#Congress authorized the first kind of lawsuit in an 1871 #law that most people call §1983. But Congress has not enacted #legislation allowing suits against #federal ofcls for violating the #Constitution.

“It’s an enormous problem that federal officials are in some ways the hardest people to hold accountable for violating people’s constitutional rights, even harder than state & local officials,” said Carolyn Shapiro, a prof at Chicago-Kent College of Law & a fmr solicitor general of Illinois.