The Court of Claims, relying on a judgment in Will's favor by the Michigan Civil Service Commission, found that the police department and the director were "persons" within the meaning of 42 U.S.C.

Section 1983 provides: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

The Court found that § 1983 would not provide a federal forum for litigants who were seeking a remedy against a State for alleged deprivations of civil liberties because the Eleventh Amendment barred such suits unless the State has waived its sovereign immunity or unless Congress has exercised its power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to override that immunity.

of Social Services (1978), the Court had held that it was mandatory that the definition of the word "person" be construed to include "bodies politic and corporate" unless the statute under consideration "by its terms called for a deviation from this practice.

Aside from all of these reasons, the Court's holding that a State is not a person under § 1983 departs from a long line of judicial authority based on exactly that premise.