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Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act

Section 1983 of the Federal Civil Rights Act protects individuals from abuse by governments and their employees. The law reads in part:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in an any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

The measure permits individuals to bring civil suits against officials who through “the color” of state law either violate or enable others to violate the civil rights of private parties. Section 1983 is the primary conduit through which prison and jail inmates file individual and class action suits against correctional systems.

History

This provision began as Section 1 of the Ku Klux Klan 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.” The measure later became Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes before becoming Section 1983 in 42 United States Code. Sometimes known as the “Anti-lynching law” or the “Third force bill” for enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process, equal protection, and privileges and immunities clauses, the measure became law after extensive congressional debate. Because many state officials in the South aided and abetted the terrorist actions of the Ku Klux Klan, President Ulysses Simpson Grant and members of Congress believed that the measure was necessary to protect individual citizens during the era of Reconstruction.

Section 1983 ultimately became one of the most significant federal laws in existence. A number of landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, Reynolds v. Sims, and Roe v. Wade began under Section 1983. Although there were fewer than 300 Section 1983 cases during 1961, by the year 2000 parties were filing more than 30,000 cases under the provision. Section 1983 permits individuals to litigate a wide array of civil rights claims concerning a diversity of issues such as jails and prisons, race and gender discrimination, voting, state employment, abortion, mental and physical health, and abuse by law enforcement officers.

“Color of State Law” and Immunities

Section 1983 claims may be filed against “persons” who act “under color of state law” (this also pertains to actors in any “Territory or District of Columbia”). The Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits individual lawsuits against state governments. However, individuals may sue state officers who act in an official capacity and thereby essentially bring an action against the state. Municipalities and other local governments as well as their employees are generally subject to Section 1983. Beginning with the case Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotic Agents in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court has also interpreted the civil rights measure to protect individuals, including prison inmates, from abuses by federal employees. While Section 1983 does not serve as a source of substantive rights, it enables individuals to litigate civil rights and liberties granted by the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes.

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