Kagan, J., dissenting
the contract to the University is an injury to Arkansas”: The State was the principal beneficiary of the contract to improve its own property. Ibid. So Arkansas had the sort of direct financial interest not present here. And there is more: The University, the Court thought, could not sue on its own. See ibid. The majority suggests otherwise, citing a state-court decision holding that corporations usually have the power to bring and defend legal actions. See ante, at 11–12. But the Arkansas Court referenced a different state-court decision—one holding that another state school was “not authorized” to “sue and be sued.” Allen Eng. Co. v. Kays, 106 Ark. 174, 177, 152 S. W. 992, 993 (1913); see Arkansas, 346 U. S., at 370, and n. 9. That decision led this Court to conclude that Arkansas law treated “a suit against the University” as “a suit against the State.” Id., at 370. But if state law had not done so—as it does not in Missouri for MOHELA? See supra, at 6–7. The Court made clear that a State cannot stand in for an independent entity. The State, the Court said, “must, of course, represent an interest of her own and not merely that of her citizens or corporations.” Ibid.
The majority’s second case—Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374 (1995)—is yet further afield. The issue there was whether Amtrak, a public corporation similar to MOHELA, had to comply with the First Amendment. The Court held that it did, labeling Amtrak a state actor for that purpose. On the opposite view, we reasoned, a government could “evade the most solemn obligations imposed in the Constitution by simply resorting to the corporate form.” Id., at 397; see ibid. (noting that Plessy could then be “resurrected by the simple device” of creating a public corporation to run trains). But that did not mean Amtrak was equivalent to the Government for all purposes. Over and over, we cabined our holding that Amtrak was a state actor by adding a phrase like “for purposes of the First Amendment” or other constitutional rights. Id., at 400; see
