Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents important questions concerning the construction of R. S. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, which reads as follows:

“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any *169citizen 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 complaint alleges that 13 Chicago police officers broke into petitioners’ home in the early morning, routed them from bed, made them stand naked in the living room, and ransacked every room, emptying drawers and ripping mattress covers. It further alleges that Mr. Monroe was then taken to the police station and detained on “open” charges for 10 hours, while he was interrogated about a two-day-old murder, that he was not taken before a magistrate, though one was accessible, that he was not permitted to call his family or attorney, that he was subsequently released without criminal charges being preferred against him. It is alleged that the officers had no search warrant and no arrest warrant and that they acted “under color of the statutes, ordinances, regulations, customs and usages” of Illinois and of the City of Chicago. Federal jurisdiction was asserted under R. S. § 1979, which we have set out above, and 28 U. S. C. § 13431 and 28 U. S. C. § 1331.2

*170The City of Chicago moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it is not liable under the Civil Rights Acts nor for acts committed in performance of its governmental functions. All defendants moved to dismiss, alleging that the complaint alleged no cause of action under those Acts or under the Federal Constitution. The District Court dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 272 F. 2d 365, relying on its earlier decision, Stift v. Lynch, 267 F. 2d 237. The case is here on a writ of certiorari which we granted because of a seeming conflict of that ruling with our prior cases. 362 U. S. 926.

I.

Petitioners claim that the invasion of their home and the subsequent search without a warrant and the arrest and detention of Mr. Monroe without a warrant and without arraignment constituted a deprivation of their “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution” within the meaning of R. S. § 1979. It has been said that when 18 U. S. C. § 241 made criminal a conspiracy “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution,” it embraced only rights that an individual has by reason of' his relation to the central government, not to state governments. United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70. Cf. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347. But the history of the section of the Civil Rights Act presently involved does not permit such a narrow interpretation.

*171Section 1979 came onto the books as § 1 of the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871. 17 Stat. 13. It was one of the means whereby Congress exercised the power vested in it by § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to enforce the provisions of that Amendment.3 Senator Edmunds, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, said concerning this section:

“The first section is one that I believe nobody objects to, as defining the rights secured by the Constitution of the United States when they are assailed by any State law or under color of any State law, and it is merely carrying out the principles of the civil rights bill,4 which has since become a part of the Constitution,”5 viz., the Fourteenth Amendment.

Its purpose is plain from the title of the legislation, “An Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other Purposes.” 17 Stat. 13. Allegation of facts constituting a deprivation under color of state authority of a right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment satisfies to that extent the requirement of R. S. § 1979. See Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 161-162. So far petitioners are on solid ground. For the guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures contained in the Fourth Amendment has been made applicable to the States by' reason of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25; Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 213.

II.

There can be no doubt at least since Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 346-347, that Congress has the power to *172enforce provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment against those who carry a badge of authority of a State and represent it in some capacity, whether they act in accordance with their authority or misuse it. See Home Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278, 287-296. The question with which we now deal is the narrower one of whether Congress, in enacting § 1979, meant to give a remedy to parties deprived of constitutional rights, privileges and immunities by an official’s abuse of his position. Cf. Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97; Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91; United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299. We conclude that it did so intend.

It is argued that “under color of” enumerated state authority excludes acts of an official or policeman who can show no authority under state law, state custom, or state usage to do what he did. In this case it is said that these policemen, in breaking into petitioners’ apartment, violated the Constitution6 and laws of Illinois. It is pointed out that under Illinois law a simple remedy is offered for that violation and that, so far as it appears, the courts of Illinois are available to give petitioners that full redress which the common law affords for violence done to a person; and it is earnestly argued that ho “statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage” of Illinois bars that redress.

The Ku Klux Act grew out of a message sent to Congress by President Grant on March 23, 1871, reading:

“A condition of affairs now exists in some States of the Union rendering life and property insecure and *173the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a condition of affairs exists in some localities is now before the Senate. That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of State authorities I do not doubt; that the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies is not clear. Therefore, I urgently recommend such legislation as in the judgment of Congress shall effectually secure life, liberty, and property, and the enforcement of law in all parts of the United States. . . .”7

The legislation — in particular the section with which we are now concerned — had several purposes. There are threads of many thoughts running through the debates. One who reads them in their entirety sees that the present section had three main aims.

First, it might, of course, override certain kinds of state laws. Mr. Sloss of Alabama, in opposition, spoke of that object and emphasized that it was irrelevant because there were no such laws:8

“The first section of this bill prohibits any invidious legislation by States against the rights or privileges of citizens of the United States. The object of this section is not very clear, as it is not pretended by its advocates on this floor that any State has passed any laws endangering the rights or privileges of the colored people.”

Second, it provided a remedy where state law was inadequate. That aspect of the legislation was summed up as follows by Senator Sherman of Ohio:

“. . . it is said the reason is that any offense may be committed upon a negro by a white man, and a *174negro cannot testify in any case against a white man, so that the only way by which any conviction can be had in Kentucky in those cases is in the United States courts, because the United States courts enforce the United States laws by which negroes may testify.” 9

But the purposes were much broader. The third aim was to provide a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice. The opposition to the measure complained that “It overrides the reserved powers of the States,” 10 just as they argued that the second section of the bill “absorb [ed] the entire jurisdiction of the States over their local and domestic affairs.” 11

This Act of April 20, 1871, sometimes called “the third ‘force bill,’ ” was passed by a Congress that had the Klan “particularly in mind.” 12 The debates are replete with references to the lawless conditions existing in the South in 1871. There was available to the Congress during these debates a report, nearly 600 pages in length, dealing with the activities of the Klan and the inability of the state governments to cope with it.13 This report was drawn on by many of the speakers.14 It was not the unavailability of state remedies but the failure of certain States to enforce the laws with an equal hand that fur*175nished the powerful momentum behind this “force bill.” Mr. Lowe of Kansas said:

“While murder is stalking abroad in disguise, while whippings and lynchings and banishment have been visited upon unoffending American citizens, the local administrations have been found inadequate or unwilling to apply the proper corrective. Combinations, darker than the night that hides them, conspiracies, wicked as the worst of felons could devise, have gone unwhipped of justice. Immunity is given to crime, and the records of the public tribunals are searched in vain for any evidence of effective redress.” 15

Mr. Beatty of Ohio summarized in the House the case for the bill when he said:

“. . . certain States have denied to persons within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The proof on this point is voluminous and unquestionable. . . . [M]en were murdered, houses were burned, women were outraged, men were scourged, and officers of the law shot down; and the State made no successful effort to bring the guilty to punishment or afford protection or redress to the outraged and innocent. The State, from lack of power or inclination, practically denied the equal protection of the law to these persons.” 16

While one main scourge of the evil — perhaps the leading one — was the Ku Klux Klan,17 the remedy created was *176not a remedy against it or its members but against those who representing a State in some capacity were unable or unwilling to enforce a state law. Senator Osborn of Florida put the problem in these terms: 18

“That the State courts in the several States have been unable to enforce the criminal laws of their respective States or to suppress the disorders existing, and in fact that the preservation of life and property in many sections of the country is beyond the power o'f the State government, is a sufficient reason why Congress should, so far as they have authority under the Constitution, enact the laws necessary for the protection of citizens of the United States. The question of the constitutional authority for the requisite legislation has been sufficiently discussed.”

There was, it was said, no quarrel with the state laws on the books. It was their lack of enforcement that was the nub of the difficulty. Speaking of conditions in Virginia, Mr. Porter of that State said: 19

“The outrages committed upon loyal men there are under the forms of law.”

Mr. Burchard of Illinois pointed out that the statutes of a State may show no discrimination: 20

“If the State Legislature pass a law discriminating against any portion of its citizens, or if it fails to enact provisions equally applicable to every class for the protection of their person and property, it will be admitted that the State does not afford the equal protection. But if the statutes show no discrimina*177tion, yet in its judicial tribunals one class is unable to secure that enforcement of their rights and punishment for their infraction which is accorded to another, or if secret combinations of men are allowed by the Executive to band together to deprive one class of citizens of their legal rights without a proper effort to discover, detect, and punish the violations of law and order, the State has not afforded to all its citizens the equal protection of the laws.”

Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts stated: 21

“Now, it is an effectual denial by a State of the equal protection of the laws when any class of officers charged under the laws with their administration permanently and as a rule refuse to extend that protection. If every sheriff in South Carolina refuses to serve a writ for a colored man and those sheriffs are kept in office year after year by the people of South Carolina, and no verdict against them for their failure of duty can be obtained before a South Carolina jury, the State of South Carolina, through the class of officers who are its representatives to afford the equal protection of the laws to that class of citizens, has denied that protection. If the jurors of South Carolina constantly and as a rule refuse to do justice between man and man where the rights of a particular class of its citizens are concerned, and that State affords by its legislation no remedy, that is as much a denial to that class of citizens of the equal protection of the laws as if the State itself put on its statute-book a statute enacting that no verdict should be rendered in the courts of that State in favor of this class of citizens.”

*178Senator Pratt of Indiana spoke of the discrimination against Union sympathizers and Negroes in the actual enforcement of the laws: 22

“Plausibly and sophistically it is said the laws of North Carolina do not discriminate against them; that the provisions in favor of rights and liberties are general; that the courts are open to all; that juries, grand and petit, are commanded to hear and redress without distinction as to color, race, or political sentiment.

“But it is a fact, asserted in the report, that of the hundreds of outrages committed upon loyal people through the agency of this Ku Klux organization not one has been punished. This defect in the administration of the laws does not extend to other cases. Vigorously enough are the laws enforced against Union people. They only fail in efficiency when a man of known Union sentiments, white or black, invokes their aid. Then Justice closes the door of her temples.”

It was precisely that breadth of the remedy which the opposition emphasized. Mr. Kerr of Indiana referring to the section involved in the present litigation said:

“This section gives to any person who may have been injured in any of his rights, privileges, or immunities of person or property, a civil action for damages against the wrongdoer in the Federal courts. The offenses committed against him may be the common violations of the municipal law of his State. It may give rise to numerous vexations and outrageous prosecutions, inspired by mere mercenary considerations, prosecuted in a spirit of plunder, aided by the crimes of perjury and subornation of perjury, more reckless and dangerous to society than the alleged *179offenses out of which the causé of action may have arisen. It is a covert attempt to transfer another large portion of jurisdiction from the State tribunals, to which it of right belongs, to those of the United States. It is neither authorized nor expedient, and is not calculated to bring peace, or order, or domestic content and prosperity to the disturbed society of the South. The contrary will certainly be its effect.” 23

Mr. Voorhees of Indiana, also speaking in opposition, gave it the same construction: 24

“And now for a few moments let us inspect the provisions of this bill, inspired as it is by the waning and decaying fortunes of the party in power, and called for, as I have shown, by no public necessity whatever. The first and second sections are designed to transfer all criminal jurisdiction from the courts of the States to the courts of the United States. This is to be done upon the assumption that the courts of the southern States fail and refuse to do their duty in the punishment of offenders against the law.”

Senator Thurman of Ohio spoke in the same vein about the section we are now considering: 25

“It authorizes any person who is deprived of any right, privilege, or immunity secured to him by the *180Constitution of the United States, to bring an action against the wrong-doer in the Federal courts, and that without any limit whatsoever as to the amount in controversy. The deprivation may be of the slightest conceivable character, the damages in the estimation of any sensible man may not be five dollars or even five cents; they may be what lawyers call merely nominal damages; and yet by this section jurisdiction of that civil action is given to the Federal courts instead of its being prosecuted as now in the courts of the States.”

The debates were long and extensive. It is abundantly clear that one reason the legislation was passed was to afford a federal right in federal courts because, by reason of prejudice, passion, neglect, intolerance or otherwise, state laws might not be enforced and the claims of citizens to the enjoyment of rights,, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment might be denied by the state agencies.

Much is made of the history of § 2 of the proposed legislation. As introduced § 2 was very broad:

. . if two or more persons shall, within the limits of any State, band, conspire, or combine together to do any act in violation of the rights, privileges, or immunities of any person, to which he is entitled under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which, committed within a place under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, would, under any law of the United States then in force, constitute the crime of either murder, manslaughter, mayhem, robbery, assault and battery, perjury, subornation of perjury, criminal obstruction of legal process or resistance of officers in discharge of official duty, arson, or larceny; and if one or more of the parties to said conspiracy or combination shall do *181any act to effect the object thereof, all the parties to or engaged in said conspiracy or combination, whether principals or accessories, shall be deemed guilty of a felony . . .

It was this provision that raised the greatest storm. It was § 2 that was rewritten so as to be in the main confined to conspiracies to interfere with a federal or state officer in the performance of his duties. 17 Stat. 13. Senator Trumbull said: 26

“Those provisions were changed, and as the bill passed the House of Representatives, it was understood by the members of that body to go no further than to protect persons in the rights which were guarantied to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and it did not undertake to furnish redress for wrongs done by one person upon another in any of the States of the Union in violation of their laws, unless he also violated some law of the United States, nor to punish one person for an ordinary assault and battery committed on another in a State.”

But § 1 — the section with which we are here concerned — was not changed as respects any feature with which we are presently concerned.27 The words “under *182color of” law were in the legislation from the beginning to the end. The changes hailed by the opposition — indeed the history of the evolution of § 2 much relied upon now— are utterly irrelevant to the problem before us, viz., the meaning of “under color of” law. The vindication of States’ rights which was hailed in the amendments to § 2 raises no implication as to the construction to be given to “color of any law” in § 1. The scope of § 1 — under any construction — is admittedly narrower than was the scope of the original version of § 2. Opponents of the Act, however, did not fail to note that by virtue of § 1 federal courts would sit in judgment on the misdeeds of state officers.28 Proponents of the Act, on the other hand, were aware of the extension of federal power contemplated by every section of the Act. They found justification, however, for this extension in considerations such as those advanced by Mr. Hoar: 29

“The question is not whether a majority of the people in a majority of the States are likely to be attached to and able to secure their own liberties. The question is not whether the majority of the people in every State are not likely to desire to secure their own rights. It is, whether a majority of the people in every State are sure to be so attached to the principles of civil freedom and civil justice as to be as much desirous of preserving the liberties of others as their own, as to insure that under no temptation of party spirit, under no political excitement, under *183no jealousy of race or caste, will the majority either in numbers or strength in any State seek to deprive the remainder of the population of their civil ■rights.”

Although the legislation was enacted because of the conditions that existed in the South at that time, it is cast in general language and is as applicable to Illinois as it is to the States whose names were mentioned over and again in the debates. It is no answer that the State has a law which if enforced would give relief. The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked. Hence the fact that Illinois by its constitution and laws outlaws unreasonable searches and seizures is no barrier to the present suit in the federal court.

We had before us in United States v. Classic, supra, § 20 of the Criminal Code, 18 U. S. C. § 242,30 which provides a criminal punishment for anyone who “under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom” subjects any inhabitant of a State to the deprivation of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Section 242 first came into the law as § 2 of the Civil Rights Act, Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27. After passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, this provision was re-enacted and amended by §§ 17, 18, Act of May 31, 1870, 16 Stat. 140, 144.31 The right involved in the Classic case was the right of voters in a primary to have their votes counted. The laws of Louisiana required the defendants “to count the ballots, to record the result of the count, and *184to certify the result of the election.” United States v. Classic, supra, 325-326. But according to the indictment they did not perform their duty. In an opinion written by Mr. Justice (later Chief Justice) Stone, in which Mr. Justice Roberts, Mr. Justice Reed, and Mr. Justice Frankfurter joined, the Court ruled, “Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of’ state law.” Id., 326. There was a dissenting opinion; but the ruling as to the meaning of “under color of” state law was not questioned.

That view of the meaning of the words “under color of” state law, 18 U. S. C. § 242, was reaffirmed in Screws v. United States, supra, 108-113. The acts there complained of were committed by state officers in performance of their duties, viz., making an arrest effective. It was urged there, as it is here, that “under color of” state law should not be construed to duplicate in federal law what was an offense under state law. Id. (dissenting opinion) 138-149, 157-161. It was said there, as it is here, that the ruling in the Classic case as to the meaning of “under color of” state law was not in focus and was ill-advised. Id. (dissenting opinion) 146-147. It was argued there, as it is here, that “under color of” state law included only action taken by officials pursuant to state law. Id. (dissenting opinion) 141-146. We rejected that view. Id., 110-113 (concurring opinion) 114-117. We stated:

“The construction given § 20 [18 U. S. C. § 242] in the Classic case formulated a rule of law which has become the basis of federal enforcement in this important field. The rule adopted in that case was formulated after mature consideration. It should be good for more than one day only. We do not have here a situation comparable to Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96, where we *185overruled a decision demonstrated to be a sport in the law and inconsistent with what preceded and what followed. The Classic case was not the product of hasty action or inadvertence. It was not out of line with the cases which preceded. It was designed to fashion the governing rule of law in this important field. We are not dealing with constitutional interpretations which throughout the history of the Court have wisely remained flexible and subj ect to frequent re-examination. The meaning which the Classic case gave to the phrase 'under color of any law’ involved only a construction of the statute. Hence if it states a rule undesirable in its consequences, Congress can change it. We add only to the instability and uncertainty of the law if we revise the meaning of § 20 [18 U. S. C. § 242] to meet the exigencies of each case coming before us.” Id., 112-113.

We adhered to that view in Williams v. United States, supra, 99.

Mr. Shellabarger, reporting out the bill which became the Ku Klux Act, said of the provision with which we now deal:

“The model for it will be found in the second section of the act of April 9, 1866, known as the ‘civil rights act.’. . . This section of this bill, on the same state of facts, not only provides a civil remedy for persons whose former condition may have been that of slaves, but also to all people where, under color of State law, they or any of them may be deprived of rights . . . .”32

Thus, it is beyond doubt that this phrase should be accorded the same construction in both statutes — in § 1979 and in 18 U. S. C. § 242.

*186Since the Screws and Williams decisions, Congress has had several pieces of civil rights legislation before it. In 1956 one bill reached the floor of the House. This measure had at least one provision in it penalizing actions taken “under color of law or otherwise.” 33 A vigorous minority-report was filed attacking, inter alia, the words “or otherwise.” 34 But not a word of criticism of the phrase “under color of” state law as previously construed by the Court is to be found in that report.

Section 131 (c) of the Act of September 9,1957, 71 Stat. 634, 637, amended 42 U. S. C. § 1971 by adding a new subsection which provides that no person “whether acting under color of law or otherwise” shall intimidate any other person in voting as he chooses for federal officials. A vigorous minority report was filed 35 attacking the wide scope of the new subsection by reason of the words “or otherwise.” It was said in that minority report that those words went far beyond what this Court had construed “under color of law” to mean.36 But there was not a word of criticism directed to the prior construction given by this Court to the words “under color of” law.

The Act of May 6, 1960, 74 Stat. 86, uses “under color of” law in two contexts, once when § 306 defines “officer of election” and next when § 601 (a) gives a judicial remedy on behalf of a qualified voter denied the opportunity to register. Once again there was a Committee report containing minority views.37 Once again no one challenged the scope given by our prior decisions to the phrase “under color of” law.

*187If the results of our construction of “under color of” law were as horrendous as now claimed, if they were as disruptive of our federal scheme as now urged, if they were such an unwarranted invasion of States’ rights as pretended, surely the voice of the opposition would have been heard in those Committee reports. Their silence and the new uses to which “under color of” law have recently been given reinforce our conclusion that our prior decisions were correct on this matter of construction.

We conclude that the meaning given “under color of” law in the Classic case and in the Screws and Williams cases was the correct one; and we adhere to it.

In the Screws case we dealt with a statute that imposed criminal penalties for acts “wilfully” done. We construed that word in its setting to mean the doing of an act with “a specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right.” 325 U. S., at 103. We do not think that gloss should be placed on § 1979 which we have here. The word “wil-fully” does not appear in § 1979. Moreover, § 1979 provides a civil remedy, while in the Screws case we dealt with a criminal law challenged on the ground of vagueness. Section 1979 should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions.

So far, then, the complaint states a cause of action. There remains to consider only a defense peculiar to the City of Chicago.

III.

The City of Chicago asserts that it is not liable under § 1979. We do not stop to explore the whole range of questions tendered us on this issue at oral argument and in the briefs. For we are of the opinion that Congress did not undertake to bring municipal corporations within the ambit of § 1979.

*188When the bill that became the Act of April 20, 1871, was being debated in the Senate, Senator Sherman of Ohio proposed an amendment which would have made “the inhabitants of the county, city, or parish” in which certain acts of violence occurred liable “to pay full compensation” to the person damaged or his widow or legal representative.38 The amendment was adopted by the Senate.39 The House, however, rejected it.40 The Conference Committee reported another version.41 The *189House rejected the Conference report.42 In a second conference the Sherman amendment was dropped and in its place § 6 of the Act of April 20, 1871, was substi*190tuted.43 This new section, which is now R. S. § 1981, 42 U. S. C. § 1986, dropped out all provision for municipal liability and extended liability in damages to “any person or persons, having knowledge that any” of the specified wrongs are being committed. Mr. Poland, speaking for the House Conferees about the Sherman proposal to make municipalities liable, said:

“We informed the conferees on the part of the Senate that the House had taken a stand on that subject and would not recede from it; that that section imposing liability upon towns and counties must go out or we should fail to agree.” 44

The objection to the Sherman amendment stated by Mr. Poland was that “the House had solemnly decided that in their judgment Congress had no constitutional power to impose any obligation upon county and town organizations, the mere instrumentality for the administration of state law.” 45 The question of constitutional power of Congress to impose civil liability on municipalities was vigorously debated with powerful arguments advanced in the affirmative.46

Much reliance is placed on the Act of February 25,1871, 16 Stat. 431, entitled “An Act prescribing the Form of the enacting and resolving Clauses of Acts and Resolutions of Congress, and Rules for the Construction thereof.” Section 2 of this Act provides that “the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate.” 47 *191It should be noted, however, that this definition is merely an allowable, not a mandatory, one. It is said that doubts should be resolved in favor of municipal liability because private remedies against officers for illegal searches and seizures are conspicuously ineffective,48 and because municipal liability will not only afford plaintiffs responsible defendants but cause those defendants to eradicate abuses that exist at the police level.49 We do not reach those policy considerations. Nor do we reach the constitutional question whether Congress has the power to make municipalities liable for acts of its officers that violate the civil rights of individuals.

The response of the Congress to the proposal to make municipalities liable for certain actions being brought within federal purview by the Act of April 20, 1871, was so antagonistic that we cannot believe that the word "person” was used in this particular Act to include them.50 *192Accordingly we hold that the motion to dismiss the complaint against the City of Chicago was properly granted. But since the complaint should not have been dismissed against the officials the judgment must be and is

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

concurring.

Were this case here as one of first impression, I would find the “under color of any statute” issue very close indeed. However, in Classic 1 and Screws2 this Court considered a substantially identical statutory phrase to have a meaning which, unless we now retreat from it, requires that issue to go for the petitioners here.

From my point of view, the policy of stare decisis, as it should be applied in matters of statutory construction, and, to a lesser extent, the indications of congressional acceptance of this Court’s earlier interpretation, require that it appear beyond doubt from the legislative history of the 1871 statute that Classic and Screws misapprehended the meaning of the controlling provision,3 before a departure from what was decided in those cases would be justified. Since I can find no such justifying indication in that legislative history, I join the opinion of the Court. However, what has been written on both sides of the matter makes some additional observations appropriate.

*193Those aspects of Congress’ purpose which are quite clear in the earlier congressional debates, as quoted by my Brothers Douglas and Frankfurter in turn, seem to me to be inherently ambiguous when applied to the case of an isolated abuse of state authority by an official. One can agree with the Court’s opinion that:

“It is abundantly clear, that one reason the legislation was passed was to afford a federal right in federal courts because, by reason of prejudice, passion, neglect, intolerance or otherwise, state laws might not be enforced and the claims of citizens to the enjoyment of rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment might be denied by the state agencies. . . .”

without being certain that Congress meant to deal with anything other than abuses so recurrent as to amount to “custom, or usage.” One can agree with my Brother Frankfurter, in dissent, that Congress had no intention of taking over the whole field of ordinary state torts and crimes, without being certain that the enacting Congress would not have regarded actions by an official, made possible by his position, as far more serious than an ordinary state tort, and therefore as a matter of federal concern. If attention is directed at the rare specific references to isolated abuses of state authority, one finds them neither so clear nor so disproportionately divided between favoring the positions of the majority or the dissent as to make either position seem plainly correct.4

Besides the inconclusiveness I find in the legislative history, it seems to me by no means evident that a posi*194tion favoring departure from Classic and Screws fits better that with which the enacting Congress was concerned than does the position the Court adopted 20 years ago. There are apparent incongruities in the view of the dissent which may be more easily reconciled in terms of the earlier holding in Classic.

The dissent considers that the “under color of” provision of § 1983 distinguishes between unconstitutional actions taken without state authority, which only the State should remedy, and unconstitutional actions authorized by the State, which the Federal Act was to reach. If so, then the controlling difference for the enacting legislature must have been either that the state remedy was more adequate for unauthorized actions than for authorized ones or that there was, in some sense, greater harm from unconstitutional actions authorized by the full panoply of state power and approval than from unconstitutional actions not so authorized or acquiesced in by the State. I find less than compelling the evidence that either distinction was important to that Congress.

I.

If the state remedy was considered adequate when the official’s unconstitutional act was unauthorized, why should it not be thought equally adequate when the unconstitutional act was authorized? For if one thing is very clear in the legislative history, it is that the Congress of 1871 was well aware that no action requiring state judicial enforcement could be taken in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment without that enforcement being declared void by this Court on direct review from the state courts. And presumably it must also have been understood that there would be Supreme Court review of the denial of a state damage remedy against an official on grounds of state authorization of the unconstitutional *195action. It therefore seems to me that the same state remedies would, with ultimate aid of Supreme Court review, furnish identical relief in the two situations. This is the point Senator Blair made when, having stated that the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to prevent any discrimination by the law of any State, he argued that:

“This being forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, and all the judges, State and national, being sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States having power to supervise and correct the action of the State courts when they violated the Constitution of the United States, there could be no danger of the violation of the right of citizens under color of the laws of the States.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., at App. 231.

Since the suggested narrow construction of § 1983 presupposes that state measures were adequate to remedy unauthorized deprivations of constitutional rights and since the identical state relief could be obtained for state-authorized acts with the aid of Supreme Court review, this narrow construction would reduce the statute to having merely a jurisdictional function, shifting the load of federal supervision from the Supreme Court to the lower courts and providing a federal tribunal for fact findings in cases involving authorized action. Such a function could be justified on various grounds. It could, for example, be argued that the state courts would be less willing to find a constitutional violation in cases involving “authorized action” and that therefore the victim of such action would bear a greater burden in that he would more likely have to carry his case to this Court, and once here, might be bound by unfavorable state court findings. But' the legislative debates do not disclose con*196gressional concern about the burdens of litigation placed upon the victims of “authorized” constitutional violations contrasted to the victims of unauthorized violations. Neither did Congress indicate an interest in relieving the burden placed on this Court in reviewing such cases.

The statute becomes more than a jurisdictional provision only-if one attributes to the enacting legislature the view that á deprivation of a constitutional right is significantly different from and more serious than a violation of a state right and therefore deserves a different remedy even though the same act may constitute both a state tort and the deprivation of a constitutional right. This view, by no means unrealistic as a common-sense matter,5 is, I believe, more consistent with the flavor of the legislative history than is a view that the primary purpose of the statute was to grant a lower court forum for fact findings. For example, the tone is surely one of overflowing protection of constitutional rights, and there is not a hint of concern about the administrative burden on the Supreme Court, when Senator Frelinghuysen says:

“As to the civil remedies, for a violation of these privileges, we know that when the courts of a State *197violate the provisions of the Constitution or the law of the United States there is now relief afforded by a review in the Federal courts. And since the 14th Amendment forbids any State from making or enforcing any law abridging these privileges and immunities, as you cannot reach the Legislatures, the injured party should have an original action in our Federal courts, so that by injunction or by the recovery of damages he could have relief against the party who under color of such law is guilty of infringing his rights. As to the civil remedy no one, I think, can object.” Id., at 501.

And Senator Carpenter reflected a similar belief that the protection granted by the statute was to be very different from the relief available on review of state proceedings:

“The prohibition in the old Constitution that no State should pass a law impairing the. obligation of contracts was a negative prohibition laid upon the State. Congress was not authorized to interfere in case the State violated that provision. It is true that when private rights were affected by such a State law, and that was brought before the judiciary, either of the State or nation, it was the duty of the court to pronounce the act void; but there the matter ended. Under the present Constitution, however, in regard to those rights which are secured by the fourteenth amendment, they are not left as the right of the citizen in regard to laws impairing the obligation of contracts was left, to be disposed of by the courts as the cases should arise between man and man, but Congress is clothed with the affirmative power and jurisdiction to correct the evil.

“I think there is one of the fundamental, one of the great, the tremendous revolutions effected in our Government by that article of the Constitution. It *198gives Congress affirmative power to protect the rights of the citizen, whereas before no such right was given to save the citizen from the violation of any of his rights by State Legislatures, and the only remedy was a judicial one when the case arose.” Id., at 577.

In my view, these considerations put in serious doubt the conclusion that § 1983 was limited to state-authorized unconstitutional acts, on the premise that state remedies respecting them were considered less adequate than those available for unauthorized acts.

II.

I think this limited interpretation of § 1983 fares no better when viewed from the other possible premise for it, namely that state-approved constitutional deprivations were considered more offensive than those not so approved. For one thing, the enacting Congress was not unaware of the fact that there was a substantial overlap between the protections granted by state constitutional provisions and those granted by the Fourteenth Amendment. Indeed one opponent of the bill, Senator Trumbull, went so far as to state in a debate with Senators Carpenter and Edmunds that his research indicated a complete overlap in every State, at least as to the protections of the Due Process Clause.6 Thus, in one very significant sense, there was no ultimate state approval of a large portion of otherwise authorized actions depriving a person of due-process rights. I hesitate to assume that the proponents of the present statute, who regarded it as necessary even though they knew that the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment were self-executing, would have thought the remedies unnecessary whenever there were self-executing provisions of state constitutions also forbidding what the Fourteenth Amendment forbids. The only alternative is *199to disregard the possibility that a state court would find the action unauthorized on grounds of the state constitution. But if the defendant official is denied the right to defend in the federal court upon the ground that a state court would find his action unauthorized in the light of the state constitution, it is difficult to contend that it is the added harmfulness of state approval that justifies a different remedy for authorized than for unauthorized actions of state officers. Moreover, if indeed the legislature meant to distinguish between authorized and unauthorized acts and yet did not mean the statute to be inapplicable whenever there was a state constitutional provision which, reasonably interpreted, gave protection similar to that of a provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, would there not have been some explanation of this exception to the general rule? The fact that there is none in the legislative history at least makes more difficult a contention that these legislators were in fact making-a distinction between use and misuse of state power.

There is a further basis for doubt that it was the additional force of state approval which justified a distinction between authorized and unauthorized actions. No one suggests that there is a difference in the showing the plaintiff must make to assert a claim under § 1983 depending upon whether he is asserting a denial of rights secured by the Equal Protection Clause or a denial of rights secured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the same Congress which passed what is now § 1983 also provided remedies against two or more non-officials who conspire to prevent an official from granting equal protection of the laws, see 42 U. S. C. § 1985, then it would seem almost untenable to insist that this Congress would have hesitated, on the grounds of lack of full state approval of the official’s act, to provide similar remedies against an official who, unauthorized, denied that equal protection of the laws on his own initiative. For *200there would be no likely state approval of or even acquiescence in a conspiracy to coerce a state official to deny equal protection. Indeed it is difficult to attribute to a Congress which forbad two private citizens from hindering an official’s giving of equal protection an intent to leave that official free to deny equal protection of his own accord.7

We have not passed upon the question whether 42 U. S. C. § 1985,8 which was passed as the second section of the Act that included § 1983, was intended to reach only the Ku Klux Klan or other substantially organized group activity, as distinguished from what its words seem to include, any conspiracy of two persons with “the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State . . . from giving or securing to all persons within such State . . . the equal protection of the laws . ..." 9 Without now deciding the question, I think *201it is sufficient to note that the legislative history is not without indications that what the words of the statute seem to state was in fact the meaning assumed by Congress.10

*202These difficulties in explaining the basis of a distinction between authorized and unauthorized deprivations of constitutional rights fortify my view that the legislative history does not bear the burden which stare decisis casts upon it. For this reason and for those stated in the opinion of the Court, I agree that we should not now depart from the holdings of the Classic and Screws cases.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

dissenting except insofar as the Court holds that this action cannot be maintained against the City of Chicago.

Abstractly stated, this case concerns a matter of statutory construction. So stated, the problem before the Court is denuded of illuminating concreteness and thereby of its far-reaching significance for our federal system. Again abstractly stated, this matter of statutory construction is one upon which the Court has already passed. But it has done so under circumstances and in settings that negative those considerations of social policy upon which the doctrine of stare decisis, calling for the controlling application of prior statutory construction, rests.

This case presents the. question of the sufficiency of petitioners’ complaint in a civil action for damages brought under the Civil Rights Act, R. S. § 1979, *20342 U. S. C. § 1983.1 The complaint alleges that on October 29, 1958, at 5:45 a. m., thirteen Chicago police officers, led by Deputy Chief of Detectives Pape, broke through two doors of the Monroe apartment, woke the Monroe couple with flashlights, and forced them at gunpoint to leave their bed and stand naked in the center of the living room; that the officers roused the six Monroe children and herded them into the living room; that Detective Pape struck Mr. Monroe several times with his flashlight, calling him “nigger” and “black boy”; that another officer pushed Mrs. Monroe; that other officers hit and kicked several of the children and pushed them to the floor; that the police ransacked every room, throwing clothing from closets to the floor, dumping drawers, ripping mattress covers; that Mr. Monroe was then taken to the police station and detained on “open” charges for ten hours, during which time he was interrogated about a murder 2 and exhibited in lineups; that he was not brought before a magistrate, although numerous magistrate’s courts were accessible; that he was not advised of his procedural rights; that he was not permitted to call his family or an attorney; that he was subsequently released without criminal charges having been filed against him. It is also alleged that the actions of the officers throughout were without authority of a search warrant or an arrest warrant; that those actions constituted arbitrary and unreasonable conduct; that the *204officers were employees of the City of Chicago, which furnished each of them with a badge and an identification card designating him as a member of the Police Department; that the officers were agents of the city, acting in the course of their employment and engaged in the performance of their duties; and that it is the custom of the Department to arrest and confine individuals for prolonged periods on “open” charges for interrogation, with the purpose of inducing incriminating statements, exhibiting its prisoners for identification, holding them incommunicado while police officers investigate their activities, and punishing them by imprisonment without judicial trial. On the basis of these allegations various members of the Monroe family seek damages against the individual police officers and against the City of Chicago. The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. 272 F. 2d 365.

Petitioners base their claim to relief in the federal courts on what was enacted as § 1 of the “Ku Klux Act” of April 20, 1871, “An Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other Purposes.” 17 Stat. 13.- It became, with insignificant rephrasing, § 1979 of the Revised Statutes. As now set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 1983, it is, in relevant part, as follows:

“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . 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.”

*205I.

In invoking § 1979 (the old designation will be used hereafter), petitioners contend that its protection of “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution” encompasses what “due process of law” and “the equal protection of the laws” of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee against action by the States. In this contention they are supported both by the title of the Act of 1871 and by its legislative history. See the authoritative statement of Mr. Edmunds, reporting the bill from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 568. See also id., at 332-334, App. 83-85, 310. It is true that a related phrase, “any right or privilege secured ... by the Constitution or laws,” in § 241 of Title 18, U. S. C., was said by a plurality of the Court in United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, to comprehend only the rights arising immediately from the relationship of the individual to the central government. And see United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542.3 But this construction was demanded by § 241, which penalizes conspiracies of private individuals acting as such, while § 1979 applies only to action taken “under color of any statute,” etc. Different problems of statutory meaning are presented by two enactments deriving from different *206constitutional sources. See the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3. Compare United States v. Williams, supra, with Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91. If petitioners have alleged facts constituting a deprivation under color of state authority of a right assured them by the Fourteenth Amendment, they have brought themselves within § 1979. Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157; Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496, 525-526 (opinion of Stone, J.).4

To be sure, Screws v. United States, supra, requires a finding of specific intent in order to sustain a conviction under the cognate penal provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 2425— “an intent to deprive a person of a right which has been made specific either by the express terms of the Constitution or laws of the United States or by decisions interpreting them.” 325 U. S., at 104. Petitioners’ complaint here alleges no such specific intent. But, for a number of reasons, this requirement of Screws should not be carried over and applied to civil actions under § 1979. First, the word “willfully” in 18 U. S. C. § 242 from which the requirement of intent was derived in Screws does not appear in § 1979. Second, § 1979, by the very fact that it is a civil provision, invites treatment different from that to be given its criminal analogue. The constitutional scruples concerning vagueness which were deemed to compel the Screws construction have less force in the context of a civil proceed*207ing,6 and § 1979, insofar as it creates an action for damages, must be read in light of the familiar basis of tort liability that a man is responsible for the natural consequences of his acts. Third, even in the criminal area, the specific intent demanded by Screws has proved to be an abstraction serving the purposes of a constitutional need without impressing any actual restrictions upon the nature of the crime which the jury tries. The Screws opinion itself said that “The fact that the defendants may not have been thinking in constitutional terms is not material where their aim was not to enforce local law but to deprive a citizen of a right and that right was protected by the Constitution.” 325 U. S., at 106. And lower courts in applying the statute have allowed inference of the requisite specific intent from evidence, it would appear, of malevolence alone.7 But if intent to infringe “specific” constitutional rights comes in practice to mean no more than intent without justification to bring about the circumstances which infringe those rights, then the consequence of introducing the specific intent issue into a litigation is, in effect, to require fictional pleading, needlessly burden jurors with abstruse instructions, and lessen the degree of control which federal courts have over jury vagaries.

If the courts are to enforce § 1979, it is an unhappy form of judicial disapproval to surround it with doctrines which partially and unequally obstruct its operation. Specific intent in the context of the section would cause *208such embarrassment without countervailing justification. Petitioners’ allegations that respondents in fact did the acts which constituted violations of constitutional rights are sufficient.

II.

To show such violations, petitioners invoke primarily the Amendment’s Due Process Clause.8 The essence of their claim is that the police conduct here alleged offends those requirements of decency and fairness which, because they are “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” are imposed by the Due Process Clause upon the States. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325. When we apply to their complaint that standard of a “principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,” 9 which has been the touchstone for this Court’s enforcement of due process,10 the merit of this constitutional claim is evident. The conception expressed in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 27, that “The security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police . . . is basic to a free society,” was not an innovation of Wolf. The tenet that there exists a realm of sanctuary surrounding every individual and infrangible, save in a very limited class of circumstances, by the agents of government, had informed the decision of the King’s Bench two centuries earlier in Entick v. Carrington, 2 Wils. 275, had been the basis of Otis’ cotemporary speech against the Writ of *209Assistance, see Gray’s notes in Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, App. I, at 471; Tudor, Life of James Otis (1823) 63, and has in the intervening years found expression not only in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, but also in the fundamental law of every State.11 Modern totalitarianisms have been a stark reminder, but did not newly teach, that the kicked-in door is the symbol of a rule of fear and violence fatal to institutions founded on respect for the integrity of man.

The essence of the liberty protected by the common law and by the American constitutions was “the right to shut the door on officials of the state unless their entry is under proper authority of law”; particularly, “the right to resist unauthorized entry which has as its design the securing of information to fortify the coercive power of the state against the individual.” Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. *210360, 365.12 Searches of the dwelling house were the special object of this universal condemnation of official intrusion.13 Night-time search was the evil in its most obnoxious form.14 Few reported cases have presented all of the manifold aggravating circumstances which petitioners here allege — intrusion en masse, by dark, by force, unauthorized by warrant, into an occupied private home, without even the asserted justification of belief by the intruders that the inhabitants were presently committing some criminal act within; physical abuse and the calculated degradation of insult and forced nakedness; sacking and disordering of personal effects throughout the home; arrest and detention against the background terror of threatened criminal proceedings. Wherever similar conduct has appeared, the courts have unanimously condemned police entries as lawless.15

*211If the question whether due process forbids this kind of police invasion were before us in isolation, the answer would be quick. If, for example, petitioners had sought damages in the state courts of Illinois and if those courts had refused redress on the ground that the official character of the respondents clothed them with civil immunity, we would be faced with the sort of situation to which the language in the Wolf opinion was addressed: “we have no hesitation in saying that were a State affirmatively to sanction such police incursion into privacy it would run counter to the guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 338 U. S., at 28. If that issue is not reached in this case it is not because the conduct which the record here presents can be condoned. But by bringing their action in a Federal District Court petitioners cannot rest on the Fourteenth Amendment simpliciter. They invoke the protection of a specific statute by which Congress restricted federal judicial enforcement of its guarantees to particular enumerated circumstances. They must show not only that their constitutional rights have been infringed, but that they have been infringed “under color of [state] statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage,” as that phrase is used in the relevant congressional enactment.

III.

Of course, if Congress by appropriate statutory language attempted to reach every act which could be attributed to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition: “No State shall . . . ,” the reach of the statute would be the reach of the Amendment itself. Relevant to the enforcement of such a statute would be not only the concept of state action as this Court has developed it, see Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73, 89, but also considerations of the power of Congress, under the Amendment’s Enforcement Clause, to determine what *212is “appropriate legislation” to protect the rights which the Fourteenth Amendment secures. Cf. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17. Still, in this supposed case we would arrive at the question of what Congress could do only after we had determined what it was that Congress had done. So, in the case before us now, we must ask what Congress did in 1871. We must determine what Congress meant by “under color” of enumerated state authority.16

Congress used that phrase not only in R. S. § 1979, but also in the criminal provisions of § 2 of the First Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866,14 Stat. 27, from which is derived the present 18 U. S. C. § 242,17 and in both cases used it with the same purpose.18 During the seventy years *213which followed these enactments, cases in this Court in which the “under color” provisions were invoked uniformly involved action taken either in strict pursuance of some specific command of state law19 or within the scope of executive discretion in the administration of state laws.20 *214The same is true, with two exceptions, in the lower federal courts.21 In the first of. these two cases it was held that § 1979 was not directed to instances of lawless police brutality, although the ruling was not put on “under color” *215grounds.22 In the second, an indictment charging a county tax collector with depriving one Ah Koo of a federally secured right under color of a designated California law, set forth in the indictment, was held insufficient against a demurrer. United States v. Jackson, 26 Fed. Cas. 563, No. 15,459 (C. C. D. Cal. 1874). The court wrote:

“The indictment contains no averment that Ah Koo was a foreign miner, and within the provisions of the state law. If this averment be unnecessary . . . the act of congress would then be held to apply to a case of illegal extortion by a tax collector from any person, *216though such exaction might be wholly unauthorized by the law under which the officer pretended to act.

“We are satisfied that it was not the design of congress to prevent or to punish such abuse of authority by state officers. The object of the act was, not to prevent illegal exactions, but to forbid the execution of state laws, which, by the act itself, are made void. . . .

“It would seem, necessarily, to follow, that the person from whom the tax was exacted must have been a person from whom, under the provisions of the state law, the officer was authorized to exact it. The statute requires that a party shall be subjected to a deprivation of right secured by the statute under color of some law, statute, order or custom; but if this exaction, although made'by a tax collector, has been levied upon a person not within the provisions of the state law, the exaction cannot be said to have been made ‘under color of law,’ any more than a similar exaction from a Chinese miner, made by a person wholly unauthorized, and under the pretense of being a tax collector.” Id., at 663-564.

Throughout this period, the only indication of this Court’s views on the proper interpretation of the “under color” language is a dictum in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3. There, in striking down other Civil Rights Act provisions which, as the Court regarded them, attempted to reach private conduct not attributable to state authority, Mr. Justice Bradley contrasted those provisions with § 2 of the Act of 1866: “This [latter] law is clearly corrective in its character, intended to counteract and furnish redress against State laws and proceedings, and customs having the force of law, which sanction the wrongful acts specified.” Id., at 16.

A sharp change from this uniform application of seventy years was made in 1941, but without acknowledgment or *217indication of awareness of the revolutionary turnabout from what had been established practice. The opinion in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, accomplished this. The case presented an indictment under § 242 charging certain local Commissioners of Elections with altering ballots cast in a primary held to nominate candidates for Congress. Sustaining the sufficiency of the indictment in an extensive opinion concerned principally with the question whether the right to vote in such a primary was a right secured by the Constitution,23 Mr. Justice Stone wrote that the alteration of the ballots was “under color” of state law. This holding was summarily announced without exposition; it had been only passingly argued.24 Of the three authorities cited to support it, two did not involve the “under color” statutes,25 and the third, Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496, was a case in which high-ranking municipal officials claimed authorization for their actions under municipal ordinances (here held unconstitu*218tional) and under the general police powers of the State.26 All three of these cases had dealt with “State action” problems, and it is “State action,” not the very different question of the “under color” clause, that Mr. Justice Stone appears to have considered.27 (I joined in this opinion without having made an independent examination of the legislative history of the relevant legislation or of the authorities drawn upon for the Classic construction. Acquiescence so founded does not preclude the responsible recognition of error disclosed by subsequent study.) When, however, four years later the Court was called on to review the conviction under § 242 of a Georgia County Sheriff who had beaten a Negro prisoner to death, the opinion of four of the six Justices who believed that the statute applied merely invoked Classic and stare decisis and did not reconsider the meaning which that case had uncritically assumed was to be attached to the language, “under color” of state authority. Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91. The briefs in the Screws ease did *219not examine critically the legislative history of the Civil Rights Acts.28 The only reference to this history in the plurality opinion, insofar as it bears on the interpretation of the clause “under color of . . . law,” is contained in a pair of sentences discounting two statements by Senators Trumbull and Sherman regarding the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1870, cited by the minority.29 The bulk of the plurality opinion’s treatment of the issue consists of the argument that “under color” had been construed in Classic and that the construction there put on the words should not be abandoned or revised. 325 U. S., at 109-113. The case of Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97, reaffirmed Screws and applied it to circumstances of third-degree brutality practiced by a private detective who held a special police officer’s card and was accompanied by a regular policeman.30

*220Thus, although this Court has three times found that conduct of state officials which is forbidden by state law may be “under color” of state law for purposes of the Civil Rights Acts, it is accurate to say that that question has never received here the consideration which its importance merits. That regard for controlling legislative history which is conventionally observed by this Court in determining the true meaning of important legislation that does not construe itself31 has never been applied to the “under color” provisions; particularly, there has never been canvassed the full record of the debates preceding passage of the 1871 Act with which we are concerned in this case. Neither Classic nor Screws nor Williams warrants refusal now to take account of those debates and the illumination they afford. While we may well decline to re-examine recent cases which derive from the judicial' process exercised under its adequate safeguards — documenting briefs and adequate arguments on both sides as foundation for due deliberation — the relevant demands of stare decisis do not preclude considering, for the first time thoroughly and in the light of the best available evidence of congressional purpose, a statutory *221interpretation which started as an unexamined assumption on the basis of inapplicable citations and has the claim of a dogma solely through reiteration. Particularly is this so when that interpretation, only recently made, was at its inception a silent reversal of the judicial history of the Civil Rights Acts for three quarters of a century.

“The rule of stare decisis, though one tending to consistency and uniformity of decision, is not inflexible.” Hertz v. Woodman, 218 U. S. 205, 212. It is true, of course, that the reason for the rule is more compelling in cases involving inferior law, law capable of change by Congress, than in constitutional cases, where this Court— although even in such cases a wise consciousness of the limitations of individual vision has impelled it always to give great weight to prior decisions — nevertheless bears the ultimate obligation for the development of the law as institutions develop. See, e. g., Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649. But the Court has not always declined to re-examine cases whose outcome Congress might have changed. See Mr. Justice Brandéis, dissenting, in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406-407, n. 1. Decisions involving statutory construction, even decisions which Congress has persuasively declined to overrule, have been overruled here. See Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, overruling United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, and United States v. Bland, 283 U. S. 636; see also Commissioner v. Estate of Church, 335 U. S. 632, overruling May v. Heiner, 281 U. S. 238.

And with regard to the Civil Rights Acts there are reasons of particular urgency which authorize the Court— indeed, which make it the Court’s responsibility — to reappraise in the hitherto skimpily considered context of R. S. § 1979 what was decided in Classic, Screws and Williams. This is not an area of commercial law in which, presumably, individuals may have arranged their affairs in *222reliance on the expected stability of decision. Compare National Bank v. Whitney, 103 U. S. 99; Vail v. Arizona, 207 U. S. 201; Walling v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co., 331 U. S. 17; United States v. South Buffalo R. Co., 333 U. S. 771. Nor is it merely a mine-run statutory question involving a narrow compass of individual rights and duties. The issue in the present case concerns directly a basic problem of American federalism: the relation of the Nation to the States in the critically important sphere of municipal law administration. In this aspect, it has significance approximating constitutional dimension. Necessarily, the construction of the Civil Rights Acts raises issues fundamental to our institutions. This imposes on this Court a corresponding obligation to exercise its power within the fair limits of its judicial discretion. “We recognize that stare decisis embodies an important social policy. It represents an element of continuity in law, and is rooted in the psychologic need to satisfy reasonable expectations. But stare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable . . . .” Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119.

Now, while invoking the prior decisions which have given “under color of [law]” a content that ignores the meaning fairly comported by the words of the text and confirmed by the legislative history, the Court undertakes a fresh examination of that legislative history. The decision in this case, therefore, does not rest on stare decisis, and the true construction of the statute may be thought to be as free from the restraints of that doctrine as though the matter were before us for the first time. Certainly, none of the implications which the Court seeks to draw from silences in the minority reports of congressional committees in 1956, 1957, and 1960, or from the use of “under color” language in the very different context of the Act of May 6, 1960, *22374 Stat. 86 — concerned, in relevant part, with the preservation of election records and with the implementation of the franchise — serves as an impressive bar to re-examination of the true scope of R. S. § 1979 itself in its pertinent legislative setting.32

*224IV.

This case squarely presents the question whether the intrusion of a city policeman for which that policeman can show no such authority at state law as could be successfully interposed in defense to a state-law action against him, is nonetheless to be regarded as “under color” of state authority within the meaning of R. S. § 1979. Respondents, in breaking into the Monroe apartment, violated the laws of the State of Illinois.33 Illinois law *225appears to offer a civil remedy for unlawful searches;34 petitioners do not claim that none is available. Rather they assert that they have been deprived of due process of law and of equal protection of the laws under color of state law, although from all that appears the courts of Illinois are available to give them the fullest redress which the common law affords for the violence done them, nor does any “statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage” of the State of Illinois bar that redress. Did the enactment by Congress of § 1 of the Ku Klux Act of 1871 encompass such a situation?

That section, it has been noted, was patterned on the similar criminal provision of § 2, Act of April 9, 1866. The earlier Act had as its primary object the effective nullification of the Black Codes, those statutes of the Southern legislatures which had so burdened and disqualified the Negro as to make his emancipation appear illusory.35 The Act had been vetoed by President Johnson, whose veto message describes contemporary understanding of its second section; the section, he wrote,

“seems to be designed to apply to some existing or future law of a State or Territory which may conflict with the provisions of the bill .... It provides for counteracting such forbidden legislation by imposing fine and imprisonment upon the legislators who may pass such conflicting laws, or upon the officers or agents who shall put, or attempt to put, them into execution. It means an official offense, not a com*226mon crime committed against law upon the persons or property of the black race. Such an act may deprive the black man of his property, but not of the right to hold property. It means a deprivation of the right itself, either by the State judiciary or the State Legislature.” 36

And Senator Trumbull, then Chairman of .the Senate Judiciary Committee,37 in his remarks urging its passage over the veto, expressed the intendment of the second section as those who voted for it read it: ■

“If an offense is committed against a colored person simply because he is colored, in a State where the law affords him the same protection as if he were white, this act neither has nor was intended to have anything to do with his case, because he has adequate remedies in the State courts; but if he is discriminated against under color of State laws because he is colored, then it becomes necessary to interfere for his protection.” 38

Section 2 of the 1866 Act was re-enacted in substance in 1870 as part of “An Act to enforce the Right of Citizens ... to vote in the several States . . . ,” 16 Stat. 140, *227144. The following colloquy on that occasion is particularly revealing:

“Mr. Sherman. . . . My colleague cannot deny that we can by appropriate legislation prevent any private person from, shielding himself under a State regulation, and thus denying to a person the right to vote ....

“Mr. Casserly. I should like to ask the Senator from Ohio how a State can be said to abridge the right of a colored man to vote when some irresponsible person in the streets is the actor in that wrong?

“Mr. Sherman. If the offender, who may be a loafer, the meanest man in the streets, covers himself under the protection or color of a law or regulation or constitution of a State, he may be punished for doing it.

“Mr. Casserly. Suppose the State law authorizes the colored man to vote; what then?

“Mr. Sherman. That is not the case with which we are dealing. . . . This bill only proposes to deal with offenses committed by officers or persons under color of existing State law, under color of existing State constitutions. No man could be convicted under this bill reported by the Judiciary Committee unless the denial of the right to vote was done under color or pretense of State regulation. The whole bill shows that. . . . [T]he first and second sections of the bill . . . simply punish officers as well as persons for discrimination under color of State laws or constitutions; and it so provides all the way through.” 39

*228The original text of the present § 1979 contained words, left out in the Revised Statutes, which clarified the objective to which the provision was addressed:

“That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured . . . 40

Representative Shellabarger, reporting the section, explained it to the House as “in its terms carefully confined to giving a civil action for such wrongs against citizenship as are done under color of State laws which abridge these rights.” 41 Senator Edmunds, steering the measure through the Senate, found constitutional sanction for it in the Fourteenth Amendment, explaining that state action may consist in executive nonfeasance as well as malfeasance, so that any offenses against a citizen in a *229State are susceptible of federal protection “unless the criminal who shall commit those offenses is punished and the person who suffers receives that redress which the principles and spirit of the laws entitle him to have.” 42 And James A. Garfield supported the bill in the House as “so guarded as to preserve intact the autonomy of the States, the machinery of the State governments, and the municipal organizations established under State laws.” 43

Indeed, the Ku Klux Act as a whole encountered in the course of its passage strenuous constitutional objections which focused precisely upon an assertedly unauthorized extension of federal judicial power into areas of exclusive state competence.44 A special target was § 2 of the bill as reported to the House, providing criminal penalties:

“if two or more persons shall, within the limits of any State, band, conspire, or combine together to do *230any act in violation of the rights, privileges, or immunities of any person, to which he is entitled under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which, committed within a place under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, would, under any law of the United States then in force, constitute the crime of either murder, manslaughter, mayhem, robbery, assault and battery, perjury, subornation of perjury, criminal obstruction of legal, process [sic] or resistance of officers in discharge of official duty, arson, or larceny . . . 45

In vain the proponents of this section argued its propriety, seeking to support it by argument ex necessitate from the complete failure of state judicial and executive organs to control the depredations of the Klan.46 Even *231in the Reconstruction Congress, the majority party split. Many balked at legislation which they regarded as establishing a general federal jurisdiction for the protection of person and property in the States.47 Only after a com-*232píete rewriting of the section to meet these constitutional objections could the bill be passed.48 Yet almost none of those who had decried § 2 as undertaking impermissibly to make the national courts tribunals of concurrent jurisdiction for the punishment of state-law offenses expressed similar objections to § 1, later § 1979.49 One of the most *233vehement of those who could find no constitutional sanction for federal judicial control of conduct already proscribed by state law, and who therefore opposed original § 2 as reaching beyond the limits of congressional competence, expressly supported § 1 as affording “further redress for violations under State authority of constitutional rights.”50

The general understanding of the legislators unquestionably was that, as amended, the Ku Klux Act did “not undertake to furnish redress for wrongs done by one person upon another in any of the States ... in violation of their laws, unless he also violated some law of the United States, nor to punish one person for an ordinary assault and battery ...” 51 Even those who — opposing the constitutional objectors — found sufficient congressional power in the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to give this kind of redress, deemed inexpedient the exercise of any such power: “Convenience and courtesy to the States suggest a sparing use, and never so far as to supplant the State authorities except in cases of extreme necessity, and when the State governments criminally refuse or neglect those duties which are imposed *234upon them.” 52 Extreme Radicals, those who believed that the remedy for the oppressed Unionists in the South was a general expansion of federal judicial jurisdiction so that “loyal men could have the privilege of having their causes, civil and criminal, tried in the Federal courts,” were disappointed with the Act as passed.53

Finally, it is significant that the opponents of the Act, exhausting ingenuity to discover constitutional objections to every provision of it, also construed § 1 as addressed only to conduct authorized by state law, and therefore within the admitted permissible reach of Fourteenth Amendment federal power. “The first section of this bill prohibits any invidious legislation by States against the rights or privileges of citizens of the United States,” one such opponent paraphrased the provision.54 And Senator Thurman, who insisted vociferously on the absence of federal power to penalize a conspiracy of individuals to violate state law (“that is a case of mere individual violence, having no color whatsoever of authority of law, either Federal or State; and to say that you can punish men for that mere conspiracy, which is their individual act, and which is a crime against the State laws themselves, punishable by the State laws, is simply to wipe out all the State jurisdiction over crimes and transfer it bodily to the Congress”),55 admitted without question the constitutionality of § 156 (“It refers to a deprivation under color of law, either statute law or ‘custom or usage’ which has become common law”).57

*235The Court now says, however, that “It was not the unavailability of state remedies but the failure of certain States to enforce the laws with an equal hand that furnished the powerful momentum behind this 'force bill.’ ” Of course, if the notion of “unavailability” of remedy is limited to mean an absence of statutory, paper right, this is in large part true.58 Insofar as the Court undertakes to demonstrate — as the bulk of its opinion seems to do— that § 1979 was meant to reach some instances of action not specifically authorized by the avowed, apparent, written law inscribed in the statute books of the States, the argument knocks at an open door. No one would or could deny this, for by its express terms the statute comprehends deprivations of federal rights under color of any “statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage” of a State. (Emphasis added.) The question is, what class of cases other than those involving state statute law were meant to be reached. And, with respect to this question, the Court’s conclusion is undermined by the very portions of the legislative debates which it cites. For surely the misconduct of individual municipal police officers, subject to the effective oversight of appropriate state administrative and judicial authorities, presents a situation which differs toto coelo from one in which “Immunity is given to crime, and the records of the public tribunals are searched in vain for any evidence of effective redress,”59 or in which murder rages while a State makes *236“no successful effort to bring the guilty to punishment or afford protection or redress/’60 or in which the “State courts . . . [are] unable to enforce the criminal laws . . . or to suppress the disorders existing,”61 or in which, in a State’s “judicial tribunals one class is unable to secure that enforcement of their rights and punishment for their infraction which is accorded to another,” 62 or “of . . . hundreds of outrages . . . not one [is] punished,” 63 or “the courts of the . . . States fail and refuse to do their duty in the punishment of offenders against the law,” 64 or in which a “class of officers charged under the laws with their administration permanently and as a rule refuse to extend [their] protection.”65 These statements indicate that Congress — made keenly aware by the post-bellum conditions in the South that States through their authorities could sanction offenses against the individual by settled practice which established state law as truly as written codes — designed § 1979 to reach, as well, official conduct which, because engaged in “permanently and as a rule,” or “systematically,”66 came through acceptance by law-administering officers to constitute “custom, or usage” having the cast of law. See Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Browning, 310 U. S. 362, 369. They do not indicate an attempt to reach, nor does the statute by its terms include, instances of acts in defiance of state law and which no settled state practice, no systematic pattern of official action or inaction,' no “custom, or usage, of any State,” insulates from effective and adequate reparation . by the State’s authorities.

*237Rather, all the evidence converges to the conclusion that Congress by § 1979 created a civil liability enforceable in the federal courts only in instances of injury for which redress was barred in the state courts because some “statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage” sanctioned the grievance complained of. This purpose, manifested even by the so-called “Radical” Reconstruction Congress in 1871, accords with the presuppositions of our federal system. The jurisdiction which Article III of the Constitution conferred on the national judiciary reflected the assumption that the state courts, not the federal courts, would remain the primary guardians of that - fundamental security of person and property which the long evolution of the common law had secured to one individual as against other individuals. , The Fourteenth Amendment did not alter this basic aspect of our federalism.67

Its commands were addressed to the States. Only when the States, through their responsible organs for the formulation and administration of local policy, sought to deny or impede access by the individual to the central government in connection with those enumerated functions assigned to it, or to deprive the individual of a certain minimal fairness in the exercise of the coercive forces of the State, or without reasonable justification to treat him differently than other persons subject to their jurisdiction, was an overriding federal sanction imposed. As between individuals, no corpus of substantive rights was guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, but only “due process of law” in the ascertainment and enforcement of rights and equality in the enjoyment of rights and safeguards that the States afford. This was the base of the distinction between federal citizenship and state *238citizenship drawn by the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36. This conception begot the “State action” principle on which, from the time of the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, this Court has relied in its application of Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees. As between individuals, that body of mutual rights and duties which constitute the civil personality of a man remains essentially the creature of the legal institutions of the States.

But, of course, in the present case petitioners argue that the wrongs done them were committed not by individuals but by the police as state officials. There are two senses in which this might be true. It might be true if petitioners alleged that the redress which state courts offer them against the respondents is different than that which those courts would offer against other individuals, guilty of the same conduct, who were not the police. This is not alleged. It might also be true merely because the respondents are the police — because they are clothed’ with an appearance of official authority which is in itself a factor of significance in dealings between individuals. Certainly the night-time intrusion of the man with a star and a police revolver is a different phenomenon than the night-time intrusion of a burglar. The aura of power which.a show of authority carries with it has been created by state government. For this reason the national legislature, exercising its power to implement the Fourteenth Amendment, might well attribute responsibility for the intrusion to the State and legislate to protect against such intrusion. The pretense of authority alone might seem to Congress sufficient basis for creating an exception to the ordinary rule that it is to the state tribunals that individuals within, a State must look for redress against other individuals within that State. The same pretense of authority might suffice to sustain congressional legislation creating the exception. See Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339. But until Congress has *239declared its purpose to shift the ordinary distribution of judicial power for the determination of causes between co-citizens of a State, this Court should not make the shift. Congress has not in § 1979 manifested that intention.

The unwisdom of extending federal criminal jurisdiction into areas of conduct conventionally punished by state penal law is perhaps more obvious than that of extending federal civil jurisdiction into the traditional realm of state tort law. But the latter, too, presents its problems of policy appropriately left to Congress. Suppose that a state legislature or the highest court of a State should determine that within its territorial limits no damages should be recovered in tort for pain and suffering, or for mental anguish, or that no punitive damages should be recoverable. Since the federal courts went out of the business of making “general law,” Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, such decisions of local policy have admittedly been the exclusive province of state lawmakers. Should the civil liability for police conduct which can claim no authority under local law, which is actionable as common-law assault or trespass in the local courts, comport different rules? Should an unlawful intrusion by a policeman in Chicago entail different consequences than an unlawful intrusion by a hoodlum? These are matters of policy in its strictly legislative sense, not for determination by this Court. And if it be, as it is, a matter for congressional choice, the legislative evidence is overwhelming that § 1979 is not expressive of that choice. Indeed, its precise limitation to acts “under color” of state statute, ordinance or other authority appears on its face designed to leave all questions of the nature and extent of liability of individuals to the laws of the several States except when a State seeks to shield those individuals under the special barrier of state authority. To extend Civil Rights Act liability beyond that point is *240to interfere in areas of state policymaking where Congress has not determined to interfere.

Nor will such interference be negligible. One argument urged in Screws in favor of the result which that case reached was the announced policy of self-restraint of the Department of Justice in the prosecution of cases under 18 U. S. C. § 242. See 325 U. S., at 159-160. Experience indicates that private litigants cannot be expected to show the same consideration for the autonomy of local administration which the Department purportedly shows.68

Relevant also are the effects upon the institution of federal constitutional adjudication of sustaining under § 1979 damage actions for relief against conduct allegedly violative of federal constitutional rights, but plainly *241violative of state law. Permitting such actions necessitates the immediate decision of federal constitutional issues despite the admitted availability of state-law remedies which would avoid those issues.69 This would make inroads, throughout a large area, upon the principle of federal judicial self-limitation which has become a significant instrument in the efficient functioning of the national judiciary. See Railroad Comm’n of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496, and cases following. Self-limitation is not a matter of technical nicety, nor judicial timidity. It reflects the recognition that to no small degree the effectiveness of the legal order depends upon the infrequency with which it solves its problems by resorting to determinations of ultimate power. Especially-is this true where the circumstances under which those ultimate determinations must be made are not conducive to the most mature deliberation and decision. If § 1979 is made a vehicle of constitutional litigation in cases where state officers have acted lawlessly at state law, difficult questions of the federal constitutionality of certain official practices — lawful perhaps in some States, unlawful in others — may be litigated between private parties without the participation of responsible state authorities which is obviously desirable to protect legitimate state interests, but also to better guide adjudication by competent record-making and argument.

Of course, these last considerations would be irrelevant to our duty if Congress had demonstrably meant to reach by § 1979 activities like those of respondents in this case. But where it appears that Congress plainly did not have that understanding, respect for principles which this Court has long regarded as critical to the most effective func*242tioning of our federalism should avoid extension of a statute beyond its manifest area of operation into applications which invite conflict with the administration of local policies. Such an extension makes the extreme limits of federal constitutional power a law to regulate the quotidian business of every traffic policeman, every registrar of elections, every city inspector or investigator, every clerk in every municipal licensing bureau in this country. The text of the statute, reinforced by its history, precludes such a reading.

In concluding that police intrusion in violation of state law is not a wrong remediable under R. S. § 1979, the pressures which urge an opposite 'result are duly felt. The difficulties which confront private citizens who seek to vindicate in traditional common-law actions their state-created rights against lawless invasion of their privacy by local policemen are obvious,70 and obvious is the need for more effective modes of redress. The answer to these urgings must be regard for our federal system which presupposes a wide range of regional autonomy in the kinds of protection local residents receive. If various common-law concepts make it possible for a policeman — but no more possible for a policeman than for any individual hoodlum intruder — to escape without liability when he has vandalized a home, that is an evil. But, surely, its remedy devolves, in the first instance, on the States. Of course, if the States afford less protection against the police, as police, than against the hoodlum — if under authority of state “statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage” the police are specially shielded— *243§ 1979 provides a remedy which dismissal of petitioners’ complaint in the present case does not impair. Otherwise, the protection of the people from local delinquencies and shortcomings depends, as in general it must, upon the active consciences of state executives, legislators and judges.71 Federal intervention, which must at best be limited to securing those minimal guarantees afforded by the evolving concepts of due process and equal protection, may in the long run do the individual a disservice by deflecting responsibility from the state lawmakers, who hold the power of providing a far more comprehensive scope of protection. Local society, also, may well be the loser, by relaxing its sense of responsibility and, indeed, perhaps resenting what may appear to it to be outside interference where local authority is ample and more appropriate to supply needed remedies.

This is not to say that there may not exist today, as in 1871, needs which call for congressional legislation to protect the civil rights of individuals in the States. Strong contemporary assertions of these needs have been expressed. Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights (1947); Chafee, Safeguarding Fundamental Human Rights: The Tasks of States and Nation, 27 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 519 (1959). But both the insistence of the needs and the delicacy of the issues involved in finding appropriate means for their satisfaction demonstrate that their *244demand is for legislative, not judicial, response. We cannot expect to create an effective means of protection for human liberties by torturing an 1871 statute to meet the problems of 1960.

Of an enactment like the Civil Rights Act, dealing with the safeguarding and promotion of individual freedom, it is especially relevant to be mindful that, since it is projected into the future, it is ambulatory in its scope, the statute properly absorbing the expanding reach of its purpose to the extent that the words with which that purpose is conveyed fairly bear such expansion. But this admissible expansion of meaning through the judicial process does not entirely unbind the courts and license their exercise of what is qualitatively a different thing, namely, the formulation of policy through legislation. In one of the last writings by that tough-minded libertarian, who was also no friend of narrow construction, Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., he admonished against putting the Civil Rights Act to dubious new uses even though, as a matter of policy, they might be desirable in the changed climate nearly a hundred years after its enactment: “At all events, we can be sure of one thing. If federal protection be desirable, we ought to get it by something better than a criminal statute of antiquated uncertainties and based on the out-moded Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . It is very queer to try to protect human rights in the middle of the Twentieth Century by a left-over from the days of General Grant.” Id., at 529. It is not a work for courts to melt and recast this statute. “Under color” of law meant by authority of law in the nineteenth century. No judicial sympathy, however strong, for needs now felt can give the phrase — a phrase which occurs in a statute, not in a constitution — any different meaning in the twentieth. Compare Mr. Justice Holmes’ varying approaches to construction of the same word in a statute *245and in the Constitution, Towne v. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418, and Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, 219 (dissenting).

This meaning, no doubt, poses difficulties for the case-by-case application of § 1979. Manifestly the applicability of the section in an action for damages cannot be made to turn upon the actual availability or unavailability of a state-law remedy for each individual plaintiff’s situation. Prosecution to adverse judgment of a state-court damage claim cannot be made prerequisite to § 1979 relief. In the first place, such a requirement would effectively nullify § 1979 as a vehicle for recovering damages.72 In the second place, the conclusion that police activity which violates state law is not “under color” of state law does not turn upon the existence of a state tort remedy. Rather, it recognizes the freedom of the States to fashion their own laws of torts in their own way under no threat of federal intervention save where state law makes determinative of a plaintiff’s rights the particular circumstance that defendants are acting by state authority. Section 1979 was not designed to cure and level all the possible imperfections of local common-law doctrines, but to provide for the case of the defendant who can claim that some particular dispensation of state authority immunizes him from the ordinary processes of the law.

*246It follows that federal courts in actions at law under § 1979 would have to determine whether defendants’ conduct is in violation of, or under color of, state law often with little guidance from earlier state decisions. Such a determination will sometimes be difficult, of course. But Federal District Courts sitting in diversity cases are often called upon to determine as intricate and uncertain questions of local law as whether official authority would cloak a given practice of the police from liability in a state-court suit. Certain fixed points of reference will be available. If a plaintiff can show that defendant is acting pursuant to the specific terms of a state statute or of a municipal ordinance, § 1979 will apply. See Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268. If he can show that defendant’s conduct is within the range of executive discretion in the enforcement of a state statute, or municipal ordinance, § 1979 will apply. See Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496. Beyond these cases will lie the admittedly more difficult ones in which he seeks to show some “ ‘custom or usage’ which has become common law.” 73

*247Y.

My Brother Harlan’s concurring opinion deserves separate consideration. It begins by asking what is its essential question: Why would the Forty-second Congress, which clearly provided tort relief in the federal courts for violations of constitutional rights by acts of a policeman acting pursuant to state authority, not also have provided the same relief for violations of constitutional rights by a policeman acting in violation of state authority? What, it inquires, would cause a Congress to distinguish between the two .situations? Examining a first possible differentiating factor — the differing degrees of adequacy of protection of person and property already available in the state courts — it reasons that this could not have been significant in view of Congress’ purpose in 1871, for that purpose was not to enact a statute having “merely a jurisdictional function, shifting the load of federal supervision from the Supreme Court to the lower courts and providing a federal tribunal for fact findings.” *248Examining the other possible distinction — the difference between injuries to individuals from isolated acts of abuse of authority by state officers and injuries to individuals from acts sanctioned by the dignity of state law — it finds that this, too, could not have been important, especially to a Congress which was aware of the existence of state constitutional guarantees of protection to the individual, and which enacted the conspiracy statute which became R. S. § 1980 and is now 42 U. S. C. § 1985.

To ask why a Congress which legislated to reach a state officer enforcing an unconstitutional law or sanctioned usage did not also legislate to reach the same officer acting unconstitutionally without authority is to abstract this statute from its historical context. The legislative process of the post-bellum Congresses which enacted the several Civil Rights Acts was one of struggle and compromise in which the power of the National Government was expanded piece by piece against bitter resistance; the Radicals of 1871 had to yield ground and bargain over detail in order to keep the moderate Republicans in line.74 This was not an endeavor for achieving legislative patterns of analytically satisfying symmetry. It was a contest of large sallies and small retreats in which as much ground was occupied, at any time, as the temporary coalescences of forces strong enough to enroll a prevailing vote could agree upon. To assume that if Congress reached one situation it would also have reached another situation involving not dissimilar problems — assuming, arguendo, that the problems, viewed in intellectual abstraction, are not dissimilar — ignores the temper of the times which produced the Ku Klux Act. This approach would be persuasive only if the two situations, that of a *249state officer acting pursuant to state authority and that of a state officer acting without state authority, were so entirely similar that they would not, in 1871, have been perceived as two different situations at all. In view of the fierce debate which occupied the Forty-second Congress as to whether the Fourteenth Amendment had been intended to do more than invalidate state legislation offensive on its face,75 this supposition must be ruled out. Contrariwise, it is historically persuasive that the Forty-second Congress, which was not thinking in neat abstract categories, designed a statute to protect federal constitutional rights from an immediate evil perceived to be grave — the evil described by the statute’s sponsor, Mr. Shellabarger, “such wrongs ... as are done under color of State laws which abridge these rights,” 76 — but did not, by the same measure, seek to control unconstitutional action abusive of a state authority which did not, itself, “abridge these rights.”

Moreover, even under the most rigorous analysis the two situations argumentatively deemed not dissimilar are indeed dissimilar, and dissimilar in both of the two relevant aspects. As to the adequacy of state-court protection of person and property, there seems a very sound distinction, as a class, between injuries sanctioned by state law (as to which there can never be state-court redress, if at all, unless (1) the state courts are sufficiently receptive to a federal claim to declare their own law unconstitutional, or (2) the litigant persists through a tortuous and protracted process of appeals, after a state trial court has found the facts, through the state-court system to this Court) and injuries not sanctioned by state law. To make this line of distinction determine the incidence of Civil Rights legislation serves to cover the bulk of cases where *250federal judicial protection would be needed. To be sure, this leaves certain cases unprotected, namely, the few instances of federal constitutional violations not authorized by state statute, custom or usage and which concern interests wholly unrecognized by state statute or common law. But the cost of ignoring the distinction in order to cover those cases — the cost, that is, of providing a federal judicial remedy for every constitutional violation — involves pre-emption by the National Government, in the larger class of cases in which rights secured • by the Fourteenth Amendment relate to interests of person and property having a state-law origin, of matters of intimate concern to state and local governments. One of the most persistently recurring motifs in the legislative history of the Ku Klux Act is precisely a reluctance to invade these regions of state and local concern except insofar as absolutely necessary for effective assurance of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees. Therefore, the line of distinction between state-authorized and unauthorized actions, as a line of compromise among positions concerning which the legislative evidence is clear that Congress wanted to, and did, compromise, is the most probable for the Act’s draftsmen to have selected.

To attribute significance to this line of distinction is not to reduce the Ku Klux Act to having "merely a jurisdictional function, shifting the load of federal supervision from the Supreme Court” to an original federal tribunal. First, there are certain classes of cases where § 1979, construed as reaching only unconstitutional conduct authorized by state law, will accord “substantive” relief that would not have been available through the means of state-law, state-court litigation subject to the commands of the Supremacy Clause and to Supreme Court review. This would be the case, for example, if a Negro were to bring an action for damages against a state election official who had denied him the right to vote pursuant to discriminatory *251state franchise provisions77 in a State which did not recognize a common-law action for deprivation of the right to vote.' Similarly, one whose home had been searched by state police acting under a state statute, regulation, custom or usage which authorized an unconstitutional intrusion could recover by a § 1979 action a measure of relief determined, as a “substantive” matter, by federal law, whereas Supreme-Court-reviewed state-court suit might have availed him only damages for technical trespass. And, second, with reference to the more numerous classes of cases in which the redress which a federal trial court might give would be approximately the same, “substantively,” as that which could be recovered by state-court suit, the theory that the Reconstruction Congress could not have meant § 1979 principally as a “jurisdictional” provision granting access to an original federal forum in lieu of the slower, more costly, more hazardous route of federal appeal from fact-finding state courts, forgets how important providing a federal trial court was among the several purposes of the Ku Klux Act.78 One may agree that in one sense § 1979 is not “merely” jurisdictional — not jurisdictional in the sense, for example, that § 3 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act was jurisdictional.79 Section 1979 does *252create a “substantive” right to relief. But this does not negative the fact that a powerful impulse behind the creation of this “substantive” right was the purpose that it be available in, and be shaped through, original federal tribunals.

In truth, to deprecate thé purposes of this 1871 statute in terms of analysis which refers to “merely . . . jurisdictional” effects, to “shifting the load of federal supervision,” and to the “administrative burden on the Supreme Court,” is to attribute twentieth century conceptions of the federal judicial system to the Reconstruction Congress. If today Congress were to devise a comprehensive scheme for the most effective protection of federal constitutional rights, it might conceivably think in terms of defining those classes of cases in which Supreme Court review of state-court decision was most appropriate, and those in which original federal jurisdiction was most appropriate, fitting all cases into one or the other category. The Congress of 1871 certainly did not think in such terms. Until 1875 there was no original “federal question” jurisdiction in the federal courts,80 and the ordinary mode of protection of federal constitutional rights' was Supreme Court review.81 In light of the then prevailing notions of the appropriate relative spheres of jurisdiction of state and *253federal courts of first impression, any allowance of Federal District and Circuit Court competence to adjudicate causes between co-citizens of a State was a very special case, a rarity.82 To ask why, when such a special case was created to redress deprivations of federal rights under authority of state laws which abridged thosé rights, a special case was not also created to cover other deprivations of federal rights whose somewhat similar nature might have made the same redress appropriate, disregards the dominant jurisdictional thought of the day and neglects consideration of the fact that redress in a federal trial court was then to be very sparingly afforded. To extend original federal jurisdiction only in the class of cises in which, constitutional violation being sanctioned by state law, state judges would be less likely than federal judges to be sympathetic to a plaintiff’s claim, is a purpose quite consistent with the “overflowing protection of constitutional rights” which, assuredly, § 1979 manifests.83

*254Finally, it seems not unreasonable to reject the suggestion that state-sanctioned constitutional violations are no more offensive than violations not sanctioned by the majesty of state authority. Degrees of offensiveness, perhaps, lie largely in the eye of the person offended, but is it implausible to conclude that there is something more reprehensible, something more dangerous, in the action of the custodian of a public building who turns out a Negro pursuant to a local ordinance than in the action of the same custodian who turns out the same Negro, in violation of state law, to vent a personal bias? Or something *255more reprehensible about the public officer who beats a criminal suspect under orders from the Captain of Detectives, pursuant to a systematic and accepted custom of third-degree practice, than about the same officer who, losing his temper, breaks all local regulations and beats the same suspect? If it be admitted that there is a significant difference between the situation of the individual injured by another individual and who, although the latter is an agent of the State, can claim from the State’s judicial or administrative processes the same protection and redress against him as would be available against any other individual, and the situation of one who, injured under the sanction of a state law which shields the offender, is left alone and helpless in the face of the asserted dignity of the State, then, certainly, it was the latter of these two situations — that of the unprotected Southern Negroes and Unionists — about which Congress was concerned in 1871.84

*256Again, an analysis which supposes that Congress, by §§ 1 and 2 85 of the Ku Klux Act, was attempting to provide comprehensive coverage of a single problem and, therefore, may not be supposed to have left any aspect of the problem unprovided for, ignores that these two sections were in fact designed to cope with two wholly different problems — two wholly diverse evils. Section 2 was newly drafted in 1871, not, like § 1, taken over from the 1866 Act. It was both civil and criminal, not, like § 1, merely civil. It aimed exclusively at conspiracies, as § 1 did not. And, most important, it sought to protect only the federal right of equal protection, not, like § 1, all Fourteenth Amendment rights.86 Because of its limited scope in this latter respect, those who drafted it and voted for it thought that it could constitutionally'be made to reach instances of action having more tenuous connection with the lawfully asserted authority of the State than could a statute which also reached due process violations.87 For the same reason, it does not reach isolated *257instances of misuse of state authority, but only such as possess the character of “purposeful discrimination” 88 which amounts to a denial of equal protection. The evil that § 2 meant to stamp out was the evil of conspiracy— more particularly, the evil of the Klan, “a conspiracy, so far-flung and embracing such numbers, with a purpose to dominate and set at naught the ‘carpetbag’ and ‘scalawag’ governments of the day,” that it appeared “able effectively to deprive Negroes of their legal rights and to close all avenues of redress or vindication.” Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S. 651, 662.89 The enormity and the power of this organization were what made it dangerous.90 Section 1 aimed at another evil, the evil not of combinations dedicated to purposeful and systematic discrimination, but of violation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution through the authority, enhanced by the majesty and dignity, of the States. Here it was precisely this authorization, this assurance that behind a constitutional violation lay the whole power of the State, that was the danger. One can agree that these two statutory sections may overlap unevenly rather than *258dovetail, but surely it is more plausible to regard this uneven overlap as a result of the diverse origins and purposes of the sections than to derive from it the justification for a construction of § 1979 which distorts the section by stretching it to cover a class of cases presenting neither the evil with which § 1, nor the evil with which § 2, of the Ku Klux Act was designed to cope.

VI.

The present case comes here from a judgment sustaining a motion to dismiss petitioners’ complaint. That complaint, insofar as it describes the police intrusion, makes no allegation that that intrusion was authorized by state law other than the conclusory and unspecific claim that “During all times herein mentioned the individual defendants and each of them were acting under color of the statutes, ordinances, regulations, customs and usages of the State of Illinois, of the County of Cook and of the defendant City of Chicago.” In the face of Illinois decisions holding such intrusions unlawful and in the absence of more precise factual averments to support its conclusion, such a complaint fails to state a claim under § 1979.

However, the complaint does allege, as to the ten-hour detention of Mr. Monroe, that “it was, and it is now, the custom or usage of the Police Department of the City of Chicago to arrest and confine individuals in the police stations and jail cells of the said department for long periods of time on ‘open’ charges.” These confinements, it is alleged, are for the purpose of interrogating and investigating the individuals arrested, in the aim of inducing incriminating statements, permitting possible identification of suspects in lineups, holding suspects incommunicado while police conduct field investigations of their associates and background, and punishing the arrested persons without trial. Such averments do pre*259sent facts which, admitted as true for purposes of a motion to dismiss, seem to sustain petitioners’ claim that Mr. Monroe’s detention — as contrasted with the night-time intrusion into the Monroe apartment — was “under color” of state authority. Under the few relevant Illinois decisions it is impossible to say with certainty that a detention incommunicado for ten hours is unlawful per se,91 or that the courts of that State would hold that the lawless circumstances surrounding Mr. Monroe’s arrest made his subsequent confinement illegal. On this record, then, petitioners’ complaint suffices to raise, the narrow issue of whether the detention incommunicado, considered alone, violates due process.92

Since the majority’s disposition of the case causes the Court not to reach that constitutional issue, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to discuss it here.

DiCLERICO, District Judge.

The plaintiffs, relatives of the decedent, Lionel Galletti Roque (“Galletti”), brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the defendants, members of the Puerto Rico Police Department, seeking damages allegedly suffered when one of the defendants, Félix Hernández Rivera (“Hernández”), shot and killed Galletti during a fight at a bar. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, finding that Hernán-dez, who was on medical leave at the time of the shooting, was not acting under color of state law. The district court initially denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, but reconsidered that ruling in light of our decision in Martínez v. Colón, 54 F.3d 980 (1st Cir.), cert. denied,-U.S.-, 116 S.Ct. 515, 133 L.Ed.2d 423 (1995). In this appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the district court’s grant of summary judgment. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm the district court’s decision.

Factual and Procedural Background 1

On January 2, 1989, at around 10:00 p.m., plaintiffs’ decedent, Galletti, was drinking at a bar in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, known as Carlos’ Place. Galletti was accompanied by Angel Ramirez Fonseca, Ilarión Rosado, and two individuals identified only as Algarin and Ity. At that time, codefendant Hernández, an officer of the Puerto Rico Police Department, arrived with an unidentified group of his friends. Hernández, who was on medical leave due to gastroenteritis, was not in uniform but was carrying his police identification and service revolver. Police department policy states that Puerto Rico police officers are on duty twenty-four hours a day and therefore each officer is required to carry identification and a service revolver at all times.

*447 Inside Carlos’ Place, Hernández approached Galletti’s group and words and threatening glances were exchanged. Gallet-ti challenged Hernández’ hostile attitude, stating that he had done nothing to provoke it. Hernández responded, “I’ll look at you whichever way I please, because I’m a cop.”

The situation escalated. Hernández slapped Galletti’s friend Ity. Galletti told Hernández, “Well, you don’t have to give me dirty looks. You look at me really bad and I have done nothing to you.” Hernández replied, “I look at anybody I want, because I’m a cop. Anybody I decide I want to look at dirty, I look at them dirty.” At this point the owner of the bar, apparently concerned by the interchange, told Hernández, “Just because you are the law, you don’t need to intimidate people,” and asked him to leave. Hernández told the bar owner not to meddle and to leave the combatants alone because it was none of his business.

By this time the conflict had attracted the attention of patrons outside the bar, who entered the bar to better view the confrontation. According to the plaintiffs, Hernández identified himself to the crowd as a police officer, saying that he “was supposed to be there to establish the peace and order” and showed them his police identification, apparently to prevent them from interfering in the conflict. This stopped the fracas for. about five minutes.

However, as Hernández was leaving the bar, one of his friends and one of Galletti’s friends resumed hostilities. At this point, Galletti told Hernández, “Well, you leave the gun, and me and you will have it out, outside.” Hernández responded, “I don’t need a gun to fight you. Come on, step outside.” Hernández, despite his statement to the contrary, took his service revolver with him as both parties went outside. While Galletti took off his sweater, Hernández threw a beer can at him. Galletti responded by pushing Hernández. Hernández then took out his service revolver and fired six shots at Gallet-ti. The first shot missed Galletti and hit a bystander but the next five hit Galletti, killing him.

On December 27, 1989, Galletti’s survivors brought this § 1983 action against Hernán-dez 2 and other supervising officers (the “supervisory defendants”). 3 On August 30, 1991, supervisory defendant Carlos López Feliciano filed a motion for summary judgment, which the other supervisory defendants joined, on the ground that Hernández was not acting under color of state law when he shot Galletti.

On November 1,1991, Judge Carmen Consuelo Cerezo denied the motion for summary judgment. On March 31, 1992, supervisory defendant López Feliciano filed a motion for reconsideration of that decision. At this time, the other supervisory defendants filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the plaintiffs had not alleged facts necessary to establish supervisory liability. Judge Raymond L. Acosta referred these motions tó Magistrate Judge Jesús Antonio Castellanos for a report and recommendation.

On April 29, 1994, Magistrate Castellanos recommended that: (1) the motion for reconsideration filed by supervisory defendant Ló-pez Feliciano be denied; (2) the motion to dismiss filed by supervisory defendants Luis López Lebrón, Angel Hernández, Angel Díaz, Fernando Vázquez-Gely, and Félix Aponte-Ortiz be denied; and (3) the motion to dismiss filed by supervisory defendants Luis Carrillo and José Lucena be granted. On March 16,1995, Judge Salvador E. Casel-las issued an order adopting the magistrate’s report and recommendation. 4 On May 31, 1995, we issued our decision in Martínez v. Colón, 54 F.3d 980 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 515, 133 L.Ed.2d 423 (1995). On June 6, 1995, supervisory defendant López Feliciano filed a motion, joined in by the remaining supervisory *448 defendants, requesting the district court to reconsider its decision on the summary judgment motion in light of Martinez. On November 29, 1995, Judge Casellas vacated the court’s order of November 1, 1991, and dismissed the case on the ground that defendant Hernández was not acting “under color of law” for the purposes of § 1983 when he killed Galletti. The plaintiffs appealed this decision.

Discussion

The plaintiffs assert that the district court erred in determining as a matter of law that Hernández’ acts were not taken under color of state law. 5 Specifically, they challenge the district court’s application of Martinez to this ease. 6

1. Summary Judgment Standard

A district court may grant summary judgment only “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In this case,

summary judgment will lie if the record, even when taken in the aspect most favorable to the nonmovant fails to yield a trial-worthy issue as to some material fact. In applying this principle, it is important to bear in mind that not every genuine factual conflict necessitates a trial. It is only when a disputed fact has the potential to change the outcome of the suit under the governing law if found favorably to the nonmovant that the materiality hurdle is cleared.

Martínez, 54 F.3d at 983-84 (citation omitted). For the purposes of this appeal, we exercise de novo review and adopt the plaintiffs’ version of all controverted facts. See id.

2. Applying Martinez

The plaintiffs assert that the district court improperly applied Martinez to this case. In Martinez, an on-shift 7 police officer accidentally shot and maimed a fellow off-shift officer while harassing that officer in the station house. See 54 F.3d at 982, 987. The harassing officer never expressly asserted his authority as a police officer, but he was in uniform and armed with his service revolver. See id. at 987. The defendants were other police officers, at least one of whom was a supervisor, who observed the incident but did not intervene. See id at 983. We reviewed the district court’s award of summary judgment in favor of the defendants and held that, under the totality of the circumstances, it was clear that the officer was not acting under color of state law because he was engaged in the personal pursuit of private *449 violence, making the grant of summary judgment against the plaintiff appropriate. See id. at 988.

Martinez articulates the standard to be applied in this case to deternilne whether Hernández was acting under color of state law when he shot and killed Galletti. As we said in that case, "[p~rivate `violence-even private violence engaged in by one who happens to work for the state-has different legal ramifications than violence attributable to state action." Martínez, 54 F.3d at 985; see also Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 111, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 1040, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945). "Thus, whether a police officer is acting under color of state law turns on the nature and circumstances of the officer's conduct and the relationship of that conduct to the performance of his official duties." Martínez, 54 F.3d at 986. "The key determinant is whether the actor, at the time in question, purposes to act in an official capacity or to exercise official responsibifities pursuant to state law." Id.

One relevant facet of this inquiry is whether the defendant has purported to act under color of state law or, in other words, has acted under “pretense of law.” See Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 111, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 1040, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945); Martínez, 54 F.3d at 987. Action occurs under pretense of law when an individual imbued with official authority purports to exercise that authority when actually acting wholly outside of it. See Martínez, 54 F.3d at 986-87. However, as we have stated,

[ejven though “acting under color of law” includes “acting under pretense of law” for purposes of a state action analysis, there can be no pretense if the challenged conduct is not related in some meaningful way either to the officer’s governmental status or to the performance of his duties.

Id. at 987. Therefore, it is not enough for an individual merely to purport to exercise official power in order to trigger § 1983 liability, but rather the individual must actually be engaged in the abuse of official power granted by the government. See West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 49, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 2255, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988); Martínez, 54 F.3d at 986.

The pivotal issue to be determined, then, is whether Hernández “was engaged in purely personal pursuits or, conversely, whether he was acting under color of state law.” Id. at 987. In conducting this inquiry, we must assess Hernández’ “conduct in light of the totality of surrounding circumstances.” Id. In Martinez, we identified several factors that are relevant to, but not necessarily determinative of, the issue, including: a police officer’s garb; an officer’s duty status, including the existence of a regulation providing that officers are on duty twenty-four hours a day; the officer’s use of a service revolver; and, the location of the incident. See id. at 986, 987.

The plaintiffs have resisted this formulation of the issue. At oral argument, the plaintiffs urged us to find that Hernández acted under color of state law because but for his official authority, he could never have done what he did. We recognize that some language in Martinez might appear to support such an expansive position. See 54 F.3d at 986 (“In general, section 1983 is not implicated unless a state actor’s conduct occurs in the course of performing an actual or apparent duty of his office, or unless the conduct is such that the actor could not have behaved in that way but for the authority of his office.”). However, that statement merely articulates the minimum threshold that must be met for action to be considered as occurring under color of state law and does not set forth the specific test to be applied in determining whether a challenged act was committed under color of state law. In fact, in Martinez we rejected such a sweeping standard for § 1983 lability. See, e.g., id. at 987 (“[Wje must assess the nature of his conduct in fight of the totalty of surrounding circumstances. ...”), 988 (‘“While a polce officer’s use of a state-issue weapon in the pursuit of private activities will have “furthered” the § 1983 violation in a Iteral sense,’ a court needs ‘additional indicia of state authority to conclude that the officer acted under color of state law.’ ”) (citation omitted). We wifi not jettison our settled case law to embrace such a broad standard of labilty here.

The plaintiffs also asserted at oral argument that endorsing the result reached by *450 the district court would bring us into conflict with the decisions of other circuits. Contrary to this assertion, the approach we articulated in Martínez and endorse here is consistent with the approach taken by other circuits that have considered the issue of whether the actions of police officers are taken under color of state law. See, e.g., David v. City and County of Denver, 101 F.3d 1344, 1351-54 (10th Cir.1996); Barna v. City of Perth Amboy, 42 F.3d 809, 818-19 (3d Cir.1994); Pitchell v. Callan, 13 F.3d 545, 547-49 (2d Cir.1994); United States v. Tarpley, 945 F.2d 806, 808-09 (5th Cir.1991); Gibson v. City of Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1516-19 (7th Cir.1990); Jones v. Gutschenritter, 909 F.2d 1208, 1211-12 (8th Cir.1990); Revene v. Charles County Comm’rs, 882 F.2d 870, 872-73 (4th Cir.1989). While not explicitly adopting a totality of the circumstances test, these courts have examined the circumstances surrounding a challenged act to determine whether it was committed under col- or of state law. Given the intensely fact-specific nature of such analysis we find it unremarkable that none of the cases cited by the plaintiffs are so factually similar to this case as to persuade us to adopt the particular outcome the plaintiffs desire.

3. Application of the Standard

With these preliminary matters aside, we now turn to the substance of this appeal — the review de novo of the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the color-of-state-law issue. The plaintiffs point to the following factors to justify § 1983 liability: the twenty-four hour a day regulation; Hernández’ repeated statements that he was a police officer; his use of his service revolver in the shooting; his statements to patrons that he was there to “keep the peace” and that he was “handling the situation”; and his display of his police identification. These factors, they argue, raise a trialworthy issue as to whether Hernández was acting under color of state law on the night that he killed Galletti.

We agree that some of these factors weigh in favor of a finding of § 1983 liability. In particular, Hernández’ comments to patrons that he was there to keep the peace and his display of his police identification might, viewed in isolation, support an inference that Hernández was acting under pretense of law by purporting to act in his official capacity. However, that conclusion was belied by the rest of Hernández’ behavior, especially his repeated assertions that he could do things such as “look dirty” at Galletti because he was a police officer.

Mere statements by individuals that they are entitled to a special privilege because of their official status do not constitute action under color or pretense of state law if the asserted privilege lies clearly outside the scope of their official duties. Statements by Hernández that he could “look dirty” at Gal-letti because he was a police officer so clearly fell outside his official capacity that they did not constitute a reasonable pretense that he was acting as a police officer at the time.

Even more significantly, the final interchange between Galletti and Hernández prior to their going outside the bar dominates any characterization of the events of that evening. Both parties agree that at a point just before Galletti’s death, he invited Hernández outside to settle their differences in a fight. Hernández accepted. From the time that the two left the bar until Hernández shot Galletti, Hernández made no further pretense that he was acting as a police officer.

Whatever brief pretense Hernández may have made to be acting in his official capacity by showing his identification and stating that he was keeping the peace ended when the two agreed to fight it out. In Martinez, we stated:

The campaign of terror that [the harassing officer] mounted was patently personal in nature, and [the victim] unquestionably realized as much; indeed, there was not the slightest indication that [the harassing officer’s] conduct was undertaken pursuant to the authority of his office. Plainly, the fact that [the victim] walked away numerous times shows that he was not “so intimidated” by [the harassing officer’s] status as a policeman “as to cause him to refrain from exercising his legal right[s].”

Martínez, 54 F.3d at 988 n. 6 (quoting Jones v. Gutschenritter, 909 F.2d 1208, 1212 (8th Cir.1990)). Here, any possibility that Galletti *451 was intimidated by Hernández’ claims of official status is belied by the undisputed fact that Galletti invited Hernández to engage in a private brawl. Because Hernández made no further pretense of official action, there is not enough evidence in the record, even taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, to support the inference that Hernández was acting under color of state law when he shot Galletti. As the district court concluded,

Galletti’s reaction in the face of Hernán-dez’ openly hostile behavior towards him serves to buttress our conclusion that Her-nández’ actions constituted private conduct outside the line of duty, and that the latter’s status as an officer did not enter into his taunting of the decedent. The particular interaction between Hernández and Galletti was of a distinctly personal nature, and Galletti unquestionably realized as much. The fact that Galletti not only initiated the confrontation, but subsequently invited Hernández to “fight it out” outside the bar shows that he was not so intimidated by Hernández’ status as a policeman “as to cause him to refrain from exercising his legal rights.”

We agree, and this conclusion ends our inquiry. 8

Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, we afftrm the judgment of the district court.

*314Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question in this case is whether a public defender acts “under color of state law” when representing an indigent defendant in a state criminal proceeding.

HH

This case arose when the respondent Russell Richard Dodson filed a pro se complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. Dodson brought the action in federal court under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. As the factual basis for his lawsuit Dodson alleged that Martha Shepard, an attorney in the Polk County Offender Advocate’s Office, had failed to represent him adequately in an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.1

A full-time employee of the county, Shepard had been assigned to represent Dodson in the appeal of a conviction for robbery. After inquiring into the case, however, she moved for permission to withdraw as counsel on the ground that Dodson’s claims were wholly frivolous.2 Shepard accompanied her motion with an affidavit explaining this conclusion. *315She also filed a memorandum summarizing Dodson’s claims and the supporting legal arguments. On November 9, 1979, the Iowa Supreme Court granted the motion to withdraw and dismissed Dodson’s appeal.

In his complaint in the District Court the respondent alleged that Shepard’s actions, especially her motion to withdraw, had deprived him of his right to counsel, subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment, and denied him due process of law.3 He sought injunctive relief as well as damages in the amount of $175,000. To establish that Shepard acted “under color of state law,” a jurisdictional requisite for a §1983 action, Dodson relied on her employment by the county. Dodson also sued Polk County, the Polk County Offender Advocate, and the Polk County Board of Supervisors. He alleged that the Offender Advocate and the Board of Supervisors had established the rules and procedures that Shepard was bound to follow in handling criminal appeals.

The District Court dismissed Dodson’s claims against all defendants. 483 F. Supp. 347 (1979). It held that the relevant actions by Shepard had not occurred under color of state law. Canvassing the leading authorities, it reasoned that a public defender owes a duty of undivided loyalty to his client. A public defender therefore could not be sued as an agent of the State. The District Court dismissed the Offender Advocate from the suit on the same theory. It also held *316that Dodson’s complaint failed to allege the requisite personal involvement to state a § 1983 claim against Polk County and the Board of Supervisors.

The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. 628 F. 2d 1104 (1980). Like the District Court, it assumed that a public defender owed his client the same responsibility as any other attorney. In its view, however, the “dispos-itive point” was that Iowa Offender Advocates were “employees of the County,” which was “merely a creature of the State.” Whether public defenders received instructions from county officials was “beside the point.” “Public defenders receive their power not because they are selected by their clients, but because they are employed by the County to represent a certain class of clients, who likely have little or no choice in selecting the lawyer who will defend them.” Id., at 1106. In holding as it did on this issue, the court recognized that its decision conflicted with the holdings of a number of other Courts of Appeals. Reasoning that Dodson’s pro se complaint should be liberally construed, the court also ordered reinstatement of the § 1983 claims against the Offender Advocate and the Board of Supervisors. The question of their involvement was left for factual development in the District Court. In addition, the court ordered that Dodson be given an opportunity on remand to state his claim against the county with greater specificity. Finally, the court rejected the argument that a public defender should enjoy the same immunity provided to judges and prosecutors. It held that the defendants were entitled to a defense of “good faith,” but not of “absolute,” immunity.

One member of the panel filed a dissent. The dissent argued that a person acts under color of state law only when exercising powers created by the authority of the State. In this case, it reasoned, the alleged wrongs were not made possible only because the defendant was a public defender. In *317essence the complaint asserted an ordinary malpractice claim, which would be equally maintainable against a retained attorney or appointed counsel. The dissent also argued that public defenders should be entitled to absolute immunity from suit.

We granted certiorari to resolve the division among the Courts of Appeals over whether a public defender acts under color of state law when providing representation to an indigent client.4 450 U. S. 963 (1981). We now reverse.

HH HH

In United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 326 (1941), this Court held that a person acts under color of state law only when exercising power “possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the *318authority of state law.”5 In this case the Offender Advocate for Polk County assigned Martha Shepard to represent Russell Dodson in the appeal of his criminal conviction. This assignment entailed functions and obligations in no way dependent on state authority. From the moment of her appointment, Shepard became Dodson’s lawyer, and Dodson became Shepard’s client. Except for the source of payment, their relationship became identical to that existing between any other lawyer and client. “Once a lawyer has undertaken the representation of an accused, the duties and obligations are the same whether the lawyer is privately retained, appointed, or serving in a legal aid or defender program.” ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-3,9 (2d ed. 1980).6

Within the context of our legal system, the duties of a defense lawyer are those of a personal counselor and advocate. It is often said that lawyers are “officers of the court.” But the Courts of Appeals are agreed that a lawyer representing a client is not, by virtue of being an officer of the court, a state actor “under color of state law” within the meaning of § 1983.7 In our system a defense lawyer characteristically opposes the designated representatives of the State. The system assumes that adversarial testing will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness. But it posits that a defense lawyer best serves the public, not by acting on behalf of the State or in concert with it, but rather by advanc*319ing “the undivided interests of his client.”8 This is essentially a private function, traditionally filled by retained counsel, for which state office and authority are not needed.9

H-1 » — 1

The respondent argues that a public defender’s employment relationship with the State, rather than his function, should determine whether he acts under color of state law. We take a different view.

A

In arguing that the employment relationship establishes that the public defender acts under color of state law, Dodson relies heavily on two cases in which this Court assumed that physicians, whose relationships with their patients have not traditionally depended on state authority, could be held liable under § 1983. See O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U. S. 563 (1975); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976). These cases, he argues, are analytically identical to this one. Like the physicians in O’Connor and Estelle, a public defender is paid by the State. Further, like the institutionalized patients in *320those cases, an indigent convict is unable to choose the professional who will render him traditionally private services. These factors, it is argued, establish that public defenders— like physicians in state hospitals — act under color of state law and are amenable to suit under § 1983.

In our view O’Connor and Estelle are distinguishable from this case. O’Connor involved claims against a psychiatrist who served as the superintendent at a state mental hospital. Although a physician with traditionally private obligations to his patients, he was sued in his capacity as a state custodian and administrator. Unlike a lawyer, the administrator of a state hospital owes no duty of “undivided loyalty” to his patients. On the contrary, it is his function to protect the interest of the public as well as that of his wards. Similarly, Estelle involved a physician who was the medical director of the Texas Department of Corrections and also the chief medical officer of a prison hospital. He saw his patients in a custodial as well as a medical capacity.

Because of their custodial and supervisory functions, the state-employed doctors in O’Connor and Estelle faced their employer in a very different posture than does a public defender. Institutional physicians assume an obligation to the mission that the State, through the institution, attempts to achieve. With the public defender it is different. As argued in the dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals, it is the function of the public defender to enter “not guilty” pleas, move to suppress State’s evidence, object to evidence at trial, cross-examine State’s witnesses, and make closing arguments in behalf of defendants.10 All of these are adversarial functions. We find it peculiarly difficult to detect any color of state law in such activities.

B

Despite the public defender’s obligation to represent his clients against the State, Dodson argues — and the Court of Appeals concluded — that the status of the public defender *321differs materially from that of other defense lawyers. Because public defenders are paid by the State, it is argued that they are subject to supervision by persons with interests unrelated to those of indigent clients. Although the employment relationship is certainly a relevant factor, we find it insufficient to establish that a public defender acts under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983.

First, a public defender is not amenable to administrative direction in the same sense as other employees of the State. Administrative and legislative decisions undoubtedly influence the way a public defender does his work. State decisions may determine the quality of his law library or the size of his caseload. But a defense lawyer is not, and by the nature of his function cannot be, the servant of an administrative superior. Held to the same standards of competence and integrity as a private lawyer, see Moore v. United States, 432 F. 2d 730 (CA3 1970), a public defender works under canons of professional responsibility that mandate his exercise of independent judgment on behalf of the client. “A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays him to render legal services for another to direct or regulate his professional judgment in rendering such legal services.” DR 5-107 (B), ABA Code of Professional Responsibility (1976).11

Second, and equally important, it is the constitutional obligation of the State to respect the professional independence *322of the public defenders whom it engages.12 This Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), established the right of state criminal defendants to the “ ‘guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against [them].”’ Id., at 345, quoting Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69 (1932). Implicit in the concept of a “guiding hand” is the assumption that counsel will be free of state control. There can be no fair trial unless the accused receives the services of an effective and independent advocate. See, e. g., Gideon v. Wainwright, supra; Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U. S. 475 (1978). At least in the absence of pleading and proof to the contrary, we therefore cannot assume that Polk County, having employed public defenders to satisfy the State’s obligations under Gideon v. Wainwright, has attempted to control their action in a manner inconsistent with the principles on which Gideon rests.13

C

The respondent urges a different view of the public defender’s relationships to his clients and to the State. Whatever *323their ethical obligations, public defenders do not, he argues, characteristically extend their clients the same undivided loyalty tendered by privately retained attorneys. In support of this argument Dodson notes that the public defender moved to be dismissed from his case against the client’s wishes. Dodson claims to have suffered prejudice from this act. He insists that such action would not have been taken by a privately retained attorney.

Dodson’s argument assumes that a private lawyer would have borne no professional obligation to refuse to prosecute a frivolous appeal. This is error. In claiming that a public defender is peculiarly subject to divided loyalties, Dodson confuses a lawyer’s ethical obligations to the judicial system with an allegiance to the adversary interests of the State in a criminal prosecution. Although a defense attorney has a duty to advance all colorable claims and defenses, the canons of professional ethics impose limits on permissible advocacy. It is the obligation of any lawyer — whether privately retained or publicly appointed — not to clog the courts with frivolous motions or appeals.14 Dodson has no legitimate complaint that his lawyer refused to do so.

*324As a matter of empirical fact, it may or may not be true that the professional obligation to withdraw from frivolous appeals will be invoked with disproportionate frequency in cases involving indigent prisoners. The recent burgeoning of postconviction remedies has undoubtedly subjected the legal system to unprecedented strains, including increased demands for legal assistance.15 The State of Iowa has responded by authorizing the provision of greater representation than the Constitution requires. Its system of public defenders contemplates the extension of legal assistance through the various tiers of postconviction review, incorporating only the general ethical limitation that counsel should withdraw from frivolous cases.16

In this context Dodson argues that public defenders making withdrawal decisions are viewed by indigent prisoners as hostile state actors. We think there is little justification for this view, if indeed it is widely held.17

<

In concluding that Shepard did not act under color of state law in exercising her independent professional judgment in a criminal proceeding, we do not suggest that a public defender *325never acts in that role. In Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507 (1980), for example, we found that a public defender so acted when making hiring and firing decisions on behalf of the State. It may be — although the question is not present in this case — that a public defender also would act under color of state law while performing certain administrative and possibly investigative functions. Cf. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 430-431, and n. 33 (1976). And of course we intimate no views as to a public defender’s liability for malpractice in an appropriate case under state tort law. See Ferri v. Ackerman, 444 U. S. 193, 198 (1979).18 With respect to Dodson’s §1983 claims against Shepard, we decide only that a public defender does not act under color of state law when performing a lawyer’s traditional functions as counsel to a defendant in a criminal proceeding.19 Because it was based on such activities, the complaint against Shepard must be dismissed.

V

In his complaint in the District Court, Dodson also asserted § 1983 claims against the Offender Advocate, Polk County, and the Polk County Board of Supervisors.' Section 1983 will not support a claim based on a respondeat superior theory of liability. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978). To the extent that Dodson’s claims rest on this basis, they fail to present a federal claim.

*326The Court of Appeals apparently read Dodson’s pro se complaint as susceptible of another construction. It found an actionable claim in the bald allegation that Shepard had injured him while acting pursuant to administrative “rules and procedures for . . . handling criminal appeals” and that her employers were therefore responsible for her actions. 628 F. 2d, at 1108. We also have noted an allegation in respondent’s complaint that the county “retains and maintains, advocates out of law school” who have on numerous occasions moved to withdraw from appeals of criminal convictions.

The question is whether either allegation describes a constitutional tort actionable under § 1983. We conclude not. In Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, supra, we held that official policy must be “the moving force of the constitutional violation” in order to establish the liability of a government body under §1983. Id., at 694. See Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U. S. 362, 370-377 (1976) (general allegation of administrative negligence fails to state a constitutional claim cognizable under § 1983). In this case the respondent failed to allege any policy that arguably violated his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendments. He did assert that assistant public defenders refused to prosecute certain appeals on grounds of their frivolity. But a policy of withdrawal from frivolous cases would not violate the Constitution. Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967). And respondent argued the existence of no impermissible policy pursuant to which the withdrawals might have occurred. Respondent further asserted that he personally was deprived of a Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel. Again, however, he failed to allege that this deprivation was caused by any constitutionally forbidden rule or procedure.

When Dodson’s complaint is viewed against the standards of our cases, even in light of the sympathetic pleading requirements applicable to pro se petitioners, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519 (1972) (per curiam), we do not believe *327he has alleged unconstitutional action by the Offender Advocate, Polk County, or the Polk County Board of Supervisors. Accordingly, his claims against them must be dismissed.

HH >

For the reasons stated in this opinion, the decision of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

Chief Justice Burger,

concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion, but it is important to emphasize that in providing counsel for an accused the governmental participation is very limited. Under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), and Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), the government undertakes only to provide a professionally qualified advocate wholly independent of the government. It is the independence from governmental control as to how the assigned task is to be performed that is crucial. The advocate, as an officer of the court which issued the commission to practice, owes an obligation to the court to repudiate any external effort to direct how the obligations to the client are to be carried out. The obligations owed by the attorney to the client are defined by the professional codes, not by the governmental entity from which the defense advocate’s compensation is derived. Disciplinary Rule 5-107 (B) of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility* succinctly states the rule:

*328“(B) A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays him to render legal services for another to direct or regulate his professional judgment in rendering such legal services.”

Moreover, it is elementary that every advocate has an obligation to eschew proceedings considered to be professionally improper or irresponsible. Once counsel in this case reached a considered judgment on the merits of the claim sought to be put forward, her actions were consistent with the highest traditions of the Bar.

Justice Blackmun,

dissenting.

One perhaps should be particularly circumspect when he finds himself in solitary dissent. See Commissioner v. “Americans United” Inc., 416 U. S. 752, 763 (1974) (dissenting opinion). On careful reflection, however, I am convinced that my position is a valid one, and I therefore set forth my views in opposition to those of the Court.

When a full-time state employee, working in an office fully funded and extensively regulated by the State and acting to fulfill a state obligation, violates a person’s constitutional rights, the Court consistently has held that the employee acts “under color of” state law, within the meaning and reach of 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Because I conclude that the Court’s decision in this case is contrary to its prior rulings on the meaning of “under color of” state law, and because the Court charts new territory by adopting a functional test in determining liability under the statute, I respectfully dissent.

I

The Court holds for the first time today that a government official’s “employment relationship” is no more than a “relevant factor” in determining whether he acts under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983. Ante, at 321. Only *329last Term, in Parrott v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), the Court noted that defendant-prison officials unquestionably satisfied the under-color-of-state-law requirement because they “were, after all, state employees in positions of considerable authority.” Id., at 535-536. Thus began, and ended, the Court’s discussion of the color-of-law question in that case. As in Taylor, the county employee sued in this action presumptively acts under color of state law. See also Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 157, n. 5 (1978).

The definition of “under color of” state law relied upon by the Court here and articulated in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941), requires that the defendants in a § 1983 action have committed the challenged acts “in the course of their performance of duties” and have misused power “possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law . . . .” Id., at 325-326. See also Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 110 (1945) (plurality opinion).

Respondent’s allegations place this case squarely within both components of that definition. Respondent challenges action taken by petitioner Shepard, a full-time county employee, while acting in her official capacity and while exercising her responsibilities pursuant to Iowa law. See generally Iowa Code §§336A.3.2, 336A.6 (1981). The Court implicitly concedes that the Offender Advocate’s assignment of Shepard to handle respondent’s appeal was action under color of law. But the Court then fails to recognize that it was by virtue of that assignment that Shepard had the authority to represent respondent and to seek permission to withdraw as his counsel, thereby allegedly violating his constitutional rights. The authority of a privately retained attorney to represent his clients is derived from the client’s selection of the lawyer. A public defender’s power, however, is possessed by virtue of the State’s selection of the attorney and his official employment.

*330The Court insists that public defenders, unlike other state employees, are free from state control because they are not subject to administrative direction — both because ethical standards require that their professional judgment not be sacrificed to the interests of their employers and because the State is obligated to provide indigent defendants with independent advocates.1 This distinction ignores both precedent and reality. The Court long has held that a state official acts under color of law when the State does not authorize, or even know of, his conduct. See, e. g., Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 152 (1970); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961). That the State did not instruct Shepard to withdraw from respondent’s case is therefore irrelevant to the question whether she acted under color of state law in so doing.

Moreover, the present case is indistinguishable from Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976). There the Court held that a prison doctor’s deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s medical needs is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment and may be the subject of a § 1983 claim. The prisoner’s § 1983 *331complaint in Gamble stated claims against Dr. Gray in his capacity both as medical director for the Texas Department of Corrections and as treating physician. Gray was sued because he allegedly had given the plaintiff substandard medical care — the doctor’s duty to the public and his custodial and supervisory functions were not at issue.2 If the Court had determined that Gray acted under color of state law only in his capacity as a custodian and administrator, it would have dismissed the claims against him for want of subject-matter jurisdiction, rather than on the merits.

The Court today holds that a public defender cannot act under color of state law because of his independent ethical obligations to his client. Yet Gamble cannot be distinguished on this ground. An individual physician has a professional and ethical obligation to his patient just as an attorney has to his client. Like a public defender, an institutional doctor’s responsibilities to a patient may conflict with institutional policies and practices. Moreover, Dr. Gray was fulfilling the State’s duty to supply medical care to prison inmates; similarly, the public defender is dedicated to satisfying the State’s obligation to provide representation to indigent defendants. Finally, like respondent, who had no say in the selection of Shepard as his attorney, inmate Gamble had no role in the choice of Gray as his doctor. The Gamble Court did not find that color of state law evaporated in the face of a professional’s independent ethical obligations. I cannot see why this case is different.

As is demonstrated by the pervasive involvement of the county in the operations of the Offender Advocate’s Office, *332the Court, in my view, unduly minimizes the influence that the government actually has over the public defender. The public defender is not merely paid by the county; he is totally dependent financially on the County Board of Supervisors, which fixes the compensation for the public defender and his staff and provides the office with equipment and supplies. See Iowa Code §§336A.5, 336A.9 (1981).

The Board likewise is statutorily empowered to determine “indigency” and to prescribe the number of assistant attorneys and other staff members considered necessary for the public defender. See §§336A.4, 336A.5. The county’s control over the size of and funding for the public defender’s office, as well as over the number of potential clients, effectively dictates the size of an individual attorney’s caseload and influences substantially the amount of time the attorney is able to devote to each case. The public defender’s discretion in handling individual cases — and therefore his ability to provide effective assistance to his clients — is circumscribed to an extent not experienced by privately retained attorneys. See, e. g., Robinson v. Bergstrom, 579 F. 2d 401, 402-403 (CA7 1978) (public defender delayed five and one-half years in filing appellate brief because of “an error in his judgment regarding his caseload,” which was 600 to 900 cases per year). Similarly, authority over the appointment of the public defender and his staff, see Iowa Code §§336A.3, 336A.5 (1981), gives the State substantial influence over the quality of the representation indigents receive.

In addition, the public defender is directed to file an annual report with the judges of the district court of any county he serves, the State’s Attorney General, and each county’s Board of Supervisors, setting forth in detail all cases handled by the defender’s office during the preceding year. §336A. 8. This requirement suggests that the government has some supervisory control over the public defender’s office, or at least that the public defender will be wary of antagonizing the officials to whom he must report, and to *333whom he owes his appointment and the very existence of the office. See §§336A.3, 336A.1. And surely the public defender’s staff must conform to whatever policies and regulations the office or the State imposes, including those aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of representation. In this case, for example, while the county may not have directed petitioner Shepard to withdraw from respondent’s case,3 it certainly could have established general guidelines describing the factors a public defender should consider in determining which appeals are frivolous and the proper treatment of such appeals.4

On the basis of the Court’s opinion in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976), and the county’s pervasive involvement with the Offender Advocate’s Office in this case, I necessarily conclude that the presumption that a state employee acts *334under color of state law when exercising his official duties is not overridden by the public defender’s ethical obligations to his client.5

II

Although holding that petitioner Shepard may not be held liable under § 1983 for withdrawing from respondent’s appeal, the Court limits its ruling to cases where the public defender performs “a lawyer’s traditional functions as counsel to a defendant in a criminal proceeding.” Ante, at 325. The Court appears to concede that a public defender may act under color of state law when performing unspecified administrative and investigative functions, or even when acting as an advocate — if his conduct is “nontraditional,” or if the plaintiff pleads and proves that the State influenced the attorney’s representation. See ante, at 325, and n. 19, and 322. These attempts to draw distinctions based on function are unconvincing.

*335The Court never before has held that a government employee acts under color of state law while performing some of his official duties but not while performing others. The Court drew no such distinctions in Estelle v. Gamble, supra, although it could have adopted the Court’s approach today and held that an institutional physician acts under color of state law when acting in his custodial and administrative roles, but not when treating a patient. I can only conclude that the Court creates this artificial distinction in order to avoid a conflict with Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507 (1980), where the Court did not pause to question whether the defendant-public defender acted under color of state law.

Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976), cited by the Court, ante, at 325, does not support such line-drawing. Based on policy considerations that are inapplicable here, see n. 8, infra, the Court held in Imbler that the prosecutor enjoys absolute immunity for actions taken in his role as an advocate. The Court refused to decide, however, whether the same policies require immunity for prosecutors acting in their administrative or investigative roles. Not only did the Imbler Court therefore fail to endorse the functional test adopted here, but it pointed to the difficulties it foresaw in implementing such a test. See 424 U. S., at 431, n. 33.

*336Moreover, the question of immunity — what type of affirmative defense is to be afforded a state official sued under § 1983 — is completely different from the issue whether an employee acts under color of state law — a determination that goes to a federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over a complaint. If a defendant does not act under color of state law, a federal court has no power to entertain a § 1983 complaint against him. The immunity doctrine, which is based on common-law traditions and policy considerations, is a defense that must be pleaded and is not relevant to a court’s power to consider the case. Even officials protected by absolute immunity act under color of state law, and Imbler did not indicate to the contrary; in fact, absolute immunity protects a prosecutor from § 1983 liability only as long as his actions are within the scope of the immunity. See Imbler, 424 U. S., at 419, n. 13. The Court nowhere suggested in Imbler that the functional test could properly be used in any other context.

The Court also disclaims any intent to disturb cases in which public defenders have been prosecuted under the criminal counterpart of §1983, 18 U. S. C. §242, for extorting payment from clients’ friends or relatives, ante, at 325, n. 19, citing United States v. Senak, 477 F. 2d 304 (CA7), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 856 (1973), apparently because the Court does not consider such conduct a “traditional” function of an attorney.6 Yet the Court of Appeals’ holding in Senak that the attorney acted under color of law is inconsistent with the *337Court’s line-drawing here.7 As the final loophole, the Court apparently leaves open the possibility that an indigent defendant could plead and prove that the State so influenced the public defender assigned to his case as to make the public defender liable under § 1983. See ante, at 322. What type of state intervention is sufficient, and how a plaintiff is supposed to allege such facts before discovery, are not specified.

In essence, the Court appears to be holding a public defender exempt from § 1983 liability only when the alleged injury is ineffective assistance of counsel. Not only is it disturbing to see the Court adopt a hierarchy of constitutional rights for purposes of § 1983 actions, but such an approach will be extremely difficult to implement. I envision the Court’s functional analysis as having one of two results— both, in my view, unfortunate. If the federal courts in effect adopt a per se rule and dismiss all § 1983 complaints against public defenders, the most egregious behavior by a public defender, even if unquestionably the result of pressures by the State, will not be cognizable under § 1983. Alternatively, the courts may attempt diligently to implement the Court’s ruling and dismiss only those § 1983 claims based on the public defender’s “traditional” functions as an advocate. The outcome then, I fear, will be lengthy and involved hearings on the merits to determine whether the court has subject-matter jurisdiction — the very result the Court wishes to avoid.

hH I — I

I am sympathetic with the Court’s desire to protect public defenders, who represent indigent defendants in good faith, from a §1983 suit by every dissatisfied client. But the Court’s concern for public defender programs — and its seeming hostility to the merits of respondent’s claims, see ante, at 323-324, and n. 17 — do not justify the approach taken by the *338Court today. To recognize that public defenders act under color of state law would not transform every legal malpractice into a constitutional violation. Cf. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S., at 106-106. Presumably, some immunity would be provided public defenders sued under § 1983.8 The Court always has seen fit before to rely on immunity and the procedures available for dismissing meritless complaints in order to protect state officials. See, e. g., Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 507-508 (1978); cf. Ferri v. Ackerman, 444 U. S. 193, 200, n. 17 (1979). I would do the same here.

I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Justice Clark

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this action for declaratory and injunctive relief it is admitted that the Eagle Coffee Shoppe, Inc., a restaurant located within an off-street automobile parking building in Wilmington, Delaware, has refused to serve appellant food or drink solely because he is a Negro. The parking building is owned and operated by the Wilmington Parking Authority, an agency of the State of Delaware, and the restaurant is the Authority’s lessee. Appellant claims that such refusal abridges his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of Delaware has held that Eagle was acting in “a purely private capacity” under its lease; that its action was not that of the Authority and was not, therefore, state action within the contemplation of the prohibitions contained in that Amendment. It also held that under 24 Del. Code, *717§ 1501,1 Eagle was a restaurant, not an inn, and that as such it “is not required [under Delaware law] to serve any and all persons entering its place of business.” - Del. -, -, 157 A. 2d 894, 902 (1960). On appeal here from the judgment as having been based upon a statute construed unconstitutionally, we postponed consideration of the question of jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2) to the hearing on the merits. 364 U. S. 810. We agree with the respondents that the appeal should be dismissed and accordingly the motion to dismiss is granted. However, since the action of Eagle in excluding appellant raises an important constitutional question, the papers whereon the appeal was taken are treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari, 28 U. S. C. § 2103, and the writ is granted. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3). On the merits we have concluded that the exclusion of appellant under the circumstances shown to be present here was discriminatory state action in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Authority was created by the City of Wilmington pursuant to 22 Del. Code, §§ 501-515. It is “a public body corporate and politic, exercising public powers of the State as an agency thereof.” § 504. Its statutory purpose is to provide adequate parking facilities for the convenience of the public and thereby relieve the “parking crisis, which threatens the welfare of the community . . . .” § 501 (7), (8) and (9). To this end the *718Authority is granted wide powers including that of constructing or acquiring by lease, purchase or condemnation, lands and facilities, and that of leasing “portions of any of its garage buildings or structures for commercial use by the lessee, where, in the opinion of the Authority, such leasing is necessary and feasible for the financing and operation of such facilities.” § 504 (a). The Act provides that the rates and charges for its facilities must be reasonable and are to be determined exclusively by the Authority “for the purposes of providing for the payment of the expenses of the Authority, the construction, improvement, repair, maintenance, and operation of its facilities and properties, the payment of the principal of and interest on its obligations, and to fulfill the terms and provisions of any agreements made with the purchasers or holders of any such obligations or with the city.” § 504 (b)(8). The Authority has no power to pledge the credit of the State of Delaware but may issue its own revenue bonds which are tax exempt. Any and all property owned or used by the Authority is likewise exempt from state taxation.

The first project undertaken by the Authority was the erection of a parking facility on Ninth Street in downtown Wilmington. The tract consisted of four parcels, all of which were acquired by negotiated purchases from private owners. Three were paid for in cash, borrowed from Equitable Security Trust Company, and the fourth, purchased from Diamond Ice and Coal Company, was paid for “partly in Revenue Bonds of the Authority and partly in cash [$934,000] donated by the City of Wilmington, pursuant to 22 Del. C. c. 5 . . . . Subsequently, the City of Wilmington gave the Authority $1,822,827.69 which sum the Authority applied to the redemption of the Revenue Bonds delivered to Diamond Ice & Coal Co. and to the repayment of the Equitable Security Trust Company loan.”

*719Before it began actual construction of the facility, the Authority was advised by its retained experts that the anticipated revenue from the parking of cars and proceeds from sale of its bonds would not be sufficient to finance the construction costs of the facility. Moreover, the bonds were not expected to be marketable if payable solely out of parking revenues. To secure additional capital needed for its “debt-service” requirements, and thereby to make bond financing practicable, the Authority decided it was necessary to enter long-term leases with responsible tenants for commercial use of some of the space available in the projected “garage -building.” The public was invited to bid for these leases.

In April 1957 such a private lease, for 20 years and renewable for another 10 years, was made with Eagle Coffee Shoppe, Inc., for use as a “restaurant, dining room, banquet hall, cocktail lounge and bar and for no other use and purpose.” The multi-level space of the building which was let to Eagle, although “within the exterior walls of the structure, has no marked public entrance leading from the parking portion of the facility into the restaurant proper . . . [whose main entrance] is located on Ninth Street.” -Del., at -, 157 A. 2d, at 899. In its lease the Authority covenanted to complete construction expeditiously, including completion of “the decorative finishing of the leased premises and utilities therefor, without cost to Lessee,” including necessary utility connections, toilets, hung acoustical tile and plaster ceilings; vinyl asbestos, ceramic tile and concrete floors; connecting stairs and wrought iron railings; and wood-floored show windows. Eagle spent some $220,000 to make the space suitable for its operation and, to the extent such improvements were so attached to realty as to become part thereof, Eagle to the same extent enjoys the Authority’s tax exemption.

*720The Authority further agreed to furnish heat for Eagle’s premises, gas service for the boiler room, and to make, at its own expense, all necessary structural repairs, all repairs to exterior surfaces except store fronts and any repairs caused by lessee’s own'act or neglect. The Authority retained the right to place any directional signs on the exterior of the let space which would not interfere with or obscure Eagle’s display signs. Agreeing to pay an annual rental of $28,700, Eagle covenanted to “occupy and use the leased premises in accordance with all applicable laws, statutes, ordinances and rules and regulations of any federal, state or municipal authority.” Its lease, however, contains no requirement that its restaurant services be made available to the general public on a nondis-crimiiiatory basis, in spite of the fact that the Authority has power to adopt rules and regulations respecting the use of its facilities except any as would impair the security of its bondholders. § 511.

Other portions of the structure were leased to other tenants, including a bookstore, a retail jeweler, and a food store. Upon completion of the building, the Authority located at appropriate places thereon official signs indicating the public character of the building, and flew from mastheads on the roof both the state and national flags.

In August 1958 appellant parked his car in the building and walked around to enter the restaurant by its front door on Ninth Street. Having entered and sought service, he was refused it. Thereafter he filed this declaratory judgment action in the Court of Chancery. On motions for summary judgment, based on the pleadings and affidavits, the Chancellor concluded, contrary to the contentions of respondents, that whether in fact the lease was a “device” or was executed in good faith, it would not “serve to insulate the public authority from the force and effect of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 150 A. 2d 197, 198. He found it not necessary, therefore, to pass upon *721the rights of private restaurateurs under state common and statutory law, including 24 Del. Code § 1501. The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed, as we mentioned above, holding that Eagle “in the conduct of its business, is acting in a purely private capacity.” It, therefore, denied appellant’s claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon reaching the application of state law, it held, contrary to appellant’s assertion that Eagle maintained an inn, that Eagle’s operation was “primarily a restaurant and thus subject to the provisions of 24 Del. C. § 1501, which does not compel the operator of a restaurant to give service to all persons seeking such.” — Del., at —, 157 A. 2d, at 902. Delaware’s highest court has thus denied the equal protection claim of the appellant as well as his state-law contention concerning the applicability of § 1501.

On the jurisdictional question, we agree that the judgment of Delaware’s court does not depend for its ultimate support upon a determination of the constitutional validity of a state statute, but rather upon the holding that on the facts Eagle’s racially discriminatory action was exercised in “a purely private capacity” and that it was, therefore, beyond the prohibitive scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), “embedded in our constitutional law” the principle “that the action inhibited by the first section [Equal Protection Clause] of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.” Chief Justice Vinson in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948). It was language in the opinion in the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that phrased the broad test of state responsibility under the Fourteenth Amendment, predicting its consequence upon “State action of every kind . . . which denies . . . *722the equal protection of the laws.” At p. 11. And only two Terms ago, some 75 years later, the same concept of state responsibility was interpreted as necessarily following upon “state participation through any arrangement, management, funds or property.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 4 (1958). It is clear, as it always has been since the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that “Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment,” at p. 11, and that private conduct abridging individual rights does no violence to the Equal Protection Clause unless to some significant extent the State in any of its manifestations has been found to have become involved in it. Because the virtue of the right to equal protection of the laws could lie only in the breadth of its application, its constitutional assurance was reserved in terms whose imprecision was necessary if the right were to be enjoyed in. the variety of individual-state relationships which the Amendment was designed to embrace. For the same reason, to fashion and apply a precise formula for recognition of state responsibility under the Equal Protection Clause is an “impossible task” which “This Court has never attempted.” Kotch v. Pilot Comm’rs, 330 U. S. 552, 556. Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.

The trial court’s disposal of the issues on summary judgment has resulted in a rather incomplete record, but the opinion of the Supreme Court as well as that of the Chancellor presents the facts in sufficient detail for us to determine the degree of state participation in Eagle’s refusal to serve petitioner. In this connection the Delaware Supreme Court seems to have placed controlling emphasis on its conclusion, as to the accuracy of which there is doubt, that only some 15% of the total cost of' the facility was “advanced” from public funds; that *723the cost of the entire facility was allocated three-fifths to the space for commercial leasing and two-fifths to parking space; that anticipated revenue from parking was only some 30.5% of the total income, the balance of which was expected to be earned by the leasing; that the Authority had no original intent to place a restaurant in the building, it being only a happenstance resulting from the bidding; that Eagle expended considerable moneys on furnishings; that the restaurant’s main and marked public entrance is on Ninth Street without any public entrance direct from the parking area; and that “the only connection Eagle has with the public facility ... is the furnishing of the sum of $28,700 annually in the form of rent which is used by the Authority to defray a portion of the operating expense of an otherwise unprofitable enterprise.” - Del. -, -, 157 A. 2d 894, 901. While these factual considerations are indeed validly accountable aspects of the enterprise upon which the State has embarked, we cannot say that they lead inescapably to the conclusion that state action is not present. Their persuasiveness is diminished when evaluated in the context of other factors which must be acknowledged.

The land and building were publicly owned. As an entity, the building was dedicated to “public uses” in performance of the Authority’s “essential governmental functions.” 22 Del. Code, §§ 501, 514. The costs of land acquisition, construction, and maintenance are defrayed entirely from donations by the City of Wilmington, from loans and revenue bonds and from the proceeds of rentals and parking services out of which the loans and bonds were payable. Assuming that the distinction would be significant, cf. Derrington v. Plummer, 240 F. 2d 922, 925, the commercially leased areas were not surplus state property, but constituted a physically and financially integral and, indeed, indispensable part of the State’s *724plan to operate its project as a self-sustaining unit. Upkeep and maintenance of the building, including necessary repairs, were responsibilities of the Authority and were payable out of public funds. It cannot be doubted that the peculiar relationship of the restaurant to the parking facility in which it is located confers on each an incidental variety of mutual benefits. Guests of the restaurant are afforded a convenient place to park their automobiles, even if they cannot enter the restaurant directly from the parking area. Similarly, its convenience for diners may well provide additional demand for the Authority’s parking facilities. Should any improvements effected in the leasehold by Eagle become part of the realty, there is no possibility of increased taxes being passed on to it since the fee is held by a tax-exempt government agency. Neither can it be ignored, especially in view of Eagle’s affirmative allegation that, for it to serve Negroes would injure its business, that profits earned by discrimination not only contribute to, but also are indispensable elements in, the financial success of a governmental agency.

Addition of all these activities, obligations and responsibilities of the Authority, the benefits mutually conferred, together with the obvious fact that the restaurant is operated as an integral part of a public building devoted to a public parking service, indicates that degree of state participation and involvement in discriminatory action which it was the design of the Fourteenth Amendment to condemn. It is irony amounting to grave injustice that in one part of a single building, erected and maintained with public funds by an agency of the State to serve a public purpose, all persons have equal rights, while in another portion, also serving the public, a Negro is a second-class citizen, offensive because of his race, without rights and unentitled to service, but at the same time fully enjoys equal access to nearby restaurants in ydiolly *725privately owned buildings. As the Chancellor pointed out, in its lease with Eagle the Authority could have affirmatively required Eagle to discharge the responsibilities under the Fourteenth Amendment imposed upon the private enterprise as a consequence of state participation. But no State may effectively abdicate its responsibilities by either ignoring them or by merely failing to discharge them whatever the motive may be. It is of no consolation to an individual denied the equal protection of the laws that it was done in good faith. Certainly the conclusions drawn in similar cases by the various Courts of Appeals do not depend upon such a distinction.2 By its' inaction, the Authority, and through it the State, has not only made itself a party to the refusal of service, but has elected to place its power, property and prestige behind the admitted discrimination. The State has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with Eagle that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so “purely private” as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because readily applicable formulae may not be fashioned, the conclusions drawn from the facts and circumstances of this record are by no means declared as universal truths on the basis of which every state leasing agreement is to be tested. Owing to the very “largeness” *726of government, a multitude of relationships might appear to some to fall within the Amendment’s embrace,-but that, it must be remembered, can be determined only in the framework of the peculiar facts or circumstances present. Therefore respondents’ prophecy of nigh universal application of a constitutional precept so peculiarly dependent for its invocation upon appropriate facts fails to take into account "Differences in circumstances [which] beget appropriate differences in law,” Whitney v. Tax Comm’n, 309 U. S. 530, 542. Specifically defining the limits of our inquiry, what we hold today is that when a State leases public property in the manner and for the purpose shown to have been the case here, the proscriptions of the Fourteenth Amendment must be complied with by the lessee as certainly as though they were binding covenants written into the agreement itself.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Delaware is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice Stewart,

concurring.

I agree that the judgment must be reversed, but I reach that conclusion by a route much more direct than the one traveled by the Court. In upholding Eagle’s right to deny service to the appellant solely because of his race, the Supreme Court of Delaware relied upon a statute of that State which permits the proprietor of a restaurant to refuse to serve “persons whose reception or entertainment by him would be offensive to the major part of his customers . . . .” * There is no suggestion in the record that the appellant as an individual was such a person. The highest court of Delaware has thus construed this *727legislative enactment as authorizing discriminatory classification based exclusively on color. Such a law seems to me clearly violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. I think, therefore, that the appeal was properly taken, and that the statute, as authoritatively construed by the Supreme Court of Delaware, is constitutionally invalid.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

dissenting.

According to my brother Stewart, the Supreme Court of Delaware has held that one of its statutes, 24 Del. Code, § 1501, sanctions a restaurateur denying service to a person solely because of his color. If my brother is correct in so reading the decision of the Delaware Supreme Court, his conclusion inevitably follows. For a State to place its authority behind discriminatory treatment based solely on color is indubitably a denial by á State of the equal protection of the laws, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. My brother Harlan also would find the claim of invalidity of the statute decisive if he could read the state court's construction of it as our brother Stewart reads it. But for him the state court’s view of its statute is so ambiguous that he deems it necessary to secure a clarification from the state court of how in fact it did construe the statute.

I certainly do not find the clarity that my brother Stewart finds in the views expressed by the Supreme Court of Delaware regarding 24 Del. Code, § 1501. If I were forced to construe that court’s construction, I should find the balance of considerations leading to the opposite conclusion from his, namely, that it was merely declaratory of the common law and did not give state sanction to refusing service to a person merely because he .is colored. The Court takes no position regarding the statutory meaning which divides my brothers Harlan and Stewart. Clearly it does not take Mr. Justice Stewart’s view of what the Supreme Court of Delaware decided. *728If it did, it would undoubtedly take his easy route to decision and not reach the same result by its much more circuitous route.

Since the pronouncement of the Supreme Court of Delaware thus lends itself to three views, none of which is patently irrational, why is not my brother Harlan’s suggestion for solving this conflict the most appropriate solution? Were we to be duly advised by the Supreme Court of Delaware that Mr. Justice Stewart is correct in his reading of what it said, there would be an easy end to our problem. There would be no need for resolving the problems in state-federal relations with which the Court’s opinion deals. If, on the other hand, the Delaware court did not mean to give such an invalidating construction to its statute, we would be confronted with the problems which the Court now entertains for decision, unembarrassed by disregard of a simpler issue. This would involve some delay in adjudication. But the time would be well spent, because the Court would not be deciding serious questions of constitutional law any earlier than due regard for the appropriate process of constitutional adjudication requires.

Accordingly, I join in Mr. Justice Harlan’s proposed disposition of the case without intimating any view regarding the question, prematurely considered by the Court, as to what constitutes state action.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

dissenting.

The Court’s opinion, by a process of first undiscrimi-natingly throwing together various factual bits and pieces and then undermining the resulting structure by an equally vague disclaimer, seems to me to leave completely at sea just what it is in this record that satisfies the requirement of “state action.”

*729I find it unnecessary, however, to inquire into the matter at this stage, for it seems to me apparent that before passing on the far-reaching constitutional questions that may; or may not, be lurking in this judgment, the case should first be sent back to the state court for clarification as to the precise basis of its decision. In deciding this case the Delaware Supreme Court, among other things, said:

“It [Eagle] acts as a restaurant keeper and, as such, is not required to serve any and all persons entering its place of business, any more than the operator of a bookstore, barber shop, or other retail business is required to sell its product to every one. This is the common law, and the law of Delaware as restated in 24 Del. C. § 1501 with respect to restaurant keepers. 10 Am. Jur., Civil Rights, §§ 21,22; 52 Am. Jur., Theatres, § 9; Williams v. Howard Johnson’s Restaurant, 4 cir., 268 F. 2d 845. We, accordingly, hold that the operation of its restaurant by Eagle does not fall within the scope of the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment.” * - Del. -, -, 157 A. 2d 894, 902.

If in the context of this record this means, as my Brother Stewart suggests, that the Delaware court construed this state statute “as authorizing discriminatory classification based exclusively on color,” I would certainly agree, without more, that the enactment is offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment. It would then be quite *730unnecessary to reach the much broader questions dealt with in the Court’s opinion. If, on the other hand, the state court meant no more than that under the statute, as at common law, Eagle was free to serve only those whom it pleased, then, and only then, would the question of “state action” be presented in full-blown form.

I think that sound principles of constitutional adjudication dictate that we should first ascertain the exact basis of this state judgment, and for that purpose I would either remand the case to the Delaware Supreme Court, see Musser v. Utah, 333 U. S. 95; cf. Harrison v.N. A. A. C. P., 360 U. S. 167, or hold the case pending application to the state court for clarification. See Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117. It seems to me both unnecessary and unwise to reach issues of such broad constitutional significance as those now decided by the Court, before the necessity for deciding them has become apparent.

Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The issue is whether a statewide association incorporated to regulate interscholastic athletic competition among public and private secondary schools may be regarded as engaging in state action when it enforces a rule against a member school. The association in question here includes most public schools located within the State, acts through their representatives, draws its officers from them, is largely funded *291by their dues and income received in their stead, and has historically been seen to regulate in lieu of the State Board of Education’s exercise of its own authority. We hold that the association’s regulatory activity may and should be treated as state action owing to the pervasive entwinement of state school officials in the structure of the association, there being no offsetting reason to see the association’s acts in any other way.

I

Respondent Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (Association) is a not-for-profit membership corporation organized to regulate interscholastic sport among the public and private high schools in Tennessee that belong to it. No school is forced to join, but without any other authority actually regulating interscholastic athletics, it enjoys the memberships of almost all the State’s public high schools (some 290 of them or 84% of the Association’s voting membership), far outnumbering the 55 private schools that belong. A member school’s team may play or scrimmage only against the team of another member, absent a dispensation.

The Association’s rulemaking arm is its legislative council, while its board of control tends to administration. The voting membership of each of these nine-person committees is limited under the Association’s bylaws to high school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents elected by the member schools, and the public school administrators who so serve typically attend meetings during regular school hours. Although the Association’s staff members are not paid by the State, they are eligible to join the State’s public retirement system for its employees. Member schools pay dues to the Association, though the bulk of its revenue is gate receipts at member teams’ football and basketball tournaments, many of them held in public arenas rented by the Association.

The constitution, bylaws, and rules of the Association set standards of school membership and the eligibility of students to play in interscholastic games. Each school, for *292example, is regulated in awarding financial aid, most coaches must have a Tennessee state teaching license, and players must meet minimum academic standards and hew to limits on student employment. Under the bylaws, “in all matters pertaining to the athletic relations of his school,” App. 138, the principal is responsible to the Association, which has the power “to suspend, to fine, or otherwise penalize any member school for the violation of any of the rules of the Association or for other just cause,” id., at 100.

Ever since the Association was incorporated in 1925, Tennessee’s State Board of Education (State Board) has (to use its own words) acknowledged the corporation’s functions “in providing standards, rules and regulations for interscholastic competition in the public schools of Tennessee,” id., at 211. More recently, the State Board cited its statutory authority, Tenn. Code Ann. §49-1-302 (1996) (App. 220), when it adopted language expressing the relationship between the Association and the State Board. Specifically, in 1972, it went so far as to adopt a rule expressly “designat[ing]” the Association as “the organization to supervise and regulate the athletic activities in which the public junior and senior high schools in Tennessee participate on an interscholastic basis.” Tennessee State Board of Education, Administrative Rules and Regulations, Rule 0520-1-2-.26 (1972) (later moved to Rule 0520-1-2-.Q8). The Rule provided that “the authority granted herein shall remain in effect until revoked” and instructed the State Board’s chairman to “designate a person or persons to serve in an ex-officio capacity on the [Association’s governing bodies].” App. 211. That same year, the State Board specifically approved the Association’s rules and regulations, while reserving the right to review future changes. Thus, on several occasions over the next 20 years, the State Board reviewed, approved, or reaffirmed its approval of the recruiting Rule at issue in this case. In 1996, however, the State Board dropped the original Rule 0520-1-2-.08 expressly designating the Association *293as regulator; it substituted a statement “recognizing] the value of participation in interscholastic athletics and the role of [the Association] in coordinating interscholastic athletic competition,” while “authorizing] the public schools of the state to voluntarily maintain membership in [the Association].” Id., at 220.

The action before us responds to a 1997 regulatory enforcement proceeding brought against petitioner, Brentwood Academy, a private parochial high school member of the Association. The Association’s board of control found that Brentwood violated a rule prohibiting “undue influence” in recruiting athletes, when it wrote to incoming students and their parents about spring football practice. The Association accordingly placed Brentwood’s athletic program on probation for four years, declared its football and boys’ basketball teams ineligible to compete in playoffs for two years, and imposed a $3,000 fine. When these penalties were imposed, all the voting members of the board of control and legislative council were public school administrators.

Brentwood sued the Association and its executive director in federal court under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, claiming that enforcement of the Rule was state action and a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court entered summary judgment for Brentwood and enjoined the Association from enforcing the Rule. 13 F. Supp. 2d 670 (MD Tenn. 1998). In holding the Association to be a state actor under § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment, the District Court found that the State had delegated authority over high school athletics to the Association, characterized the relationship between the Association and its public school members as symbiotic, and emphasized the predominantly public character of the Association’s membership and leadership. The court relied on language in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 193, n. 13 (1988), suggesting that statewide interscholastic athletic associations are state actors, and on other federal eases *294in which such organizations had uniformly been held to be acting under color of state law.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. 180 F.3d 758 (1999). It recognized that there is no single test to identify state actions and state actors but applied three criteria derived from Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991 (1982), Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922 (1982), and Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982), and found no state action under any of them. It said the District Court was mistaken in seeing a symbiotic relationship between the State and the Association, it emphasized that the Association was neither engaging in a traditional and exclusive public function nor responding to state compulsion, and it gave short shrift to the language from Tarkanian on which the District Court relied. Rehearing en banc was later denied over the dissent of two judges, who criticized the panel decision for creating a conflict among state and federal courts, for being inconsistent with Tarkanian, and for lacking support in the “functional” analysis of private activity required by West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42 (1988), for assessing the significance of cooperation between public officials and a private actor. 190 F. 3d 705 (CA6 1999) (Merritt, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 1153 (2000), to resolve the conflict1 and now reverse.

*295II

A

Our cases try to plot a line between state action subject (however exceptionable) that is not. Tarkanian, supra, at 191; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 349 (1974). The judicial obligation is not only to “ ‘presence] an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law’ and avoi[d] the imposition of responsibility on a State for conduct it could not control,” Tarkanian, supra, at 191 (quoting Lugar, supra, at 936-937), but also to assure that constitutional standards are invoked “when it can be said that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains,” Blum, supra, at 1004 (emphasis in original). If the Fourteenth Amendment is not to be displaced, therefore, its ambit cannot be a simple line between States and people operating outside formally governmental organizations, and the deed of an ostensibly private organization or individual is to be treated sometimes as if a State had caused it to be performed. Thus, we say that state action may be found if, though only if, there is such a “close nexus between the State and the challenged action” that seemingly private behavior “may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.” Jackson, supra, at 351.2

What is fairly attributable is a matter of normative judgment, and the criteria lack rigid simplicity. From the range of circumstances that could point toward the State behind an individual face, no one fact can function as a necessary condition across the board for finding state action; nor is any set of circumstances absolutely sufficient, for there may be some *296countervailing reason against attributing activity to the government. See Tarkanian, 488 U. S., at 198, 196; Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981).

Our cases have identified a host of facts that can bear on the fairness of such an attribution. We have, for example, held that a challenged activity may be state action when it results from the State’s exercise of “coercive power,” Blum, 457 U. S., at 1004, when the State provides “significant encouragement, either overt or covert,” ibid., or when a private actor operates as a “willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents,” Lugar, supra, at 941 (internal quotation marks omitted). We have treated a nominally private entity as a state actor when it is controlled by an “agency of the State,” Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, 353 U. S. 230, 231 (1957) (per curiam), when it has been delegated a public function by the State, cf., e. g., West v. Atkins, supra, at 56; Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 627-628 (1991), when it is “entwined with governmental policies,” or when government is “entwined in [its] management or control,” Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 299, 301 (1966).

Amidst such variety, examples may be the best teachers, and examples from our cases are unequivocal in showing that the character of a legal entity is determined neither by its expressly private characterization in statutory law, nor by the failure of the law to acknowledge the entity’s inseparability from recognized government officials.or agencies. Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374 (1995), held that Amtrak was the Government for constitutional purposes, regardless of its congressional designation as private; it was organized under federal law to attain governmental objectives and was directed and controlled by federal appointees. Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra, held the privately endowed Girard College to be a state actor and enforcement of its private founder’s limitation of admission *297to whites attributable to the State, because, consistent with the terms of the settlor’s gift, the college’s board of directors was a state agency established by state law. Ostensibly the converse situation occurred in Evans v. Newton, supra, which held that private trustees to whom a city had transferred a park were nonetheless state actors barred from enforcing racial segregation, since the park served the public purpose of providing community recreation, and “the municipality remained] entwined in [its] management [and] control,” id., at 301.

These examples of public entwinement in the management and control of ostensibly separate trusts or corporations foreshadow this case, as this Court itself anticipated in Tarkanian. Tarkanian arose when an undoubtedly state actor, the University of Nevada, suspended its basketball coach, Tarkanian, in order to comply with rules and recommendations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The coach charged the NCAA with state action, arguing that the state university had delegated its own functions to the NCAA, clothing the latter with authority to make and apply the university’s rules, the result being joint action making the NCAA a state actor.

To be sure, it is not the strict holding in Tarkanian that points to our view of this case, for we found no state action on the part of the NCAA. We could see, on the one hand, that the university had some part in setting the NCAA’s rules, and the Supreme Court of Nevada had gone so far as to hold that the NCAA had been delegated the university’s traditionally exclusive public authority over personnel. 488 U. S., at 190. But on the other side, the NCAA’s policies were shaped not by the University of Nevada alone, but by several hundred member institutions, most of them having no connection with Nevada, and exhibiting no color of Nevada law. Id., at 193. Since it was difficult to see the NCAA, not as a collective membership, but as surrogate for the one State, we held the organization’s connection with Ne*298vada too insubstantial to ground a state-action claim. Id., at 193, 196.

But dictum in Tarkanian pointed to a contrary result on facts like ours, with an organization whose member public schools are all within a single State. “The situation would, of course, be different if the [Association’s] membership consisted entirely of institutions located within the same State, many of them public institutions created by the same sovereign.” Id., at 193, n. 13. To support our surmise, we approvingly cited two cases: Clark v. Arizona Interscholastic Assn., 695 F. 2d 1126 (CA9.1982), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 818 (1983), a challenge to a state high school athletic association that kept boys from playing on girls’ interscholastic volleyball teams in Arizona; and Louisiana High School Athletic Assn. v. St. Augustine High School, 396 F. 2d 224 (CA5 1968), a parochial school’s attack on the racially segregated system of interscholastic high school athletics maintained by the athletic association. In each instance, the Court of Appeals treated the athletic association as a state actor.

B

Just as we foresaw in Tarkanian, the “necessarily fact-bound inquiry,” Lugar, 457 U. S., at 939, leads to the conclusion of state action here. The nominally private character of the Association is overborne by the pervasive entwinement of public institutions and public officials in its composition and workings, and there is no substantial reason to claim unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it.

The Association is not an organization of natural persons acting on their own, but of schools, and of public schools to the extent of 84% of the total. Under the Association’s bylaws, each member school is represented by its principal or a faculty member, who has a vote in selecting members of the governing legislative council and board of control from eligible principals, assistant principals, and superintendents.

*299Although the findings and prior opinions in this case include no express conclusion of law that public school officials act within the scope of their duties when they represent their institutions, no other view would be rational, the official nature of their involvement being shown in any number of ways. Interscholastic athletics obviously play an integral part in the public education of Tennessee, where nearly every public high school spends money on competitions among schools. Since a pickup system of interscholastic games would not do, these public teams need some mechanism to produce rules and regulate competition. The mechanism is an organization overwhelmingly composed of public school officials who select representatives (all of them public officials at the time in question here), who in turn adopt and enforce the rules that make the system work. Thus, by giving these jobs to the Association, the 290 public schools of Tennessee belonging to it can sensibly be seen as exercising their own authority to meet their own responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, then, the record indicates that half the council or board meetings documented here were held during official school hours, and that public schools have largely provided for the Association’s financial support. A small portion of the Association’s revenue comes from membership dues paid by the schools, and the principal part from gate receipts at tournaments among the member schools. Unlike mere public buyers of contract services, whose payments for services rendered do not convert the service providers into public actors, see Rendell-Baker, 457 U. S., at 839-843, the schools here obtain membership in the service organization and give up sources of their own income to their collective association. The Association thus exercises the authority of the predominantly public schools to charge for admission to their games; the Association does not receive this money from the schools, but enjoys the schools’ moneymaking capacity as its own.

In sum, to the extent of 84% of its membership, the Association is an organization of public schools represented by their *300officials acting in their official capacity to provide an integral element of secondary public schooling. There would be no recognizable Association, legal or tangible, without the public school officials, who do not merely control but overwhelmingly perform all but the purely ministerial acts by which the Association exists and functions in practical terms. Only the 16% minority of private school memberships prevents this entwinement of the Association and the public school system from being total and their identities totally indistinguishable.

To complement the entwinement of public school officials with the Association from the bottom up, the State of Tennessee has provided for entwinement from top down. State Board members are assigned ex officio to serve as members of the board of control and legislative council, and the Association’s ministerial employees are treated as state employees to the extent of being eligible for membership in the state retirement system.

It is, of course, true that the time is long past when the close relationship between the surrogate association and its public members and public officials acting as such was attested frankly. As mentioned, the terms of the State Board’s Rule expressly designating the Association as regulator of interscholastic athletics in public schools were de-; leted in 1996, the year after a Federal District Court held that the Association was a state actor because its rules were “caused, directed and controlled by the Tennessee Board of Education,” Graham v. TSSAA, No. 1:96-CV-044,1995 WL 115890, *5 (ED Tenn., Feb. 20, 1995).3

*301But the removal of the designation language from Rule 0520-1-2-.08 affected nothing but words. Today the State Board’s member-designees continue to sit on the Association’s committees as nonvoting members, and the State continues to welcome Association employees in its retirement scheme. The close relationship is confirmed by the Association’s enforcement of the same preamendment rules and regulations reviewed and approved by the State Board (including the recruiting Rule challenged by Brentwood), and by the State Board’s continued willingness to allow students to satisfy its physical education requirement by taking part in interscholastic athletics sponsored by the Association. The most one can say on the evidence is that the State Board once freely acknowledged the Association’s official character but now does it by winks and nods.4 The amendment to the Rule in 1996 affected candor but not the “momentum” of the Association’s prior involvement with the State Board. Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S., at 301. The District Court spoke to this point in finding that because of “custom and *302practice,” “the conduct of the parties has not materially changed” since 1996, “the connections between TSSAA and the State [being] still pervasive and entwined.” 13 F. Supp. 2d, at 681.

The entwinement down from the State Board is therefore unmistakable, just as the entwinement up from the member public schools is overwhelming. Entwinement will support a conclusion that an ostensibly private organization ought to be charged with a public character and judged by constitutional standards; entwinement to the degree shown here requires it.

C

Entwinement is also the answer to the Association’s several arguments offered to persuade us that the facts would not support a finding of state action under various criteria applied in other cases. These arguments are beside the point, simply because the facts justify a conclusion of state action under the criterion of entwinement, a conclusion in no sense unsettled merely because other criteria of state action may not be satisfied by the same facts.

The Association places great stress, for example, on the application of a public function test, as exemplified in Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982). There, an apparently private school provided education for students whose special needs made it difficult for them to finish high school. The record, however, failed to show any tradition of providing public special education to students unable to cope with a regular school, who had historically been cared for (or ignored) according to private choice. It was true that various public school districts had adopted the practice of referring students to the school and paying their tuition, and no one disputed that providing the instruction aimed at a proper public objective and conferred a public benefit. But we held that the performance of such a public function did not permit a finding of state action on the part of the school unless the function performed was exclusively and tradition*303ally public, as it was not in that case. The Association argues that application of the public function criterion would produce the same result here, and we will assume, arguendo, that it would. But this case does not turn on a public function test, any more than Rendell-Baker had anything to do with entwinement of public officials in the special school.

For the same reason, it avails the Association nothing to stress that the State neither coerced nor encouraged the actions complained of. “Coercion” and “encouragement” are like “entwinement” in referring to kinds of facts that can justify characterizing an ostensibly private action as public instead. Facts that address any of these criteria are significant, but no one criterion must necessarily be applied. When, therefore, the relevant facts show pervasive entwinement to the point of largely overlapping identity, the implication of state action is not affected by pointing out that the facts might not loom large under a different test.

D

This is not to say that all of the Association’s arguments are rendered beside the point by the public officials’ involvement in the Association, for after application of the entwinement criterion, or any other, there is a further potential issue, and the Association raises it. Even facts that suffice to show public action (or, standing alone, would require such a finding) may be outweighed in the name of some value at odds with finding public accountability in the circumstances. In Polk County, 454 U. S., at 322, a defense lawyer’s actions were deemed private even though she was employed by the county and was acting within the scope of her duty as a public defender. Full-time public employment would be conclusive of state action for some purposes, see West v. Atkins, 487 U. S., at 50, accord, Lugar, 457 U. S., at 935, n. 18, but not when the employee is doing a defense lawyer’s primary job; then, the public defender does “not ac[t] on behalf of the State; he is the State’s adversary.” Polk County, supra, at *304323, n. 13. The state-action doctrine does not convert opponents into virtual agents.

The assertion of such a countervailing value is the nub of each of the Association’s two remaining arguments, neither of which, however, persuades us. The Association suggests, first, that reversing the judgment here will somehow trigger an epidemic of unprecedented federal litigation. Brief for Respondents 35. Even if that might be counted as a good reason for a Polk County decision to call the Association’s action private, the record raises no reason for alarm here. Save for the Sixth Circuit, every Court of Appeals to consider a statewide athletic association like the one here has found it a state. actor. This majority view began taking shape even before Tarkanian, which cited two such decisions approvingly, see supra, at 298 (and this was six years after Blum, Rendell-Baker, and Lugar, on which the Sixth Circuit relied here). No one, however, has pointed to any explosion of § 1983 cases against interscholastic athletic associations in the affected jurisdictions. Not to put too fine a point on it, two District Courts in Tennessee have previously held the Association itself to be a state actor, see Graham, 1995 WL 115890, at *5; Crocker v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Assn., 735 F. Supp. 753 (MD Tenn. 1990), affirmance order, 908 F. 2d 972, 973 (CA6 1990), but there is no evident wave of litigation working its way across the State. A reversal of the judgment here portends nothing more than the harmony of an outlying Circuit with precedent otherwise uniform.

Nor do we think there is anything to be said for the Association’s contention that there is no need to treat it as a state actor since any public school applying the Association’s rules is itself subject to suit under § 1983 or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, 20 U. S. C. §§ 1681-1688. Brief for Respondents 30. If Brentwood’s claim were pushing at the edge of the class of possible defendant state actors, an argument about the social utility of expand*305ing that class would at least be on point, but because we are nowhere near the margin in this case, the Association is really asking for nothing less than a dispensation for itself. Its position boils down to saying that the Association should not be dressed in state clothes because other, concededly public actors are; that Brentwood should be kept out of court because a different plaintiff raising a different claim in a different case may find the courthouse open. Pleas for special treatment are hard to sell, although saying that does not, of course, imply anything about the merits of Brentwood’s complaint; the issue here is merely whether Brentwood properly names the Association as a §1983 defendant, not whether it should win on its claim.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas,

with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join, dissenting.

We have never found state action based upon mere “entwinement.” Until today, we have found a private organization’s acts to constitute state action only when the organization performed a public function; was created, coerced, or encouraged by the government; or acted in a symbiotic relationship with the government. The majority’s holding— that the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association’s (TSSAA) enforcement of its recruiting rule is state action— not only extends state-action doctrine beyond its permissible limits but also encroaches upon the realm of individual freedom that the doctrine was meant to protect. I respectfully dissent.

I

Like the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment, the state-action element of 42 U. S. C. § 1988 excludes from its coverage “merely private conduct, however *306discriminatory or wrongful.” American Mfrs. Mut Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U. S. 40, 50 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Careful adherence to the ‘state action’ requirement” thus “preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power.” Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922, 936 (1982). The state-action doctrine also promotes important values of federalism, “avoiding] the imposition of responsibility on a State for conduct it could not control.” National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 191 (1988). Although we have used many different tests to identify state action, they all have a common purpose. Our goal in every case is to determine whether an action “can fairly be attributed to the State.” Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004 (1982); American Mfrs., supra, at 52.

A

Regardless of these various tests for state action, common sense dictates that the TSSAA’s actions cannot fairly be attributed to the State, and thus cannot constitute state action. The TSSAA was formed in 1925 as a private corporation to organize interscholastic athletics and to sponsor tournaments among its member schools. Any private or public secondary school may join the TSSAA by signing a contract agreeing to comply with its rules and decisions. Although public schools currently compose 84% of the TSSAA’s membership, the TSSAA does not require that public schools constitute a set percentage of its membership, and, indeed, no public school need join the TSSAA. The TSSAA’s rules are enforced not by a state agency but by its own board of control, which comprises high school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents, none of whom must work at a public school. Of course, at the time the recruiting rule was enforced in this case, all of the board members happened to be public school officials. However, each board member acts in *307a representative capacity on behalf of all the private and public schools in his region of Tennessee, and not simply his individual school.

The State of Tennessee did not create the TSSAA. The State does not fund the TSSAA and does not pay its employees.1 In fact, only 4% of the TSSAA’s revenue comes from the dues paid by member schools; the bulk of its operating budget is derived from gate receipts at tournaments it sponsors. The State does not permit the TSSAA to use state-owned facilities for a discounted fee, and it does not exempt the TSSAA from state taxation. No Tennessee law authorizes the State to coordinate interscholastic athletics or empowers another entity to organize interscholastic athletics on behalf of the State.2 The only state pronouncement ac*308knowledging the TSSAA’s existence is a rule providing that the State Board of Education permits public schools to maintain membership in the TSSAA if they so choose.3

Moreover, the State of Tennessee has never had any involvement in the particular action taken by the TSSAA in this case: the enforcement of the TSSAA’s recruiting rule prohibiting members from using “undue influence” on students or their parents or guardians “to secure or to retain a student for athletic purposes.” App. 115. There is no indication that the State has ever had any interest in how schools choose to regulate recruiting.4 In fact, the TSSAA’s authority to enforce its recruiting rule arises solely from the voluntary membership contract that each member school signs, agreeing to conduct its athletics in accordance with the rules and decisions of the TSSAA.

B

Even approaching the issue in terms of any of the Court’s specific state-action tests, the conclusion is the same: The TSSAA’s enforcement of its recruiting rule against Brent-wood Academy is not state action. In applying these tests, *309courts of course must place the burden of persuasion on the plaintiff, not the defendant, because state action is an element of a § 1983 claim. American Mfrs., 526 U. S., at 49-50; West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42, 48 (1988).

The TSSAA has not performed a function that has been “traditionally exclusively reserved to the State.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 352 (1974). The organization of interscholastic sports is neither a traditional nor an exclusive public function of the States. Widespread organization and administration of interscholastic contests by schools did not begin until the 20th century. See M. Lee, A History of Physical Education and Sports in the U. S. A. 73 (1983) (explaining that what little interscholastic athletics there was in the 19th century “came almost entirely in the closing decade of the century and was largely pupil inspired, pupil controlled, and pupil coached”); id., at 68, 146 (stating that no control of high school sports occurred until 1896, when a group of teachers in Wisconsin set up a committee to control such contests, and pointing out that “[i]t was several years before the idea caught on in other states”). Certainly, in Tennessee, the State did not even show an interest in interscholastic athletics until 47 years after the TSSAA had been in existence and had been orchestrating athletic contests throughout the State. Even then, the State Board of Education merely acquiesced in the TSSAA’s actions and did not assume the role of regulating interscholastic athletics. Cf. Blum, 457 U. S., at 1004-1005 (“Mere approval of or acquiescence in the initiatives of a private party is not sufficient to justify holding the State responsible for those, initiatives . . .”); see also Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 164-165 (1978). The TSSAA no doubt serves the public, particularly the public schools, but the mere provision of a service to the public does not render such provision a traditional and exclusive public function. See Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, 842 (1982).

*310It is also obvious that the TSSAA is not an entity created and controlled by the government for the purpose of fulfilling a government objective, as was Amtrak in Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 394 (1995). See also Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, 353 U. S. 230 (1957) (per curiam) (holding that a state agency created under state law was a state actor). Indeed, no one claims that the State of Tennessee played any role in the creation of the TSSAA as a private corporation in 1925. The TSSAA was designed to fulfill an objective — the organization of interscholastic athletic tournaments — that the government had not contemplated, much less pursued. And although the board of control currently is composed of public school officials, and although public schools currently account for the majority of the TSSAA’s membership, this is not required by the TSSAA’s constitution.

In addition, the State of Tennessee has not “exercised coercive power or ... provided such significant encouragement [to the TSSAA], either overt or covert,” Blum, 457 U. S., at 1004, that the TSSAA’s regulatory activities must in law be deemed to be those of the State. The State has not promulgated any regulations of interscholastic sports, and nothing in the record suggests that the State has encouraged or coerced the TSSAA in enforcing its recruiting rule. To be sure, public schools do provide a small portion of the TSSAA’s funding through their membership dues, but no one argues that these dues are somehow conditioned on the TSSAA’s enactment and enforcement of recruiting rules.5 *311Likewise, even if the TSSAA were dependent on state funding to the extent of 90%, as was the case in Blum, instead of less than 4%, mere financial dependence on the State does not convert the TSSAAs actions into acts of the State. See Blum, supra, at 1011; Rendell-Baker, supra, at 840; see also Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 173 (1972) (“The Court has never held, of course, that discrimination by an otherwise private entity would be violative of the Equal Protection Clause if the private entity receives any sort of benefit or service at all from the State..Furthermore, there is no evidence of “joint participation,” Lugar, 457 U. S., at 941-942, between the State and the TSSAA in the TSSAAs enforcement of its recruiting rule. The TSSAAs board of control enforces its recruiting rule solely in accordance with the authority granted to it under the contract that each member signs.

Finally, there is no “symbiotic relationship” between the State and the TSSAA. Moose Lodge, supra, at 175; cf. Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961). Contrary to the majority’s assertion, see ante, at 299-300, the TSSAAs “fiscal relationship with the State is not different from that of many contractors performing services for the government.” Rendell-Baker, supra, at 843. The TSSAA provides a service — the organization of athletic tournaments — in exchange for membership dues and gate fees, just as a vendor could contract with public schools to sell refreshments at school events. Certainly the public school could sell its own refreshments, yet the existence of that option does not transform the service performed by the contractor into a state action. Also, there is no suggestion in this case that, as was the case in Burton, the State profits from the TSSAA’s decision to enforce its recruiting rule.

*312Because I do not believe that the TSSAA’s action of enforcing its recruiting rule is fairly attributable to the State of Tennessee, I would affirm.

II

Although the TSSAA’s enforcement activities cannot be considered state action as a matter of common sense or under any of this Court’s existing theories of state action, the majority presents a new theory. Under this theory, the majority holds that the combination of factors it identifies evidences “entwinement” of the State with the TSSAA, and that such entwinement converts private action into state action. Ante, at 296-297. The majority does not define “en-twinement,” and the meaning of the term is not altogether clear. But whatever this new “entwinement” theory may entail, it lacks any support in our state-action jurisprudence. Although the majority asserts that there are three examples of entwinement analysis in our cases, there is no case in which we have rested a finding of state action on entwinement alone.

Two of the cases on which the majority relies do not even use the word “entwinement.” See Lebrón v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, supra; Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra. Lebrón concerned the status of Amtrak, a corporation that Congress created and placed under Government control for the specific purpose of achieving a governmental objective (namely, to avert the threatened extinction of passenger train service in the United States). 513 U. S., at 383, 386. Without discussing any notion of entwinement, we simply held that, when “the Government creates a corporation by special law, for the furtherance of governmental objectives, and retains for itself permanent authority to appoint a majority of the directors of that corporation, the corporation is part of the Government for purposes of the First Amendment.” Id., at 400. Similarly, in *313City Trusts, we did not consider entwinement when we addressed the question whether an agency established by state law was a state actor. See 353 U. S., at 231. In that case, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law creating a board of directors to operate a racially segregated school for orphans. Ibid. Without mentioning “entwinement,” we held that, because the board was a state agency, its actions were attributable to the State. Ibid.

The majority’s third example, Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296 (1966), lends no more support to an “entwinement” theory than do Lebrón and City Trusts. Although Evans at least uses the word “entwined,” 382 U. S., at 299 (“Conduct that is formally ‘private’ may become so entwined with governmental policies or so impregnated with a governmental character as to become subject to the constitutional limitations placed upon state action”), we did not discuss entwinement as a distinct concept, let alone one sufficient to transform a private entity into a state actor when traditional theories of state action do not. On the contrary, our analysis rested on the recognition that the subject of the dispute, a park, served a “public function,” much like a fire department or a police department. Id., at 302. A park, we noted, is a “public facility” that “serves the community.” Id., at 301-302. Even if the city severed all ties to the park and placed its operation in private hands, the park still would be “municipal in nature,” analogous to other public facilities that have given rise to a finding of state action: the streets of a company town in Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946), the elective process in Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953), and the transit system in Public Util. Comm’n of D. C. v. Pollak, 343 U. S. 451 (1952). 382 U. S., at 301-302. Because the park served public functions, the private trustees operating the park were considered to be state actors.6

*314These cases, therefore, cannot support the majority’s “en-twinement” theory. Only Evans speaks of entwinement at all, and it does not do so in the same broad sense as does the majority.7 Moreover, these cases do not suggest that the TSSAA’s activities can be considered state action, whether the label for the state-action theory is “entwinement” or anything else.

* * *

Because the majority never defines “entwinement,” the scope of its holding is unclear. If we are fortunate, the majority’s fact-specific analysis will have little bearing beyond this case. But if the majority’s new entwinement test develops in future years, it could affect many organizations that foster activities, enforce rules, and sponsor extracurricular competition among high schools — not just in athletics, but in such diverse areas as agriculture, mathematics, music, marching bands, forensics, and cheerleading. Indeed, this entwinement test may extend to other organizations that are composed of, or controlled by, public officials or public entities, such as firefighters, policemen, teachers, cities, or coun*315ties. I am not prepared to say that any private organization that permits public entities and public officials to participate acts as the State in anything or everything it does, and our state-action jurisprudence has never reached that far. The state-action doctrine was developed to reach only those actions that are truly attributable to the State, not to subject private citizens to the control of federal courts hearing § 1983 actions.

I respectfully dissent.

Mb. Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion , of the Court.

Appellee Irvis, a Negro (hereafter appellee), was refused service by appellant Moose Lodge, a local branch of the national fraternal organization located in Harrisburg, *165Pennsylvania. Appellee then brought this action under 42 U. S. C; § 1983 for injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. He claimed that because the Pennsylvania liquor board had issued appellant Moose Lodge a private club license that authorized the sale of alcoholic beverages on its premises,, the refusal of service to him was “state action” for the purposes of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He named both Moose Lodge and the Pennsylvania Liquor Authority as defendants, seeking injunctive relief that would have required the defendant liquor board to revoke Moose Lodge’s license so long as it continued its discriminatory practices. Ap-pellee sought no damages.

A three-judge district court, convened at appellee’s, request, upheld- his contention on the merits, and entered a-decree dedarmg-invalid the liquor license issued to Moose Lodge “as long as it follows a policy of racial discrimination in its membership or operating policies or practices.” Moose Lodge alone appealed from the decree, and we postponed decision as to jurisdiction until the hearing on the merits, 401 U. S. 992. Appellant urges, in the alternative, that we either vacate the judgment belowvbecause there is not presently a case or controversy between the parties, or that we reverse on the merits.

I

The District Court in its opinion found that “a Caucasian member in good standing brought plaintiff, a Negro, to the Lodge’s dining room and bar as his guest and requested service of food and beverages. The Lodge through its employees refused service to plaintiff solely because he is a Negro.” 318 F. Supp. 1246,- 1247. It' is undisputed that each local. Moose Lodge is bound by the constitution and general bylaws of *166the Supreme Lodge, the latter of which contain a provision limiting membership in the lodges to white male Caucasians. The District Court in this connection found that “[t]he lodges accordingly maintain a policy and practice of restricting membership to the Caucasian race and permitting members to bring, only Caucasian guests on lodge premises, particularly to the dining room and bar.” Ibid.

The District Court ruled, in favor of appellee oh his Fourteenth Amendment claim, and entered the previously described decree. Following its loss on the merits in the District Court, Moose Lodge moved to modify the final decree by limiting its effect to discriminatory policies with respect to the service of guests. Appellee bpposed the proposed, modification, and the court denied the motion.

The District Court did not find, and it could not- have found on this record, that appellee had sought membership in Moose Lodge, and been denied it. Appellant contends that because of . this fact, appellee had no standing to litigate the constitutional issue respecting Moose Lodge’s membership requirements, and that therefore the, decree of the court below erred insofar as it decided' that issue.

Any injury to appellee from the conduct of Moose Lodge stemmed, not from the lodge’s membership requirements, but from its policies with respect to the serving of guests of members. Appellee has standing to seek redress for injuries done to him, but may not seek redress for injuries done to others. Virginian R. Co. v. System, Federation, 300 U. S. 515, 558 (1937); Erie R. Co. v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685, 697 (1914)., While this Court has held that in exceptional situations a concededly injured party may rely on the constitutional rights of a third party in obtaining relief, Barrows v. *167Jackson, 346 U. S. 249 (1953),1 in this case appellee was not injured by Moose Lodge’s membership policy since he never sought to become a member.

Appellee relies on Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), and Law Students Research Council v, Wadmond, 401 U. S. 154 (1971), to support the breadth of the District Court’s decree. Flast v. Cohen held that a federal taxpayer had standing qua taxpayer to challenge the expenditure of federal funds authorized by Congress iinder the taxing and spending clause of the Constitution. The Court in Flast pointed out:

“It will not be sufficient to allege an incidental expenditure of tax funds in the administration of an essentially regulatory statute. This requirement is consistent with the limitation imposed upon state-taxpayer standing in federal courts in Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429 (1952).” 392 U. S., at 102.

The taxpayer’s claim in Flast, of course, was that the proposed expenditure violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, a clause which by its terms prohibits taxing and spending in aid of religion.

The Court in Law Students Research Council v. Wadmond, supra, noted that while appellants admitted that no person involved in that litigation had been refused admission to the New York bar, they claimed that the existence of New York’s system of screening applicants for admission to the bar worked, a chilling effect upon the free exercise of the rights of speech and association of students who must anticipate having to meet its' *168requirements. The Court then went on to decide the merits of .the students’ contention. While the doctrine of "overbreadth” has been held by this Court in prior decisions to accord standing by reason of the “chilling effect” that a particular law might have upon the exercise of the First Amendment rights, that doctrine has not' been applied- to constitutional litigation in areas other than those relating to the First Amendment.

We believe that Moose Lodge is correct, therefore, in contending that the District Court in its decree went beyond the vindication of any claim that appellee had standing to litigate. Appellee did, however, have standing to ■ litigate the constitutional validity of Moose Lodge’s policies relating to the service of guests of members. The language of the decree, insofar as it referred to Moose Lodge’s “policy of racial discrimination in its membership or operating policies or practices” is suflfi-ciently broad to encompass practices relating to the service of guests of members, as well as policies and practices relating to the acceptance of members. But Moose Lodge .claims that, because of the position appel-lee took on the motion to modify the decree, he in effect disclaimed any interest in obtaining relief based solely on the Lodge’s practice with respect to serving the guests of members.

Appellee in his brief on this point says: .

“[Moose Lodge’s argument as to mootness] is based upon Moose Lodge’s motion to modify the decree ... and somehow to allow it to change its operations and to. permit Irvis to be brought to the Moose Lodge’s premises as a guest. But, as Irvis pointed out in his answer to this motion . . . nothing at all would be changed even if this were done because the vice of racial discrimination arose from the privileges of membership, either those accruing to a person in his own enjoyment of them or those *169accruing to a person in his ability to bring a guest or guests to Moose Lodge. Nothing in the suggested modification would make repetition impossible because the fact that Irvis was' a guest was purely happenstance. Whether he be barred because no member would invite him or because he has no opportunity to become a member, the situation' remains unchanged.” (Brief for Appellee 41.)

During oral argument of the case here, counsel for appellee was asked to explain why he opposed the motion to modify made in the lower court, and he responded as follows:

“The motion to modify which would have allowed Mr. Irvis or any others tó be admitted as a guest would have done nothing to'remove the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the discriminatory actions of the Moose Lodge.

“That is, it still would have been a matter of being dependent upon a white member of the Moose Lodge to invite him there. It would have been a matter of no particular Negro being sure that the Moose Lodge would or would not discriminate. The. Commonweath of Pennsylvania would still be issuing that license to a discriminating private club. And I think it’s worth noting that at the time this motion to modify was being presented, the Moose Lodge was in the process, of aménding its by-laws to forbid Negroes from being guests. So, at the same time they were saying let us modify the decree so that we can -admit Mr. Irvis as a guest, their by-laws were being amended to say no Negroes can come in as guests, let alone members.

“We feel that the idea that he should then be allowed to come in as a guest through a modification of the decree does not go to the heart of the *170problem. It does not supply the type of redress that we think cuts through the problem of state participation or support for the discrimination of the Moose Lodge, and that is why we oppose it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 31-32.

We are loath to attach conclusive weight to the relatively spontaneous responses of counsel to equally spontaneous questioning from the Court during oral argument. However, upon examination of this answer it reflects substantially the same position as appellee took in his brief here. While it is possible to infer from these statements that appellee is simply not interested in obtaining any relief as to guest practices of Moose Lodge if he should prevail on the merits, it is equally possible to read them as being tactical arguments designed to avoid having to settle for half a loaf when he' might obtain the whole loaf.

The mere refusal by appellee to consent to the proposed amendment of the judgment by itself could not be construed as a waiver or disclaimer of injunctive relief directed solely to Moose Lodge’s practice with respect to the service of guests. Appellee’s complaint, while directed primarily at membership policies of Moose Lodge, contained a customary prayer for other relief which was broad enough to embrace relief with respect to the practices of the lodge in serving guests of members. . The District Court in its decree used language that was clearly broad enough to include such practices, as well as the membership policies of Moose Lodge. Having thus prayed for. such relief in his complaint, and having obtained it from the District Court, nothing less than an explicit renunciation of any claim or desire for such relief here would justify our concluding that there was no longer a case or controversy with respect to Moose Lodge’s practices in serving guests of members. We do not Believe that a fair reading of appellee’s *171argument in opposition to the motion to amend the judgment below, or of the statements made in his brief and oral argument here, amount to such an explicit renunciation.

Because appellee had no standing to litigate a constitutional claim arising out of Moose Lodge’s membership practices, the District Court erred in reaching that issue on the merits. But it did not err in reaching the constitutional claim of appellee that Moose Lodge’s guest-service practices under these circumstances violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Nothing in the positions taken by the parties since the entry of the District Court decree has mooted that claim, and we therefore turn to its disposition.

II

Moose Lodge is a private club in the ordinary meaning of that term. It is a local chapter of a national fraternal organization having well-defined requirements for membership. It conducts all of its activities in a building that is owned by it. It is not publicly funded. Only members and guests are permitted in any lodge of the order; one may become a guest only by invitation of a member or upon invitation of the house committee.

Appellee, while conceding the right of private clubs to choose members upon a discriminatory basis, asserts that the licensing of Moose Lodge to serve liquor by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board amounts to such state involvement with the club’s activities as to make its discriminatory practices forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The relief sought and obtained by appellee in the District Court was an injunction forbidding the licensing by the liquor authority of Moose Lodge until it ceased its discriminatory practices. We conclude that Moose Lodge’s refusal to serve food and beverages to a guest *172by reason of the fact that he was a Negro does not, under the circumstances here presented, violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

In J.883, this Court in The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, set forth the essential dichotomy between discriminatory action by the State, which is prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause, and private conduct, “however discriminatory or wrongful,” against which that clause-“erects no shield,” Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948). That dichotomy has been subsequently reaffirmed in Shelley v. Kraemer, supra, and in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961).

While the principle is easily stated, the question of whether particular discriminatory conduct is private, on the one hand, or amounts to “state action,” on the other hand, frequently admits of no easy answer. “Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can . the non-obvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.” Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, supra, at 722.

Our cases make clear that the impetus for the forbidden discrimination need not originate with the State if it is state action that enforces privately originated discrimination. Shelley v. Kraemer, supra. The Court held in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, supra, that a private restaurant owner who refused service because of á customer’s race violated the Fourteenth Amendment, where the restaurant was located in a building owned by a state-created parking authority and leased from the authority. The Court, after a comprehensive review of the relationship between the lessee and the parking authority concluded that the latter had “so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence . with Eagle [the restaurant owner] that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged *173activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so 'purely, private’ as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 365 U. S., at 725.

The Court has never- held, of course, that discrimination by an otherwise private entity would be violative of. the Equal Protection Clause if the private entity receives any sort of benefit or service at all from'the State, or if it is subject to state regulation in any degree whatever. Since state-furnished services include such necessities of life as electricity, water, and police and fire protection, such a holding would utterly emasculate the distinction between private as distinguished from state conduct set forth in The Civil Rights Cases, supra, and adhered to in subsequent decisions. Our holdings indicate that where the impetus for the discrimination is .private, the State must have “significantly involved it-sélf with invidious discriminations,” Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U. S. 369, 380 (1967), in order for the discriminatory action to fall within the ambit of the constitutional prohibition.

Our prior decisions dealing with discriminatory refusal of service in public eating places are significantly different factually from the case now before us. Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244 (1963), dealt with the trespass prosecution of persons who “sat in” at a restaurant to protest its refusal of service to Negroes. There the Court held that although the ostensible initiative for the trespass prosecution came from the proprietor, the- existence of a local ordinance requiring segregation of races in such places was tantamount to the State having “commanded a particular result,” 373 U. S., at 248. With one exception, which is discussed infra, at 178-179, there is no suggestion in this record that the Pennsylvania statutes and regulations governing the salé of liquor are intended either overtly or covertly to encourage discrimination.

*174In Burton, supra, the Court’s full discussion of the facts in its opinion indicatés the significant differences between that case and this:

“The land and building, were publicly owned. As an entity, the building was dedicated to ‘public uses’ in performance of the Authority’s ‘essential governmental functions.’ {"Citation omitted.] The costs of land acquisition, construction, and maintenance are defrayed entirely from donations by the City of Wilmington, from loans and revenue bonds, and from the proceeds of rentals and parking services out of which the loans and bonds were payable. Assuming that the distinction, would be significant, [citation omitted] the commercially leased areas were .not surplus state property, but constituted a physically and financially integral and, indeed, indispensable part of the State’s plan to operate its project as a self-sustaining unit. Upkeep and maintenance of the building, including necessary repairs, were responsibilities of the Authority and were payable out of public funds. It cannot be doubted that the peculiar relationship of the restaurant to the parking facility in which it is located confers on each an incidental variety of mutual benefits. Guests of the restaurant are afforded a convenient place to park their automobiles, even if they cannot- enter the restaurant directly from the parking area. Similarly,. its convenience for diners may well provide additional demand for the Authority’s parking facilities. Should any improvements effected in the leasehold by Eagle become part of the realty, there is no possibility, of increased taxes being passed onto it since the fee is held by a tax-exempt government agency. Neither can it be ignored, especially in view of Eagle’s affirmative allegation that for it to serve Negroes would injure its business, that *175profits earned by discrimination not only contribute to, but also are indispensable elements in, the financial success of a governmental agency.” 365 U. S., at 723-724.

Here there is nothing approaching the symbiotic relationship between lessor and lessee that was present in Burton, where the private lessee obtained the benefit of locating in a building owned by the state-created parking authority, and the parking authority was enabled to carry out its primary public purpose of furnishing parking space by advantageously leasing portions of the building constructed for that purpose to commercial lessees such as the owner of the Eagle Restaurant. Unlike Burton, the Moose Lodge building is located on land owned by it, not by any public authority. Far from apparently holding itself out as a place' of public accommodation, Moose Lodge quite ostentatiously proclaims the fact that it is not open to the public at large.2 Nor is' it located and operated in such surroundings that although private in name, it discharges a. function or performs a service that would otherwise in all likelihood be performed by the State. In short, while Eagle was a public restaurant in a public building, Moose Lodge is a private social club in a private building.

With the exception hereafter noted, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board plays absolutely no part in establishing or enforcing the membership ór guest policies of the club that it licenses to serve liquor.3 There is *176no suggestion in this record that Pennsylvania law, either as written or as applied, discriminates against minority groups either in their right to apply for club licenses themselves or in their right to purchase and be served liquor in places of public accommodation. The only effect that the state licensing of Moose Lodge to serve liquor can be said to have on the right of any other Pennsylvanian to buy or be served liquor on premises other than those of Moose Lodge is that for some purposes club licenses are counted in the maximum number of licenses that may be issued in a given municipality. Basically each municipality has a quota of one retail license for each 1,500 inhabitants. Licenses issued to hotels, municipal golf courses, and airport restaurants are not counted in this quota, nor are club licenses until the maximum number of retail licenses is reached. Beyond that point, neither additional retail licenses nor additional club licenses may be issued so long as the number of issued and outstanding retail licenses remains at or above the statutory maximum.

The District Court was at pains to point out in its opinion what it considered to be the “pervasive” nature of the regulation of private clubs by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. As that court noted, an applicant for a club license must make such physical alterations iii its premises as the board may require,' must file a list of the .names and addresses of its members and employees,, and must keep, extensive financial records. The board is granted the right to inspect the. licensed premises at any time when patrons, guests, or members are present.

However detailed this type of regulation may be in • some particulars, it cannot be said to in any way foster *177or encourage racial discrimination. Nor can it be said to make the State in any realistic sense a partner or even a joint venturer in the club’s enterprise. The limited effect of the prohibition against obtaining additional club licenses when the maximum number of retail licenses allotted to a municipality has been issued, when considered together with the availability of liquor from hotel, restaurant, and rétail licensees, falls far short of conferring upon club licensees a monopoly in the dispensing of liquor in any given municipality or in the State as a whole. We therefore hold that, with the exception hereafter noted, the operation of the regulatory scheme enforced by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not sufficiently implicate the State in the discriminatory guest policies of Moose Lodge to make the latter “state action” within the .ambit of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The District Court found that the regulations of the Liquor. Control Board adopted pursuant to statute affirmatively require that “[e]very club licensee shall adhere to all of the provisions of its Constitution and By-Laws.” 4 Appellant argues that the purpose of this provision “is purely and simpiy and plainly the prevention of subterfuge,” pointing out that the bona fides of a private club, as opposed to a place of public accommodation masquerading as a private club,' is a matter with which the State Liquor Control Board may legitimately concern itself. Appellee concedes this to be the case, and expresses disagreement with the District Court on this point. There can be no doubt that the label “private club” can be and has been used to evade both regulations of state and local liquor authorities, and statutes requiring ' places of public accommodation to serve all persons without regard to race, color, religion, or na*178tional origin. This Court in Daniel v. Paul, 395 U. S. 298 (1969), had occasion to address this issue in connection with the application of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 243, 42 U. S. C. § 2000a et seq.

The effect of this particular regulation on Moose Lodge under the provisions of the constitution placed in the record in the court below would be to place state sanctions behind its discriminatory membership rules, but not behind its guest practices, which were not embodied in the constitution of the lodge. Had there been no change in the relevant circumstances since the making of the record in the District Court, our holding in Part I of this opinion that appellee has standing to challenge only the guest practices of Moose Lodge would have a bearing on our disposition of this issue. Appellee stated upon oral argument, though, and Moose Lodge conceded in its brief5 that the bylaws of the Supreme Lodge have been altered since the lower court decision to make applicable to guests the same sort of racial restrictions as are presently applicable to members.6

Even though the. Liquor Control Board regulation in question is neutral in its terms, the result of its application in a case where the constitution and bylaws of á *179club required racial discrimination would be to invoke the sanctions of the State to enforce a concededly discriminatory private rule. State action, for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause, may emanate from rulings of administrative and regulatory agencies as well as from legislative or judicial action. Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153, 156 (1964). Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1 (1948), makes it clear that the application of state sanctions to enforce such a rule would violate the Fourteenth Amendment: Although the record before us is not as clear as one would like, appellant has not persuaded us that the District Court should have denied any and all relief.

Appellee was entitled to a decree enjoining the enforcement of § 113.09 of the regulations promulgated by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, insofar as that regulation requires compliance by Moose Lodge with provisions of its constitution and bylaws containing racially discriminatory provisions. He was entitled to no more. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the cause remanded with instructions to enter a decree in conformity with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice Douglas,

with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.

My view of the First Amendment and the related guarantees of the Bill of .Rights is that they create a zone of privacy which precludes government from interfering with private clubs or groups.1 The associational *180rights which our system honors permit all white, all black, all brown, and all yellow clubs' to be formed.. They also permit all Catholic, all Jewish, or all agnostic clubs to be established. Government may not tell a man or woman who his or her associates -must be. The individual can be as selective as he desires. So the fact that the Moose Lodge allows only Caucasians' to join or-eóme as guests is constitutionally irrelevant, as is the decision of the Black Muslims to admit to their services only members of their race.

The problem is different, however, where the public domain is concerned. I have indicated in Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 167, and Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267, that where restaurants or other facilities serving the public are concerned and licqn|és are obtained from the State for operating the business, the “public” may not be defined by the proprietor to include only people of his choice, nor may a state or municipal service be granted only to-some. Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 298-299.

Those cases are hot precisely apposite, however; for a private club, by definition, is not in the public domain. And the fact, that a private club gets some kind of permit from the State or municipality does not make it ipso facto a public enterprise or' undertaking, any more than the grant to a householder of a permit to operate an incinerator puts the householder in the public domain. We must, therefore, examine whether there are special circumstances involved in the Pennsylvania scheme which differentiate the liquor license possessed by Moose Lodge from .the incinerator permit.

*181Pennsylvania has a state store system of alcohol distribution. Resale is permitted by hotels, restaurants, and private clubs which all must obtain licenses from the Liquor Control Board. The scheme of regulation is complete and pervasive; and the state courts have sustained many restrictions on the licensees. • See Tahiti Bar Inc. Liquor License Case, 395 Pa. 355, 150 A. 2d 112. Once a license is issued the licensee must comply with many detailed requirements or risk suspension or revocation of the license. Among these requirements is Regulation § 113.09 which says: “Every club licensee shall adhere to all. of the provisions of its Constitution and By-laws.” This regulation means, as applied to Moose Lodge, that it must adhere to the racially discriminatory provision of the Constitution of its Supreme Lodge that “[t]he membership of lodges shall be composed of male persons of the Caucasian or White race above the age of twenty-one years, and not married to someone of any other than the Caucasian or White race, who are óf good moral character, physically and mentally normal, who shall profess a ber lief in a Supreme Being.”

It is argued that this regulation only aims at the prevention of subterfuge and at enforcing Pennsylvania’s differentiation between places of public accommodation and bona fide private clubs. It is also argued that the regulation only gives effect to the constitutionally protected rights of privacy and of association. But I cannot so read the regulation. While those other purposes are embraced in it, so is the restrictive membership clause. And we have held that “a State is responsible for-the discriminatory act of a private party when the State, by its law,- has compelled the act.”. Adickes v. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 170. See Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244, 248. It is irrelevant whether the law is statutory, or an administrative regulation. Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153, 156. And it is irrelevant whether the discriminatory act was instigated by the regulation, *182or was independent of it. Peterson v. City of Greenville, supra. The result, as I see it, is the same as though Pennsylvania had put into its liquor licenses a provision that the license may not be used to dispense liquor to blacks, browns, yellows — or atheists or agnostics. Regulation § 113.09 is thus an invidious form of state action.

Were this regulation the only infirmity in Pennsylvania’s licensing scheme, ,1 would perhaps agree with the majority that the appropriate relief would be a decree enjoining its enforcement. But there is another flaw in the scheme not so easily cured. Liquor licenses in Pennsylvania, unlike driver’s licenses, or marriage licenses, are not freely available to those who meet racially neutral qualifications. There is a complex quota system, which the majority accurately describes. Ante, at 176. What the majority neglects to say is that the quota for Harrisburg, where Moose Lodge No. 107 is located, has been full for many years.2 No more club licenses may be issued in that city.

This state-enforced scarcity of licenses restricts the ability of blacks to obtain liquor, for liquor is commercially available only at private clubs for a significant portion of each week.3 Access by blacks to places that *183serve liquor is further limited by the fact that the state quota is filled. A group desiring to form a nóndiscrim-inatory club which would serve blacks must purchase a license held by an existing club, which can' exact a monopoly price for the transfer.' The availability of such a license is speculative at best, however, for, as Moose Lodge itself concedes, without a liquor license a fraternal organization would be hard pressed to survive.

Thus, the State of Pennsylvania is putting the weight of its liquor license, concededly a valued and important adjunct to a private club, behind racial discrimination.

As the first Justice Harlan, dissenting in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 59, said:

“I agree that government has nothing to do with social, as distinguished from technically legal, rights of individuals. No government ever has brought, or ever can bring, its people into social intercourse against their wishes. Whether one person will permit or maintain social relations with another is a matter with which government has no concern. . . . What I affirm is that no State, nor the officers of any State, nor any corporation or individual' wielding power under State authority for the public benefit or the public .convenience, can, consistently . . . with the freedom established by the fundamental law . . . discriminate against freemen or citizens, in those rights, because of their race . . . .”

The regulation governing this liquor license has in it that precise infirmity.4

I would affirm the judgmént below.

*184Mr. 'Justice Brennan,

with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.

When Moose Lodge obtained its liquor license, the State of Pennsylvania became an active participant in the operation of the Lodge bar. Liquor licensing laws *185are only incidentally revenue measures; they are primarily pervasive regulatory schemes under which the State dictates and continually supervises virtually every detail of the operation of the licensee’s business. Very few, if any, other licensed businesses experience such complete state involvement. Yet the Court holds that such involvement, does not. constitute “state, action” making the Lodge’s refusal to serve a guest liquor solely because of- his race a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The vital flaw in the Court’s reasoning is its complete disregard of the fundamental value underlying the “state action” concept. That value is discussed in my separate opinion in Adickes v. Kress & Co,, 398 U. S. 144, 190-191 (1970):

“The state-action doctrine reflects the profound judgment that denials of equal treatment, and particularly denials on account of race or color, are singularly grave when government has or shares responsibility for them. Government is the social organ to which all in our society look for the promotion of liberty, justice, fair and equal treatment, and the setting of worthy norms and goals for social conduct. Therefore something is uniquely amiss in a society where the government, the authoritative oracle of community values, involves itself in racial discrimination. Accordingly, . . . the *186cases that have come before us [in which] this Court has condemned significant state involvement in racial discrimination, however subtle- and indirect it may have been and whatever form it may have taken [,] . . . represent vigilant fidelity to the constitutional principle that no State shall in any significant way lend its authority to the sordid business of racial discrimination.”

Plainly, the State of Pennsylvania’s liquor regulations intertwine the State with the operation of the Lodge bar in a “significant way [and] lend [the State’s] authority to the sordid business of racial discrimination.” The opinion of the late Circuit Judge Freedman, for the three-judge District Court, most persuasively demonstrates the “state action” present in this case:

“We believe the decisive factor is the uniqueness and the all-pervasiveness of the regulation by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, of the dispensing-of liquor under licenses granted by the state. The. regulation inherent in the grant of a state liquor license is so different in nature and extent from the ordinary licenses issued by the- state that it is different in quality.

“It had always 'been held- in Pennsylvania, even prior to the Eighteenth Amendment, that the exercise of the power to grant licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor was an exercise of the highest governmental power, one in which the state had the fullest freedom inhering in the police power ■ of the sovereign. With the Eighteenth Amendment which went into effect in 1919 the right to deal in' intoxicating liquor was extinguished. ■ The era of Prohibition, ended with the adoption in 1933 of -the Twenty-first Amendment, which has left to each state the absolute power to prohibit the sale, *187possession or use of intoxicating liquor, and in general to deal otherwise with it as it sees fit.

“Pennsylvania has exercised this power with the fullest measure of state authority. Under the Pennsylvania plan the state monopolizes the sale of liquor through its so-called state stores, operated by the state. Resale of liquor is permitted by hotels, restaurants and private clubs, which must obtain licenses from the Liquor Control Board, authorizing them ‘to purchase liquor from a Pennsylvania Liquor Store [at a discount] and keep on the premises such liquor and, subject to the provisions of this Act and the regulations' made thereunder to sell the same and also malt or brewed beverages to guests, patrons or members for consumption on the hotel, restaurant or club premises.’

“The issuance or refusal of a license to a club is in the discretion of the Liquor Control Board. In order to secure one of the limited number of licenses which are available in each municipality an applicant must comply .with extensive requirements, which in general are applicable to commercial and club licenses equally. The applicant must make such physical alterations in his premises as the Board may require and, if a club, must file a list of the names and addresses of its. members and employees, together with such other information as the Board may require. He must conform his over: all financial arrangements to the statute’s exacting requirements and keep extensive records. He may not permit ‘persons of ill repute’ to frequent his premises nor allow thereon at any time any ‘lewd, immoral or improper entertainment.’ He must grant the Board and its agents, the right to inspect .the licensed premises at any time when patrons, guests or members are present. It is ohly on compliance *188with these and numerous other requirements' and if the Board is satisfied that the applicant is ‘a person of good repute’ and that the license will not be ‘detrimental to the welfare, health, peace and morals of the, inhabitants of the neighborhood,’ that the license may issue.

“Once a license has been issued the licensee must comply with many detailed requirements or risk its suspension or revocation. He must in any event have it renewed periodically. Liquor licenses have been employed in Pennsylvania to regulate a wide variety of moral conduct, such as the presence and activities of homosexuals, performance by a topless dancer, lewd dancing, swearing, being noisy or disorderly. So broad is the state’s power that the courts of Pénnsylvania have upheld its restriction of freedom of expression of a licensee on the ground that in doing so it merely exercises its plenary power to attach conditions to the privilege of dispensing liquor which a .licensee holds at the sufferance of the state.

“These are but some of the many reported illustrations of the use which thé state has made of its unrestricted power to regulate , and even to deny the right to sell, transport or possess intoxicating liquor. It would be difficult to find a more pervasive interaction of state authority with personal conduct. The holder of a liquor license from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania therefore is not like other licensees who conduct their enterprises at arms-length from the state,- even though they may have been required to comply with certain conditions, such as zoning or building requirements, in order to obtain or continue to enjoy the license which authorizes them to engage in their business. The state’s concern in such cases is minimal and *189once the conditions it has exacted are met the customary operations of the enterprise are free from further encroachment. Here by contrast beyond the act of licensing is the continuing and pervasive regulation of the1 licensees by the state to an unparalleled extent. The unique , power’which the. state enjoyá in this area, which has put it in the business of operating state liquor stores and in the role of licensing clubs, has been exercised in a manner whiéh reaches intimately and deeply into the operation of the licensees.

’ “In addition to this, the regulations of the Liquor Control Board adopted pursuant to the statute affirmatively require that 'every club licensee shall adhere to all the provisions of its constitution and by-laws.’. As applied to the present case this regulation requires the local Lodge, to adhere to the constitution of the Supreme Lodge and thus ,to exclude non-Caucasians from membership in its licensed club. The state therefore, has been far from neutral. It has declared that the local Lodge must adhere to the discriminatory provision under penalty - of loss of its license. It would be difficult in any event to consider the state neutral in an area which is so permeated with state regulation: and control, but any vestigé of neutrality disappears when the state’s regulation specifically exacts , compliance by the licensee with an approved provision for dis-r crimination, especially where the exaction holds the threat of loss of the license.

“However it may deal with its licensees in exercising its great and untrammeled power over liquor traffic, the state may not discriminate against others or disregard the operation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as it'affects personal rights. Here the state has used, its great *190power to license the liquor traffic in a manner which has no relation to the traffic in liquor itself but instead permits it to be exploited in the pursuit of a discriminatory practice.” 318 F. Supp. 1246, 12481250 (MD Pa. 1970).

This is thus a case requiring application -of the principle that until today has governed our determinations of the existence of “state action”: “Our prior decisions leave no doubt that the mere existence of efforts by the State, through legislation or otherwise, to authorize, encourage, or otherwise support racial discrimination in a particular facet of life constitutes illegal state involvement in those pertinent private acts of discrimination that subsequently occur.” Adickes v. Kress & Co., 398 U. S., at 202 (separate opinion of Brennan, J.). See, e. g., Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244 (1963); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961); Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296 (1966) ; Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U. S. 385 (1969); Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267 (1963); Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U. S. 369 (1967); Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153 (1964); McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 235 U. S. 151 (1914).

I therefore dissent and would affirm the final decree entered by the District Court.

Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondents represent a class of Medicaid patients challenging decisions by the nursing homes in which they reside to discharge or transfer patients without notice or an opportunity for a hearing. The question is whether the State may be held responsible for those decisions so as to subject them to the strictures of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I

Congress established the Medicaid program m 1965 as Title XIX of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §1396 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV), to provide federal financial assist-*994anee to States that choose to reimburse certain medical costs incurred by the poor. As a participating State, New York provides Medicaid assistance to eligible persons who receive care in private nursing homes, which are designated as either “skilled nursing facilities” (SNF’s) or “health related facilities” (HRF’s).1 The latter provide less extensive, and generally less expensive, medical care than the former.2 Nursing homes chosen by Medicaid patients are directly reimbursed by the State for the reasonable cost of health care services, N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law §367-a.l (McKinney Supp. 1981).

An individual must meet two conditions to obtain Medicaid assistance. He must satisfy eligibility standards defined in terms of income or resources and he must seek medically necessary services. See 42 U. S. C. § 1396. To assure that the latter condition is satisfied,3 federal regulations require each nursing home to establish a utilization review committee (URC) of physicians whose functions include periodically as*995sessing whether each patient is receiving the appropriate level of care, and thus whether the patient’s continued stay in the facility is justified.4 42 CFR §§ 456.305, 456.406 (1981). If the URC determines that the patient should be discharged or transferred to a different level of care, either more or less intensive, it must notify the state agency responsible for administering Medicaid assistance.5 42 CFR §§ 456.337(c), 456.437(d) (1981); 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(f)(2), (3), 421.13(f)(2), (3) (1980).

At the time their complaint was filed, respondents Yaret-sky and Cuevas were patients in the American Nursing Home, an SNF located in New York City. Both were recipients of assistance under the Medicaid program. In December 1975 the nursing home’s URC decided that respondents did not need the care they were receiving and should be transferred to a lower level of care in an HRF. New York City officials, who were then responsible for administering the Medicaid program in the city, were notified of this decision and prepared to reduce or terminate payments to the nursing home for respondents’ care. Following administrative hearings, state social service officials affirmed the decision to discontinue benefits unless respondents accepted a transfer to an HRF providing a reduced level of care.

Respondents then commenced this suit, acting individually and on behalf of a class of Medicaid-eligible residents of New *996York nursing homes.6 Named as defendants were the Commissioners of the New York Department of Social Services and the Department of Health. Respondents alleged in part that the defendants had not afforded them adequate notice either of URC decisions and the reasons supporting them or of their right to an administrative hearing to challenge those decisions.7 Respondents maintained that these actions violated their rights under state and federal law and under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They sought injunctive relief and damages.8

In January 1978 the District Court certified a class9 and issued a preliminary injunction, restraining the defendants *997from reducing or terminating Medicaid benefits without timely written notice to the patients, provided by state or local officials, of the reasons for the URC decision, the defendants’ proposed action,, and the patients’ right to an evi-dentiary hearing and continued benefits pending administrative resolution of the claim. App. 100-101, ¶2.10 The court’s accompanying opinion relied primarily on existing federal and state regulations. Id., at 112-115.

In March 1979 the District Court issued a pretrial order that identified a new claim raised by respondents that a panoply of procedural safeguards should apply to URC decisions transferring a patient to a higher, i. e., more intensive, level of medical care, as well as to decisions recommending transfers to a lower level of care. In addition, respondents claimed that such safeguards were required prior to transfers of any kind initiated by the nursing homes themselves or by the patients’ attending physicians. Id., at 157, 1II(J); 166-167, ¶ II(J). Respondents asserted that all of these transfers deprived patients of interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and were the product of “state action.”. Id., at 167, 1iII(J).11

In October 1979 the District Court approved a consent judgment incorporating the relief previously awarded by the preliminary injunction and establishing additional substantive and procedural rights applicable to URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care. Id., at 227-239. The consent judgment left several issues of law to be decided by the District Court. The most important, for our purposes, was “whether there is state action and a constitutional right to *998a pre-transfer evidentiary hearing in a patient transfer to a higher level of care and/or a patient transfer initiated by the facility or its agents.” Id., at 234-235, ¶VIII(A)(1). Ultimately, the District Court answered’ that question in respondents’ favor, although without elaborating its reasons. Id., at 240. The court permanently enjoined petitioners, as well as all SNF’s and 'HRF’s in the State, from permitting or ordering the discharge of class members, or their transfer to a different level of care, without providing advance written notice and an evidentiary hearing on “the validity and appropriateness of the proposed action.” Id., at 242-243.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that portion of the District Court’s judgment we have described above. 629 F. 2d 817 (1980).12 The court held that URC-initiated transfers from a lower level of care to a higher one, and all discharges and transfers initiated by the nursing homes or attending physicians, “involve state action affecting constitutionally protected property and liberty interests.” Id., at 820. The court premised its identification of state action on the fact that state authorities “responded” to the challenged transfers by adjusting the patients’ Medicaid benefits. Ibid. Citing our opinion in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 351 (1974), the court viewed this response as establishing a sufficiently close, “nexus” between the State and either the nursing homes or the URC’s to justify treating their actions as those of the State itself.

We granted certiorari to consider the Court of Appeals’ conclusions about the nature of state action. 454 U. S. 815 (1981). We now reverse its judgment.

*999t-H

We first address a question raised by petitioners regarding our jurisdiction under Art. III. They contend that respondents, who were threatened with URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care, are without standing to object either to URC-initiated transfers to higher levels of care or to transfers of any kind initiated by nursing homes or attending physicians. According to petitioners, respondents obtained complete relief in the consent judgment approved by the District Court in October 1979, which afforded substantive and procedural rights to patients who are the subject of URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care. Since they have not been threatened with transfers of any other kind, they have no standing to object, and the District Court consequently was without Art. Ill jurisdiction to enter its judgment.

It is axiomatic that the judicial power conferred by Art. Ill may not be exercised unless the plaintiff shows “that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant.” Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 99 (1979). It is not enough that the conduct of which the plaintiff complains will injure someone. The complaining party must also show that he is within the class of persons who will be concretely affected. Nor does a plaintiff who has been subject to injurious conduct of one kind possess by virtue of that injury the necessary stake in litigating conduct of another kind, although similar, to which he has not been subject. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 166-167 (1972).

Respondents appear to recognize these principles, but contend that although the October 1979 consent judgment halted the implementation of adverse URC decisions recommending discharge or transfer to lower levels of care, the URC determinations themselves were left undisturbed. These determinations reflected the judgment of physicians, chosen by the *1000nursing homes, that respondents’ continued stay in their facilities was not medically necessary. Consequently, respondents maintain that they are subject to the serious threat that the nursing home administrators will reach similar conclusions and will themselves initiate patient discharges or transfers without adequate notice or hearings. Petitioners belittle this suggestion, noting that the consent judgment permanently enjoined all New York nursing homes, as well as petitioners, from implementing URC transfers to lower levels of care; this injunction bars the nursing homes from adopting the URC decisions as their own. Petitioners concede, however, that the consent judgment permits the nursing homes and respondents’ attending physicians to decide independently to initiate transfers.

We conclude that the threat of facility-initiated discharges or transfers to lower levels of care is sufficiently substantial that respondents have standing to challenge their procedural adequacy. In reaching this conclusion, we are mindful of “the primary conception that federal judicial power is to be exercised . . . only at the instance of one who is himself immediately harmed, or immediately threatened with harm, by the challenged action.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 504 (1961). Of course, “[o]ne does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief.” Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923), quoted in Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979). “[T]he question becomes whether any perceived threat to respondents is sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy . . . .” O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 496 (1974). Even accepting petitioners’ characterization of the scope of the permanent injunction embodied in the consent judgment, the nursing homes in which respondents reside remain free to determine independently that respondents’ continued stay at current levels of care is not medically necessary. The possibility that they will do so is not “imaginary or speculative.” Younger v. Harris, 401 *1001U. S. 37, 42 (1971). In light of similar determinations already made by the committee of physicians chosen by the facilities to make such assessments, the threat is quite realistic. See O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 496 (“past wrongs are evidence bearing on whether there is real and immediate threat of repeated injury”).

We cannot conclude, however, that the threat of transfers to higher levels of care, whether initiated by the URC’s, the nursing homes, or attending physicians, is “of sufficient immediacy and reality,” Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 108 (1969), that respondents have standing to seek an adjudication of the procedures attending such transfers. Nothing in the record available to this Court suggests that any of the individual respondents have been either transferred to more intensive care or threatened with such transfers. It is not inconceivable that respondents will one day confront this eventuality, but assessing the possibility now would “tak[e] us into the area of speculation and conjecture.” O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 497.13

Moreover, the conditions under which such transfers occur are sufficiently different from those which respondents do have standing to challenge that any judicial assessment of their procedural adequacy would be wholly gratuitous and advisory. Transfers to higher levels of care are recommended when the patient’s medical needs cannot be satisfied by the facility in which he or she currently resides. Al*1002though respondents contend that all transfers threaten elderly patients with physical or psychological trauma, one may infer that refusal to accept a transfer to a higher level of care could itself be a decision with potentially traumatic consequences. The same cannot be said of discharges or transfers to less intensive care. In addition, transfers to more intensive care typically result in an increase in Medicaid benefits to match the increased cost of medically necessary care. Respondents’ constitutional attack on discharges or transfers to a lower level of care presupposes a deprivation of protected property interests. Finally, since July 1978, petitioners have adhered to a policy permitting Medicaid patients to refuse URC-recommended transfers to higher levels of care without jeopardizing their Medicaid benefits. App. 180, ¶56. No similar policy was in force with respect $o other transfers until the District Court mandated its adoption.

We conclude, therefore, that although respondents have standing to challenge facility-initiated discharges and transfers to lower levels of care, the District Court exceeded its authority in adjudicating the procedures governing transfers to higher levels of care. We turn now to the “state action” question presented by petitioners.

I — i > — l

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution provides in part that “[n]o State shall. . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Since this Court’s decision in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), “the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States.” Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948). “That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.” Ibid. See Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 *1003U. S. 345 (1974); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970).

Faithful adherence to the “state action” requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment requires careful attention to the gravamen of the plaintiff’s complaint. In this case, respondents objected to the involuntary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients by their nursing homes without certain procedural safeguards.14 They have named as defendants state officials responsible for administering the Medicaid program in New York. These officials are also responsible for regulating nursing homes in the State, including those in which respondents were receiving care. But respondents are not challenging particular state regulations or procedures, and their arguments concede that the decision to discharge or transfer a patient originates not with state officials, but with nursing homes that are privately owned and operated. Their lawsuit, therefore, seeks to hold state officials liable for the actions of private parties, and the injunctive relief they have obtained requires the State to adopt regulations that will prohibit the private conduct of which they complain.

A

This case is obviously different from those cases in which the defendant is a private party and the question is whether his conduct has sufficiently received the imprimatur of the State so as to make it “state” action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149 (1978); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163 (1972); *1004Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra. It also differs from other “state action” cases in which the challenged conduct consists of enforcement of state laws or regulations by state officials who are themselves parties in the lawsuit; in such cases the question typically is whether the private motives which triggered the enforcement of those laws can fairly be attributed to the State. See, e. g., Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244 (1963). But both these types of cases shed light upon the analysis necessary to resolve the present case.

First, although it is apparent that nursing homes in New York are extensively regulated, “[t]he mere fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S., at 350. The complaining party must also show that “there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the regulated entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.” Id., at 351. The purpose of this requirement is to assure that constitutional standards are invoked only when it can be said that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains. The importance of this assurance is evident when, as in this case, the complaining party seeks to hold the State liable for the actions of private parties.

Second, although the factual setting of each case will be significant, our precedents indicate that a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must in daw be deemed to be that of the State. Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, supra, at 166; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 357; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, supra, at 173; Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 170. Mere approval of or acquiescence in the initiatives of a private party is not sufficient to justify holding the State responsible for those *1005initiatives under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Flagg Bros., supra, at 164-165; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 357.

Third, the required nexus may be present if the private entity has exercised powers that are “traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the State.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 353; see Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, supra, at 157-161.

B

Analyzed in the light of these principles, the Court of Appeals’ finding of state action cannot stand. The court reasoned that state action was present in the discharge or transfer decisions implemented by the nursing homes because the State responded to those decisions by adjusting the patient’s Medicaid benefits. Respondents, however, do not challenge the adjustment of benefits, but the discharge or transfer of patients to lower levels of care without adequate notice or hearings. That the State responds to such actions by adjusting benefits does not render it responsible for those actions. The decisions about which respondents complain are made by physicians and nursing home administrators, all of whom are concededly private parties. There is no suggestion that those decisions were influenced in any degree by the State’s obligation to adjust benefits in conformity with changes in the cost of medically necessary care.

Respondents do not rest on the Court of Appeals’ rationale, however. They argue that the State “affiraiatively commands” the summary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients who are thought to be inappropriately placed in their nursing facilities. Were this characterization accurate, we would have a different question before us. However, our review of the statutes and regulations identified by respondents does not support respondents’ characterization of them.

As our earlier summary of the Medicaid program explained, a patient must meet two essehtial conditions in order to obtain financial assistance. He must satisfy eligibility cri*1006teria defined in terms of income and resources and he must seek medically necessary services. 42 U. S. C. § 1396. To assure that nursing home services are medically necessary, federal law requires that a physician so certify at the time the Medicaid patient is admitted and periodically thereafter. 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(g)(l) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). New York requires that the physician complete a “long term care placement form” devised by the Department of Health, called the DMS-1. 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a), 420.1(b) (1980). A completed form provides, inter alia, a numerical score corresponding to the physician’s assessment of the patient’s mental and physical health. As petitioners note, however, the physicians, and not the forms, make the decision about whether the patient’s care is medically necessary.15 A physician can authorize a patient’s admission to a nursing facility despite a “low” score on the form. See 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a)(2), 420.1(b)(2) (1978).16 We cannot say that the *1007State, by requiring completion of a form, is responsible for the physician’s decision.

In any case, respondents’ complaint is about nursing home decisions to discharge or transfer, not to admit, Medicaid patients. But we are not satisfied that the State is responsible for those decisions either.17 The regulations cited by respondents réquire SNF’s and HRF’s “to make all efforts possible to transfer patients to the appropriate level of care or *1008home as indicated by the patient’s medical condition or needs,” 10 NYCRR §§416.9(d)(1), 421.13(d)(1) (1980).18 The nursing homes are required to complete patient care assessment forms designed by the State and “provide the receiving facility or provider with a current copy of same at the time of discharge to an alternate level of care facility or home.” 10 NYCRR §§416.9(d)(4), 421.13(d)(4) (1980).

These regulations do not require the nursing homes to rely on the forms in making discharge or transfer decisions, nor do they demonstrate that the State is responsible for the decision to discharge or transfer particular patients. Those decisions ultimately turn on medical judgments made by private parties according to professional standards that are not established by the State.19 This case, therefore, is not unlike *1009Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981), in which the question was whether a public defender acts “under color of” state law within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 when representing an indigent defendant in a state criminal proceeding.20 Although the public defender was employed by the State and appointed by the State to represent the respondent, we concluded that “[tjhis assignment entailed functions and obligations in no way dependent on state authority.” Id., at 318. The decisions made by the public defender in the course of representing his client were framed in accordance with professional canons of ethics, rather than dictated by any rule of conduct imposed by the State. The same is true of nursing home decisions to discharge or transfer particular patients because the care they are receiving is medically inappropriate.21

Respondents next point to regulations which, they say, impose a range of penalties on nursing homes that fail to discharge or transfer patients whose continued stay is inappropriate. One regulation excludes from participation in the *1010Medicaid program health care providers who “[fjumished items or services that are substantially in excess of the beneficiary’s needs.” 42 CFR §420.101(a)(2) (1981). The State is also authorized to fine health care providers who violate applicable regulations. 10 NYCRR §414.18 (1978). As we have previously concluded, however, those regulations themselves do not dictate the decision to discharge or transfer in a particular case. Consequently, penalties imposed for violating the regulations add nothing to respondents’ claim of state action.

As an alternative position, respondents argue that even if the State does not command the transfers at issue, it reviews and either approves or rejects them on the merits. The regulations cited by respondents will not bear this construction. Although the State requires the nursing homes to complete patient care assessment forms and file them with state Medicaid officials, 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a), 420.1(b) (1978), and although federal law requires that state officials review these assessments, 42 CFR §§456.271, 456.372 (1981), nothing in the regulations authorizes the officials to approve or disapprove decisions either to retain or discharge particular patients, and petitioners specifically disclaim any such responsibility. Instead, the State is obliged to approve or disapprove continued payment of Medicaid benefits after a change in the patient’s need for services. See 42 CFR §435.916 (1981). Adjustments in benefit levels in response to a decision to discharge or transfer a patient does not constitute approval or enforcement of that decision. As we have already concluded, this degree of involvement is too slim a basis on which to predicate a finding of state action in the decision itself.

Finally, respondents advance the rather vague generalization that such a relationship exists between the State and the nursing homes it regulates that the State may be considered a joint participant in the homes’ discharge and transfer of Medicaid patients. For this proposition they rely upon *1011Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961). Respondents argue that state subsidization of the operating and capital costs of the facilities, payment of the medical expenses of more than 90% of the patients in the facilities, and the licensing of the facilities by the State, taken together convert the action of the homes into “state” action. But accepting all of these assertions as true, we are nonetheless unable to agree that the State is responsible for the decisions challenged by respondents. As we have previously held, privately owned enterprises providing services that the State would not necessarily provide, even though they are extensively regulated, do not fall within the ambit of Burton. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S., at 357-358. That programs undertaken by the State result in substantial funding of the activities of a private entity is no more persuasive than the fact of regulation of such an entity in demonstrating that the State is responsible for decisions made by the entity in the course of its business.

We are also unable to conclude that the nursing homes perform a function that has been “traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the State.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 353. Respondents’ argument in this regard is premised on their assertion that both the Medicaid statute and the New York Constitution make the State responsible for providing every Medicaid patient with nursing home services. The state constitutional provisions cited by respondents, however, do no more than authorize the legislature to provide funds for the care of the needy. See N. Y. Const., Art. XVII, §§ 1, 3. They do not mandate the provision of any particular care, much less long-term nursing care. Similarly, the Medicaid statute requires that the States provide funding for skilled nursing services as a condition to the receipt of federal moneys. 42 U. S. C. §§ 1396a(a)(13)(B), 1396d(a)(4)(A) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). It does not require that the States provide the services themselves. Even if respondents’ characterization of the State’s duties were cor*1012rect, however, it would not follow that decisions made in the day-to-day administration of a nursing home are the kind of decisions traditionally and exclusively made by the sovereign for and on behalf of the public. Indeed, respondents make no such claim, nor could they.

IV

We conclude that respondents have failed to establish “state action” in the nursing homes’ decisions to discharge or transfer Medicaid patients to lower levels of care.22 Consequently, they have failed to prove that petitioners have violated rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly

Reversed.

[For opinion of Justice White concurring in the judgment, see ante, p. 843.]

Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.

If the Fourteenth Amendment is to have its intended effect as a restraint on the abuse of state power, courts must be sensitive to the manner in which state power is exercised. In an era of active government intervention to remedy social ills, the true character of the State’s involvement in, and coercive influence over, the activities of private parties, often through complex and opaque regulatory frameworks, may not always be apparent. But if the task that the Fourteenth Amendment assigns to the courts is thus rendered more burdensome, the courts’ obligation to perform that task faithfully, and consistently with the constitutional purpose, is rendered more, not less, important.

*1013In deciding whether “state action”1 is present in the context of a claim brought under 42 U. S. C. §1983 (1976 ed., Supp. IV), the ultimate determination is simply whether the § 1983 defendant has brought the force of the State to bear against the §1983 plaintiff in a manner the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to inhibit. Where the defendant is a government employee, this inquiry is relatively straightforward. But in deciding whether “state action” is present in actions performed directly by persons other than government employees, what is required is a realistic and delicate appraisal of the State’s involvement in the total context of the action taken. “Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.” Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715, 722 (1961). See Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., ante, at 939-942.2 The Court today departs from the Burton precept, ignoring the *1014nature of the regulatory framework presented by this case in favor of the recitation of abstract tests and a pigeonhole approach to the question of state action. But however correct the Court’s tests may be in the abstract, they are worth nothing if they are not faithfully applied. Bolstered by its own preconception of the decisionmaking process challenged by respondents, and of the relationship between the State, the nursing home operator, and the nursing home resident, the Court subjects the regulatory scheme at issue here to only the most perfunctory examination. The Court thus fails to perceive the decisive involvement of the State in the private conduct challenged by the respondents.

I

A

The Court’s analysis in this case is simple, but it is also demonstrably flawed, for it proceeds upon a premise that is factually unfounded. The Court first describes the decision to transfer a nursing home resident from one level of care to another as involving nothing more than a physician’s independent assessment of the appropriate medical treatment required by that resident. Building upon that factual premise, the Court has no difficulty concluding that the State plays no decisive role in the transfer decision: By reducing the resident’s benefits to meet the change in treatment prescribed, the State is simply responding to “medical judgments made by private parties according to professional standards that are not established by the State.” Ante, at 1008. If this were an accurate characterization of the circumstances of this case, I too would conclude that there was no “state action” in the nursing home’s decision to transfer. A doctor who prescribes drugs for a patient on the basis of his independent medical judgment is not rendered a state actor merely because the State may reimburse the patient in different amounts depending upon which drug is prescribed.

But the level-of-eare decisions at issue in this case, even when characterized as the “independent” decision of the nurs*1015ing home, see ante, at 1000, have far less to do with the exercise of independent professional judgment than they do with the State’s desire to save money. To be sure, standards for implementing the level-of-care scheme established by the Medicaid program are framed with reference to the underlying purpose of that program — to provide needed medical services. And not surprisingly, the State relies on doctors to implement this aspect of its Medicaid program. But the idea of two mutually exclusive levels of care — skilled nursing care and intermediate care — embodied in the federal regulatory scheme and implemented by the State, reflects no established medical model of health care. On the contrary, the two levels of long-term institutionalized care enshrined in the Medicaid scheme are legislative constructs, designed to serve governmental cost-containment policies.

The fiscal underpinning of the level-of-care determinations at issue here are apparent from the legislative history of the “intermediate care” concept. In 1967, Congress was concerned with the increasing costs of the Medicaid program. Congress’ motivation in establishing a program of reimbursement for care in intermediate-care facilities flowed directly from these fiscal concerns. Thus the Senate Finance Committee Report on the Social Security Amendments of 1967, S. Rep. No. 744, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 188 (1967), expressed concern with the fact that only skilled mu-sing care was available under Medicaid: “[Bjecause of a decided financial advantage to a State under present matching formulas,” States tended to classify recipients as in need of “‘skilled nursing home’ care.” As a consequence, the Report noted, “a strong case exists for introducing another level of care for which vendor payments would be available.” Ibid. The result was an amendment to Title XI of the Social Security Act, creating a new treatment track for “categorically needy” medicaid patients, called “intermediate care.” As summarized on the Senate floor:

“The committee bill would provide for a vendor payment in behalf of persons . . . who are living in facilities *1016which are more than boarding houses but which are less than skilled nursing homes. The rate of Federal sharing for payments for care in those institutions would be at the same rate as for medical assistance under title XIX. Such homes would have to meet safety and sanitation standards comparable to those required for nursing homes in a given state.

“This provision should result in a reduction in the cost of title XIX by allowing States to relocate substantial numbers of welfare recipients who are now in skilled nursing homes in lower cost institutions.” 113 Cong. Rec. 32599 (1967) (emphasis added).

To implement this cost-saving mechanism, the Federal Government has required States participating in the Medicaid Program to establish elaborate systems of periodic “utilization review.”3 With respect to patients whose expenses are not reimbursed through Medicaid, these attempts to assign the patient to one of two mutually exclusive “levels of care” would be anomalous. While the criteria used to determine which patients require the services of “skilled-nursing facilities,” which require “intermediate care facilities,” and which require no long-term institutional care at all, obviously have a medical nexus, those criteria are not geared to the *1017specific needs of particular residents as determined by a physician; the level-of-care determination is not analogous to choosing specific medication or rehabilitative services needed by a nursing home patient. The inherent imprecision of using two broad levels to classify facilities and residents has been noted by the commentators.4 The vigor with which these reviews are performed in the nursing home context, see infra-, at 1022-1024, is extraordinarily tmmedical in character. From a purely medical standpoint, the idea of shifting nursing home residents from a “higher level of care” to a “lower level of care,” which almost invariably involves transfer from one facility to another, rarely makes sense. As one commentator has observed: “These transfers eject helpless, disoriented people from the places they have lived for months or even years to facilities, not of their own choosing, that they have never seen before. The evidence is overwhelming that, without extraordinary preparatory efforts that are hardly ever made, any move is harmful for the preponderance of the frail elderly.” B. Vladeck, Unloving Care 140 (1980).

The arbitrariness of the statutory system of treatment levels is evident from a comparison of the proportion of nursing home residents in skilled nursing facilities (SNF’s) and those in intermediate care facilities (ICF’s) in different States. A 1973 survey of 32 States revealed that 47.9% of Medicaid patients were in SNF’s, 52.1% were in ICF’s. But the proportion of SNF and ICF beds varied enormously from State to State. For example, less than 10% of Medicaid recipients receiving long-term institutional care in States such as Louisiana, Maine, Oregon, and Virginia were in SNF’s; the number housed in SNF’s in New York and Pennsylvania was nearly 80%, and in Florida and Georgia the figure was closer *1018to 90%.5 Quite obviously, the answer to this disparity lies not in medical considerations or judgments, but rather in the varying fiscal policies, and the vigor of enforcement, in the participating States.

In New York, the nursing home operator is required to “maintain a discharge planning program to . . . document that the facility has made and is continuing to make all efforts possible to transfer patients to the appropriate level of care or home as indicated by the patient’s medical condition or needs.” 10 NYCRR §416.9(d)(1) (1980) (emphasis added). See also §421.13(d)(l).6 The responsibility the State assigns to nursing home operators to transfer patients to appropriate levels of care is, of course, designed primarily to implement the State’s goal of reducing Medicaid costs,7 and the termination or reduction of benefits follows forthwith upon the facility’s discharge or transfer of a resident. As the court below noted: “The state has, in essence, delegated a de-*1019cisión to . . . reduce a public assistance recipient’s benefits to a ‘private’ party,” 629 F. 2d 817, 820 (CA2 1980), by assigning to that private party the responsibility to determine the recipient’s need. But we should not rely on that fact alone in evaluating the nexus between the State and the challenged private action. Here the State’s involvement clearly extends to supplying the standards to be used in making the delegated decision.

B

Ignoring the State’s fiscal interest in the level-of-care determination, the Court proceeds to a cursory, and misleading, discussion of the State’s involvement in the assignment of residents to particular levels of care. In my view, an accurate and realistic appraisal of the procedures actually employed in the State of New York leaves no doubt that not only has the State established the system of treatment levels and utilization review in order to further its own fiscal goals, but that the State prescribes with as much precision as is possible the standards by which individual determinations are to be made.

The Court notes that at the time of admission the admitting physician is required to complete a long-term placement form called the DMS-1. 10 NYCRR §§ 415.1(a), 420.1(b) (1978). The Court dismisses the significance of the form by noting blandly that a “completed form provides ... a numerical score corresponding to the physician’s assessment of the patient’s mental and physical health,” and then commenting: “As petitioners note, . . . the physicians, and not the forms, make the decision about whether the patient’s care is medically necessary. A physician can authorize a patient’s admission to a nursing facility despite a ‘low’ score on the form. See 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a)(2), 420.1(b)(2) (1978).” Ante, at 1006 (footnote omitted and emphasis added). The Court concludes: “We cannot say that the State, by requiring completion of a form, is responsible for the physician’s decision.” *1020Ante, at 1006-1007 (emphasis added). A closer look at the regulations at issue suggests that petitioners have been less than candid in their characterization of the admission process and the role of the numerical score.

New York’s regulations mandate that the nursing home operator shall

“admit a patient only on physician’s orders and in accordance with the patient assessment criteria and standards as promulgated and published by the department (New York State LongTerm Care Placement Form [DMS-1] and New York State Numerical Standards Master Sheet [DMS-9]) . . . which shall include, as a minimum:

“(1) an assessment, performed prior to admission by or on behalf of the agency or person seeking admission for the patient, of the patient’s level of care needs according to the patient assessment criteria and standards promulgated and published by the department.” 10 NYCRR §415.1 (1978) (emphasis added).

The details of the DMS-9 Numerical Standards Master Sheet also bear more emphasis than the Court gives them, for that form describes with particularity the patients who are entitled to SNF care, ICF care, or no long-term residential care at all. The DMS-9 provides numerical scores for various resident dysfunctions. For example, if the resident is incontinent with urine often, he receives a score of 20; if seldom, a score of 10; if never, a score of 0. A similar rating is made as to stool incontinence: often, 40; seldom, 20; never, 0. A tabulation is made with respect to “function status.” For example, if the resident can walk only with “some help,” he receives 35 points; only with “total help,” 70 points; if he cannot walk, 105 points. If the resident needs “total help” to dress, he receives 80 points; if “some help” is required, 40 points. Ratings are also made of the patient’s “mental status.” For example, if the patient is never alert, he receives 40 points; if sometimes alert, 20 points; always alert, 0 points. *1021If his judgment is always impaired, he receives, 30 points; sometimes, 15 points; never, 0 points. And ratings are also set forth for other physical “impairments.” For example, if the patient’s vision is unimpaired, he receives 0 points; if he has partial sight, 1 point; if he is blind, 2 points.

The criterion for admission to a SNF is a DMS-9 “predictor score” of 180. 10 NYCRR § 415.1(a)(2) (1978). For admission to an HRF (health-related facility), the required score is 60. § 420.1(b)(2). Where the admission, or denial of admission, is based on the guidelines set forth in these regulations, there is, of course, no doubt, that the State is directly, and solely, “responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains,” ante, at 1004 (emphasis omitted), even if it has chosen to authorize a private party to implement that decision.8

*1022The Court dismisses the specific state standards for denying admission set forth in the regulations, and tabulated according to the DMS-9, by emphasizing what it perceives as an alternative method for gaining admission to a nursing home. In the Court’s view, this alternative route to admission takes the whole seheme outside the realm of state action because it hinges on a “physician’s assessment” of what is medically necessary. In characterizing the admission process as the independent assessment of a physician, the Court relies upon, but fails to quote, the following state regulations. The language of those regulations bears noting:

“[F]or those patients failing to meet the criteria and standards for admission to the . . . facility [as measured by the DMS-9], a certification signed by a physician member of the transferring facility’s utilization review agent or signed by the responsible social services district local medicaid medical director or designee indicating the reason(s) the patient requires [the facility’s level of care, is required].” 10 NYCRR § 415.1(a)(2) (1978) (emphasis added).

See also §420.1(b)(2).

As this provision makes clear, if the potential resident does not qualify under the specific standards of the DMS-1, as tabulated on the DMS-9, the patient can be admitted only on the basis of direct approval by Medicaid officials themselves, or on the basis of a determination by the utilization review agent of the transferring facility — and, of course, such agents are themselves clearly part and parcel of the statutory cost-control process.9 See n. 8, supra. No decision is made on *1023the basis of a medical judgment exercised outside the regulatory framework, by the resident’s personal physician acting on the basis of his personal medical judgment. The attending physician’s role is, at this stage, limited to “scoring” the patient’s condition according to standards set forth by the State on the DMS-9.

Yet the State’s involvement does not end with the initial certification. Within five days after admission, the matter is again subjected to assessment, this time by the operator of the transferee facility. This time the transferee nursing home operator is required to tabulate the DMS-9 score. If the patient’s score is not adequate by the standards of the DMS-9, admission must be denied unless sanctioned by the facility’s utilization review agent.10 The utilization review agent of the admitting facility, like that of the transferring facility, operates under a “written utilization control plan, approved by the department [of health].” 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9, 421.13 (1980). And that statutory body has the final say in *1024each instance. There can thus be little doubt that in the vast majority of cases, decisions as to “level of treatment” in the admission process are made according to the State’s specified criteria. That some deviation from the most literal application of the State’s guidelines is permitted cannot change the character of the State’s involvement. Indeed, absent such provision for exceptional cases, the formularized approach embodied in the DMS-9 would be unconscionable. And indeed, even with respect to these exceptional cases, the admissions procedure is administered through bodies whose structure and operations conform to state requirements, and whose decisions follow state guidelines — albeit guidelines somewhat more flexible than the DMS-1, in allowing some “psychosocial” factors to be taken into account. See infra, this page and 1025-1026.

The Court dismisses all this by noting that “[w]e cannot say that the State, by requiring completion of a form, is responsible for the physician’s decision.” Ante, at 1006-1007. The Court then notes that “[i]n any case, respondents’ complaint is about nursing home decisions to discharge or transfer, not to admit, Medicaid patients.” Ante, at 1007. This is true, of course. But where, one might ask, is the Court’s discussion of the frequent utilization reviews that occur after admission? The State’s regulations require that the operator shall provide for “continued stay reviews . . . to promote efficient and effective use of available health facilities and services every 30 days for the first 90 days, and every 90 days thereafter, for each nursing home patient.” 10 NYCRR § 416.9(b)(1) (1980) (skilled nursing facilities) (emphasis added). See also §421.13(b)(1) (health-related facilities, every 90 days).

The continued stay reviews parallel the admission determination with respect to both the State’s procedural and substantive standards.11 Again, the DMS-1 and the DMS-9 *1025channel the medical inquiry and function as the principal determinants of the resident’s status, for whenever a resident does not achieve an appropriate score on the DMS-1, as determined by a nonphysician representative of the utilization review agent, the resident’s case is directed to a physician member. That physician member does not personally examine the resident, but rather relies on the DMS-1 and other documentary information. See App. 172-173. If the matter is resolved adversely to the resident, only then must the attending physician be notified. The attending physician is allowed to present relevant information, though the final decision remains with the utilization review agent. See 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(b)(2), 421.13(b)(2) (1980). And again, the State’s substantive standards, not independent medical judgment, pervade review determinations. Evaluations are based only on the DMS-1 and DMS-9 tabulation, on a “psychosocial” evaluation respecting the resident’s response to transfer and other physical, emotional, and mental characteristics of the patient, on the resident’s discharge plan (prepared according to state regulations), and upon “additional criteria and standards . . . which shall have been approved *1026by the department [of health].” 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(b)(4), 421.13(b)(4) (1980) (emphasis added).12

The Court concludes with this assessment of the statutory-scheme:

“These regulations do not require .the nursing homes to rely on the forms in making discharge or transfer decisions, nor do they demonstrate that the State is responsible for the decision to discharge or transfer particular patients. Those decisions ultimately turn on medical judgments made by private parties according to professional standards that are not established by the State.” Ante, at 1008.

The Court is wrong. As a fair reading of the relevant regulations makes clear, the State (and Federal Government) have created, and administer, the level system as a cost-saving tool of the Medicaid program. The impetus for this *1027active program of review imposed upon the nursing home operator is primarily this fiscal concern. The State has set forth precisely the standards upon which the level-of-care determinations are to be made, and has delegated administration of the program to the nursing home operators, rather than assume the burden of administering the program itself. Thus, not only does the program implement the State’s fiscal goals, but, to paraphrase the Court, “[t]hese requirements . . . make the State responsible for actual decisions to discharge or transfer particular patients.” See ante, at 1008, n. 18. Where, as here, a private party acts on behalf of the State to implement state policy, his action is state action.

II

The deficiency in the Court’s analysis is dramatized by its inattention to the special characteristics of the nursing home. Quite apart from the State’s specific involvement in the transfer decisions at issue in this case, the nature of the nursing home as an institution, sustained by state and federal funds, and pervasively regulated by the State so as to ensure that it is properly implementing the governmental undertaking to provide assistance to the elderly and disabled that is embodied in the Medicaid program, undercuts the Court’s sterile approach to the state action inquiry in this case. The private nursing homes of the Nation exist, and profit, at the sufferance of state and federal Medicaid and Medicare agencies. The degree of interdependence between the State and the nursing home is far more pronounced than it was between the State and the private entity in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961). The State subsidizes practically all of the operating and capital costs of the facility, and pays the medical expenses of more than 90% of its residents. And, in setting reimbursement rates, the State generally affords the nursing homes a profit as well. Even more striking is the fact that the residents of those homes are, by definition, utterly dependent on the State for *1028their support and their placement. For many, the totality of their social network is the nursing home community. Within that environment, the nursing home operator is the immediate authority, the provider of food, clothing, shelter, and health care, and, in every significant respect, the functional equivalent of a State. Cf. Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946). Surely, in this context we must be especially alert to those situations in which the State “has elected to place its power, property and prestige behind” the actions of the nursing home owner. See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, supra, at 725.

Yet, whatever might be the status of the nursing home operator where the State has simply left the resident in his charge, while paying for the resident’s support and care, it is clear that the State has not simply left nursing home patients to the care of nursing home operators. No one would doubt that nursing homes are “pervasively regulated” by State and Federal Governments; virtually every action by the operator is subject to state oversight. But the question at this stage is not whether the procedures set forth in the state and federal regulatory scheme are sufficient to protect the residents’ interests. We are confronted with the question preliminary to any Fourteenth Amendment challenge: whether the State has brought its force to bear against the plaintiffs through the office of these private parties. In answering that question we may safely assume that when the State chooses to perform its governmental undertakings through private institutions, and with the aid of private parties, not every action of those private parties is state action. But when the State directs, supports, and encourages those private parties to take specific action, that is state action.

We may hypothesize many decisions of nursing home operators that affect patients, but are not attributable to the State.13 But with respect to decisions to transfer patients *1029downward from one level of care to another, if that decision is in any way connected with the statutory review structure set forth above,14 then there is no doubt that the standard for decision, and impetus for the decision, is the responsibility of the State. Indeed, with respect to the level-of-care determination, the State does everything but pay the nursing home operator a fixed salary. Because the State is clearly responsible for the specific conduct of petitioners about which respondents complain, and because this renders petitioners state actors for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, I dissent.

Justice KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court.

*1926 The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment constrains governmental actors and protects private actors. To draw the line between governmental and private, this Court applies what is known as the state-action doctrine. Under that doctrine, as relevant here, a private entity may be considered a state actor when it exercises a function "traditionally exclusively reserved to the State." Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. , 419 U.S. 345 , 352, 95 S.Ct. 449 , 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974).

This state-action case concerns the public access channels on Time Warner's cable system in Manhattan. Public access channels are available for private citizens to use. The public access channels on Time Warner's cable system in Manhattan are operated by a private nonprofit corporation known as MNN. The question here is whether MNN-even though it is a private entity-nonetheless is a state actor when it operates the public access channels. In other words, is operation of public access channels on a cable system a traditional, exclusive public function? If so, then the First Amendment would restrict MNN's exercise of editorial discretion over the speech and speakers on the public access channels.

Under the state-action doctrine as it has been articulated and applied by our precedents, we conclude that operation of public access channels on a cable system is not a traditional, exclusive public function. Moreover, a private entity such as MNN who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. In operating the public access channels, MNN is a private actor, not a state actor, and MNN therefore is not subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion. We reverse in relevant part the judgment of the Second Circuit, and we remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

A

Since the 1970s, public access channels have been a regular feature on cable television systems throughout the United States. In the 1970s, Federal Communications Commission regulations required certain cable operators to set aside channels on their cable systems for public access. In 1979, however, this Court ruled that the FCC lacked statutory authority to impose that mandate. See FCC v. Midwest Video Corp. , 440 U.S. 689 , 99 S.Ct. 1435 , 59 L.Ed.2d 692 (1979). A few years later, Congress passed and President Reagan signed the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. 98 Stat. 2779 . The Act authorized state and local governments to require cable operators to set aside channels on their cable systems for public access. 47 U.S.C. § 531 (b).

The New York State Public Service Commission regulates cable franchising in New York State and requires cable operators in the State to set aside channels on their cable systems for public access. 16 N.Y. Codes, Rules & Regs. §§ 895.1(f), 895.4(b) (2018). State law requires that use of the public access channels be free of charge and first-come, first-served. §§ 895.4(c)(4) and (6). Under state law, the cable operator operates the public access *1927 channels unless the local government in the area chooses to itself operate the channels or designates a private entity to operate the channels. § 895.4(c)(1).

Time Warner (now known as Charter) operates a cable system in Manhattan. Under state law, Time Warner must set aside some channels on its cable system for public access. New York City (the City) has designated a private nonprofit corporation named Manhattan Neighborhood Network, commonly referred to as MNN, to operate Time Warner's public access channels in Manhattan. This case involves a complaint against MNN regarding its management of the public access channels.

B

Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss, we accept the allegations in the complaint as true. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662 , 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 , 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009).

DeeDee Halleck and Jesus Papoleto Melendez produced public access programming in Manhattan. They made a film about MNN's alleged neglect of the East Harlem community. Halleck submitted the film to MNN for airing on MNN's public access channels, and MNN later televised the film. Afterwards, MNN fielded multiple complaints about the film's content. In response, MNN temporarily suspended Halleck from using the public access channels.

Halleck and Melendez soon became embroiled in another dispute with MNN staff. In the wake of that dispute, MNN ultimately suspended Halleck and Melendez from all MNN services and facilities.

Halleck and Melendez then sued MNN, among other parties, in Federal District Court. The two producers claimed that MNN violated their First Amendment free-speech rights when MNN restricted their access to the public access channels because of the content of their film.

MNN moved to dismiss the producers' First Amendment claim on the ground that MNN is not a state actor and therefore is not subject to First Amendment restrictions on its editorial discretion. The District Court agreed with MNN and dismissed the producers' First Amendment claim.

The Second Circuit reversed in relevant part. 882 F. 3d 300 , 308 (2018). In the majority opinion authored by Judge Newman and joined by Judge Lohier, the court stated that the public access channels in Manhattan are a public forum for purposes of the First Amendment. Reasoning that "public forums are usually operated by governments," the court concluded that MNN is a state actor subject to First Amendment constraints. Id. , at 306-307. Judge Lohier added a concurring opinion, explaining that MNN also qualifies as a state actor for the independent reason that "New York City delegated to MNN the traditionally public function of administering and regulating speech in the public forum of Manhattan's public access channels." Id., at 309 .

Judge Jacobs dissented in relevant part, opining that MNN is not a state actor. He reasoned that a private entity's operation of an open forum for speakers does not render the host entity a state actor. Judge Jacobs further stated that the operation of public access channels is not a traditional, exclusive public function.

We granted certiorari to resolve disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on the question whether private operators of public access cable channels are state actors subject to the First Amendment. 586 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 360 , 202 L.Ed.2d 261 (2018). Compare 882 F. 3d 300 (case below), with Wilcher v. Akron , 498 F. 3d 516 (CA6 2007) ; and *1928 Alliance for Community Media v. FCC , 56 F. 3d 105 (CADC 1995).

II

Ratified in 1791, the First Amendment provides in relevant part that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment makes the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause applicable against the States: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...." § 1. The text and original meaning of those Amendments, as well as this Court's longstanding precedents, establish that the Free Speech Clause prohibits only governmental abridgment of speech. The Free Speech Clause does not prohibit private abridgment of speech. See, e.g., Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC , 518 U.S. 727 , 737, 116 S.Ct. 2374 , 135 L.Ed.2d 888 (1996) (plurality opinion); Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston , Inc., 515 U.S. 557 , 566, 115 S.Ct. 2338 , 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995) ; Hudgens v. NLRB , 424 U.S. 507 , 513, 96 S.Ct. 1029 , 47 L.Ed.2d 196 (1976) ; cf. Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo , 418 U.S. 241 , 256, 94 S.Ct. 2831 , 41 L.Ed.2d 730 (1974).

In accord with the text and structure of the Constitution, this Court's state-action doctrine distinguishes the government from individuals and private entities. See Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Assn. , 531 U.S. 288 , 295-296, 121 S.Ct. 924 , 148 L.Ed.2d 807 (2001). By enforcing that constitutional boundary between the governmental and the private, the state-action doctrine protects a robust sphere of individual liberty.

Here, the producers claim that MNN, a private entity, restricted their access to MNN's public access channels because of the content of the producers' film. The producers have advanced a First Amendment claim against MNN. The threshold problem with that First Amendment claim is a fundamental one: MNN is a private entity.

Relying on this Court's state-action precedents, the producers assert that MNN is nonetheless a state actor subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion. Under this Court's cases, a private entity can qualify as a state actor in a few limited circumstances-including, for example, (i) when the private entity performs a traditional, exclusive public function, see, e.g., Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352-354 , 95 S.Ct. 449 ; (ii) when the government compels the private entity to take a particular action, see, e.g., Blum v. Yaretsky , 457 U.S. 991 , 1004-1005, 102 S.Ct. 2777 , 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982) ; or (iii) when the government acts jointly with the private entity, see, e.g., Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. , 457 U.S. 922 , 941-942, 102 S.Ct. 2744 , 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982).

The producers' primary argument here falls into the first category: The producers contend that MNN exercises a traditional, exclusive public function when it operates the public access channels on Time Warner's cable system in Manhattan. We disagree.

A

Under the Court's cases, a private entity may qualify as a state actor when it exercises "powers traditionally exclusively reserved to the State." Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352 , 95 S.Ct. 449 . It is not enough that the federal, state, or local government exercised the function in the past, or still does. And it is not enough that the function serves the public good or *1929 the public interest in some way. Rather, to qualify as a traditional, exclusive public function within the meaning of our state-action precedents, the government must have traditionally and exclusively performed the function. See Rendell-Baker v. Kohn , 457 U.S. 830 , 842, 102 S.Ct. 2764 , 73 L.Ed.2d 418 (1982) ; Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352-353 , 95 S.Ct. 449 ; Evans v. Newton , 382 U.S. 296 , 300, 86 S.Ct. 486 , 15 L.Ed.2d 373 (1966).

The Court has stressed that "very few" functions fall into that category. Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks , 436 U.S. 149 , 158, 98 S.Ct. 1729 , 56 L.Ed.2d 185 (1978). Under the Court's cases, those functions include, for example, running elections and operating a company town. See Terry v. Adams , 345 U.S. 461 , 468-470, 73 S.Ct. 809 , 97 L.Ed. 1152 (1953) (elections); Marsh v. Alabama , 326 U.S. 501 , 505-509, 66 S.Ct. 276 , 90 L.Ed. 265 (1946) (company town); Smith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 , 662-666, 64 S.Ct. 757 , 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944) (elections); Nixon v. Condon , 286 U.S. 73 , 84-89, 52 S.Ct. 484 , 76 L.Ed. 984 (1932) (elections). 1 The Court has ruled that a variety of functions do not fall into that category, including, for example: running sports associations and leagues, administering insurance payments, operating nursing homes, providing special education, representing indigent criminal defendants, resolving private disputes, and supplying electricity. See American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan , 526 U.S. 40 , 55-57, 119 S.Ct. 977 , 143 L.Ed.2d 130 (1999) (insurance payments); National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian , 488 U.S. 179 , 197, n. 18, 109 S.Ct. 454 , 102 L.Ed.2d 469 (1988) (college sports); San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Comm. , 483 U.S. 522 , 544-545, 107 S.Ct. 2971 , 97 L.Ed.2d 427 (1987) (amateur sports); Blum , 457 U.S. at 1011-1012, 102 S.Ct. 2777 (nursing home); Rendell-Baker , 457 U.S. at 842, 102 S.Ct. 2764 (special education); Polk County v. Dodson , 454 U.S. 312 , 318-319, 102 S.Ct. 445 , 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981) (public defender); Flagg Bros. , 436 U.S. at 157-163 , 98 S.Ct. 1729 (private dispute resolution); Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352-354 , 95 S.Ct. 449 (electric service).

The relevant function in this case is operation of public access channels on a cable system. That function has not traditionally and exclusively been performed by government.

Since the 1970s, when public access channels became a regular feature on cable systems, a variety of private and public actors have operated public access channels, including: private cable operators; private nonprofit organizations; municipalities; and other public and private community organizations such as churches, schools, and libraries. See Denver Area , 518 U.S. at 761-762 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (plurality opinion); R. Oringel & S. Buske, The Access Manager's Handbook: A Guide for Managing Community Television 14-17 (1987).

The history of public access channels in Manhattan further illustrates the point. In 1971, public access channels first started operating in Manhattan. See D. Brenner, M. Price, & M. Meyerson, Cable Television and Other Nonbroadcast Video § 6:29, p. 6-47 (2018). Those early Manhattan public access channels were operated in large *1930 part by private cable operators, with some help from private nonprofit organizations. See G. Gillespie, Public Access Cable Television in the United States and Canada 37-38 (1975); Janes, History and Structure of Public Access Television, 39 J. Film & Video, No. 3, pp. 15-17 (1987). Those private cable operators continued to operate the public access channels until the early 1990s, when MNN (also a private entity) began to operate the public access channels.

In short, operating public access channels on a cable system is not a traditional, exclusive public function within the meaning of this Court's cases.

B

To avoid that conclusion, the producers widen the lens and contend that the relevant function here is not simply the operation of public access channels on a cable system, but rather is more generally the operation of a public forum for speech. And according to the producers, operation of a public forum for speech is a traditional, exclusive public function.

That analysis mistakenly ignores the threshold state-action question. When the government provides a forum for speech (known as a public forum), the government may be constrained by the First Amendment, meaning that the government ordinarily may not exclude speech or speakers from the forum on the basis of viewpoint, or sometimes even on the basis of content. See, e.g., Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad , 420 U.S. 546 , 547, 555, 95 S.Ct. 1239 , 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975) (private theater leased to the city); Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley , 408 U.S. 92 , 93, 96, 92 S.Ct. 2286 , 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (sidewalks); Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization , 307 U.S. 496 , 515-516, 59 S.Ct. 954 , 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939) (streets and parks).

By contrast, when a private entity provides a forum for speech, the private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment because the private entity is not a state actor. The private entity may thus exercise editorial discretion over the speech and speakers in the forum. This Court so ruled in its 1976 decision in Hudgens v. NLRB . There, the Court held that a shopping center owner is not a state actor subject to First Amendment requirements such as the public forum doctrine. 424 U.S. at 520-521 , 96 S.Ct. 1029 ; see also Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner , 407 U.S. 551 , 569-570, 92 S.Ct. 2219 , 33 L.Ed.2d 131 (1972) ; Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB , 407 U.S. 539 , 547, 92 S.Ct. 2238 , 33 L.Ed.2d 122 (1972) ; Alliance for Community Media , 56 F. 3d at 121-123 .

The Hudgens decision reflects a commonsense principle: Providing some kind of forum for speech is not an activity that only governmental entities have traditionally performed. Therefore, a private entity who provides a forum for speech is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. After all, private property owners and private lessees often open their property for speech. Grocery stores put up community bulletin boards. Comedy clubs host open mic nights. As Judge Jacobs persuasively explained, it "is not at all a near-exclusive function of the state to provide the forums for public expression, politics, information, or entertainment." 882 F. 3d at 311 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).

In short, merely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function and does not alone transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints.

If the rule were otherwise, all private property owners and private lessees *1931 who open their property for speech would be subject to First Amendment constraints and would lose the ability to exercise what they deem to be appropriate editorial discretion within that open forum. Private property owners and private lessees would face the unappetizing choice of allowing all comers or closing the platform altogether. "The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use." Hudgens , 424 U.S. at 519 , 96 S.Ct. 1029 (internal quotation marks omitted). Benjamin Franklin did not have to operate his newspaper as "a stagecoach, with seats for everyone." F. Mott, American Journalism 55 (3d ed. 1962). That principle still holds true. As the Court said in Hudgens , to hold that private property owners providing a forum for speech are constrained by the First Amendment would be "to create a court-made law wholly disregarding the constitutional basis on which private ownership of property rests in this country." 424 U.S. at 517 , 96 S.Ct. 1029 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Constitution does not disable private property owners and private lessees from exercising editorial discretion over speech and speakers on their property. 2

The producers here are seeking in effect to circumvent this Court's case law, including Hudgens . But Hudgens is sound, and we therefore reaffirm our holding in that case. 3

C

Next, the producers retort that this case differs from Hudgens because New York City has designated MNN to operate the public access channels on Time Warner's cable system, and because New York State heavily regulates MNN with respect to the public access channels. Under this Court's cases, however, those facts do not establish that MNN is a state actor.

New York City's designation of MNN to operate the public access channels is analogous to a government license, a government contract, or a government-granted monopoly. But as the Court has long held, the fact that the government licenses, contracts with, or grants a monopoly to a private entity does not convert the private entity into a state actor-unless the private entity is performing a traditional, exclusive public function. See, e.g., San Francisco Arts & Athletics , 483 U.S. at 543-544 , 107 S.Ct. 2971 (exclusive-use rights and corporate charters); Blum , 457 U.S. at 1011, 102 S.Ct. 2777 (licenses); Rendell-Baker , 457 U.S. at 840-841, 102 S.Ct. 2764 (contracts); Polk County , 454 U.S. at 319, n. 9 , and 320-322, 102 S.Ct. 445 (law licenses);

*1932 Jackson , 419 U.S. at 351-352 , 95 S.Ct. 449 (electric monopolies); Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee , 412 U.S. 94 , 120-121, 93 S.Ct. 2080 , 36 L.Ed.2d 772 (1973) (broadcast licenses); Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis , 407 U.S. 163 , 176-177, 92 S.Ct. 1965 , 32 L.Ed.2d 627 (1972) (liquor licenses); cf. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward , 4 Wheat. 518 , 638-639, 4 L.Ed. 629 (1819) (corporate charters). The same principle applies if the government funds or subsidizes a private entity. See Blum , 457 U.S. at 1011, 102 S.Ct. 2777 ; Rendell - Baker , 457 U.S. at 840, 102 S.Ct. 2764 .

Numerous private entities in America obtain government licenses, government contracts, or government-granted monopolies. If those facts sufficed to transform a private entity into a state actor, a large swath of private entities in America would suddenly be turned into state actors and be subject to a variety of constitutional constraints on their activities. As this Court's many state-action cases amply demonstrate, that is not the law. Here, therefore, the City's designation of MNN to operate the public access channels on Time Warner's cable system does not make MNN a state actor.

So, too, New York State's extensive regulation of MNN's operation of the public access channels does not make MNN a state actor. Under the State's regulations, air time on the public access channels must be free, and programming must be aired on a first-come, first-served basis. Those regulations restrict MNN's editorial discretion and in effect require MNN to operate almost like a common carrier. But under this Court's cases, those restrictions do not render MNN a state actor.

In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. , the leading case on point, the Court stated that the "fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State." 419 U.S. at 350 , 95 S.Ct. 449 . In that case, the Court held that "a heavily regulated, privately owned utility, enjoying at least a partial monopoly in the providing of electrical service within its territory," was not a state actor. Id. , at 358, 95 S.Ct. 449 . The Court explained that the "mere existence" of a "regulatory scheme"-even if "extensive and detailed"-did not render the utility a state actor. Id., at 350 , and n. 7, 95 S.Ct. 449 . Nor did it matter whether the State had authorized the utility to provide electric service to the community, or whether the utility was the only entity providing electric service to much of that community.

This case closely parallels Jackson . Like the electric utility in Jackson , MNN is "a heavily regulated, privately owned" entity. Id., at 358 , 95 S.Ct. 449 . As in Jackson , the regulations do not transform the regulated private entity into a state actor.

Put simply, being regulated by the State does not make one a state actor. See Sullivan , 526 U.S. at 52 , 119 S.Ct. 977 ; Blum , 457 U.S. at 1004, 102 S.Ct. 2777 ; Rendell-Baker , 457 U.S. at 841-842, 102 S.Ct. 2764 ; Jackson , 419 U.S. at 350 , 95 S.Ct. 449 ; Moose Lodge , 407 U.S. at 176-177, 92 S.Ct. 1965 . As the Court's cases have explained, the "being heavily regulated makes you a state actor" theory of state action is entirely circular and would significantly endanger individual liberty and private enterprise. The theory would be especially problematic in the speech context, because it could eviscerate certain private entities' rights to exercise editorial control over speech and speakers on their properties or platforms. Not surprisingly, as Justice THOMAS has pointed out, this Court has "never even hinted that regulatory control, and particularly direct regulatory control over a private entity's First Amendment speech rights," could justify *1933 subjecting the regulated private entity to the constraints of the First Amendment. Denver Area , 518 U.S. at 829 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

In sum, we conclude that MNN is not subject to First Amendment constraints on how it exercises its editorial discretion with respect to the public access channels. To be sure, MNN is subject to state-law constraints on its editorial discretion (assuming those state laws do not violate a federal statute or the Constitution). If MNN violates those state laws, or violates any applicable contracts, MNN could perhaps face state-law sanctions or liability of some kind. We of course take no position on any potential state-law questions. We simply conclude that MNN, as a private actor, is not subject to First Amendment constraints on how it exercises editorial discretion over the speech and speakers on its public access channels.

III

Perhaps recognizing the problem with their argument that MNN is a state actor under ordinary state-action principles applicable to private entities and private property, the producers alternatively contend that the public access channels are actually the property of New York City, not the property of Time Warner or MNN. On this theory, the producers say (and the dissent agrees) that MNN is in essence simply managing government property on behalf of New York City.

The short answer to that argument is that the public access channels are not the property of New York City. Nothing in the record here suggests that a government (federal, state, or city) owns or leases either the cable system or the public access channels at issue here. Both Time Warner and MNN are private entities. Time Warner is the cable operator, and it owns its cable network, which contains the public access channels. MNN operates those public access channels with its own facilities and equipment. The City does not own or lease the public access channels, and the City does not possess a formal easement or other property interest in those channels. The franchise agreements between the City and Time Warner do not say that the City has any property interest in the public access channels. On the contrary, the franchise agreements expressly place the public access channels "under the jurisdiction" of MNN. App. 22. Moreover, the producers did not allege in their complaint that the City has a property interest in the channels. And the producers have not cited any basis in state law for such a conclusion. Put simply, the City does not have "any formal easement or other property interest in those channels." Denver Area , 518 U.S. at 828 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).

It does not matter that a provision in the franchise agreements between the City and Time Warner allowed the City to designate a private entity to operate the public access channels on Time Warner's cable system. Time Warner still owns the cable system. And MNN still operates the public access channels. To reiterate, nothing in the franchise agreements suggests that the City possesses any property interest in Time Warner's cable system, or in the public access channels on that system.

It is true that the City has allowed the cable operator, Time Warner, to lay cable along public rights-of-way in the City. But Time Warner's access to public rights-of-way does not alter the state-action analysis. For Time Warner, as for other cable operators, access to public rights-of-way is essential to lay cable and construct a physical cable infrastructure. See *1934 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC , 512 U.S. 622 , 628, 114 S.Ct. 2445 , 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994). But the same is true for utility providers, such as the electric utility in Jackson . Put simply, a private entity's permission from government to use public rights-of-way does not render that private entity a state actor.

Having said all that, our point here should not be read too broadly. Under the laws in certain States, including New York, a local government may decide to itself operate the public access channels on a local cable system (as many local governments in New York State and around the country already do), or could take appropriate steps to obtain a property interest in the public access channels. Depending on the circumstances, the First Amendment might then constrain the local government's operation of the public access channels. We decide only the case before us in light of the record before us.

* * *

It is sometimes said that the bigger the government, the smaller the individual. Consistent with the text of the Constitution, the state-action doctrine enforces a critical boundary between the government and the individual, and thereby protects a robust sphere of individual liberty. Expanding the state-action doctrine beyond its traditional boundaries would expand governmental control while restricting individual liberty and private enterprise. We decline to do so in this case.

MNN is a private entity that operates public access channels on a cable system. Operating public access channels on a cable system is not a traditional, exclusive public function. A private entity such as MNN who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. Under the text of the Constitution and our precedents, MNN is not a state actor subject to the First Amendment. We reverse in relevant part the judgment of the Second Circuit, and we remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG, Justice BREYER, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.

The Court tells a very reasonable story about a case that is not before us. I write to address the one that is.

This is a case about an organization appointed by the government to administer a constitutional public forum. (It is not, as the Court suggests, about a private property owner that simply opened up its property to others.) New York City (the City) secured a property interest in public-access television channels when it granted a cable franchise to a cable company. State regulations require those public-access channels to be made open to the public on terms that render them a public forum. The City contracted out the administration of that forum to a private organization, petitioner Manhattan Community Access Corporation (MNN). By accepting that agency relationship, MNN stepped into the City's shoes and thus qualifies as a state actor, subject to the First Amendment like any other.

I

A

A cable-television franchise is, essentially, a license to create a system for distributing cable TV in a certain area. It is a valuable right, usually conferred on a private company by a local government. See 47 U.S.C. §§ 522 (9) - (10), 541(a)(2), (b)(1) ; Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC , 512 U.S. 622 , 628, 114 S.Ct. 2445 , 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994). A private company cannot enter a local cable market without one. § 541(b)(1).

*1935 Cable companies transmit content through wires that stretch "between a transmission facility and the television sets of individual subscribers." Id. , at 627-628, 114 S.Ct. 2445 . Creating this network of wires is a disruptive undertaking that "entails the use of public rights-of-way and easements." Id. , at 628, 114 S.Ct. 2445 .

New York State authorizes municipalities to grant cable franchises to cable companies of a certain size only if those companies agree to set aside at least one public access channel. 16 N.Y. Codes, Rules & Regs. §§ 895.1(f), 895.4(b)(1) (2016). New York then requires that those public-access channels be open to all comers on "a first-come, first-served, nondiscriminatory basis." § 895.4(c)(4). Likewise, the State prohibits both cable franchisees and local governments from "exercis[ing] any editorial control" over the channels, aside from regulating obscenity and other unprotected content. §§ 895.4(c)(8)-(9).

B

Years ago, New York City (no longer a party to this suit) and Time Warner Entertainment Company (never a party to this suit) entered into a cable-franchise agreement. App. 22. Time Warner received a cable franchise; the City received public-access channels. The agreement also provided that the public-access channels would be operated by an independent, nonprofit corporation chosen by the Manhattan borough president. But the City, as the practice of other New York municipalities confirms, could have instead chosen to run the channels itself. See § 895.4(c)(1) ; Brief for Respondents 35 (citing examples).

MNN is the independent nonprofit that the borough president appointed to run the channels; indeed, MNN appears to have been incorporated in 1991 for that precise purpose, with seven initial board members selected by the borough president (though only two thus selected today). See App. 23; Brief for Respondents 7, n. 1. The City arranged for MNN to receive startup capital from Time Warner and to be funded through franchise fees from Time Warner and other Manhattan cable franchisees. App. 23; Brief for New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA) as Amicus Curiae 27; see also App. to Brief for Respondents 19a. As the borough president announced upon MNN's formation in 1991, MNN's "central charge is to administer and manage all the public access channels of the cable television systems in Manhattan." App. to Brief for NYCLA as Amicus Curiae 1.

As relevant here, respondents DeeDee Halleck and Jesus Papoleto Melendez sued MNN in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . They alleged that the public-access channels, "[r]equired by state regulation and [the] local franchise agreements," are "a designated public forum of unlimited character"; that the City had "delegated control of that public forum to MNN"; and that MNN had, in turn, engaged in viewpoint discrimination in violation of respondents' First Amendment rights. App. 39.

The District Court dismissed respondents' First Amendment claim against MNN. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed that dismissal, concluding that the public-access channels "are public forums and that [MNN's] employees were sufficiently alleged to be state actors taking action barred by the First Amendment." 882 F. 3d 300 , 301-302 (2018). Because the case before us arises from a motion to dismiss, respondents' factual allegations must be accepted as true. Hernandez v. Mesa , 582 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 2003 , 2004-2005, 198 L.Ed.2d 625 (2017) ( per curiam ).

*1936 II

I would affirm the judgment below. The channels are clearly a public forum: The City has a property interest in them, and New York regulations require that access to those channels be kept open to all. And because the City (1) had a duty to provide that public forum once it granted a cable franchise and (2) had a duty to abide by the First Amendment once it provided that forum, those obligations did not evaporate when the City delegated the administration of that forum to a private entity. Just as the City would have been subject to the First Amendment had it chosen to run the forum itself, MNN assumed the same responsibility when it accepted the delegation.

A

When a person alleges a violation of the right to free speech, courts generally must consider not only what was said but also in what context it was said.

On the one hand, there are "public forums," or settings that the government has opened in some way for speech by the public (or some subset of it). The Court's precedents subdivide this broader category into various subcategories, with the level of leeway for government regulation of speech varying accordingly. See Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky , 585 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1876 , 1885, 201 L.Ed.2d 201 (2018). Compare Frisby v. Schultz , 487 U.S. 474 , 480, 108 S.Ct. 2495 , 101 L.Ed.2d 420 (1988) (streets and public parks, traditional public forums), with Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad , 420 U.S. 546 , 555, 95 S.Ct. 1239 , 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975) (city-leased theater, designated public forum), with Christian Legal Soc. Chapter of Univ. of Cal., Hastings College of Law v. Martinez , 561 U.S. 661 , 669, 679, and n. 12, 130 S.Ct. 2971 , 177 L.Ed.2d 838 (2010) (program for registered student organizations, limited public forum). But while many cases turn on which type of "forum" is implicated, the important point here is that viewpoint discrimination is impermissible in them all. See Good News Club v. Milford Central School , 533 U.S. 98 , 106, 121 S.Ct. 2093 , 150 L.Ed.2d 151 (2001).

On the other hand, there are contexts that do not fall under the "forum" rubric. For one, there are contexts in which the government is simply engaging in its own speech and thus has freedom to select the views it prefers. See, e.g. , Walker v. Texas Div. , Sons of Confederate Veterans , Inc. , 576 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct. 2239 , 2246-2247, 192 L.Ed.2d 274 (2015) (specialty license plates); Pleasant Grove City v. Summum , 555 U.S. 460 , 467-469, 481, 129 S.Ct. 1125 , 172 L.Ed.2d 853 (2009) (privately donated permanent monuments in a public park). 1 In addition, there are purely private spaces, where the First Amendment is (as relevant here) inapplicable. The First Amendment leaves a private store owner (or homeowner), for example, free to remove a customer (or dinner guest) for expressing unwanted views. See, e.g. , Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner , 407 U.S. 551 , 569-570, 92 S.Ct. 2219 , 33 L.Ed.2d 131 (1972). In these settings, there is no First Amendment right against viewpoint discrimination.

Here, respondents alleged viewpoint discrimination. App. 39. So a key question in this case concerns what the Manhattan public-access channels are: a public forum of some kind, in which a claim alleging *1937 viewpoint discrimination would be cognizable, or something else, such as government speech or purely private property, where picking favored viewpoints is appropriately commonplace. 2 Neither MNN nor the majority suggests that this is an instance of government speech. This case thus turns first and foremost on whether the public-access channels are or are not purely private property. 3

1

This Court has not defined precisely what kind of governmental property interest (if any) is necessary for a public forum to exist. See Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc. , 473 U.S. 788 , 801, 105 S.Ct. 3439 , 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985) ("a speaker must seek access to public property or to private property dedicated to public use"). But see ante , at 1931, n. 3 (appearing to reject the phrase "private property dedicated to public use" as "passing dicta"). I assume for the sake of argument in this case that public-forum analysis is inappropriate where the government lacks a "significant property interest consistent with the communicative purpose of the forum." Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC , 518 U.S. 727 , 829, 116 S.Ct. 2374 , 135 L.Ed.2d 888 (1996) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

Such an interest is present here. As described above, New York State required the City to obtain public-access channels from Time Warner in exchange for awarding a cable franchise. See supra , at 1934 - 1935. The exclusive right to use these channels (and, as necessary, Time Warner's infrastructure) qualifies as a property interest, akin at the very least to an easement.

The last time this Court considered a case centering on public-access channels, five Justices described an interest like the one here as similar to an easement. Although Justice BREYER did not conclude that a public-access channel was indeed a public forum, he likened the cable company's agreement to reserve such channels "to the reservation of a public easement, or a dedication of land for streets and parks, as part of a municipality's approval of a subdivision of land." Denver Area , 518 U.S. at 760-761 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (joined by Stevens and Souter, JJ.). And Justice Kennedy observed not only that an easement would be an appropriate analogy, id., at 793-794 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (opinion concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part, joined by GINSBURG, J.), but also that "[p]ublic access channels meet the definition of a public forum," id., at 791 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 , "even though they operate over property to which the cable operator holds title," id., at 792 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 ; see also id., at 792-793 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (noting that the entire cable system's existence stems from the municipality's decision to grant the franchise). What those five Justices suggested in 1996 remains true today.

"A common idiom describes property as a 'bundle of sticks'-a collection of individual *1938 rights which, in certain combinations, constitute property." United States v. Craft , 535 U.S. 274 , 278, 122 S.Ct. 1414 , 152 L.Ed.2d 437 (2002). Rights to exclude and to use are two of the most crucial sticks in the bundle. See id., at 283 , 122 S.Ct. 1414 . "State law determines ... which sticks are in a person's bundle," id., at 278 , 122 S.Ct. 1414 , and therefore defining property itself is a state-law exercise. 4 As for whether there is a sufficient property interest to trigger First Amendment forum analysis, related precedents show that there is.

As noted above, there is no disputing that Time Warner owns the wires themselves. See Turner , 512 U.S. at 628 , 114 S.Ct. 2445 . If the wires were a road, it would be easy to define the public's right to walk on it as an easement. See, e.g. , In re India Street , 29 N.Y. 2d 97 , 100-103, 324 N.Y.S.2d 1 , 272 N. E 2d 518 , 518-520 (1971). Similarly, if the wires were a theater, there would be no question that a government's long-term lease to use it would be sufficient for public-forum purposes. Southeastern Promotions , 420 U.S. at 547, 555 , 95 S.Ct. 1239 . But some may find this case more complicated because the wires are not a road or a theater that one can physically occupy; they are a conduit for transmitting signals that appear as television channels. In other words, the question is how to understand the right to place content on those channels using those wires.

The right to convey expressive content using someone else's physical infrastructure is not new. To give another low-tech example, imagine that one company owns a billboard and another rents space on that billboard. The renter can have a property interest in placing content on the billboard for the lease term even though it does not own the billboard itself. See, e.g., Naegele Outdoor Advertising Co. of Minneapolis v. Lakeville , 532 N. W. 2d 249 , 253 (Minn. App.1995) ; see also Matter of XAR Corp. v. Di Donato , 76 App. Div. 2d 972 , 973, 429 N.Y. S. 2d 59 , 60 (1980) ("Although invariably labeled 'leases,' agreements to erect advertising signs or to place signs on walls or fences are easements in gross").

The same principle should operate in this higher tech realm. Just as if the channels were a billboard, the City obtained rights for exclusive use of the channels by the public for the foreseeable future; no one is free to take the channels away, short of a contract renegotiation. Cf. Craft , 535 U.S. at 283 , 122 S.Ct. 1414 . The City also obtained the right to administer, or delegate the administration of, the channels. The channels are more intangible than a billboard, but no one believes that a right must be tangible to qualify as a property interest. See, e.g. , Armstrong v. United States , 364 U.S. 40 , 48-49, 80 S.Ct. 1563 , 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960) (treating destruction of valid liens as a taking); Adams Express Co. v. Ohio State Auditor , 166 U.S. 185 , 219, 17 S.Ct. 604 , 41 L.Ed. 965 (1897) (treating "privileges, corporate franchises, contracts or obligations" as taxable property). And it is hardly unprecedented for a government to receive a right to transmit something over a private entity's infrastructure in exchange for conferring something of value on that private entity; examples go back at least as far as the 1800s. 5

*1939 I do not suggest that the government always obtains a property interest in public-access channels created by franchise agreements. But the arrangement here is consistent with what the Court would treat as a governmental property interest in other contexts. New York City gave Time Warner the right to lay wires and sell cable TV. In exchange, the City received an exclusive right to send its own signal over Time Warner's infrastructure-no different than receiving a right to place ads on another's billboards. Those rights amount to a governmental property interest in the channels, and that property interest is clearly "consistent with the communicative purpose of the forum," Denver Area , 518 U.S. at 829 , 116 S.Ct. 2374 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Indeed, it is the right to transmit the very content to which New York law grants the public open and equal access.

2

With the question of a governmental property interest resolved, it should become clear that the public-access channels are a public forum. 6 Outside of classic examples like sidewalks and parks, a public forum exists only where the government has deliberately opened up the setting for speech by at least a subset of the public. Cornelius , 473 U.S. at 802 , 105 S.Ct. 3439 . "Accordingly, the Court has looked to the policy and practice of the government," as well as the nature of the property itself, "to ascertain whether it intended to designate a place not traditionally open to assembly and debate as a public forum." See ibid. For example, a state college might make its facilities open to student groups, or a municipality might open up an auditorium for certain public meetings. See id. , at 802-803, 105 S.Ct. 3439 .

The requisite governmental intent is manifest here. As noted above, New York State regulations require that the channels be made available to the public "on a first-come, first-served, nondiscriminatory basis." 16 N.Y. Codes, Rules & Regs. § 895.4(c)(4) ; see also §§ 895.4(c)(8)-(9). The State, in other words, mandates that the doors be wide open for public expression. MNN's contract with Time Warner follows suit. App. 23. And that is essentially how MNN itself describes things. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 9 ("We do not prescreen videos. We-they come into the door. We put them on the air"). 7 These regulations "evidenc[e] a clear intent to create a public forum." Cornelius , 473 U.S. at 802 , 105 S.Ct. 3439 .

B

If New York's public-access channels are a public forum, it follows that New York cannot evade the First Amendment by contracting out administration of that forum to a private agent. When MNN took on the responsibility of administering the *1940 forum, it stood in the City's shoes and became a state actor for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 .

This conclusion follows from the Court's decision in West v. Atkins , 487 U.S. 42 , 108 S.Ct. 2250 , 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988). The Court in West unanimously held that a doctor hired to provide medical care to state prisoners was a state actor for purposes of § 1983. Id. , at 54, 108 S.Ct. 2250 ; see also id., at 58 , 108 S.Ct. 2250 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Each State must provide medical care to prisoners, the Court explained, id., at 54 , 108 S.Ct. 2250 , and when a State hires a private doctor to do that job, the doctor becomes a state actor, " 'clothed with the authority of state law,' " id. , at 55, 108 S.Ct. 2250 . If a doctor hired by the State abuses his role, the harm is "caused, in the sense relevant for state-action inquiry," by the State's having incarcerated the prisoner and put his medical care in that doctor's hands. Ibid.

The fact that the doctor was a private contractor, the Court emphasized, made no difference. Ibid. It was "the physician's function within the state system," not his private-contractor status, that determined whether his conduct could "fairly be attributed to the State." Id. , at 55-56, 108 S.Ct. 2250 . Once the State imprisoned the plaintiff, it owed him duties under the Eighth Amendment; once the State delegated those duties to a private doctor, the doctor became a state actor. See ibid. ; see also id. , at 56-57, 108 S.Ct. 2250 . If the rule were any different, a State would " 'be free to contract out all services which it is constitutionally obligated to provide and leave its citizens with no means for vindication of those rights, whose protection has been delegated to 'private' actors, when they have been denied.' " Id., at 56, n. 14 , 108 S.Ct. 2250 .

West resolves this case. Although the settings are different, the legal features are the same: When a government (1) makes a choice that triggers constitutional obligations, and then (2) contracts out those constitutional responsibilities to a private entity, that entity-in agreeing to take on the job-becomes a state actor for purposes of § 1983. 8

Not all acts of governmental delegation necessarily trigger constitutional obligations, but this one did. New York State regulations required the City to secure public-access channels if it awarded a cable franchise. 16 N.Y. Codes, Rules & Regs. § 895.4(b)(1). The City did award a cable franchise. The State's regulations then required the City to make the channels it obtained available on a "first-come, first-served, nondiscriminatory basis." 9

*1941 § 895.4(c)(4). That made the channels a public forum. See supra, at 1938 - 1939. Opening a public forum, in turn, entailed First Amendment obligations.

The City could have done the job itself, but it instead delegated that job to a private entity, MNN. MNN could have said no, but it said yes. (Indeed, it appears to exist entirely to do this job.) By accepting the job, MNN accepted the City's responsibilities. See West , 487 U.S. at 55, 108 S.Ct. 2250 . The First Amendment does not fall silent simply because a government hands off the administration of its constitutional duties to a private actor.

III

The majority acknowledges that the First Amendment could apply when a local government either (1) has a property interest in public-access channels or (2) is more directly involved in administration of those channels than the City is here. Ante , at 1933 - 1934. And it emphasizes that it "decide[s] only the case before us in light of the record before us." Ibid . These case-specific qualifiers sharply limit the immediate effect of the majority's decision, but that decision is still meaningfully wrong in two ways. First, the majority erroneously decides the property question against the plaintiffs as a matter of law. Second, and more fundamentally, the majority mistakes a case about the government choosing to hand off responsibility to an agent for a case about a private entity that simply enters a marketplace.

A

The majority's explanation for why there is no governmental property interest here, ante , at 1933 - 1934, does not hold up. The majority focuses on the fact that "[b]oth Time Warner and MNN are private entities"; that Time Warner "owns its cable network, which contains the public access channels"; and that "MNN operates those public access channels with its own facilities and equipment." Ante , at 1933; see also ante , at 1933 - 1934. Those considerations cannot resolve this case. The issue is not who owns the cable network or that MNN uses its own property to operate the channels. The key question, rather, is whether the channels themselves are purely private property. An advertiser may not own a billboard, but that does not mean that its long-term lease is not a property interest. See supra , at 1938.

The majority also says that "[n]othing in the record here suggests that a government ... owns or leases either the cable system or the public access channels at issue here." Ante , at 1933. But the cable system itself is irrelevant, and, as explained above, the details of the exchange that yielded Time Warner's cable franchise suggest a governmental property interest in the channels. See supra, at 1937 - 1939.

The majority observes that "the franchise agreements expressly place the public *1942 access channels 'under the jurisdiction' of MNN," ante , at 1933, but that language simply describes the City's appointment of MNN to administer the channels. The majority also chides respondents for failing to "alleg[e] in their complaint that the City has a property interest in the channels," ibid. , but, fairly read, respondents' complaint includes such an assertion. 10 In any event, any ambiguity or imprecision does not justify resolving the case against respondents at the motion-to-dismiss stage. To the extent the majority has doubts about respondents' complaint-or factual or state-law issues that may bear upon the existence of a property interest-the more prudent course would be to vacate and remand for the lower courts to consider those matters more fully. In any event, as I have explained, the best course of all would be to affirm.

B

More fundamentally, the majority's opinion erroneously fixates on a type of case that is not before us: one in which a private entity simply enters the marketplace and is then subject to government regulation. The majority swings hard at the wrong pitch.

The majority focuses on Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. , 419 U.S. 345 , 95 S.Ct. 449 , 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974), which is a paradigmatic example of a line of cases that reject § 1983 liability for private actors that simply operate against a regulatory backdrop. Jackson emphasized that the "fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State." Id. , at 350, 95 S.Ct. 449 ; accord, ante , at 1932. Thus, the fact that a utility company entered the marketplace did not make it a state actor, even if it was highly regulated. See Jackson , 419 U.S. at 358 , 95 S.Ct. 449 ; accord, ante , at 1932 - 1933. The same rule holds, of course, for private comedy clubs and grocery stores. See ante , at 1930. 11

The Jackson line of cases is inapposite here. MNN is not a private entity that *1943 simply ventured into the marketplace. It occupies its role because it was asked to do so by the City, which secured the public-access channels in exchange for giving up public rights of way, opened those channels up (as required by the State) as a public forum, and then deputized MNN to administer them. That distinguishes MNN from a private entity that simply sets up shop against a regulatory backdrop. To say that MNN is nothing more than a private organization regulated by the government is like saying that a waiter at a restaurant is an independent food seller who just happens to be highly regulated by the restaurant's owners.

The majority also relies on the Court's statements that its "public function" test requires that a function have been "traditionally and exclusively performed" by the government. Ante , at 1929 (emphasis deleted); see Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352 , 95 S.Ct. 449 . Properly understood, that rule cabins liability in cases, such as Jackson , in which a private actor ventures of its own accord into territory shared (or regulated) by the government ( e.g. , by opening a power company or a shopping center). The Court made clear in West that the rule did not reach further, explaining that "the fact that a state employee's role parallels one in the private sector" does not preclude a finding of state action. 487 U.S. at 56, n. 15, 108 S.Ct. 2250 .

When the government hires an agent, in other words, the question is not whether it hired the agent to do something that can be done in the private marketplace too. If that were the key question, the doctor in West would not have been a state actor. Nobody thinks that orthopedics is a function "traditionally exclusively reserved to the State," Jackson , 419 U.S. at 352 , 95 S.Ct. 449 .

The majority consigns West to a footnote, asserting that its "scenario is not present here because the government has no [constitutional] obligation to operate public access channels." Ante , at 1929, n. 1. The majority suggests that West is different because "the State was constitutionally obligated to provide medical care to prison inmates." Ante , at 1929, n. 1. But what the majority ignores is that the State in West had no constitutional obligation to open the prison or incarcerate the prisoner in the first place; the obligation to provide medical care arose when it made those prior choices.

The City had a comparable constitutional obligation here-one brought about by its own choices, made against a state-law backdrop. The City, of course, had no constitutional obligation to award a cable franchise or to operate public-access channels. But once the City did award a cable franchise, New York law required the City to obtain public-access channels, see supra , at 1934 - 1935, and to open them up as a *1944 public forum, see supra , at 1938 - 1939. That is when the City's obligation to act in accordance with the First Amendment with respect to the channels arose. That is why, when the City handed the administration of that forum off to an agent, the Constitution followed. See supra , at 1939 - 1941. 12

The majority is surely correct that "when a private entity provides a forum for speech, the private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment." Ante , at 1930. That is because the majority is not talking about constitutional forums-it is talking about spaces where private entities have simply invited others to come speak. A comedy club can decide to open its doors as wide as it wants, but it cannot appoint itself as a government agent. The difference is between providing a service of one's own accord and being asked by the government to administer a constitutional responsibility (indeed, here, existing to do so) on the government's behalf. 13

To see more clearly the difference between the cases on which the majority fixates and the present case, leave aside the majority's private comedy club. Imagine instead that a state college runs a comedy showcase each year, renting out a local theater and, pursuant to state regulations mandating open access to certain kinds of student activities, allowing students to sign up to perform on a first-come, first-served basis. Cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va. , 515 U.S. 819 , 115 S.Ct. 2510 , 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). After a few years, the college decides that it is tired of running the show, so it hires a performing-arts nonprofit to do the job. The nonprofit prefers humor that makes fun of a certain political party, so it allows only student acts that share its views to participate. Does the majority believe that the nonprofit is indistinguishable, for purposes of state action, from a private comedy club opened by local entrepreneurs?

I hope not. But two dangers lurk here regardless. On the one hand, if the City's decision to outsource the channels to a private entity did render the First Amendment irrelevant, there would be substantial cause to worry about the potential abuses that could follow. Can a state university evade the First Amendment by hiring a nonprofit to apportion funding to student groups? Can a city do the same by appointing a corporation to run a municipal theater? What about its parks?

On the other hand, the majority hastens to qualify its decision, see ante , at 1929, n. 1, 1933 - 1934, and to cabin it to the specific facts of this case, ante , at 1933 - 1934.

*1945 Those are prudent limitations. Even so, the majority's focus on Jackson still risks sowing confusion among the lower courts about how and when government outsourcing will render any abuses that follow beyond the reach of the Constitution.

In any event, there should be no confusion here. MNN is not a private entity that ventured into the marketplace and found itself subject to government regulation. It was asked to do a job by the government and compensated accordingly. If it does not want to do that job anymore, it can stop (subject, like any other entity, to its contractual obligations). But as long as MNN continues to wield the power it was given by the government, it stands in the government's shoes and must abide by the First Amendment like any other government actor.

IV

This is not a case about bigger governments and smaller individuals, ante , at 1934; it is a case about principals and agents. New York City opened up a public forum on public-access channels in which it has a property interest. It asked MNN to run that public forum, and MNN accepted the job. That makes MNN subject to the First Amendment, just as if the City had decided to run the public forum itself.

While the majority emphasizes that its decision is narrow and factbound, ante , at 1933 - 1934, that does not make it any less misguided. It is crucial that the Court does not continue to ignore the reality, fully recognized by our precedents, that private actors who have been delegated constitutional responsibilities like this one should be accountable to the Constitution's demands. I respectfully dissent.

Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution provides in part:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the *924United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Because the Amendment is directed at the States, it can be violated only by conduct that may be fairly characterized as “state action.”

Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides a remedy for deprivations of rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States when that deprivation takes place “under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory . . . ,”1 This case concerns the relationship between the § 1983 requirement of action under color of state law and the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of state action.

I

In 1977, petitioner, a lessee-operator of a truckstop in Virginia, was indebted to his supplier, Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. Edmondson sued on the debt in Virginia state court. Ancillary to that action and pursuant to state law, Edmondson sought prejudgment attachment of certain of petitioner’s property. Va. Code §8.01-533 (1977).2 The prejudgment attachment procedure required only that Edmondson allege, in an ex parte petition, a belief that petitioner was disposing of or might dispose of his property in order to defeat his creditors. Acting upon that petition, a Clerk of the state court issued a writ of attachment, which was then executed by the County Sheriff. This effectively sequestered petitioner’s *925property, although it was left in his possession. Pursuant to the statute, a hearing on the propriety of the attachment and levy was later conducted. Thirty-four days after the levy, a state trial judge ordered the attachment dismissed because Edmondson had failed to establish the statutory grounds for attachment alleged in the petition.3

Petitioner subsequently brought this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against Edmondson and its president, His complaint alleged that in attaching his property respondents had acted jointly with the State to deprive him of his property without due process of law. The lower courts construed the complaint as alleging a due process violation both from a misuse of the Virginia procedure and from the statutory procedure itself.4 He sought compensatory and punitive damages for specified financial loss allegedly caused by the improvident attachment.

Relying on Flagg Brothers, Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149 (1978), the District Court held that the alleged actions of the respondents did not constitute state action as required by the Fourteenth Amendment and that the complaint therefore did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted under §1983. Petitioner appealed; the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed, with three dissenters.5 639 F. 2d 1058 (1981).

*926The Court of Appeals rejected the District Court’s reliance on Flagg Brothers in finding that the requisite state action was missing in this case. The participation of state officers in executing the levy sufficiently distinguished this case from Flagg Brothers. The Court of Appeals stated the issue as follows:

“[Wjhether the mere institution by a private litigant of presumptively valid state judicial proceedings, without any prior or subsequent collusion or concerted action by that litigant with the state officials who then proceed with adjudicative, administrative, or executive enforcement of the proceedings, constitutes action under color of state law within contemplation of § 1983.” 639 F. 2d, at 1061-1062 (footnote omitted).

The court distinguished between the acts directly chargeable to respondents and the larger context within which those acts occurred, including the direct levy by state officials on petitioner’s property. While the latter no doubt amounted to state action, the former was not so clearly action under color of state law. The court held that a private party acts under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983 only when there is a usurpation or corruption of official power by the private litigant or a surrender of judicial power to the private litigant in such a way that the independence of the enforcing officer has been compromised to a significant degree. Because the court thought none of these elements was present here, the complaint failed to allege conduct under color of state law.

Because this construction of the under-color-of-state-law requirement appears to be inconsistent with prior decisions of this Court, we granted certiorari. 452 U. S. 937 (1981).

II

Although the Court of Appeals correctly perceived the importance of Flagg Brothers to a proper resolution of this case, *927it misread that case.6 It also failed to give sufficient weight to that line of cases, beginning with Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969), in which the Court considered constitutional due process requirements in the context of garnishment actions and prejudgment attachments. See North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972). Each of these cases involved a finding of state action as an implicit predicate of the application of due process standards. Flagg Brothers distinguished them on the ground that in each there was overt, official involvement in the property deprivation; there was no such overt action by a state officer in Flagg Brothers. 436 U. S., at 157. Although this case falls on the Sniadach, and not the Flagg Brothers, side of this distinction, the Court of Appeals thought the garnishment and attachment cases to be irrelevant because none but Fuentes arose under 42 U. S. C. §1983 and because Fuentes was distinguishable.7 *928It determined that it could ignore all of them because the issue in this case was not whether there was state action, but rather whether respondents acted under color of state law.

As we see it, however, the two concepts cannot be so easily disentangled. Whether they are identical or not, the state-action and the under-color-of-state-law requirements are obviously related.8 Indeed, until recently this Court did not distinguish between the two requirements at all.

A

In United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 794, n. 7 (1966), we explicitly stated that the requirements were identical: “In cases under § 1983, ‘under color’ of law has consistently been treated as the same thing as the ‘state action’ required under the Fourteenth Amendment.”9 In support of this proposition the Court cited Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944), and Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953).10 In both of these *929cases black voters in Texas challenged their exclusion from party primaries as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment and sought relief under 8 U. S. C. §43 (1946 ed.).11 In each case, the Court understood the problem before it to be whether the discriminatory policy of a private political association could be characterized as “state action within the meaning of the Fifteenth Amendment.” Smith, supra, at 664.12 Having found state action under the Constitution, there was no further inquiry into whether the action of the political associations also met the statutory requirement of action “under color of state law.”

Similarly, it is clear that in a § 1983 action brought against a state official, the statutory requirement of action “under color of state law” and the “state action” requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment are identical. The Court’s conclusion in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 326 (1941), that “[m]isuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of’ state law,” was founded on the rule announced in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 346-347 (1880), that the actions of a state officer who exceeds the limits of his authority constitute state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.13

*930The decision of the Court of Appeals rests on a misreading of Flagg Brothers. In that case the Court distinguished two elements of a § 1983 action:

“[Plaintiffs] are first bound to show that they have been deprived of a right ‘secured by the Constitution and the laws’ of the United States. They must secondly show that Flagg Brothers deprived them of this right acting ‘under color of any statute’ of the State of New York. It is clear that these two elements denote two separate areas of inquiry. Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 150 (1970).’’ 436 U. S., at 155-156.

Plaintiffs’ case foundered on the first requirement. Because a due process violation was alleged and because the Due Process Clause protects individuals only from governmental and not from private action, plaintiffs had to demonstrate that the sale of their goods was accomplished by state action. The Court concluded that the sale, although authorized by state law, did not amount to state action under the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore set aside the Court of Appeals’ contrary judgment.

There was no reason in Flagg Brothers to address the question whether there was action under color of state law. The Court expressly eschewed deciding whether that requirement was satisfied by private action authorized by state law. Id., at 156. Although the state-action and under-color-of-state-law requirements are “separate areas of inquiry,” Flagg Brothers did not hold nor suggest that state action, if present, might not satisfy the § 1983 requirement of conduct under color of state law. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals relied on Flagg Brothers to conclude in this case that state action under the Fourteenth Amendment is not necessarily action under color of state law for purposes of § 1983. We do not agree.

The two-part approach to a §1983 cause of action, referred to in Flagg Brothers, was derived from Adickes v. *931S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 150 (1970). Adickes was a §1983 action brought against a private party, based on a claim of racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although stating that the § 1983 plaintiff must show both that he has been deprived “of a right secured by the ‘Constitution and laws’ of the United States” and that the defendant acted “under color of any statute ... of any State,” ibid., we held that the private party’s joint participation with a state official in a conspiracy to discriminate would constitute both “state action essential to show a direct violation of petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights” and action “‘under color’ of law for purposes of the statute.” Id., at 152.14 In *932support of our conclusion that a private party held to have violated the Fourteenth Amendment “can be liable under §1983,” ibid., we cited that part of United States v. Price, 383 U. S., at 794, n. 7, in which we had concluded that state action and action under color of state law are the same (quoted supra, at 928). Adickes provides no support for the Court of Appeals’ novel construction of § 1983.15

B

The decision of the Court of Appeals is difficult to reconcile with the Court’s garnishment and prejudgment attachment cases and with the congressional purpose in enacting § 1983.

Beginning with Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969), the Court has consistently held that constitutional requirements of due process apply to garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures whenever officers *933of the State act jointly with a creditor in securing the property in dispute. Sniadach and North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), involved state-created garnishment procedures; Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S.. 600 (1974), involved execution of a vendor’s lien to secure disputed property. In each of these cases state agents aided the creditor in securing the disputed property; but in each case the federal issue arose in litigation between creditor and debtor in the state courts and no state official was named as a party. Nevertheless, in each case the Court entertained and adjudicated the defendant-debtor’s claim that the procedure under which the private creditor secured the disputed property violated federal constitutional standards of due process. Necessary to that conclusion is the holding that private use of the challenged state procedures with the help of state officials constitutes state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), was a § 1983 action brought against both a private creditor and the State Attorney General. The plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief, on due process grounds, from continued enforcement of state statutes authorizing prejudgment replevin. The plaintiff prevailed; if the Court of Appeals were correct in this case, there would have been no § 1983 cause of action against the private parties. Yet they remained parties, and judgment ran against them in this Court.16

*934If a defendant debtor in state-court debt collection proceedings can successfully challenge, on federal due process grounds, the plaintiff creditor’s resort to the procedures authorized by a state statute, it is difficult to understand why that same behavior by the state-court plaintiff should not provide a cause of action under § 1983. If the creditor-plaintiff violates the debtor-defendant’s due process rights by seizing his property in accordance with statutory procedures, there is little or no reason to deny to the latter a cause of action under the federal statute, § 1983, designed to provide judicial redress for just such constitutional violations.

To read the “under color of any statute” language of the Act in such a way as to impose a limit on those Fourteenth Amendment violations that may be redressed by the § 1983 cause of action would be wholly inconsistent with the purpose of § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, from which § 1983 is derived. The Act was passed “for the express purpose of ‘enforc[ing] the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.’” Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U. S. 538, 545 (1972). The history of the Act is replete with statements indicating that Congress thought it was creating a remedy as broad as the protection that the Fourteenth Amendment affords the individual. Perhaps the most direct statement of this was that of Senator Edmunds, the manager of the bill in the Senate: “[Section 1 is] so very simple and really reenact[s] the Constitution.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 569 (1871). Representative Bingham similarly stated that the bill’s purpose was “the enforcement... of the Constitution on behalf of every individual citizen of the Republic ... to the extent of the rights guarantied to him by the Constitution.” Id., App. 81.17

*935In sum, the line drawn by the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with our prior cases and would substantially undercut the congressional purpose in providing the § 1983 cause of action. If the challenged conduct of respondents constitutes state action as delimited by our prior decisions, then that conduct was also action under color of state law and will support a suit under § 1983.18

*936HH hH

As a matter of substantive constitutional law the state-action requirement reflects judicial recognition of the fact that “most rights secured by the Constitution are protected only against infringement by governments,” Flagg Brothers, 436 U. S., at 156. As the Court said in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 349 (1974):

“In 1883, this Court in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, affirmed the essential dichotomy set forth in [the Fourteenth] Amendment between deprivation by the State, subject to scrutiny under its provisions, and private conduct, ‘however discriminatory or wrongful,’ against which the Fourteenth Amendment offers no shield.”

Careful adherence to the “state action” requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed. A major consequence is to require the courts to respect the limits of *937their own power as directed against state governments and private interests. Whether this is good or bad policy, it is a fundamental fact of our political order.

Our cases have accordingly insisted that the conduct allegedly causing the deprivation of a federal right be fairly attributable to the State. These cases reflect a two-part approach to this question of “fair attribution.” First, the deprivation must be caused by the exercise of some right or privilege created by the State or by a rule of conduct imposed by the State or by a person for whom the State is responsible. In Sniadach, Fuentes, W. T. Grant, and North Georgia, for example, a state statute provided the right to garnish or to obtain prejudgment attachment, as well as the procedure by which the rights could be exercised. Second, the party charged with the deprivation must be a person who may fairly be said to be a state actor. This may be because he is a state official, because he has acted together with or has obtained significant aid from state officials, or because his conduct is otherwise chargeable to the State. Without a limit such as this, private parties could face constitutional litigation whenever they seek to rely on some state rule governing their interactions with the community surrounding them.

Although related, these two principles are not the same. They collapse into each other when the claim of a constitutional deprivation is directed against a party whose official character is such as to lend the weight of the State to his decisions. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 172 (1961). The two principles diverge when the constitutional claim is directed against a party without such apparent authority, i. e., against a private party. The difference between the two inquiries is well illustrated by comparing Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163 (1972), with Flagg Brothers, supra.

In Moose Lodge, the Court held that the discriminatory practices of the appellant did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because those practices did not constitute “state action.” The Court focused primarily on the question of *938whether the admittedly discriminatory policy could in any way be ascribed to a governmental decision.19 The inquiry, therefore, looked to those policies adopted by the State that were applied to appellant. The Court concluded as follows:

“We therefore hold, that with the exception hereafter noted, the operation of the regulatory scheme enforced by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not sufficiently implicate the State in the discriminatory guest policies of Moose Lodge to . . . make the latter ‘state action’ within the ambit of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 407 U. S., at 177.

In other words, the decision to discriminate could not be ascribed to any governmental decision; those governmental decisions that did affect Moose Lodge were unconnected with its discriminatory policies.20

Flagg Brothers focused on the other component of the state-action principle. In that case, the warehouseman proceeded under New York Uniform Commercial Code, § 7-210, and the debtor challenged the constitutionality of that provision on the grounds that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Undoubtedly the State was responsible for the statute. The response of the Court, however, focused not on the terms of the statute but on the character of the defendant to the § 1983 *939suit: Action by a private party pursuant to this statute, without something more, was not sufficient to justify a characterization of that party as a “state actor.” The Court suggested that that “something more” which would convert the private party into a state actor might vary with the circumstances of the case. This was simply a recognition that the Court has articulated a number of different factors or tests in different contexts: e. g., the “public function” test, see Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946); the “state compulsion” test, see Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S., at 170; the “nexus” test, see Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345 (1974); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961); and, in the case of prejudgment attachments, a “joint action test,” Flagg Brothers, 436 U. S., at 157.21 Whether these different tests are actually different in operation or simply different ways of characterizing the necessarily fact-bound inquiry that confronts the Court in such a situation need not be resolved here. See Burton, supra, at 722 (“Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the non-obvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance”).

IV

Turning to this case, the first question is whether the claimed deprivation has resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority. The second question is whether, under the facts of this case, respondents, who are private parties, may be appropriately characterized as “state actors.”

*940Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals noted the ambiguous scope of petitioner’s contentions: “There has been considerable confusion throughout the litigation on the question whether Lugar’s ultimate claim of unconstitutional deprivation was directed at the Virginia statute itself or only at its erroneous application to him.” 639 F. 2d, at 1060, n. 1. Both courts held that resolution of this ambiguity was not necessary to their disposition of the case: both resolved it, in any case, in favor of the view that petitioner was attacking the constitutionality of the statute as well as its misapplication. In our view, resolution of this issue is essential to the proper disposition of the ease.

Petitioner presented three counts in his complaint. Count three was a pendent claim based on state tort law; counts one and two claimed violations of the Due Process Clause. Count two alleged that the deprivation of property resulted from respondents’ “malicious, wanton, willful, opressive [sic], [and] unlawful acts.” By “unlawful,” petitioner apparently meant “unlawful under state law.” To say this, however, is to say that the conduct of which petitioner complained could not be ascribed to any governmental decision; rather, respondents were acting contrary to the relevant policy articulated by the State. Nor did they have the authority of state officials to put the weight of the State behind their private decision, i. e., this case does not fall within the abuse of authority doctrine recognized in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961). That respondents invoked the statute without the grounds to do so could in no way be attributed to a state rule or a state decision. Count two, therefore, does not state a cause of action under § 1983 but challenges only private action.

Count one is a different matter. That count describes the procedures followed by respondents in obtaining the prejudgment attachment as well as the fact that the state court subsequently ordered the attachment dismissed because respondents had not met their burden under state law. Pe*941titioner then summarily states that this sequence of events deprived him of his property without due process. Although it is not clear whether petitioner is referring to the state-created procedure or the misuse of that procedure by respondents, we agree with the lower courts that the better reading of the complaint is that petitioner challenges the state statute as procedurally defective under the Fourteenth Amendment.22

While private misuse of a state statute does not describe conduct that can be attributed to the State, the procedural scheme created by the statute obviously is the product of state action. This is subject to constitutional restraints and properly may be addressed in a § 1983 action, if the second element of the state-action requirement is met as well.

As is clear from the discussion in Part II, we have consistently held that a private party’s joint participation with state officials in the seizure of disputed property is sufficient to characterize that party as a “state actor” for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. The rule in these cases is the same as that articulated in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at. 152, in the context of an equal protection deprivation:

“‘Private persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the prohibited action, are acting “under color” of law for purposes of the statute. To act “under color” of law does not require that the accused be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents,’” quoting United States v. Price, 383 U. S., at 794.

*942The Court of Appeals erred in holding that in this context “joint participation” required something more than invoking the aid of state officials to take advantage of state-created attachment procedures. That holding is contrary to the conclusions we have reached as to the applicability of due process standards to such procedures. Whatever may be true in other contexts, this is sufficient when the State has created a system whereby state officials will attach property on the ex parte application of one party to a private dispute.

In summary, petitioner was deprived of his property through state action; respondents were, therefore, acting under color of state law in participating in that deprivation. Petitioner did present a valid cause of action under § 1983 insofar as he challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia statute; he did not insofar as he alleged only misuse or abuse of the statute.23

The judgment is reversed in part and affirmed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

*943Chief Justice Burger,

dissenting.

Whether we are dealing with suits under § 1983 or suits brought pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, in my view the inquiry is the same: is the claimed infringement of a federal right fairly attributable to the State. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, ante, at 838. Applying this standard, it cannot be said that the actions of the named respondents are fairly attributable to the State.* Respondents did no more than invoke a presumptively valid state prejudgment attachment procedure available to all. Relying on a dubious “but for” analysis, the Court erroneously concludes that the subsequent procedural steps taken by the State in attaching a putative debtor’s property in some way transforms respondents’ acts into actions of the State. This case is no different from the situation in which a private party commences a lawsuit and secures injunctive relief which, even if temporary, may cause significant injury to the defendant. Invoking a judicial process, of course, implicates the State and its officers but does not transform essentially private conduct into actions of the State. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U. S. 24 (1980). Similarly, one who practices a trade or profession, drives an automobile, or builds a house under a state license is not engaging in acts fairly attributable to the state. In both Dennis and the instant case petitioner’s remedy lies in private suits for damages such as malicious prosecution. The Court’s opinion expands the reach of the statute beyond anything intended by Congress. It may well be a consequence of too casually falling into a semantical trap because of the figurative use of the term “color of state law.”

*944Justice Powell,

with whom Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.

Today’s decision is a disquieting example of how expansive judicial decisionmaking can ensnare a person who had every reason to believe he was acting in strict accordance with law. The case began nearly five years ago as the outgrowth of a simple suit on a debt in a Virginia state court. Respondent — a small wholesale oil dealer in Southside, Va. — brought suit against petitioner Lugar, a truckstop owner who had failed to pay a debt.1 The suit was to collect this indebtedness. Fearful that petitioner might dissipate his assets before the debt was collected, respondent also filed a petition in state court seeking sequestration of certain of Lugar’s assets. He did so under a Virginia statute, traceable at least to 1819, that permits creditors to seek prejudgment attachment of property in the possession of debtors.2 No court had questioned the validity of the statute, and it remains presumptively valid. The Clerk of the state court duly issued a writ of attachment, and the County Sheriff then executed it. There is no allegation that respondent conspired with the state officials to deny petitioner the fair protection of state or federal law.

*945Respondent ultimately prevailed in his lawsuit. The petitioner Lugar was ordered by a court to pay his debt. A state court did find, however, that Lugar’s assets should not have been attached prior to a judgment on the underlying action.

Following this decision Lugar instituted legal action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Suing under a federal statute, 42 U. S. C. §1983, Lugar alleged that the respondent — by filing a petition in state court — had acted “under color of law” and had caused the deprivation of constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment — an Amendment that does not create rights enforceable against private citizens, such as one would have assumed respondent to be, but only against the States. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, ante, at 837; Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 156 (1978); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948); Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 11 (1883).3 Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed that petitioner had no cause of action under § 1983. They sensibly found that respondent could not be held responsible for any deprivation of constitutional rights and that the suit did not belong in federal court.

This Court today reverses the judgment of those lower courts. It holds that respondent, a private citizen who did no more than commence a legal action of a kind traditionally initiated by private parties, thereby engaged in “state action.” This decision is as unprecedented as it is implausible. It is plainly unjust to the respondent, and the Court makes no *946argument to the contrary. Respondent, who was represented by counsel, could have had no notion that his filing of a petition in state court, in the effort to secure payment of a private debt, made him a “state actor” liable in damages for allegedly unconstitutional action by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Nor is the Court’s analysis consistent with the mode of inquiry prescribed by our cases. On the contrary, the Court undermines fundamental distinctions between the common-sense categories of state and private conduct and between the legal concepts of “state action” and private action “under color of law.”

I

The plain language of 42 U. S. C. § 1988 establishes that a plaintiff must satisfy two jurisdictional requisites to state an actionable claim. First, he must allege the violation of a right “secured by the Constitution and laws” of the United States. Because “most rights secured by the Constitution are protected only against infringement by governments,” Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 486 U. S., at 156, this requirement compels an inquiry into the presence of state action. Second, a § 1983 plaintiff must show that the alleged deprivation was caused by a person acting “under color” of law. In Flagg Bros., this Court affirmed that “these two elements denote two separate areas of inquiry.” Id., at 155-156. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 152 (1970).

This case demonstrates why separate inquiries are required. Here it is not disputed that the Virginia Sheriff and Clerk of Court, the state officials who sequestered petitioner’s property in the manner provided by Virginia law, engaged in state action. Yet the petitioner, while alleging constitutional injury from this action by state officials, did not sue the State or its agents. In these circumstances the Court of Appeals correctly stated that the relevant inquiry was the second identified in Flagg Bros.: whether the respondent, a private citizen whose only action was to invoke a presumptively valid state attachment process, had acted under color of state law in “causing” the State to deprive peti*947tioner of alleged constitutional rights.4 Consistently with past decisions of this Court, the Court of Appeals concluded that respondent’s private conduct had not occurred under color of law.

Rejecting the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, the Court opinion inexplicably conflates the two inquiries mandated by Flagg Bros. Ignoring that this case involves two sets of actions — one by respondent, who merely filed a suit and accompanying sequestration petition; another by the state officials, who issued the writ and executed the lien — it wrongly frames the question before the Court, not as whether the private respondent acted under color of law in filing the petition, but as “whether . . . respondents, who are private parties, may be appropriately characterized as ‘state actors.’ ” Ante, at 939. It then concludes that they may, on the theory that a private party who invokes “the aid of state officials to take advantage of state-created attachment procedures” is a “joint participant” with the State and therefore a “state actor.” “The rule,” the Court asserts, is as follows:

“Private persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the prohibited action, are acting ‘under color’ of law for purposes of the statute. To act ‘under color’ of law does not require that the accused be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in a joint activity with the State or its agents.” Ante, at 941, quoting Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 152, in turn quoting United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 794 (1966).

*948There are at least two fallacies in the Court’s conclusion. First, as is apparent from the quotation, our cases have not established that private “joint participants” with state officials thémselves necessarily become state actors. Where private eitizens interact with state officials in the pursuit of merely private ends, the appropriate inquiry generally is whether the private parties have acted “under color of law.” Second, even when the inquiry is whether an action occurred under color of law, our cases make clear that the “joint participation” standard is not satisfied when a private citizen does no more than invoke a presumptively valid judicial process in pursuit only of legitimate private ends.

HH t — i

As this Court recognized in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 172 (1961), the historic purpose of § 1983 was to prevent state officials from using the cloak of their authority under state law to violate rights protected against state infringement by the Fourteenth Amendment.5 The Court accordingly is correct that an important inquiry in a § 1983 suit against a private party is whether there is an allegation of wrongful “conduct that can be attributed to the State. ” Ante, at 941. This is the first question referred to in Flagg Bros. But there still remains the second Flagg Bros, question: whether this state action fairly can be attributed to the respondent, whose *949only action was to invoke a presumptively valid attachment statute. This question, unasked by the Court, reveals the fallacy of its conclusion that respondent may be held accountable for the attachment of property because he was a “state actor.”6 From the occurrence of state action taken by the Sheriff who sequestered petitioner’s property, it does not follow that respondent became a “state actor” simply because the Sheriff was. This Court, until today, has never endorsed this non sequitur.

It of course is true that respondent’s private action was followed by state action, and that the private and the state actions were not unconnected. But “[tjhat the State responds to [private] actions by [taking action of its own] does not render it responsible for those [private] actions.” Blum v. Yaretsky, post, at 1005. See Flagg Bros., 436 U. S., at 164-165; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 357 (1974). And where the State is not responsible for a private decision to behave in a certain way, the private action generally cannot be considered “state action” within the meaning of our cases. See, e. g., Blum v. Yaretsky, post, at 1004-1005; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 172-173 (1972). As in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, “[respondent’s exercise of the choice allowed by state law where *950the initiative comes from it and not from the State, does not make its action in doing so ‘state action’ for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.” 419 U. S., at 357 (footnote omitted).

This Court of course has held that private parties are amenable to suit under § 1983 when “jointly engaged” with state officials in the violation of constitutional rights. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970).7 Yet the Court, in advancing its “joint participation” theory, does not cite a single case in which a private decision to invoke a presumptively valid state legal process has been held to constitute state action. Even the quotation on which the Court principally relies for its statement of the applicable “rule,” ante, at 941, does not refer to state action. Rather, it states explicitly that “[pjrivate persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the prohibited action, are acting ‘under color’ of law for purposes of the statute.”

As illustrated by this quotation, our cases have recognized a distinction between “state action” and private action under “color of law.” This distinction is sound in principle. It also is consistent with and supportive of the distinction between “private” conduct and government action that is subject to the procedural limitations of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Court itself notes: “Careful adherence to the ‘state action’ requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed.” Ante, at 936.

A “color of law” inquiry acknowledges that private individuals, engaged in unlawful joint behavior with state officials, may be personally responsible for wrongs that they cause to occur. But it does not confuse private actors with the *951State — the fallacy of the analysis adopted today by the Court. In this case involving the private action of the respondent in petitioning the state courts of Virginia, the appropriate inquiry as to respondent’s liability is not whether he was a state actor, but whether he acted under color of law. It is to this question that I therefore turn.

HH I — I

Contrary to the position of the Court, our cases do not establish that a private party’s mere invocation of state legal procedures constitutes “joint participation” or “conspiracy” with state officials satisfying the § 1983 requirement of action under color of law. In Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U. S. 24 (1980), we held that private parties acted under color of law when corruptly conspiring with a state judge in a joint scheme to defraud. In so holding, however, we explicitly stated that “merely resorting to the courts and being on the winning side of a lawsuit does not make a party a co-conspirator or a joint actor with the judge.” Id., at 28. This conclusion is reinforced by our more recent decision in Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981). As we held to be true with respect to the defense of a criminal defendant, invocation of state legal process is “essentially a private function . . . for which state office and authority are not needed.” Id., at 319. These recent decisions make clear that independent, private decisions made in the context of litigation cannot be said to occur under color of law.8 The Court nevertheless advances two principal grounds for its holding to the contrary.

*952A

The Court argues that petitioner’s action under § 1983 is supported by cases in which this Court has applied due process standards to state garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures. The Court relies specifically on Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974); and North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975). According to the Court, these cases establish that a private party acts “under color” of law when seeking the attachment of property under an unconstitutional state statute.9 In fact, a careful reading demonstrates that they provide no authority for this proposition.

Of the cases cited by the Court, Sniadach, Mitchell, and Di-Chem all involved attacks on the validity of state attachment or garnishment statutes. None of the cases alleged that the private creditor was a joint actor with the State, and none involved a claim for damages against the creditor. Each case involved a state suit, not a federal action under § 1983. It therefore was unnecessary in any of these cases for this Court to consider whether the creditor, by virtue of instituting the attachment or garnishment, became a state actor or acted under color of state law. There is not one word in any of these cases that so characterizes the private creditor.10 In Fuentes v. Shevin, the Court did consider a *953§ 1983 action against a private creditor as well as the State Attorney General.11 Again, however, the only question before this Court was the validity of a state statute. No claim was made that the creditor was a joint actor with the State or had acted under color of law. No damages were sought from the creditor. Again, there was no occasion for this Court to consider the status under §1983 of the private party, and there is not a word in the opinion that discusses this. As with Sniadach, Mitchell, and Di-Chem, Fuentes thus fails to establish that a private party’s mere invocation of state attachment or garnishment procedures represents action under color of law — even in a case in which those procedures are subsequently held to be unconstitutional.

B

In addition to relying on cases involving the constitutionality of state attachment and garnishment statutes, the Court advances a “joint participation” theory based on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970). In Adickes the plaintiff sued a private restaurant under § 1983, alleging a conspiracy between the restaurant and local police to deprive her of the right to equal treatment in a place of public accommodation. Id., at 152, 153. Reversing the decision below, this Court upheld the cause of action. It found that the private defendant, in “conspiring” with local police to obtain official enforcement of a state custom of racial segregation, engaged in a “‘joint activity with the State or its agents’” *954and therefore acted under color of law within the meaning of §1983. Id., at 152 (quoting United States v. Price, 383 U. S., at 794).

Contrary to the suggestion of the Court, however, Justice Harlan’s Court opinion in Adickes did not purport to define the term “under color of law.” Attending closely to the facts presented, the Court observed that “[wjhatever else may also be necessary to show that a person has acted under color of [a] statute’for purposes of § 1983,... we think it essential that he act with the knowledge of and pursuant to that statute.” 398 U. S., at 162, n. 23 (emphasis added). As indicated by this choice of language, the Court clearly seems to have contemplated some limiting principle. A citizen summoning the police to enforce the law ordinarily would not be considered to have engaged in a “conspiracy.” Nor, presumably, would such a citizen be characterized as acting under color of law and thereby risking amenability to suit for constitutional violations that subsequently might occur. Surely there is nothing in Adickes to indicate that the Court would have found action under color of law in cases of this kind.

Although Adickes is distinguishable from these hypotheti-cals, the current case is not. The conduct in Adickes occurred in 1964, 10 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), and after the decade of publicized litigation that followed in its wake. In view of the intense national focus on issues of racial discrimination, it is virtually inconceivable that a private citizen then could have acted in the innocent belief that the state law and customs involved in Adickes still were presumptively valid. As Justice Harlan wrote, “[f]ew principles of law are more firmly stitched into our constitutional fabric than the proposition that a State must not discriminate against a person because of his race or the race of his companions, or in any way act to compel or encourage segregation.” 398 U. S., at 150-152. Construed as resting on this basis, Adickes establishes that a private *955party acts under color of law when he conspires with state officials to secure the application of a state law so plainly unconstitutional as to enjoy no presumption of validity. In such a context, the private party could be characterized as hiding behind the authority of law and as engaging in “joint participation” with the State in the deprivation of constitutional rights.12 Here, however, petitioner has alleged no conspiracy. Nor has he even alleged that respondent was invoking the aid of a law he should have known to be constitutionally invalid.13 Finally, there is no allegation that respondent’s decision to invoke legal process was in any way *956compelled by the law or custom of the State in which he lived. In this context Adickes simply is inapposite.

Today’s decision therefore is ás unprecedented as it is unjust.14

Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In January 1973, a judge of the 229th District Court of Duval County, Tex., enjoined the production of minerals from certain oil leases owned by respondents. In June 1975, the injunction was dissolved by an appellate court as having been illegally issued. Respondents then filed a complaint in the United States District Court purporting to state a cause of action for damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. 1 Defendants were the Duval County Ranch Co., Inc., which had obtained the injunction, the sole owner of the corporation, the judge who entered the injunction, and the two individual *26 sureties on the injunction bond, one of whom is now petitioner in this Court. Essentially, the claim was that the injunction had been corruptly issued as the result of a conspiracy between the judge and the other defendants, thus causing a deprivation of property, i. e., two years of oil production, without due process of law.

All defendants moved to dismiss, the judge asserting judicial immunity and the other defendants urging dismissal for failure to allege action “under color” of state law, a necessary component of a § 1983 cause of action. The District Court concluded that because the injunction was a judicial act within the jurisdiction of the state court, the judge was immune from liability in a § 1983 suit, whether or not the injunction had issued as the result of a corrupt conspiracy. Relying on Haldane v. Chagnon, 345 F. 2d 601 (CA9 1965), the District Court also ruled that with the dismissal of the judge the remaining defendants could not be said to have conspired under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983. The action against them was accordingly dismissed “for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

In a per curiam opinion, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, agreeing that the judge was immune from suit and that because “the remaining defendants, who are all private citizens, did not conspire with any person against whom a valid § 1983 suit can be stated,” Sparks v. Duval County Ranch Co., 588 F. 2d 124, 126 (1979), existing authorities in the Circuit required dismissal of the claims against these defendants as well. 2 The case was reconsidered en banc, prior Circuit authority was overruled and the District Court judgment was reversed insofar as it had dismissed claims against the defendants other than the judge. Sparks v. Duval County Ranch Co., 604 F. 2d *27 976 (1979). The court ruled that there was no good reason in law, logic, or policy for conferring immunity on private persons who persuaded the immune judge to exercise his jurisdiction corruptly. Because the judgment below was inconsistent with the rulings of other Courts of Appeals 3 and involves an important issue, we granted the petition for certiorari. 445 U. S. 942. We now affirm.

Based on the doctrine expressed in Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335 (1872), this Court has consistently adhered to the rule that “judges defending against § 1983 actions enjoy absolute immunity from damages liability for acts performed in their judicial capacities. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967); Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U. S. 349 (1978).” Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union, 446 U. S. 719, 734-735 (1980). The courts below concluded that the judicial immunity doctrine required dismissal of the § 1983 action against the judge who issued the challenged injunction, and as the case comes to us, the judge has been properly dismissed from the suit on immunity grounds. It does not follow, however, that the action against the private parties accused of conspiring with the judge must also be dismissed.

As the Court of Appeals correctly understood our cases to hold, to act “under color of” state law for § 1983 purposes does not require that the defendant be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in joint action with the State or its agents. Private persons, jointly engaged *28 with state officials in the challenged action, are acting “under color” of law for purposes of § 1983 actions. Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 152 (1970); United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 794 (1966). 4 Of course, merely resorting to the courts and being on the winning side of a lawsuit does not make a party a co-conspirator or a joint actor with the judge. But here the allegations were that an official act of the defendant judge was the product of a corrupt conspiracy involving bribery of the judge. Under these allegations, the private parties conspiring with the judge were acting under color of state law; and it is of no consequence in this respect that the judge himself is immune from damages liability. Immunity does not change the character of the, judge’s action or that of his co-conspirators. 5 Indeed, his *29 immunity is dependent on the challenged conduct being an official judicial act within his statutory jurisdiction, broadly construed. Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U. S. 349, 356 (1978); Bradley v. Fisher, supra, at 352, 357. Private parties who corruptly conspire with a judge in connection with such conduct are thus acting under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983 as it has been construed in our prior cases. The complaint in this case was not defective for failure to allege that the private defendants were acting under color of state law, and the Court of Appeals was correct in rejecting its prior case authority to the contrary.

Petitioner nevertheless insists that unless he is held to have an immunity derived from that of the judge, the latter’s official immunity will be seriously eroded. We are unpersuaded. The immunities of state officials that we have recognized for purposes of § 1983 are the equivalents of those that were recognized at common law, Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 637-638 (1980); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 417 (1976); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 554 (1967), and the burden is on the official claiming immunity to demonstrate his entitlement. Cf. Buts v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 506 (1978). Thus, in Owen v. City of Independence, supra, a municipality’s claim that it could assert the immunity of its officers and agents in a § 1983 damages action was rejected since there was no basis for such a right at common law. Here, petitioner has pointed to nothing indicating that, historically, judicial immunity insulated from damages liability those private persons who corruptly conspire with the judge. 6

In Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606 (1972), we recognized that the Speech or Debate Clause conferred im *30 munity upon a Senator’s aide as well as the Senator, but only in those situations where the conduct of the aide would be a protected legislative act if performed by the Senator himself. Id., at 618. Here, there could be no claim that petitioner or any of the other private parties was actually performing a judicial act or was in any sense an official aide of the judge. Not surprisingly, petitioner does not argue that judges must conspire with private parties in order that judicial duties may be properly accomplished.

It is urged that if petitioner and other private co-conspirators of the judge are to be subject to § 1983 damages actions and if a case such as this is to go to trial, the charge of conspiracy and judicial corruption will necessarily be aired and decided, the consequence being that the judge, though not a party and immune from liability, will be heavily involved, very likely as a witness forced to testify about and defend his judicial conduct. It is true that, based on the Speech or Debate Clause, we have held that Members of Congress need not respond to questions about their legislative acts, Gravel v. United States, supra, at 616-617; and, in general, the scope of state legislative immunity for purposes of § 1983 has been patterned after immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause. Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union, 446 U. S., at 732-734. But there is no similar constitutionally based privilege immunizing judges from being required to testify about their judicial conduct in third-party litigation. Nor has any demonstration been made that historically the doctrine of judicial immunity not only protected the judge from liability but also excused him from responding as a witness when his co-conspirators are sued. Even if the judge were excused from testifying, it would not follow that actions against private parties must be dismissed.

Of course, testifying takes time and energy that otherwise might be devoted to judicial duties; and, if cases such as this *31 survive initial challenge and go to trial, the judge’s integrity and that of the judicial process may be at stake in such cases. But judicial immunity was not designed to insulate the judiciary from all aspects of public accountability. Judges are immune from § 1983 damages actions, but they are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens. O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 503 (1974). Neither are we aware of any rule generally exempting a judge from the normal obligation to respond as a witness when he has information material to a criminal or civil proceeding. 7 Cf. United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 705-707 (1974).

Judicial immunity arose because it was in the public interest to have judges who were at liberty to exercise their independent judgment about the merits of a case without fear of being mulcted for damages should an unsatisfied litigant be able to convince another tribunal that the judge acted not only mistakenly but with malice and corruption. Pierson v. Ray, supra, at 554; Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall., at 349, 350, n. ‡. In terms of undermining a judge’s independence and his judicial performance, the concern that his conduct will be examined in a collateral proceeding against those with whom he allegedly conspired, a proceeding in which he cannot be held liable for damages and which he need not defend, is not of the same order of magnitude as the prospects of being a defendant in a damages action from complaint to verdict with the attendant possibility of being held liable for damages if the factfinder mistakenly upholds the charge of malice or of a corrupt conspiracy with others. These concerns are not insubstantial, either for the judge or for the public, but we agree with the Court of Appeals that the potential harm to the public from denying immunity to private co-conspirators *32 is outweighed by the benefits of providing a remedy against those private persons who participate in subverting the judicial process and in so doing inflict injury on other persons.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Blackmun

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question whether a physician who is under contract with the State to provide medical services to inmates at a state-prison hospital on a part-time basis acts “under color of state law,” within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 1983, when he treats an inmate.

Petitioner, Quincy West, tore his left Achilles tendon in 1983 while playing volleyball at Odom Correctional Center, the Jackson, N. C., state prison in which he was incarcerated. A physician under contract to provide medical care to Odom inmates examined petitioner and directed that he be *44transferred to Raleigh for orthopedic consultation at Central Prison Hospital, the acute-care medical facility operated by the State for its more than 17,500 inmates. Central Prison Hospital has one full-time staff physician, and obtains additional medical assistance under “Contracts for Professional Services” between the State and area physicians.

Respondent, Samuel Atkins, M. D., a private physician, provided orthopedic services to inmates pursuant to one such contract. Under it, Doctor Atkins was paid approximately $52,000 annually to operate two “clinics” each week at Central Prison Hospital, with additional amounts for surgery.1 Over a period of several months, he treated West’s injury by placing his leg in a series of casts. West alleges that although the doctor acknowledged that surgery would be necessary, he refused to schedule it, and that he eventually discharged West while his ankle was still swollen and painful, and his movement still impeded. Because West was a prisoner in “close custody,” he was not free to employ or elect to see a different physician of his own choosing.2

*45Pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983,3 West, proceeding pro se, commenced this action against Doctor Atkins4 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for violation of his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.5 West alleged that Atkins was deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs, by failing to provide adequate treatment.

Relying on a decision of its controlling court in Calvert v. Sharp, 748 F. 2d 861 (CA4 1984), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1132 (1985), the District Court granted Doctor Atkins’ motion for summary judgment. In Calvert, the Fourth Circuit held that a private orthopedic specialist, employed by a nonprofit professional corporation which provided services under contract to the inmates at the Maryland House of Corrections *46and the Maryland Penitentiary, did not act “under color of state law,” a jurisdictional requisite for a § 1983 action. Because Doctor Atkins was a “contract physician,” the District Court concluded that he, too, was not acting under color of state law when he treated West’s injury. App. 37.

A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the District Court’s judgment. 799 F. 2d 923 (1986). Rather than considering if Calvert could be distinguished, the panel remanded the case to the District Court for an assessment whether the record permitted a finding of deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, a showing necessary for West ultimately to prevail on his Eighth Amendment claim. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976).

On en banc rehearing, however, a divided Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of West’s complaint. 815 F. 2d 993 (1987). In declining to overrule its decision in Calvert, the majority concluded:

“Thus the clear and practicable principle enunciated by the Supreme Court [in Polk County v. [Dodson,] 454 U. S. 312 (1981)], and followed in Calvert, is that a professional, when acting within the bounds of traditional professional discretion and judgment, does not act under color of state law, even where, as in Dodson, the professional is a full-time employee of the state. Where the professional exercises custodial or supervisory authority, which is to say that he is not acting in his professional capacity, then a § 1983 claim can be established, provided the requisite nexus to the state is proved.” 815 F. 2d, at 995 (footnote omitted).

The Court of Appeals acknowledged that this rule limits “the range of professionals subject to an Estelle action.” Ibid.6

*47The dissent in the Court of Appeals offered three grounds for holding that service rendered by a prison doctor— whether a permanent member of a prison medical staff, or under limited contract with the prison — constitutes action under color of state law for purposes of § 1983. First, the dissent concluded that prison doctors are as much “state actors” as are other prison employees, finding no significant difference between Doctor Atkins and the physician-employees assumed to be state actors in Estelle, and in O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U. S. 563 (1975). See 815 F. 2d, at 997-998. Second, the dissent concluded that the “public function” rationale applied because, in the prison context, medical care is within “the exclusive prerogative of the State,” in that the State is obligated to provide medical services for its inmates and has complete control over the circumstances and sources of a prisoner’s medical treatment. Id., at 998-999, citing Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1011 (1982). Finally, the dissent reasoned that the integral role the prison physician plays within the prison medical system qualifies his actions as under color of state law. 815 F. 2d, at 999, citing United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 794 (1966) (“[W]illful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents” may be liable under §1983); Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922, 931-932 (1982); and Tower v. Glover, 467 U. S. 914 (1984).

The Fourth Circuit’s ruling conflicts with decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Ancata v. Prison Health Services, Inc., 769 F. 2d 700 (1985), and Ort v. Pinchback, 786 F. 2d 1105 (1986), which are to the effect that a physician who contracts with the State to provide medical care to prison inmates, even if employed by a private entity, acts under color of state law for purposes of §1983.7 We *48granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 484 U. S. 912 (1987).

II

To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527, 535 (1981) (overruled in part on other grounds, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 330-331 (1986)); Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 155 (1978). Petitioner West sought to fulfill the first requirement by alleging a violation of his rights secured by the Eighth Amendment under Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976). There the Court held that deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious medical needs, whether by a prison doctor or a prison guard, is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 104-105. The adequacy of West’s allegation and the sufficiency of his showing on this element of his § 1983 cause of action are not contested here.8 The only issue be*49fore us is whether petitioner has established the second essential element — that respondent acted under color of state law in treating West’s injury.

A

The traditional definition of acting under color of state law requires that the defendant in a § 1983 action have exercised power “possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.” United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 326 (1941). Accord, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187 (1961) (adopting Classic standard for purposes of § 1983) (overruled in part on other grounds, Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 695-701 (1978)); Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 317-318 (1981); id., at 329 (dissenting opinion). In Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., supra, the Court made clear that if a defendant’s conduct satisfies the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment, “that conduct [is] also action under color of state law and will support a suit under § 1983.” Id., at 935. Accord, Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, 838 (1982); United States v. Price, 383 U. S., at 794, n. 7. In such circumstances, the defendant’s alleged infringement of the plaintiff’s federal rights is “fairly attributable to the State.” Lugar, 457 U. S., at 937.

To constitute state action, “the deprivation must be caused by the exercise of some right or privilege created by the State ... or by a person for whom the State is responsible,” and “the party charged with the deprivation must be a person who may fairly be said to be a state actor.” Ibid. “[S]tate employment is generally sufficient to render the defendant a state actor.” Id., at 936, n. 18; see id., at 937. It is firmly *50established that a defendant in a § 1983 suit acts under color of state law when he abuses the position given to him by the State. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S., at 172. Thus, generally, a public employee acts under color of state law while acting in his official capacity or while exercising his responsibilities pursuant to state law. See, e. g., Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S., at 535-536; Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 152 (1970). See also Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S., at 157, n. 5.

Indeed, Polk County v. Dodson, relied upon by the Court of Appeals, is the only case in which this Court has determined that a person who is employed by the State and who is sued under § 1983 for abusing his position in the performance of his assigned tasks was not acting under color of state law. The Court held that “a public defender does not act under color of state law when performing a lawyer’s traditional functions as counsel to a defendant in a criminal proceeding.” 454 U. S., at 325. In this capacity, the Court noted, a public defender differs from the typical government employee and state actor. While performing his duties, the public defender retains all of the essential attributes of a private attorney, including, most importantly, his “professional independence,” which the State is constitutionally obliged to respect. Id., at 321-322. A criminal lawyer’s professional and ethical obligations require him to act in a role independent of and in opposition to the State. Id., at 318-319, 320. The Court accordingly concluded that when representing an indigent defendant in a state criminal proceeding, the public defender does not act under color of state law for purposes of § 1983 because he “is not acting on behalf of the State; he is the State’s adversary.” Id., at 323, n. 13. See also Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S., at 936, n. 18.

B

We disagree with the Court of Appeals and respondent that Polk County dictates a conclusion that respondent did *51not act under color of state law in providing medical treatment to petitioner. In contrast to the public defender, Doctor Atkins’ professional and ethical obligation to make independent medical judgments did not set him in conflict with the State and other prison authorities. Indeed, his relationship with other prison authorities was cooperative. “Institutional physicians assume an obligation to the mission that the State, through the institution, attempts to achieve.” Polk County, 454 U. S., at 320. The Manual governing prison health care in North Carolina’s institutions, which Doctor Atkins was required to observe, declares: “The provision of health care is a joint effort of correctional administrators and health care providers, and can be achieved only through mutual trust and cooperation.”9 Similarly, the American Medical Association Standards for Health Services in Prisons (1979) provide that medical personnel and other prison officials are to act in “close cooperation and coordination” in a “joint effort.” Preface, at i; Standard 102, and Discussion. Doctor Atkins’ professional obligations certainly did not oblige him to function as “the State’s adversary.” Polk County, 454 U. S., at 323, n. 13. We thus find the proffered analogy between respondent and the public defender in Polk County unpersuasive.

Of course, the Court of Appeals did not perceive the adversarial role the defense lawyer plays in our criminal justice system as the decisive factor in the Polk County decision. The court, instead, appears to have misread Polk County as establishing the general principle that professionals do not act under color of state law when they act in their professional capacities. The court considered a professional not to be subject to suit under § 1983 unless he was exercising “custodial or supervisory” authority. 815 F. 2d, at 995. To the extent this Court in Polk County relied on the fact that the public defender is a “professional” in concluding that he *52was not engaged in state action, the case turned on the particular professional obligation of the criminal defense attorney to be an adversary of the State, not on the independence and integrity generally applicable to professionals as a class. Indeed, the Court of Appeals’ reading would be inconsistent with cases, decided before and since Polk County, in which this Court either has identified professionals as state actors, see, e. g., Tower v. Glover, 467 U. S. 914 (1984) (state public defenders), or has assumed that professionals are state actors in §1983 suits, see, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976) (medical director of state prison who was also the treating physician). See also Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307, 322-323, and n. 30 (1982) (establishing standards to determine whether decisions of “professional” regarding treatment of involuntarily committed can create liability for a due process violation). Defendants are not removed from the purview of § 1983 simply because they are professionals acting in accordance with professional discretion and judgment.10

*53The Court of Appeals’ approach to determining who is subject to suit under §1983, wholeheartedly embraced by respondent, cannot be reconciled with this Court’s decision in Estelle, which demonstrates that custodial and supervisory functions are irrelevant to an assessment whether the particular action challenged was performed under color of state law. In Estelle, the inmate’s Eighth Amendment claim was brought against the physician-employee, Dr. Gray, in his capacity both as treating physician and as medical director of the state prison system. See 429 U. S., at 107. Gray was sued, however, solely on the basis of allegedly substandard medical treatment given to the plaintiff; his supervisory and custodial functions were not at issue. The Court’s opinion did not suggest that Gray had not acted under color of state law in treating the inmate.11 To the contrary, the infer*54ence to be drawn from Estelle is that the medical treatment of prison inmates by prison physicians is state action. The Court explicitly held that “indifference . . . manifested by prison doctors in their response to the prisoner’s needs . . . states a cause of action under § 1983.” Id., at 104-105; see id., at 104, n. 10 (citing with approval Courts of Appeals’ decisions holding prison doctors liable for Eighth Amendment claims brought under § 1983 without mention of supervisory and custodial duties). The Court of Appeals’ rationale would sharply undermine this holding.12

C

We now make explicit what was implicit in our holding in Estelle: Respondent, as a physician employed by North Carolina to provide medical services to state prison inmates, acted under color of state law for purposes of § 1983 when undertaking his duties in treating petitioner’s injury. Such conduct is fairly attributable to the State.

The Court recognized in Estelle: “An inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met.” 429 U. S., at 103. In light of this, the Court held that the State has a constitutional obligation, under the Eighth Amendment, to provide adequate medical care to those whom it has incarcerated. Id., at 104. See also Spicer v. Williamson, 191 N. C. 487, 490, 132 S. E. 291, 293 (1926) (common law requires *55North Carolina to provide medical care to its prison inmates), cited in Estelle, 429 U. S., at 104, n. 9. North Carolina employs physicians, such as respondent, and defers to their professional judgment, in order to fulfill this obligation. By virtue of this relationship, effected by state law, Doctor Atkins is authorized and obliged to treat prison inmates, such as West.13 He does so “clothed with the authority of state law.” United States v. Classic, 313 U. S., at 326. He is “a person who may fairly be said to be a state actor.” Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S., at 937. It is only those physicians authorized by the State to whom the inmate may turn. Under state law, the only medical care West could receive for his injury was that provided by the State. If Doctor Atkins misused his power by demonstrating deliberate indifference to West’s serious medical needs, the resultant deprivation was caused, in the sense relevant for state-action inquiry, by the State’s exercise of its right to punish West by incarceration and to deny him a venue independent of the State to obtain needed medical care.

The fact that the State employed respondent pursuant to a contractual arrangement that did not generate the same benefits or obligations applicable to other “state employees” does not alter the analysis. It is the physician’s function within the state system, not the precise terms of his employment, that determines whether his actions can fairly be at*56tributed to the State. Whether a physician is on the state payroll or is paid by contract, the dispositive issue concerns the relationship among the State, the physician, and the prisoner. Contracting out prison medical care does not relieve the State of its constitutional duty to provide adequate medical treatment to those in its custody, and it does not deprive the State’s prisoners of the means to vindicate their Eighth Amendment rights.14 The State bore an affirmative obligation to provide adequate medical care to West; the State delegated that function to respondent Atkins; and respondent voluntarily assumed that obligation by contract.

Nor does the fact that Doctor Atkins’ employment contract did not require him to work exclusively for the prison make him any less a state actor than if he performed those duties as a full-time, permanent member of the state prison medical staff. It is the physician’s function while working for the State, not the amount of time he spends in performance of those duties or the fact that he may be employed by others to perform similar duties, that determines whether he is acting under color of state law.15 In the State’s employ, respondent *57worked as a physician at the prison hospital fully vested with state authority to fulfill essential aspects of the duty, placed on the State by the Eighth Amendment and state law, to provide essential medical care to those the State had incarcerated. Doctor Atkins must be considered to be a state actor.

III

For the reasons stated above, we conclude that respondent’s delivery of medical treatment to West was state action fairly attributable to the State, and that respondent therefore acted under color of state law for purposes of §1983. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Ap*58peals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the opinion of the Court that respondent acted under color of state law for purposes of § 1988. I do not believe that a doctor who lacks supervisory or other penological duties can inflict “punishment” within the meaning of that term in the Eighth Amendment. Cf. Johnson v. Glick, 481 F. 2d 1028, 1031-1032 (CA2) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied sub nom. John v. Johnson, 414 U. S. 1033 (1973). I am also of the view, however, that a physician who acts on behalf of the State to provide needed medical attention to a person involuntarily in state custody (in prison or elsewhere) and prevented from otherwise obtaining it, and who causes physical harm to such a person by deliberate indifference, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against the deprivation of liberty without due process. See Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307, 315, 324 (1982) (dictum); see generally Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 672-674, and n. 41 (1977); Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 169-174 (1952); Johnson, supra, at 1032-1033. I note that petitioner’s pro se complaint merely claimed violation of his rights, and it is the courts that have specified which constitutional provision confers those rights.

BARRINGTON D. PARKER, Circuit Judge:

*230 President Donald J. Trump appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J. ) concluding that he engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by utilizing Twitter's "blocking" function to limit certain users' access to his social media account, which is otherwise open to the public at large, because he disagrees with their speech. We hold that he engaged in such discrimination and, consequently, affirm the judgment below.

The salient issues in this case arise from the decision of the President to use a relatively new type of social media platform to conduct official business and to interact with the public. We do not consider or decide whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding persons from a wholly private social media account. Nor do we consider or decide whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms. We do conclude, however, that the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees. 1

Twitter is a social media platform that allows its users to electronically send messages of limited length to the public. After creating an account, a user can post their own messages on the platform (referred to as tweeting). Users may also respond to the messages of others (replying), republish the messages of others (retweeting), or convey approval or acknowledgment of another's message by "liking" the message. All of a user's tweets appear on that user's continuously-updated "timeline," which is a convenient method of viewing and interacting with that user's tweets.

When one user replies to another user's tweet, a "comment thread" is created. When viewing a tweet, this comment thread appears below the original tweet and includes both the first-level replies (replies to the original tweet) and second-level replies (replies to the first-level replies). The comment threads "reflect multiple overlapping 'conversations' among and across groups of users" and are a "large part" of what makes Twitter a " 'social' media platform." App'x at 50.

The platform also allows users to directly interact with each other. For example, User A can "mention" User B in User A's tweet, prompting a notification to User B that he or she has been mentioned in a tweet. Twitter users can also "follow" one another. If User A follows User B, then all of User B's tweets appear in User A's "feed," which is a continuously-updated display of content mostly from accounts *231 that User A has chosen to follow. Conversely, User A can "block" User B. This prevents User B from seeing User A's timeline or any of User A's tweets. User B, if blocked by User A, is unable to reply to, retweet, or like any of User A's tweets. Similarly, User A will not see any of User B's tweets and will not be notified if User B mentions User A. 2 The dispute in this case exclusively concerns the President's use of this blocking function. The government has conceded that the account in question is not itself "independent of [Trump's] presidency," but contends that the act of blocking was private conduct that does not implicate the First Amendment. Oral Arg. R. at 1:00 - 1:15.

President Trump established his account, with the handle @realDonaldTrump, (the "Account") in March 2009. No one disputes that before he became President the Account was a purely private one or that once he leaves office the Account will presumably revert to its private status. This litigation concerns what the Account is now. Since his inauguration in January 2017, he has used the Account, according to the parties, "as a channel for communicating and interacting with the public about his administration." App'x at 54. The President's tweets from the Account can be viewed by any member of the public without being signed into a Twitter account. However, if a user has been blocked from the Account, they cannot view the Account's tweets when logged in to their account. At the time of the parties' stipulation, the Account had more than 50 million followers. The President's tweets produce an extraordinarily high level of public engagement, typically generating thousands of replies, some of which, in turn, generate hundreds of thousands of additional replies. The President has not generally sought to limit who can follow the Account, nor has he sought to limit the kind of speech that users can post in reply to his tweets.

The public presentation of the Account and the webpage associated with it bear all the trappings of an official, state-run account. The page is registered to Donald J. Trump "45th President of the United States of America, Washington D.C." Id. at 54-55. The header photographs of the Account show the President engaged in the performance of his official duties such as signing executive orders, delivering remarks at the White House, and meeting with the Pope, heads of state, and other foreign dignitaries.

The President and multiple members of his administration have described his use of the Account as official. The President has stipulated that he, with the assistance of Defendant Daniel Scavino, uses the Account frequently "to announce, describe, and defend his policies; to promote his Administration's legislative agenda; to announce official decisions; to engage with foreign political leaders; to publicize state visits; [and] to challenge media organizations whose coverage of his Administration he believes to be unfair." Id. at 56. In June 2017, then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated at a press conference that President Trump's tweets should be considered "official statements by the President of the United States." Id. at 55-56.

*232 In June 2017, the White House responded to a request for official White House records from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by referring the Committee to a statement made by the President on Twitter.

Moreover, the Account is one of the White House's main vehicles for conducting official business. The President operates the Account with the assistance of defendant Daniel Scavino, the White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President. The President and his aides have characterized tweets from the Account as official statements of the President. For example, the President used the Account to announce the nomination of Christopher Wray as FBI director and to announce the administration's ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. The President used the Account to first announce that he had fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and replaced him with General John Kelly. President Trump also used the Account to inform the public about his discussions with the South Korean president concerning North Korea's nuclear program and about his decision to sell sophisticated military hardware to Japan and South Korea.

Finally, we note that the National Archives, the agency of government responsible for maintaining the government's records, has concluded that the President's tweets are official records. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 established public ownership of the President's official records. 44 U.S.C. § 2202 . Under that Act, "Presidential records" include documentary materials created by the President "in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory or other official or ceremonial duties of the President." Id. § 2201. The statute authorizes the Archivist of the United States to "maintain and preserve Presidential records on behalf of the President, including records in digital or electronic form." Id. § 2203. Accordingly, the National Archives and Records Administration has advised the White House that the President's tweets are "official records that must be preserved under the Presidential Records Act." App'x at 57.

In May and June of 2017, the President blocked each of the Individual Plaintiffs (but not the Knight First Amendment Institute) from the Account. The government concedes that each of them was blocked after posting replies in which they criticized the President or his policies and that they were blocked as a result of their criticism. The government also concedes that because they were blocked they are unable to view the President's tweets, to directly reply to these tweets, or to use the @realDonaldTrump webpage to view the comment threads associated with the President's tweets.

The Individual Plaintiffs further contend that their inability to view, retweet, and reply to the President's tweets limits their ability to participate with other members of the public in the comment threads that appear below the President's tweets. The parties agree that, without the context of the President's original tweets (which the Individual Plaintiffs are unable to view when logged in to their accounts), it is more difficult to follow the conversations occurring in the comment threads. In addition, the parties have stipulated that as a consequence of their having been blocked, the Individual Plaintiffs are burdened in their ability to view or directly reply to the President's tweets, and to participate in the comment threads associated with the President's tweets.

While various "workarounds" exist that would allow each of the Individual Plaintiffs to engage with the Account, they contend *233 that each is burdensome. For example, blocked users who wish to participate in the comment thread of a blocking user's tweet could log out of their accounts, identify a first-level reply to which they would like to respond, log back into their accounts, locate the first-level reply on the author's timeline, and then post a message in reply. The blocked users' messages would appear in the comment thread of the blocking user's tweet, although the blocking user would be unable to see it. Blocked users could also create a new Twitter account. Alternatively, blocked users could log out of their accounts, navigate to the blocking user's timeline, take a screenshot of the blocking user's tweet, then log back into their own accounts and post that screenshot along with their own commentary.

In July 2017, the Individual Plaintiffs and the Knight Institute sued Donald Trump, Daniel Scavino, and two other White House staff members alleging that blocking them from the Account violated the First Amendment. The parties cross-moved below for summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and entered a declaratory judgment that "the blocking of the individual plaintiffs from the [Account] because of their expressed political views violates the First Amendment." Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump , 302 F. Supp. 3d 541 , 579 (S.D.N.Y. 2018). The District Court held that the "interactive space" associated with each tweet constituted a public forum for First Amendment purposes because it was a forum "in which other users may directly interact with the content of the tweets by ... replying to, retweeting or liking the tweet." Id. at 566 . The Court reasoned that: (1) "there can be no serious suggestion that the interactive space is incompatible with expressive activity," and (2) the President and his staff hold the Account open, without restriction, to the public at large on a broadly-accessible social media platform. Id. at 574-75 . As to the government control requirement of the public forum analysis, the court found that "the President presents the @realDonaldTrump account as being a presidential account as opposed to a personal account and ... uses the account to take actions that can be taken only by the President as President." Id. at 567 . The court concluded that "because the President and Scavino use the @realDonaldTrump account for governmental functions" they exercise government control over the relevant aspects of the Account, including the blocking function. Id. at 569 . The court also rejected the idea that speech within the interactive space on the platform is government speech not subject to First Amendment restrictions, concluding that "replies to the President's tweets remain the private speech of the replying user." Id. at 572 .

After concluding that the defendants had created a public forum in the interactive space of the Account, the court concluded that, by blocking the Individual Plaintiffs because of their expressed political views, the government had engaged in viewpoint discrimination. Id. at 577 . Finally, the court held that the blocking of the Individual Plaintiffs violated the Knight Institute's right to read the replies of the Individual Plaintiffs which they cannot post because they are blocked. Id. at 563-64 . 3

*234 This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo , applying the same standards that governed the district court's resolution of the motion. Summa v. Hofstra Univ. , 708 F.3d 115 , 123 (2d Cir. 2013). All questions presented on this appeal, including questions of constitutional interpretation, are ones of law which we review de novo . All. for Open Soc'y Int'l, Inc. v. United States Agency for Int'l Dev. , 911 F.3d 104 , 109 (2d Cir. 2018). Because we agree that in blocking the Individual Plaintiffs the President engaged in prohibited viewpoint discrimination, we affirm.

DISCUSSION

The President's primary argument in his brief is that when he blocked the Individual Plaintiffs, he was exercising control over a private, personal account. At oral argument, however, the government conceded that the Account is not "independent of [Trump's] presidency," choosing instead to argue only that the act of blocking was not state action. Oral Arg. R. at 1:00 - 1:15. The President contends that the Account is exclusively a vehicle for his own speech to which the Individual Plaintiffs have no right of access and to which the First Amendment does not apply. Secondarily, he argues that, in any event, the Account is not a public forum and that even if the Account were a public forum, blocking the Individual Plaintiffs did not prevent them from accessing the forum. The President further argues that, to the extent the Account is government-controlled, posts on it are government speech to which the First Amendment does not apply. We are not persuaded. We conclude that the evidence of the official nature of the Account is overwhelming. We also conclude that once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with.

I.

The President concedes that he blocked the Individual Plaintiffs because they posted tweets that criticized him or his policies. He also concedes that such criticism is protected speech. The issue then for this Court to resolve is whether, in blocking the Individual Plaintiffs from the interactive features of the Account, the President acted in a governmental capacity or as a private citizen.

The President maintains that Twitter is a privately owned and operated social media platform that he has used since 2009 to share his opinions on popular culture, world affairs, and politics. Since he became President, he contends, the private nature of the Account has not changed. In his view, the Account is not a space owned or controlled by the government. Rather, it is a platform for his own private speech and not one for the private expression of others. Because the Account is private, he argues, First Amendment issues and forum analysis are not implicated. Although Twitter facilitates robust public debate on the Account, the President contends that it is simply the means through which he participates in a forum and not a public forum in and of itself.

No one disputes that the First Amendment restricts government regulation of private speech but does not regulate purely private speech. 4 If, in blocking, *235 the President were acting in a governmental capacity, then he may not discriminate based on viewpoint among the private speech occurring in the Account's interactive space. As noted, the government argues first that the Account is the President's private property because he opened it in 2009 as a personal account and he will retain personal control over the Account after his presidency. However, the fact that government control over property is temporary, or that the government does not "own" the property in the sense that it holds title to the property, is not determinative of whether the property is, in fact, sufficiently controlled by the government to make it a forum for First Amendment purposes. See Se. Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad , 420 U.S. 546 , 547-52, 95 S.Ct. 1239 , 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975) (holding privately-owned theater leased to and operated by city was public forum). 5 Temporary control by the government can still be control for First Amendment purposes.

The government's contention that the President's use of the Account during his presidency is private founders in the face of the uncontested evidence in the record of substantial and pervasive government involvement with, and control over, the Account. First, the Account is presented by the President and the White House staff as belonging to, and operated by, the President. The Account is registered to "Donald J. Trump, '45th President of the United States of America, Washington, D.C.' " App'x at 54. The President has described his use of the Account as "MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL." Id. at 55. The White House social media director has described the Account as a channel through which "President Donald J. Trump ... [c]ommunicat[es] directly with you, the American people!" Id. The @WhiteHouse account, an undoubtedly official Twitter account run by the government, "directs Twitter users to 'Follow for the latest from @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and his Administration.' " Id. Further, the @POTUS account frequently republishes tweets from the Account. 6 As discussed earlier, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, the President's tweets from the Account "are official records that must be preserved under the Presidential Records Act." Id. at 57.

Second, since becoming President he has used the Account on almost a daily basis "as a channel for communicating and interacting with the public about his administration." Id. at 54. The President utilizes White House staff to post tweets and to maintain the Account. He uses the Account *236 to announce "matters related to official government business," including high-level White House and cabinet-level staff changes as well as changes to major national policies. Id. at 56. He uses the Account to engage with foreign leaders and to announce foreign policy decisions and initiatives. Finally, he uses the "like," "retweet," "reply," and other functions of the Account to understand and to evaluate the public's reaction to what he says and does. In sum, since he took office, the President has consistently used the Account as an important tool of governance and executive outreach. For these reasons, we conclude that the factors pointing to the public, non-private nature of the Account and its interactive features are overwhelming.

The government's response is that the President is not acting in his official capacity when he blocks users because that function is available to all users, not only to government officials. However, the fact that any Twitter user can block another account does not mean that the President somehow becomes a private person when he does so. Because the President, as we have seen, acts in an official capacity when he tweets, we conclude that he acts in the same capacity when he blocks those who disagree with him. Here, a public official and his subordinates hold out and use a social media account open to the public as an official account for conducting official business. That account has interactive features open to the public, making public interaction a prominent feature of the account. These factors mean that the account is not private. See generally Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Virginia , 515 U.S. 819 , 830, 115 S.Ct. 2510 , 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995) (applying the same principles to "metaphysical" forums as to those that exist in "a spatial or geographic sense"); see also Davison v. Randall , 912 F.3d 666 , 680 (4th Cir. 2019) (holding that a public official who used a Facebook Page as a tool of her office exercised state action when banning a constituent); Robinson v. Hunt Cty., Texas , 921 F.3d 440 , 447 (5th Cir. 2019) (finding that a government official's act of banning a constituent from an official government social media page was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination). Accordingly, the President excluded the Individual Plaintiffs from government-controlled property when he used the blocking function of the Account to exclude disfavored voices.

Of course, not every social media account operated by a public official is a government account. Whether First Amendment concerns are triggered when a public official uses his account in ways that differ from those presented on this appeal will in most instances be a fact-specific inquiry. The outcome of that inquiry will be informed by how the official describes and uses the account; to whom features of the account are made available; and how others, including government officials and agencies, regard and treat the account. But these are concerns for other cases and other days and are ones we are not required to consider or resolve on this appeal.

II.

Once it is established that the President is a government actor with respect to his use of the Account, viewpoint discrimination violates the First Amendment. Manhattan Community Access Corp. et al. v. Halleck et al., 587 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 1921 , 204 L.Ed.2d 405 (2019) ("When the government provides a forum for speech (known as a public forum), the government may be constrained by the First Amendment, meaning that the government ordinarily may not exclude speech or speakers from the forum on the basis of viewpoint ...."); see also *237 Pleasant Grove , 555 U.S. at 469-70, 129 S.Ct. 1125 (viewpoint discrimination prohibited in traditional, designated, and limited public forums); Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. , 473 U.S. 788 , 806, 105 S.Ct. 3439 , 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985) (viewpoint discrimination prohibited in nonpublic forums).

The government makes two responses. First, it argues that the Account is not a public forum and that, even if it were a public forum, the Individual Plaintiffs were not excluded from it. Second, the government argues that the Account, if controlled by the government, is government speech not subject to First Amendment restrictions.

A.

As a general matter, social media is entitled to the same First Amendment protections as other forms of media. Packingham v. North Carolina , --- U.S. ----, 137 S. Ct. 1730 , 1735-36, 198 L.Ed.2d 273 (2017) (holding a state statute preventing registered sex offenders from accessing social media sites invalid and describing social media use as "protected First Amendment activity"). "[W]hatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, 'the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment's command, do not vary' when a new and different medium for communication appears." Brown v. Entm't Merchants Ass'n , 564 U.S. 786 , 790, 131 S.Ct. 2729 , 180 L.Ed.2d 708 (2011) (quoting Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson , 343 U.S. 495 , 503, 72 S.Ct. 777 , 96 L.Ed. 1098 (1952) ). A public forum, as the Supreme Court has also made clear, need not be "spatial or geographic" and "the same principles are applicable" to a metaphysical forum. Rosenberger , 515 U.S. at 830 , 115 S.Ct. 2510 .

To determine whether a public forum has been created, courts look "to the policy and practice of the government" as well as "the nature of the property and its compatibility with expressive activity to discern the government's intent." Cornelius , 473 U.S. at 802 , 105 S.Ct. 3439 . Opening an instrumentality of communication "for indiscriminate use by the general public" creates a public forum. Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n , 460 U.S. 37 , 47, 103 S.Ct. 948 , 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983). The Account was intentionally opened for public discussion when the President, upon assuming office, repeatedly used the Account as an official vehicle for governance and made its interactive features accessible to the public without limitation. We hold that this conduct created a public forum.

If the Account is a forum-public or otherwise-viewpoint discrimination is not permitted by the government. Int'l Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee , 505 U.S. 672 , 679, 112 S.Ct. 2701 , 120 L.Ed.2d 541 (1992) ; see also Pleasant Grove , 555 U.S. at 469-70, 129 S.Ct. 1125 (viewpoint discrimination prohibited in traditional, designated, and limited public forums); Cornelius , 473 U.S. at 806 , 105 S.Ct. 3439 (viewpoint discrimination prohibited in nonpublic forums). A blocked account is prevented from viewing any of the President's tweets, replying to those tweets, retweeting them, or liking them. Replying, retweeting, and liking are all expressive conduct that blocking inhibits. Replying and retweeting are messages that a user broadcasts, and, as such, undeniably are speech. Liking a tweet conveys approval or acknowledgment of a tweet and is therefore a symbolic message with expressive content. See, e.g. , W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette , 319 U.S. 624 , 632-33, 63 S.Ct. 1178 , 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943) (discussing symbols as speech). Significantly, *238 the parties agree that all of this expressive conduct is communicated to the thousands of users who interact with the Account. By blocking the Individual Plaintiffs and preventing them from viewing, retweeting, replying to, and liking his tweets, the President excluded the Individual Plaintiffs from a public forum, something the First Amendment prohibits.

The government does not challenge the District Court's conclusion that the speech in which Individual Plaintiffs seek to engage is protected speech; instead, it argues that blocking did not ban or burden anyone's speech. See Knight First Amendment , 302 F. Supp. 3d at 565 . Specifically, the government contends that the Individual Plaintiffs were not prevented from speaking because "the only material impact that blocking has on the individual plaintiffs' ability to express themselves on Twitter is that it prevents them from speaking directly to Donald Trump by replying to his tweets on the @realDonaldTrump web page." Appellants Br. at 35.

That assertion is not well-grounded in the facts presented to us. The government is correct that the Individual Plaintiffs have no right to require the President to listen to their speech. See Minnesota State Bd. for Cmty. Colleges v. Knight , 465 U.S. 271 , 283, 104 S.Ct. 1058 , 79 L.Ed.2d 299 (1984) (a plaintiff has "no constitutional right to force the government to listen to their views"). However, the speech restrictions at issue burden the Individual Plaintiffs' ability to converse on Twitter with others who may be speaking to or about the President. 7 President Trump is only one of thousands of recipients of the messages the Individual Plaintiffs seek to communicate. While he is certainly not required to listen, once he opens up the interactive features of his account to the public at large he is not entitled to censor selected users because they express views with which he disagrees. 8

The government's reply is that the Individual Plaintiffs are not censored because they can engage in various "workarounds" such as creating new accounts, logging out to view the President's tweets, and using Twitter's search functions to find tweets about the President posted by other users with which they can engage.

Tellingly, the government concedes that these "workarounds" burden the Individual Plaintiffs' speech. See App'x 35-36, 66. And burdens to speech as well as outright bans run afoul of the First Amendment. See Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. , 564 U.S. 552 , 566, 131 S.Ct. 2653 , 180 L.Ed.2d 544 (2011) (stating that government "may no more silence unwanted speech by burdening its utterance than by censoring its content");

*239 United States v. Playboy Entm't Grp., Inc. , 529 U.S. 803 , 812, 120 S.Ct. 1878 , 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000) ("The distinction between laws burdening and laws banning speech is but a matter of degree. The Government's content-based burdens must satisfy the same rigorous scrutiny as its content-based bans."). When the government has discriminated against a speaker based on the speaker's viewpoint, the ability to engage in other speech does not cure that constitutional shortcoming. Christian Legal Soc. Chapter of the Univ. of California, Hastings Coll. of the Law v. Martinez , 561 U.S. 661 , 690, 130 S.Ct. 2971 , 177 L.Ed.2d 838 (2010). Similarly, the fact that the Individual Plaintiffs retain some ability to "work around" the blocking does not cure the constitutional violation. Neither does the fact that the Individual Plaintiffs can post messages elsewhere on Twitter. Accordingly, we hold that the President violated the First Amendment when he used the blocking function to exclude the Individual Plaintiffs because of their disfavored speech.

B.

Finally, the government argues that to the extent the Account is controlled by the government, it is government speech. Under the government speech doctrine, "[t]he Free Speech Clause does not require government to maintain viewpoint neutrality when its officers and employees speak" about governmental endeavors. Matal v. Tam , --- U.S. ----, 137 S. Ct. 1744 , 1757, 198 L.Ed.2d 366 (2017). For example, when the government wishes to promote a war effort, it is not required by the First Amendment to also distribute messages discouraging that effort. Id. at 1758 ; see also Pleasant Grove , 555 U.S. at 467, 129 S.Ct. 1125 ("The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech; it does not regulate government speech.").

It is clear that if President Trump were engaging in government speech when he blocked the Individual Plaintiffs, he would not have been violating the First Amendment. Everyone concedes that the President's initial tweets (meaning those that he produces himself) are government speech. But this case does not turn on the President's initial tweets; it turns on his supervision of the interactive features of the Account. The government has conceded that the Account "is generally accessible to the public at large without regard to political affiliation or any other limiting criteria," and the President has not attempted to limit the Account's interactive feature to his own speech. App'x at 55.

Considering the interactive features, the speech in question is that of multiple individuals, not just the President or that of the government. When a Twitter user posts a reply to one of the President's tweets, the message is identified as coming from that user, not from the President. There is no record evidence, and the government does not argue, that the President has attempted to exercise any control over the messages of others, except to the extent he has blocked some persons expressing viewpoints he finds distasteful. The contents of retweets, replies, likes, and mentions are controlled by the user who generates them and not by the President, except to the extent he attempts to do so by blocking. Accordingly, while the President's tweets can accurately be described as government speech, the retweets, replies, and likes of other users in response to his tweets are not government speech under any formulation. The Supreme Court has described the government speech doctrine as "susceptible to dangerous misuse." Matal , 137 S. Ct. at 1758. It has urged "great caution" to prevent the government from "silenc[ing] or muffl[ing] the expression of disfavored *240 viewpoints" under the guise of the government speech doctrine. Id. Extension of the doctrine in the way urged by President Trump would produce precisely this result.

The irony in all of this is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate. This debate encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of ideas and viewpoints and generates a level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen. This debate, as uncomfortable and as unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing. In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less.

CONCLUSION

The judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED .

tional prohibition, but merely said to be in excess of the authority delegated to him by the Congress. Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647 (1963). Finally, we cannot accept respondents’ formulation of the question as whether the availability of money damages is necessary to enforce the Fourth Amendment. For we have here no explicit congressional declaration that persons injured by a federal officer’s violation of the Fourth Amendment may not recover money damages from the agents, but must instead be remitted to another remedy, equally effective in the view of Congress. The question is merely whether petitioner, if he can demonstrate an injury consequent upon the violation by' federal agents of his Fourth Amendment rights, is entitled to redress his injury through a particular remedial mechanism normally available in the federal courts. Cf. J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 433 (1964); Jacobs v. United States, 290 U. S. 13, 16 (1933). “The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803). Having concluded that petitioner’s complaint states a cause of action under the Fourth Amendment, supra, at 390-395, we hold that petitioner is entitled to recover „ money damages for any injuries he has suffered as a result of the agents’ violation of the Amendment.

II

In addition to holding that petitioner’s complaint had failed to state facts making out a cause of action, the District Court ruled that in any event respondents were' immune from liability by virtue of their official position. 276 F. Supp., at 15. This question was not passed upon by the Court of Appeals, and accordingly we do not con*398sider it here. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

concurring in the judgment.

My initial view of this case was that the Court of Appeals was correct in dismissing the complaint, but for reasons stated in this opinion I am now persuaded to the contrary. Accordingly, I join in the judgment of reversal.

Petitioner alleged, in his suit in the District Court- for the Eastern District of New York, that the defendants, federal agents acting under color of federal law, subjected him to a. search and seizure contravening thé requirements of the Fourth Amendment. He sought damages in the amount of $15,000 from each of the agents. Federal jurisdiction was claimed, inter alia,1 under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a) which provides:

“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions wherein the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $10,000 exclusive of interest and costs, and arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”

The District Court dismissed the complaint for lack of federal jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a) and failure to state a claim for which relief may be granted. 276 F. Supp 12 (EDNY 1967). On appeal, the Court of Appeals concluded, on the basis of this Court’s decision in Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946), that petitioner’s claim for damages did “[arise] under the Constitution” *399within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a); but the District Court’s judgment was affirmed on the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. 409 F. 2d 718 (CA2 1969).

In so concluding, Chief Judge Lumbard’s opinion reasoned, in essence, that: (1) the framers of the Fourth Amendment did not appear to contemplate a “wholly new federal cause of action founded directly on the Fourth Amendment,” id., at 721, apd (2) while the federal courts had power , under a general grant of jurisdiction to imply a federal remedy for the enforcement of a constitutional right, they should do so only when the absence of alternative remedies renders the constitutional command a “mere ‘form of words.’ ” Id., at 723. The Government takes essentially the same position here. Brief for Respondents 4-5. And two members of the Court add the contention that we lack the constitutional power to accord Bivens a remedy for damages in the absence of congressional action creating “a federal cause of action for damages for an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Opinion of Mr. Justice Black, post, at 427; see also opinion of The Chief Justice, post, at 418, 422.

For the reasons set forth below, I am of the opinion that federal courts do have the power to award damages for violation of “constitutionally protected interests” and I agree with the Court that a traditional judicial remedy such as damages is appropriate to the vindication of the personal interests protected by the Fourth Amendment.

I

I turn first to the contention that the constitutional power of federal courts to accord Bivens damages for his claim depends on the passage of a statute creating a “federal cause of action.” Although the point is not *400entirely free of ambiguity,2 I do not understand either the Govérnment or my dissenting Brothers to maintain that Bivens’ contention that he is entitled to be free from the type of official conduct prohibited by the Fourth Amendment depends on a decision by the State in which ' hp resides to accord him a remedy. Such a position Would be incompatible with the presumed availability of federal equitable relief, if a proper showing can be made in terms of the ordinary principles governing equitable remedies. See Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 684 (1946). However broad a federal court’s discretion concerning equitable remedies, it is absolutely clear — at least after Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938) — that in a nondiversity suit a federal court’s power to grant even equitable relief depends on the presence of a substantive right derived from federal law. Compare Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 105-107 (1945), with Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 395 (1946). See also H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 818-819 (1953).

Thus the interest which Bivens claims — to be free from official conduct in contravention of the Fourth Amendment — is a federally protected interest. See generally Katz, The Jurisprudence of Remedies: Constitutional Legality and the Law of Torts in Bell v. Hood, 117 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1, 33-34 (1968).3 Therefore, the question *401of-judicial power to grant Bivens damages is not a problem of the “source” of the “right”; instead, the question is whether the power to authorize damages as a judicial *402remedy for the vindication of a federal constitutional right is placed by the' Constitution itself exclusively in Congress’ hands.

II

The contention that the federal courts are powerless to accord a litigant damages for a claimed invasion of his federal constitutional rights until Congress explicitly authorizes the remedy cannot rest on the notion that the decision to grant compensatory relief involves a resolution of policy considerations not susceptible of judicial discernment. Thus, in suits for damages based on violations of federal statutes lacking any express authorization of a damage remedy, this Court has authorized such relief where, in its view, damages are necessary to effectuate the congressional policy, underpinning the substantive provisions of the statute. J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426 (1964); Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 323 U. S. 210, 213 (1944). Cf. Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U. S. 191, 201-204 (1967).4

*403If it is not the nature of the remedy which is thought to render a judgment as to the appropriateness of damages inherently “legislative,” then it must be the nature of the legal interest offered as an occasion for invoking otherwise appropriate judicial relief. But I do not think that the fact that the interest is protected by the Constitution rather than statute or common law justifies the assertion that federal courts are powerless to grant damages in the absence of explicit congressional action authorizing the remedy. Initially, I note'that it would be at least anomalous to conclude that the federal judiciary— while competent to choose among the range of traditional judicial remedies to implement statutory and common-law policies, and even to generate substantive rules governing primary behavior in furtherance of broadly formulated policies articulated by statute or Constitution, see Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448 (1957); United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301, 304-311 (1947); Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363 (1943) — is powerless to accord a damages *404remedy to vindicate social policies which, by virtue of their inclusion in the Constitution, are aimed predominantly at restraining the Government as an instrument of the popular will.

More importantly, the presumed availability of federal equitable relief against threatened invasions of constitutional interests appears entirely to negate the contention that the status of an interest as constitutionally protected divests federal courts of the power to grant damages absent express congressional authorization. Congress provided specially for the exercise of equitable remedial powers by federal courts, see Act of May 8, 1792, § 2, 1 Stat. 276; C. Wright, Law of Federal Courts 257 (2d ed., 1970), in part because of the limited availability of equitable remedies in state courts in the early days of the Republic. See Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 104-105 (1945). And this Court's decisions make clear that, at least absent congressional restrictions, the scope of equitable remedial discretion is to be determined according to the distinctive- historical traditions of equity as an institution, Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 395-396 (1946); Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U. S. 161, 165-166 (1939). The reach of a federal district court’s “inherent equitable powers,” Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 460 (Burton, J., concurring in result), is broad indeed, e. g., Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 401 U. S. 1 (1971); nonetheless, the federal judiciary is nqt empowered to grant equitable relief in the absence of congressional action extending jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit. See Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, supra, at 460 (Burton, J., concurring in result) ; Katz, 117 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 43.5

*405If explicit congre? :onal authorization is an absolute prerequisite to the power of a federal court to accord compensatory relief regardless of the necessity or appropriateness of damages as a remedy simply because! of the status of a legal interest as constitutionally protected, .then it seems to me that explicit congressional authorization is similarly prerequisite to the exercise of equitable remedial discretion in favor of constitutionally protected interests. Conversely, if a general grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts by Congress is thought adequate to empower a federal court to grant equitable relief for all areas of subject-matter jurisdiction enumerated therein, see 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a), then it seems to me that the same statute is sufficient to empower a federal court to grant a traditional remedy at law.6 Of course, the special historical traditions governing the federal equity system, see Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U. S. 161 *406(1939), might still bear on the comparative appropriateness of granting equitable relief as opposed to money-damages. . That possibility, however, relates, not to whether the federal courts have the power to afford one type of remedy as opposed to the other, but rather to the criteria which should govern the exercise of our power. To that question, I now pass.

Ill

The major thrust of the Government’s position is that, where Congress has not expressly authorized a particular remedy, a federal court should exercise its power to accord a traditional form of judicial relief at the behest of a litigant, who claims a constitutionally protected interest has been invaded, only where the remedy is “essential,” or “indispensable for vindicating constitutional rights.” Brief for Respondents 19, 24. While this “essentiality” test is most clearly articulated with respect to damages remedies, apparently the Government believes the same test explains the exercise of equitable remedial powers. Id., at 17-18. It is argued that historically the Court has rarely exercised the power to accord such relief in the absence of an express congressional authorization and that “[i]f Congress.had thought that federal officers should be subject to a law different than state law, it would have had no difficulty in saying so, as it did with respect to state officers . . . .” Id., at 20-21 see 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Although conceding that the standard of determining whether a damage remedy should be utilized to effectuate statutory policies is one of “necessity” or “appropriateness,” see J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 432 (1964); United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301, 307 (1947), the Government contends that questions concerning congressional discretion to modify judicial remedies relating to constitutionally protected interests warrant a more stringent constraint on *407the exercise of judicial power with respect to this class of legally protected interests. Brief for. Respondents 21-22.

These arguments for a more stringent test to govern the grant of damages in constitutional cases7 seem to be adequately answered by the point that the judiciary has a particular responsibility to assure the vindication of constitutional interests such as those embraced by the Fourth Amendment. To be sure, “it must be remembered that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts.” Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267, 270 (1904). But it must also be.recog-, nized that the Bill of Rights is particularly intended to vindicate the interests of the individual in the face of the popular will as expressed in legislative majorities; at the very least, it strikes me as no more appropriate to await express congressional authorization of traditional judicial relief with regard to these legal interests than with respect'to interests protected by federal statutes.

The question then, is, as I see it, whether compensatory relief is “necessary” or “appropriate” to the vindication of the interest asserted. Cf. J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, supra, at 432; United States v. Standard Oil Co., supra, at 307; Hill, Constitutional Remedies, 69 Col. L. Rev. 1109, 1155 (1969); Katz, 117 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 72. . In resolving that question, it seems to me that the range of policy considerations we may take into account is at least as broad as the range of those a legislature would consider with respect to an express statutory authorization of a traditional remedy. In this regard I agree with the Court that the appropriateness of according Bivens *408compensatory relief does not turn simply on the deterrent effect liability will have on .federal official conduct.8 Damages as a traditional form of compensation for invasion of a legally protected interest may be entirely appropriate even if no substantial deterrent effects on future official lawlessness might be thought to result. Bivens, after all, has invoked judicial processes claiming entitlement to compensation for injuries resulting from allegedly lawless official behavior, if those injuries are properly compensable in money damages. I do not think a court of law — vested with the power to accord a remedy — should deny him his relief simply because he cannot show that-future lawless conduct will thereby be deterred.

And I think it is clear that Bivens advances a claim of the sort that, if proved, would be properly compensable in damages. The personal interests protected by the Fourth Amendment are those we attempt to capture by the notion of “privacy”; while the Court today properly points out that the type of harm which officials can inflict when they invade protected zones of an individual’s life *409are different from the types of harm private citizens inflict on one another, the experience of Judges in dealing with private trespass and false imprisonment claims supports the conclusion that courts of law are capable of making the types of judgment concerning causation and magnitude of injury necessary to accord meaningful compensation for invasion of Fourth Amendment rights.9

On the other hand, the limitations on state remedies for violation of common-law rights by private citizens argue in favor of a federal damages remedy. The injuries inflicted by officials acting uftder color of law, while no less compensable in damages than those inflicted by private parties, are substantially different in kind, as the Court’s opinion today discusses in detail. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 195 (1961) (Hablan, J., concurring). It seems to me entirely proper that these injuries be compensable according'to uniform rules of federal law, especially in light of the very large element of federal law which must in any event control the scope of official defenses to liability. See Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647, 652 (1963); Monroe v. Pape, supra, at 194-195 (Harlan, J., concurring); Howard v. Lyons, 360 U. S. 593 (1959). Certainly, there is very little to be gained from the standpoint of federalism by preserving different rules of liability for federal officers dependent on the State where the injury occurs. Cf. United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301, 305-311 (1947).

Putting aside the desirability of leaving the problem of federal official liability to the vagaries of common-law actions, it is apparent that some form of damages is the only possible remedy , for someone in Bivens’ alleged *410position. It will be a rare case indeed in which an individual in Bivens’ position will be able to obviate the harm by securing injunctive relief from any court. However desirable a direct remedy against the Government might be as a substitute for individual official liability, the sovereign still remains immune to suit. Finally, assuming Bivens’ innocence of the crime charged, the “exclusionary rule” is simply irrelevant. For people in Bivens’ shoes, it is damages or nothing.

The only substantial policy consideration advanced against recognition of a federal cause of action for violation of Fourth Amendment rights by federal officials is the incremental expenditure of judicial resources that will be necessitated by this class of litigation. There is, however, something ultimately self-defeating about this argument. For if, as the Government contends, damages will rarely be realized by plaintiffs in these cases because of jury hostility, the limited resources of the official concerned, etc., then I am not ready to assume that there will be a significant increase in the expenditure of judicial resources on these claims. Few responsible lawyers and plaintiffs are likely to choose the course of litigation if the statistical chances of success are truly de minimis. And I simply cannot agree with my Brother Black that the possibility of “frivolous” claims — if defined simply as claims .with no legal merit — warrants closing the courthouse doors to people in Bivens’ situation. There are other ways, short of that, of coping with frivolous lawsuits.

On the other hand, if — as I believe is the case with respect, at least, to the most flagrant abuses of official power — damages to some degree will be available when the option of litigation is chosen, then the question appears to be how Fourth Amendment interests rank on a scale of social values compared with, for example, the interests of stockholders defrauded by misleading proxies. *411See J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, supra. Judicial resources, I am well aware, are increasingly scarce these days. -Nonetheless, .when we automatically close the courthouse door solely on this basis, we implicitly express a value judgment on the comparative importance of classes of legally protected interests. And current limitations upon the effective functioning of the courts arising from budgetary inadequacies should not be permitted to stand in the way of the recognition of otherwise sound constitutional principles.

Of course, for a variety of reasons, the remedy may not often be sought. See generally Foote, Tort Remedies for Police Violations of Individual Rights, 39 Minn. L. Rev. 493 (1955). And the countervailing interests in efficient law enforcement of course argue for a protective zone with respect to many types of Fourth Amendment violations. Cf. Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959) (opinion of Harlan, J.). But, while I express no view on the immunity defense offered in the instant case, I deem it proper to venture the thought that at the very least such a remedy would be available for the most flagrant and patently unjustified sorts of police conduct. Although litigants may not often choose to seek relief, it is important, in a civilized society, that the judicial branch of the Nation’s government stand ready to afford a remedy in these circumstances. It goes without saying that I intimate no view on the merits of petitioner’s underlying claim.

For these reasons, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,

dissenting.

I dissent from today’s holding which judicially creates a damage remedy not provided for by the Constitution and not enacted by Congress. We would more surely preserve the important values of the doctrine of separa*412tion of powers — and perhaps get a better result — by recommending a solution to the Congress as the branch of government in which the Constitution has vested the legislative power. Legislation is the business of the Congress, and it has the facilities and competence for that task — as we do not. Professor Thayer, speaking of the limits on judicial power, albeit in another context, had this to say:1

“And if it be true that the holders of legislative power are careless or evil, yet the constitutional duty of the court remains untouched; it cannot rightly attempt to protect the people, by undertaking a function not its own. On the other hand, by adhering rigidly to its own duty, the court will help, as nothing else can, to fix the spot where responsibility lies, and to bring down on that precise locality the thunderbolt of popular condemnation. . . . For that course — the true course of 'judicial duty always — will powerfully help to bring the people and their representatives to a sense of their own responsibility.”

This case has significance far beyond its facts and its holding. For more than 55 years this Court has enforced a rule under which evidence of undoubted reliability and probative value has been suppressed and excluded from criminal cases whenever it was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914); Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 633 (1886) (dictum). This rule was extended to the States in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961).2 *413The rule has rested on a theory that suppression of evidence in these circumstances was imperative to deter law enforcement authorities from using improper methods to obtain evidence.

The deterrence theory underlying the suppression doctrine, or exclusionary rule, has a certain appeal in spite of the high price society pays for such a drastic remedy. Notwithstanding its plausibility, many judges and lawyers and some of our most distinguished legal scholars have never quite been able to escape the force of Cardozo’s statement of the doctrine’s anomalous result:

“The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered. ... A room is searched against the law, and the body of a murdered man is found. . . . The privacy of the home has been infringed, and the murderer goes free.” People v. Defore, 242 N. Y. 13, 21, 23-24, 150 N. E. 585, 587, 588 (1926).3

The plurality opinion in Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 136 (1954), catalogued the doctrine’s defects:

“Rejection of the evidence does nothing to punish the wrong-doing official, while it may, and likely will, release the wrong-doing defendant. It deprives society of its remedy against one lawbreaker because he has been pursued by ■ another. It protects one against whom incriminating evidence is discovered, but does nothing to protect innocent persons who are the victims of illegal but fruitless searches.”

From time to time members of the Court, recognizing the validity of these protests, have articulated varying *414alternative justifications for the suppression of important evidence in a criminal trial. Under one of these alternative theories the rule’s foundation is shifted to the “sporting contest” thesis that the government must “play the game fairly” and cannot be allowed to profit from its own illegal acts. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 469, 471 (1928) (dissenting opinions); see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 13 (1968). But the exclusionary rule does not ineluctably flow from a desire to ensure that government plays the “game” according to the rules. If an effective alternative remedy is available, concern for official observance of the law does not require adherence to the exclusionary rule. Nor is it easy to understand how a court can be thought to endorse a violation of the Fourth Amendment by allowing illegally seized evidence to be introduced against a defendant if an effective remedy is provided against the government.

The exclusionary rule has also been justified on the theory that the relationship between the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Fourth Amendment requires the suppression of evidence seized in violation of the latter. Boyd v. United States, supra, at 633 (dictum); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 47, 48 (1949) (Rutledge, J., dissenting); Mapp v. Ohio, supra, at 661-666 (Black, J., concurring).

Even ignoring, however, the decisions of this Court that have held 'that the Fifth Amendment applies only to “testimonial” disclosures, United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 221-223 (1967); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 764 and n. 8 (1966), it seems clear that the Self-Incrimination Clause does not protect a pérson from the seizure of evidence that is incriminating. It protects a person only from being the conduit by which the police acquire evidence. Mr. Justice Holmes once put it succinctly, “A party is privileged from producing the *415evidence but not from its production.” Johnson v. United States, 228 U. S. 457, 458 (1913).

It is clear, however, that neither of these theories under-girds the decided cases in this Court. Rather the exclusionary rule has rested on the deterrent rationale — the hope that law enforcement officials would be deterred from unlawful searches and seizures if the illegally seized, albeit trustworthy, evidence was suppressed often enough and the courts persistently enough deprived them of any benefits they might have gained from their illegal conduct.

This evidentiary rule is unique to American jurisprudence. Although the English and Canadian legal systems are highly regarded, neither has adopted our rule. See Martin, The Exclusionary Rule Under Foreign Law— Canada, 52 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 271, 272 (1961); Williams, The Exclusionary Rule Under Foreign Law— England, 52 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 272 (1961).

I do not question the need for some remedy to give meaning and teeth to the constitutional guarantees against unlawful conduct by government officials. Without some effective sanction, these protections would constitute little more than rhetoric. Beyond doubt the conduct of some officials requires sanctions as cases like Irvine indicate. But the hope that this objective could be accomplished by the exclusion. of reliable evidence from criminal trials was hardly more than a wistful dream. Although I would hesitate to abandon it until some meaningful substitute is developed, the history of the suppression doctrine demonstrates that it is both conceptually sterile and practically ineffective in accomplishing its stated objective. This is illustrated by the paradox that an unlawful act against a totally innocent, person — such as petitioner claims to be — has been left, without an effective remedy, and hence the Court finds *416it necessary now — 55 years later — to construct a remedy of its own.

Some clear demonstration of the benefits and effectiveness of the exclusionary rule is required to justify it in view of. the high price it extracts from society — the release of countless guilty criminals. See Allen, Federalism and the Fourth Amendment: A Requiem for Wolf, 1961 Sup. Ct. Rev. 1, 33 n. 172. But there is no empirical evidence to support the claim that the rule actually deters illegal conduct of law enforcement officials. Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U. Chi. L. Rev. 665, 667 (1970).

There are several reasons for this failure. The rule does not apply any direct sanction to the individual official whose illegal conduct results in the exclusion of evidence in a criminal trial. With rare exceptions law enforcement agencies do not impose direct sanctions on the individual officer responsible for a particular judicial application of thé suppression doctrine. Id., at 710. Thus there is virtually nothing done to bring about a change in his practices. The immediate sanction triggered by the application of the rule is visited upon the prosecutor whose case against a criminal is either weakened or destroyed. The doctrine deprives the police in no real sense; except that apprehending wrongdoers is their business, police have no more stake in successful prosecutions than prosecutors or the public.

The suppression doctrine vaguely assumes that law enforcement is a monolithic governmental enterprise. For exainple, the dissenters in Wolf v. Colorado, supra, at 44, argued that:

“Only by exclusion can we impress upon the zealous prosecutor that violation of the Constitution will do him no good. And only when that point is driven' home can the prosecutor be expected to emphasize *417the importance of observing the constitutional demands in his instructions to the police(Emphasis added.)

But the prosecutor who loses his case because of police misconduct is not an official in the police department; he can rarely set in motion any corrective action or administrative penalties. Moreover, he does not have control or direction over police procedures or police actions that lead to the exclusion of evidence. It is the rare exception when a prosecutor takes part in arrests, searches, or seizures so that he can guide police action.

Whatever educational effect the rule conceivably might have in theory is greatly diminished in fact by' the realities of law enforcement work. Policemen do not have the time, inclination, or training to read and grasp the nuances of the appellate opinions that ultimately define the standards of conduct they are to follow. The issues that these decisions resolve often admit of neither easy nor obvious answers, as sharply divided courts on what is or is not “reasonable” amply demonstrate;4 Nor can judges, in all candor, forget that opinions sometimes lack helpful clarity.

The presumed educational effect of judicial opinions is also reduced by the long time lapse — often several years— between the original police action and its final judicial evaluation. Given a policeman’s pressing responsibilities, it would be surprising if he ever becomes aware of the final result after such a delay. Finally, the exclu*418sionary rule’s deterrent impact is diluted by the fact that there are large areas of police activity that do not result in criminal prosecutions — hence the rule has virtually no applicability and no effect in such situations. Oaks, supra, at 720-724.

Today’s holding seeks to fill one of the gaps of the suppression doctrine — at the price of impinging on the legislative and policy functions that the Constitution vests in Congress. Nevertheless, the holding serves the useful purpose of exposing the fundamental weaknesses of the suppression doctrine. Suppressing unchallenged truth has set guilty criminals free but demonstrably has neither deterred deliberate violations of the Fourth Amendment nor decreased those errors in judgment that will inevitably occur given the pressures inherent in police work having to do with serious crimes.

Although unfortunately ineffective, the exclusionary rule has increasingly been characterized by a single, monolithic, and drastic judicial response to all official violations of legal norms. Inadvertent errors of judgment that do not work any grave injustice will inevitably occur under the pressure of police work. These honest mistakes have been treated in the same way as deliberate and flagrant Irvine-type violations of the Fourth Amendment. For example, in Miller v. United States, 357 U. S. 301, 309-310 (1958), reliable evidence was suppressed because of a police officer’s failure to say a “few more words” during the arrest and search of a known narcotics peddler.

This Court’s decision announced today in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, post, p. 443, dramatically illustrates the extent to which the doctrine represents a mechanically inflexible response to widely varying degrees of police error and the resulting high price that society pays. I dissented in Coolidge primarily because I do not believe the Fourth Amendment had been violated. Even on the Court’s contrary premise, however, whatever violation *419occurred was surely insufficient in nature and extent to justify the drastic result dictated by the suppression doctrine. A fair trial by jury has resolved doubts as to Coolidge’s guilt. But now his conviction on retrial is placed in serious question by the remand for a new trial — years after the crime — in which evidence that the New Hampshire courts found relevant and reliable will be withheld from the jury’s consideration. It is hardly surprising that such results are viewed with incomprehension by nonlawyers in this country and lawyers, judges, and legal scholars the world over.

Freeing either a tiger or a mouse in a schoolroom is an illegal act, but no rational person would suggest that the^e two acts should be punished in the same way. From time to time judges have occasion to pass on regulations governing police procedures. I wonder what would be the judicial response to a police order authorizing “shoot to kill” with respect to every fugitive. It is easy to predict our collective wrath and outrage. We, in common with all rational minds, would say that the police response must relate to the gravity and need; that a “shoot” order might conceivably be tolerable to prevent the escapé of a convicted killer but surely not for a car thief, a pickpocket or a shoplifter.

I submit that society has at' least as much right to expect rationally graded responses from judges in place of the universal “capital punishment” we inflict on all evidence when police error is shown in its acquisition. See ALI, Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure § SS 8.02 (2), p. 23 (Tent. Draft No. 4, 1971), reprinted in the Appendix to this opinion. Yet for over 55 years, and with increasing scope and intensity as today’s Coolidge holding shows, our legal system has treated vastly dissimilar cases as if they were the same. Our adherence to the exclusionary rule, our resistance to change, and our refusal even to acknowledge the need *420for effective enforcement mechanisms bring to mind Holmes’ well-known statement:

“It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.” Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 469 (1897).

In characterizing the suppression doctrine as an anomalous and ineffective mechanism with which to regulate law enforcement, I intend no reflection on the motivation of those members of this Court who hoped it would be a means of enforcing the Fourth Amendment. Judges cannot be faulted for being offended by arrests, searches, and seizures that violate the Bill of Rights or statutes intended to regulate public officials. But we can and should be faulted for clinging to an unworkable and irrational concept of law. My criticism is that we have taken so long to find better ways to accomplish these desired objectives. And there are better ways.

Instead of continuing to enforce the suppression doctrine inflexibly, rigidly, and mechanically, we should view it as one of the experimental steps in the great tradition of the common law and acknowledge its shortcomings. But in the same spirit we should be prepared to discontinue what the experience of over half a century has shown neither deters errant officers nor affords a remedy to the totally innocent victims of official misconduct.

I do not propose, however, that we abandon the suppression doctrine until some meaningful alternative can be developed. In a sense our legal system has become the captive of its own creation. To overrule Weeks and Mapp, even assuming the Court was now prepared to *421take that step, could raise yet new problems. Obviously the public interest would be poorly served if law enforcement officials were suddenly to gain the impression, however erroneous, that all constitutional restraints on police had somehow been removed — that an open season on “criminals” had been declared. I am concerned lest some such mistaken impression might be fostered by a flat overruling of the suppression doctrine cases. For years we have relied upon it as the exclusive remedy for unlawful official conduct; in a sense we are in a situation akin to the narcotics addict whose dependence on drugs precludes any drastic or immediate withdrawal of the supposed prop, regardless of how futile its continued use may be.

Reasonable and effective substitutes can be formulated if Congress would take the lead, as it did for example in 1946 in the Federal Tort Claims Act. I see'no insuperable obstacle to the elimination of the suppression doctrine if Congress would provide some meaningful and effective remedy against unlawful conduct by government officials.

The problems of both error and deliberate misconduct by law enforcement officials call for a workable remedy. Private damage actions against individual police officers concededly have not adequately met this requirement, and it would be fallacious to assume today’s work of the Court in creating a remedy will really accomplish its stated objective. There is some validity to the claims that juries will not return verdicts .against individual officers except in those unusual cases where the violation has been flagrant or where the error has been complete, as in the arrest of the wrong person or the search of the wrong house. There is surely serious doubt, for example, that a drug peddler caught packaging his wares will be able to arouse much sympathy in a jury on the ground that the police officer did not announce his identity and *422purpose fully; or because he failed to utter a “few more words.” See Miller v. United States, supra. Jurors may well refuse to penalize a police officer at the behest of a person they believe to be a “criminal” and probably will not punish an officer for honest errors of judgment. In any event an actual recovery depends on finding nonexempt assets of the police officer from which a judgment can be satisfied.

I conclude, therefore, that an entirely different remedy is necessary but it is one that in my view is as much beyond judicial power as the step the Court takes today. Congress should develop an administrative or quasi-judicial remedy against the government itself to afford compensation and restitution for persons whose Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. The venerable doctrine of respondeat superior in our tort law provides an entirely appropriate conceptual basis for this remedy. If, for example, a security guard privately employed by a department store commits an assault or other tort on a customer such as an improper search, the victim has a simple and obvious remedy — an action for money damages against the guard’s employer, the department store. W. Prosser, The Law of Torts § 68, pp. 470-480 (3d ed. 1964).5 Such a statutory scheme would have the added advantage of providing some remedy to the completely innocent persons who are sometimes the victims of illegal police conduct — something that the suppression doctrine, of course, can never accomplish.

. A simple structure would suffice.6 For example, Congress could enact a statute along the following lines:

(a) a waiver of sovereign immunity as to the illegal *423acts of law enforcement officials committed in the performance of assigned duties;

(b) the creation of a cause of action for damages sustainéd by any person aggrieved by conduct of governmental agents in violation of the Fourth Amendment or statutes regulating official condúce-

te) the creation of a tribunal, quasi-judicial in nature or perhaps patterned after the United States Court of Claims, to adjudicate all claims under the statute;

(d) a provision that this statutory remedy is in lieu of the exclusion of evidence secured fór use in criminal cases in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and

(e) a provision directing that no evidence, otherwise admissible, shall be excluded from any criminal proceeding because of violation of the Fourth Amendment.

I doubt that lawyers serving on such a tribunal would be swayed either by undue sympathy for officers or by the prejudice against “criminals” that has sometimes moved lay jurors to deny claims. In addition to awarding damages, the record of the police conduct that is condemned would undoubtedly become a relevant part of an officer’s personnel file so that the need for additional training or disciplinary action could be identified or his future usefulness as a public official evaluated. Finally, appellate judicial review could be made available on much the same basis that it is now provided as to district courts and regulatory agencies. This would' leave to the courts the ultimate responsibility for determining and articulating standards.

Once the constitutional validity of such a statute is established,7 it can reasonably be assumed that the States *424would develop their own remedial systems on the federal model. Indeed there is nothing to prevent a State from enacting a comparable statutory scheme without waiting for the Congress. Steps along these lines would move our system toward more responsible law enforcement on the one hand and away from the irrational and drastic results of the suppression doctrine on the other. Independent of the alternative embraced in this dissenting opinion, I believe the time has come to re-examine the scope of the exclusionary rule and consider at least some narrowing of its thrust so as to eliminate the anomalies it has produced.

In a country that prides itself on innovation, inventive genius, and willingness to experiment, it is a paradox that we should cling for more than a half century to a legal mechanism that was poorly designed and never really worked. I can only hope now that the Congress will manifest a willingness to view realistically the hard evidence of the half-century history of the suppression doctrine revealing thousands of cases in which the criminal was set free because the constable blundered and virtually no evidence that innocent victims of police error— such as petitioner claims to be — have been afforded meaningful redress.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF BURGER, C. J., DISSENTING

It is interesting to note that studies over a period of years led the American Law Institute to propose the following in its tentative draft of a model pre-arraignment code:

“(2) Determination. Unless otherwise required by the Constitution of the United Stated or of this State, a motion to suppress evidence based upon a *425violation of any of the provisions of this code shall be granted only if the court -finds that such violation was substantial. In determining whether a violation is substantial the court shall consider all the circumstances, including:

“(a) the importance of the particular interest violated;

“(b) the extent of deviation from lawful conduct;

“(c) the extent to which the violation was willful;

“(d) the extent to which privacy was invaded;

“(e) the extent to which exclusion will tend to prevent violations of this Code;

“(f) whether, but for the violation, the things seized would have been discovered; and

“(g) the extent to which the violation prejudiced the moving party’s ability to support his motion, or to defend himself in the proceeding in- which the things seized are sought to be offered in evidence against him.

“(3) Fruits of Prior Unlawful Search. If a search or seizure is carried out in such a manner that things seized in the course of the search would be subject to a motion to suppress under subsection (1), and if as a result of such search or seizure other evidence is discovered subsequently and offered against a defendant, such evidence shall be subject to a motion to suppress unless the prosecution establishes that such evidence would probably have been discovered by law enforcement authorities irrespective of such search or seizure, and the court finds that exclusion of such evidence is not necessary to deter violations of this Code.”

ALI, Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure §§ SS 8.02 (2), (3), pp. 23-24 (Tent. Draft No. 4, 1971) (emphasis supplied).

*426The Reporters’ views on the exclusionary rule are also reflected in their comment on the proposed section:

“The Reporters wish to emphasize that they are not, as a matter of policy, wedded to the exclusionary rule as the sole or best means of enforcing the Fourth Amendment. See Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U. of Chi. L. Rev. 665 (1970). Paragraph (2) embodies what the Reporters hope is a more flexible approach to the problem, subject of course to constitutional requirements.” Id., comment, at 26-27.

This is but one of many expressions of disenchantment with the exclusionary rule; see also:

1. Barrett, Exclusion of Evidence Obtained by Illegal Searches — A Comment on People vs. Cahan, 43 Calif. L. Rev. 565 (1955).

2. Burns, Mapp v. Ohio: An All-American Mistake, 19 DePaul L. Rev. 80 (1969).

3. Friendly, The Bill of Rights ás a Code of Criminal Procedure, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 929, 951-954 (1965).

4. F. Inbau, J. Thompson, & C. Sowle, Cases and Comments on Criminal Justice: Criminal Law Administration 1-84 (3d ed. 1968).

5. LaFave, Improving Police Performance Through the Exclusionary Rule (pts. 1 & 2), 30 Mo. L. Rev. 391, 566 (1965).

6. LaFave & Remington, Controlling the Police: The Judge’s Role in Making and Reviewing Law Enforcement Decisions, 63 Mich. L. Rev. 987 (1965).

7. N. Morris & G. Hawkins, The Honest Politician’s Guide to Crime Control 101 (1970).

8. Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U. Chi. L. Rev. 665 (1970).

*4279. Plumb, Illegal Enforcement of the Law; 24 Cornell L. Q. 337 (1939).

10. Schaefer, The Fourteenth Amendment and Sanctity of the Person, 64 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1 (1969).