sentences:  § 1983 when being sued for monetary damages.The Court found that § 1983 would not provide a federal forum for litigants who were seeking a remedy against a State for alleged deprivations of civil liberties because the Eleventh Amendment barred such suits unless the State has waived its sovereign immunity or unless Congress has exercised its power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to override that immunity.The majority found that even though state officials literally are persons, suits brought against them in their official capacity were not really suits against the officials, but were rather suits against the officials' offices, no different from a suit against the State itself.