302
Stevens, J., dissenting
supplies a remedy for the vindication of rights secured by federal statutes." Ante, at 284. If the Court has not adopted such a requirement in the § 1983 context—which it purports not to have done—then there should be no difference between the Court's "new" approach to discerning a federal right in the § 1983 context and the test we have "traditionally" used, as articulated in Blessing: whether Congress intended to benefit individual plaintiffs, whether the right asserted is not " 'vague and amorphous,' " and whether Congress has placed a binding obligation on the State with respect to the right asserted. 520 U. S., at 340-341. Indeed, the Court's analysis, in part, closely tracks Blessing's factors, as it examines the statute's language, and the asserted right's individual versus systematic thrust. See ante, at 287-289.
The Court's opinion in other places, however, appears to require more of plaintiffs. By defining the § 1983 plaintiff's burden concerning "whether a statute confers any right at all," ante, at 285, as whether "Congress nonetheless intended private suits to be brought before thousands of federal- and state-court judges," ante, at 290, the Court has collapsed the ostensible two parts of the implied right of action test ("is there a right" and "is it enforceable") into one. As a result, and despite its statement to the contrary, ante, at 284, the Court seems to place the unwarranted "burden of showing an intent to create a private remedy," ibid., on § 1983 plaintiffs. Moreover, by circularly defining a right actionable under § 1983 as, in essence, "a right which Congress intended to make enforceable," the Court has eroded—if not eviscerated—the long-established principle of presumptive enforceability of rights under § 1983. Under this reading of the Court's opinion, a right under Blessing is second class compared to a right whose enforcement Congress has clearly intended. Creating such a hierarchy of rights is not only
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