[1] The plaintiff, John Jordan, in a class action suit, sued Illinois officials who administered federal-state of Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled (AABD).

Specifically, Jordan claimed that the Illinois administrators were applying their own guidelines, which ignored federally-mandated time limits and so did not get aid to applicants fast enough.

Since the 1890 case Hans v. Louisiana, the Eleventh Amendment had been held to recognize the sovereign immunity of states from suits by their citizens.

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Rehnquist, concluded that private litigants could not avoid the bar of state sovereign immunity by manipulating the doctrine of Ex parte Young.

It instead declared that consent to waive immunity from suit could be found only "by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as will leave no room for any other reasonable construction."

Therefore, Douglas reasoned that Illinois had to have been aware of the possibility that entering the program would waive its own immunity, and its decision to participate in light of that danger showed a willingness to be held liable.

Justice Brennan's opinion did not reach any of the questions on the limitations of sovereign immunity or waiver thereof that were considered by both the Court and the other dissents.