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96 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 247 (2021-2023)
Qualified Immunity under Section 1983: The Protective Veil of "Clearly Established"

handle is hein.journals/chknt96 and id is 263 raw text is: QUALIFIED IMMUNITY UNDER SECTION 1983: THE PROTECTIVE VEIL OF CLEARLY ESTABLISHED EVA DICKEY* INTRODUCTION In 1871, in the midst of Reconstruction, Congress passed An Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which came to be known as both the Ku Klux Klan Act (Ku Klux Act) and the Civil Rights Act of 1871.1 Section 1 of this Act read That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regula- tion, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subject- ed, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Con- stitution of the United States, shall .. . be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for re- dress .... 2 The objectives of the Ku Klux Act were to override certain state laws, furnish a remedy where state law was inadequate, and provide a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not availa- ble in practice for the protection of freedmen and Union sympathizers in the South after the Civil War.3 Despite these lofty goals, this statute laid mostly dormant until the mid-twentieth century when the Supreme Court began to incorporate the Bill of Rights to the states.4 The Court first inter- * Eva Dickey is a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law, Class of 2020 and works at Romanucci & Blandin, LLC in Chicago, Illinois. I would like to thank Professor Sheldon Nahmod for his support and encouragement, particularly in the writing of this note and guidance in my study of the law of section 1983. 1 would also like to thank Professor Kent Streseman for seeing my potential, taking a chance, and pushing me to do the hard work. To Paige Smith, Rachel Gray, and the student editors at Chicago-Kent Law Review, this note would not be what it was without your dedication, assistance, and advice. Thank you all for your hard work in improving this note. 1. Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13 . 2. Id., section 1. 3. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 173-74 (1961); see also, District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 425 (1973). 4. Sheldon Nahmod, The Long and Winding Road from Monroe to Connick, 13 LOY. J. PUBL. INT. L. 427, 428-29 (2012). 247

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