300
Stevens, J., dissenting
under these principles, however, the Court has undermined both of these assertions by needlessly borrowing from cases involving implied rights of action—cases which place a more exacting standard on plaintiffs. See ante, at 283-286. By using these cases, the Court now appears to require a heightened showing from § 1983 plaintiffs: "[I]f Congress wishes to create new rights enforceable under § 1983, it must do so in clear and unambiguous terms—no less and no more than what is required for Congress to create new rights enforceable under an implied private right of action." Ante, at 290.
A requirement that Congress intend a "right to support a cause of action," ante, at 283, as opposed to simply the creation of an individual federal right, makes sense in the implied right of action context. As we have explained, our implied right of action cases "reflec[t] a concern, grounded in separation of powers, that Congress rather than the courts controls the availability of remedies for violations of statutes." Wilder, 496 U. S., at 509, n. 9. However, imposing the implied right of action framework upon the § 1983 inquiry, see ante, at 283-286, is not necessary: The separation-of-powers concerns present in the implied right of action context "are not present in a § 1983 case," because Congress expressly authorized private suits in § 1983 itself. Wilder, 496 U. S., at 509, n. 9. Nor is it consistent with our precedent, which has always treated the implied right of action and § 1983 inquiries as separate. See, e. g., ibid.8
It has been long recognized that the pertinent question in determining whether a statute provides a basis for a § 1983 suit is whether Congress intended to create individual rights binding on States—as opposed to mere "precatory terms" that do not "unambiguously" create state obligations, Penn-8 Indeed, endorsing such a framework sub silentio overrules cases such as Wright and Wilder. In those cases we concluded that the statutes at issue created rights enforceable under § 1983, but the statutes did not "clear[ly] and unambiguous[ly]," ante, at 290, intend enforceability under § 1983.
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