the principle, Gunter, Gardner, and Clark, did not involve suits for money damages against the State—the heart of the Eleventh Amendment's concern. But the principle enunciated in those cases did not turn upon the nature of the relief sought. And that principle remains sound as applied to suits for money damages.
Georgia adds that this Court decided Gunter, Gardner, and Clark before it decided more recent cases, which have required a "clear" indication of the State's intent to waive its immunity. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S., at 675-681. But College Savings Bank distinguished the kind of constructive waivers repudiated there from waivers effected by litigation conduct. Id., at 681, n. 3. And this makes sense because an interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment that finds waiver in the litigation context rests upon the Amend-ment's presumed recognition of the judicial need to avoid inconsistency, anomaly, and unfairness, and not upon a State's actual preference or desire, which might, after all, favor selective use of "immunity" to achieve litigation advantages. See Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 393 (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring). The relevant "clarity" here must focus on the litigation act the State takes that creates the waiver. And that act—removal—is clear.
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