Syllabus

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U. S. C. § 2000cc et seq., provides that "[a] person may assert a violation of this chapter as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government." § 2000cc-2(a). "Government" is defined to include "a State, county, municipality, or other governmental entity created under the authority of a State"; "any branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official of an entity listed in clause (i)"; and "any other person acting under color of State law." § 2000cc-5(4)(A). RLUIPA's institutionalized-persons provision binds States that accept federal financial assistance for the operation of their correctional facilities. § 2000cc-1(b)(1).

Petitioner Damon Landor is a Rastafarian whose religious vow precludes the cutting of his hair. Weeks before the completion of a five-month sentence, prison officials at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Louisiana — a facility that accepts federal financial assistance — held him down, shaved his head to the scalp, and threw away the Fifth Circuit opinion he had carried to the prison establishing that Louisiana's hair-cutting policy violates RLUIPA. Ware v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 866 F. 3d 263 (5th Cir. 2017). The District Court dismissed his RLUIPA damages claims against the officers in their individual capacities. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that "although RLUIPA's text suggests a damages remedy, recognizing as much would run afoul of the Spending Clause." Pet. App. 11a. Judge Oldham, joined by five judges, dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc and would have held that the case was controlled by Tanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U. S. 43 (2020). Pet. App. 25a–34a.

Held:

1. RLUIPA's text authorizes a private suit for money damages against a state official acting under color of state law in his individual capacity. Pp. 4–13.

   (a) The operative text of § 2000cc-2(a) and § 2000cc-5(4)(A) is drawn in haec verba from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U. S. C. § 2000bb et seq. Tanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U. S. 43 (2020), held that RFRA's identical language authorizes damages against federal officials sued in their individual capacities. Three textual moves carried that holding: "official" refers to "the actual person who is invested with an office," 592 U. S., at 47; the "other person acting under color of law" parenthetical confirms that relief "runs against persons" rather than offices, id., at 47; and "persons acting under color of law" "draws on" 42 U. S. C. § 1983, the statute that has long allowed individual-capacity damages suits. Id., at 47–48. Each move applies, on identical text, to RLUIPA. Pp. 4–7.

   (b) This Court has consistently treated RFRA and RLUIPA as "sister statute[s]." Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U. S. 352, 357 (2015); see Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U. S. 682, 695 (2014). The presumption that identical language in sister statutes bears identical meaning, see Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U. S. 228, 233 (2005) (plurality opinion), is at its strongest where, as here, the second statute uses operative language Congress had recently fashioned to address the same subject matter. Pp. 7–9.

   (c) Respondent's contention that the "other person acting under color of State law" clause must be severed as unconstitutional, leaving a residual text insufficient to authorize individual-capacity suits, fails on its own premises. The severance argument was not properly developed at oral argument and was not pressed below as an as-applied severance request. In any event, Tanzin's textual analysis applied to RFRA as originally enacted — that is, to the very phrase respondent here asks the Court to excise. 592 U. S., at 48. The Court does not redraft statutes to weaken their meaning. Pp. 9–11.

   (d) The argument that twenty-five years of unanimous appellate decisions denying individual-capacity damages under RLUIPA themselves defeat the clarity of the statute's text confuses an interpretive consensus with a substantive one. The lower courts' consensus rested principally on a constitutional theory addressed in Part III, not on disagreement with the text's plain reading. Where a recent decision of this Court explains why the same text means what it says, the appellate consensus that preceded it does not displace the explanation. Pp. 11–13.

2. Money damages are "appropriate relief" in an RLUIPA suit against an individual official. Pp. 13–18.

   (a) Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U. S. 277 (2011), held that "appropriate relief" in § 2000cc-2(a) is "open-ended and ambiguous" and "inherently context dependent," and that the relevant context in Sossamon — "where the defendant is a sovereign" — did not include money damages against the State. Id., at 286. Tanzin explained why a different defendant produces a different result: "[t]he obvious difference is that this case features a suit against individuals, who do not enjoy sovereign immunity." 592 U. S., at 51. That difference is "obvious" here for the same reason. Pp. 13–15.

   (b) Outside the sovereign-immunity context, the presumption is the other way. "[A]bsent clear direction to the contrary by Congress, the federal courts have the power to award any appropriate relief in a cognizable cause of action brought pursuant to a federal statute." Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S. 60, 70–71 (1992). The presumption applies a fortiori where, as in RLUIPA, Congress has expressly created the cause of action and has not directed otherwise. Pp. 15–16.

   (c) Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U. S. 212 (2022), confirms rather than displaces this presumption. Cummings held that emotional-distress damages, a non-traditional remedy not within the funding recipient's notice, are unavailable under Spending Clause statutes against the recipient. The Court there described the affirmative presumption directly: "we may presume that a funding recipient is aware that, for breaching its Spending Clause 'contract' with the Federal Government, it will be subject to the usual contract remedies in private suits." 596 U. S., at 221. Compensatory damages are usual remedies. Pp. 16–18.

3. RLUIPA's authorization of individual-capacity damages against state officials acting under color of state law in federally funded correctional facilities is within Congress's constitutional authority. Pp. 18–24.

   (a) The Spending Clause permits Congress to attach unambiguous conditions to federal financial assistance. Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981); South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 207 (1987). Respondent does not contest that RLUIPA's substantive condition has been imposed on Louisiana with the required clarity. Resp. Br. 46. The state's officials, in their official capacity, are "the state" for purposes of that condition. The dispute is over enforcement. Pp. 18–20.

   (b) For enforcement that reaches a state's officers individually, Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52 (1997), is the controlling precedent. Salinas held that "there is no serious doubt about the constitutionality of § 666(a)(1)(B) as applied to" a state deputy sheriff who, while administering a state institution operating "pursuant to a series of agreements with the Federal Government," engaged in conduct that posed "a threat to the integrity and proper operation of the federal program." Id., at 60–61. The defendants here stand in materially the same position. Pp. 20–22.

   (c) Sabri v. United States, 541 U. S. 600 (2004), confirms the reach. Respondent has acknowledged that Sabri "has to be the outer limit" of Congress's Necessary and Proper authority. Tr. of Oral Arg. 109. The reach of RLUIPA's individual-capacity provision to state officers who voluntarily took employment in a federally funded program is well inside that outer limit. Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion Cty. v. Talevski, 599 U. S. 166 (2023), which held that Spending Clause statutes can create federal rights enforceable under § 1983, confirms the structural compatibility of individual-capacity enforcement with the Spending Clause framework. Pp. 22–24.

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Opinion of the Court

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 provides that "[a] person may assert a violation of this chapter as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government." 42 U. S. C. § 2000cc-2(a). The Act defines "government" to include "a State, county, municipality, or other governmental entity created under the authority of a State"; "any branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official of an entity listed in clause (i)"; and "any other person acting under color of State law." § 2000cc-5(4)(A).

In Tanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U. S. 43 (2020), this Court held that the identical operative text of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 authorizes a private suit for money damages against federal officials sued in their individual capacities. The question before us is whether that text means the same thing in its sister statute, RLUIPA, when the official in question is a state officer rather than a federal one. We hold that it does. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded.

I

Damon Landor is a devout Rastafarian. Consistent with the Nazarite Vow described in the Book of Numbers, he has not cut his hair for nearly twenty years. Pet. App. 26a. In August 2020, he began a five-month sentence in Louisiana state custody. He served the first portion of his sentence at facilities that accommodated his religious practice. Id., at 2a. With three weeks remaining, he was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center. On arrival he identified himself as a practicing Rastafarian and presented a copy of Ware v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 866 F. 3d 263 (5th Cir. 2017), which had held that Louisiana's policy of cutting Rastafarian inmates' hair violated RLUIPA. The intake officer discarded the document. The warden was summoned. He demanded sentencing-court documentation of Landor's beliefs and, when told it could be obtained, told Landor it was "too late." J. A. 37. Two guards then carried Landor into another room, "handcuffed [him] to a chair," "held [him] down," and "shaved his head to the scalp." Pet. App. 2a–3a.

After his release, Landor brought claims under RLUIPA and 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against the Louisiana Department of Corrections, the warden, the Secretary, and unnamed guards in both official and individual capacities. The District Court dismissed his individual-capacity damages claims under Fifth Circuit precedent foreclosing such claims. Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Texas, 560 F. 3d 316 (5th Cir. 2009). The Court of Appeals affirmed. While the panel did not disturb the conclusion that "RLUIPA's text suggests a damages remedy," it held that "recognizing as much would run afoul of the Spending Clause." Pet. App. 11a. The court "emphatically condemn[ed] the treatment that Landor endured." Pet. App. 13a.

Rehearing en banc was denied. Six judges, in two opinions, would have granted rehearing. Judge Oldham, joined by five judges, concluded that Tanzin's reasoning controlled, that RFRA's and RLUIPA's operative text is identical, and that, by parity with South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203 (1987), "it's unclear why Louisiana cannot agree to make its prison officials liable for forcibly shaving Damon Landor's head." Pet. Br. 8. We granted certiorari.

The parties agree that what occurred at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center was a violation of RLUIPA. The question is one of remedy.

II

We begin with the text. Tanzin, 592 U. S., at 46. RLUIPA authorizes "appropriate relief against a government," § 2000cc-2(a), and defines "government" to include "an official of an entity" listed in § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(i) and "any other person acting under color of State law." § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(ii)–(iii). RFRA authorizes the same — "appropriate relief against a government" — and defines "government" to include an "official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States." 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000bb-1(c), 2000bb-2(1).

In Tanzin, this Court read RFRA's text and concluded that an action for money damages against a federal official lay on the face of the statute. The Court's reasoning proceeded in three steps. First, "the term 'official' does not refer solely to an office, but rather to the actual person 'who is invested with an office.'" 592 U. S., at 48 (quoting 10 Oxford English Dictionary 733 (2d ed. 1989)). Second, "[n]ot only does the term 'government' encompass officials, it also authorizes suits against 'other person[s] acting under color of law.'" Id., at 48. "The right to obtain relief against 'a person'" — the Court explained — "cannot be squared with the Government's reading that relief must always run against the United States." Id., at 48. Third, the "color of law" formulation "draws on one of the most well-known civil rights statutes: 42 U. S. C. § 1983." Id., at 48. That statute has, since its enactment, "supported actions" for damages against state officials.

RLUIPA's text was lifted from RFRA. Each step of Tanzin's analysis therefore applies. Section 2000cc-5(4)(A)(ii) refers to "an official" — the actual person invested with the office. Section 2000cc-5(4)(A)(iii) authorizes relief against "any other person acting under color of State law" — confirming, in the same fashion as in Tanzin, that relief is to run against persons. And the "color of State law" formulation reproduces, this time as to state officers, the connection to § 1983 that Tanzin identified.

Respondent's principal answer is that we should read the text without § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(iii), the "other person acting under color of State law" clause. The argument is that clause (iii) is unconstitutional as applied to non-recipient nonofficials and must be severed under RLUIPA's severability provision, § 2000cc-3(i). With clause (iii) gone, the residual definition of "government" — "any branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official of an entity listed in clause (i)" — would, on respondent's reading, refer only to offices rather than to officeholders. Two of Tanzin's three textual moves would, on this view, lose their footing.

We do not think the text can be read that way for at least three reasons.

The argument first asks the Court to declare a clause of the statute partially unconstitutional and to alter the meaning of the remaining text not as a matter of plain reading but as a derivation from severance. The clause that respondent asks us to sever is one of three definitional clauses; it does no separable operational work on its own; and respondent's own counsel acknowledged at argument that the disposition does not require its severance. Tr. of Oral Arg. 130. The case before us involves an official within § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(ii). We resolve cases on the record before us, not by hypothetical surgery on adjacent text.

Second, even on its own terms, the argument misreads Tanzin. In Tanzin, this Court applied its three-step analysis to RFRA's text as it stood after this Court's decision in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507 (1997), had invalidated RFRA's application to the States. 592 U. S., at 50. The text RFRA was construed against — including its "color of law" parenthetical — was the very text Congress had enacted. Tanzin did not redraft that text to weaken its meaning. We do not redraft RLUIPA's text now.

Third, Tanzin's first textual move stands on its own. The term "official" in § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(ii) means what dictionaries said it meant when Congress enacted RLUIPA in 2000 and what Tanzin held it meant when it construed RFRA's identical word in 2020: "the actual person who is invested with an office." 592 U. S., at 47. A statute that authorizes "appropriate relief against … an official" authorizes relief against the person, not only against the office.

The argument that twenty-five years of appellate decisions denying individual-capacity damages defeat the clarity of this text is no answer. Most of the lower-court decisions respondent collects rest on the constitutional theory we address in Part III, not on a competing reading of "official." The Sixth Circuit's recent opinion in Ali v. Adamson, 132 F. 4th 924 (2025), is the principal exception, and there the court did not separate the threshold question whether RLUIPA creates an individual-capacity cause of action from the second question whether that cause of action authorizes damages. We follow the sequence the statute itself prescribes — first, whether there is an individual-capacity cause of action; second, whether the cause of action includes damages — because that is how the statute is written. RLUIPA's text creates the cause of action on the face of § 2000cc-2(a) and § 2000cc-5(4)(A)(ii)–(iii). The first question is answered by reading the statute.

We are also asked to apply a "supercharged" version of the Spending Clause clear-statement rule — one drawn from federalism canons and amplified by appellate practice. This Court has not adopted any such rule, and we decline to do so. The clear-statement rule of Pennhurst and Cummings requires that a Spending Clause condition be "unambiguous"; it does not require that Congress use magic words to express what its chosen text already says. See Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz, 601 U. S. 42, 52 (2024). RLUIPA says what it says. Federalism canons do not authorize us to require Congress to say it twice.

III

We turn to whether money damages are "appropriate relief" in an RLUIPA suit against an individual.

Sossamon v. Texas held that RLUIPA's "appropriate relief" formulation is "open-ended and ambiguous," is "inherently context dependent," and — in the context of a suit against a sovereign — does not include money damages. 563 U. S. 277, 286 (2011). The opinion's analysis was repeatedly framed by reference to "the defendant" being a sovereign — the setting in which the Court found "monetary damages are not" appropriately available. Id., at 286. Sovereign immunity, the Court explained, requires "clear and unambiguous" waiver, and an "open-ended" phrase like "appropriate relief" cannot satisfy that demand. Id., at 290.

Tanzin later explained why a different defendant changes the analysis. "The obvious difference," the Court wrote, "is that this case features a suit against individuals, who do not enjoy sovereign immunity." 592 U. S., at 51. "[D]amages have long been awarded as appropriate relief" against government officials sued individually, including by way of § 1983 actions against state officers, and "[i]n the early Republic," common-law causes of action permitted individuals to sue government officials for damages "payable by the officer." Id., at 48–49. The Court refused to "create a new policy-based presumption against damages against individual officials," noting that "we are not at liberty to do so." Id., at 52.

That analysis applies with equal force here. The defendants are individuals. They do not enjoy sovereign immunity. The statutory text — "appropriate relief" — is the same. The historical baseline for individual-capacity damages against state officers is older and deeper than the baseline for federal officers: § 1983, the statute Tanzin invoked as a "well-known" point of reference, has run against state officials since its enactment.

Respondent reads Sossamon differently. He argues that the relevant "context" is not the identity of the defendant but the character of the underlying statute. RLUIPA, on this view, is a "contract between sovereigns": the federal government bargains with the State, and the State accepts the bargain when it accepts the funds. Because the contract is between sovereigns, the argument runs, "appropriate relief" does not include damages — full stop — even when the suit is brought against an individual.

We do not think Sossamon bears that reading. The opinion in Sossamon spoke of "the defendant" being "a sovereign," 563 U. S., at 286, and used that defendant-focused framing in five separate places. Id., at 286, 287, 289, 290 (twice). When the Court turned to the contract analogy at page 290, it explained that "applying ordinary contract principles here would make little sense because contracts with a sovereign are unique. They do not traditionally confer a right of action for damages to enforce compliance." Id., at 290. The reasoning was about the kind of contract from which a remedy might be implied against a defendant. It was not a general rule that no Spending Clause statute can ever authorize damages.

Tanzin confirmed this reading by treating Sossamon as "obviously different" on its facts, 592 U. S., at 51 — language that Sossamon's own framing supports. We affirm that reading today.

Outside the sovereign-immunity context, the presumption runs the other way. Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools established the rule that "absent clear direction to the contrary by Congress, the federal courts have the power to award any appropriate relief in a cognizable cause of action brought pursuant to a federal statute." 503 U. S. 60 (1992). Franklin applied that rule to a Spending Clause statute (Title IX) that did not even contain an express cause of action. RLUIPA does contain an express cause of action. A fortiori, the Franklin presumption applies.

Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U. S. 212 (2022), is consistent with this reading. Cummings held that emotional-distress damages — a non-traditional remedy not within ordinary contract recovery — are not "appropriate relief" against funding recipients in Spending Clause cases. The Court's analysis, however, included an affirmative presumption directly relevant here: "we may presume that a funding recipient is aware that, for breaching its Spending Clause 'contract' with the Federal Government, it will be subject to the usual contract remedies in private suits." 596 U. S., at 221. Compensatory damages are not "of a [non-traditional] nature." They are, in the language of the Court, the "usual" private remedy. Id., at 221.

The dissent reads Cummings differently and would extend the "on notice ... liability of that nature" filter not only to the kind of remedy a recipient faces but also to the identity of the defendant against whom that remedy may be sought. Post, at 4–5. We do not think Cummings supports that extension. Cummings asked whether a particular remedy (emotional-distress damages) was within the recipient's notice; it did not ask whether a particular defendant (an officer, an agent, a contractor) was. The two inquiries are distinct, and Cummings did not collapse them.

For these reasons, "appropriate relief" in § 2000cc-2(a) — as applied to an individual defendant — includes money damages.

IV

The remaining question is whether Congress had the constitutional authority to do what its text did.

A

We begin with the framework. Spending Clause legislation, this Court has long recognized, "is much in the nature of a contract: in return for federal funds, the States agree to comply with federally imposed conditions." Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981). "The legitimacy of Congress' power to legislate under the spending power thus rests on whether the State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of the 'contract.'" Id., at 17. Conditions must be unambiguous, "enabl[ing] the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation." Id., at 17.

South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 207–208 (1987), supplied the modern test: the exercise must be in pursuit of the general welfare; the condition must be unambiguous; the condition must bear some relationship to the federal interest at stake; and the condition must not violate other constitutional provisions. Cummings added that "[b]ecause Spending Clause legislation operates based on consent, the 'legitimacy of Congress' power' to enact such laws rests not on its sovereign authority, but on 'whether the [recipient] voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of th[at] "contract."'" 596 U. S., at 213 (quoting Pennhurst, 451 U. S., at 17).

Respondent does not contest that RLUIPA's substantive condition has been imposed on Louisiana with the required clarity. To the contrary, respondent acknowledges on the page-46 of its brief, and reiterated at argument, that Louisiana is "bound by the substantive condition." Tr. of Oral Arg. 119. The official, in his official capacity, is "the state." Id., at 119–120. The dispute is over enforcement: whether the cause of action Congress wrote may reach the actual person who performed the act of violation.

B

For that enforcement question, this Court's prior decisions provide a controlling framework.

Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52 (1997), considered the scope of 18 U. S. C. § 666(a)(1)(B) — the federal-funds bribery statute — as applied to the conduct of a state law-enforcement officer. The defendant in Salinas was the chief deputy of a Texas sheriff's department. The state institution where he worked — a county jail — held federal prisoners "pursuant to a series of agreements with the Federal Government." Id., at 60. The Court held that "there is no serious doubt about the constitutionality of § 666(a)(1)(B) as applied to the facts of this case." Id., at 60. It explained that the defendant's misconduct in a "jail managed pursuant to a series of agreements with the Federal Government" was "a threat to the integrity and proper operation of the federal program." Id., at 60–61.

The defendants here stand in the same posture. They are state officers at a state correctional facility operating with federal financial assistance. The Raymond Laborde Correctional Center is, in the language of Salinas, a state institution "managed pursuant to a series of agreements with the Federal Government." Respondents' conduct in shaving Landor's head was the conduct RLUIPA prohibits: a substantial burden on religious exercise imposed without compelling justification, in a facility federally funded to support, among other ends, the religious-accommodation regime Congress crafted in RLUIPA. The conduct "threaten[ed] the integrity and proper operation of the federal program." Salinas, 522 U. S., at 60.

Respondent answers that Salinas is a Necessary and Proper Clause case targeting an officer who converted federal spending into "unearned private gain," and so does not extend to civil violations of substantive program conditions. The argument has two parts: that Salinas and Sabri v. United States, 541 U. S. 600 (2004), are about anti-corruption only, and that they cannot supply the constitutional authority for a private civil action against a non-recipient officer.

We address each.

Sabri held that 18 U. S. C. § 666(a)(2) — as applied to a private developer who bribed a city official — is a valid exercise of Congress's authority under the Spending Clause coupled with the Necessary and Proper Clause. 541 U. S., at 605–608. The Court explained that § 666(a)(2) is "authority to bring federal power to bear directly on individuals who convert public spending into unearned private gain." Id., at 601. That phrase, respondent says, is the controlling limit.

At oral argument, respondent's counsel acknowledged that Sabri "has to be the outer limit of Congress's Necessary and Proper Clause authority because what it was doing there really had no direct tie to the funds at all." Tr. of Oral Arg. 109. We take respondent at his word. Sabri is the outer limit; the question is only whether Landor's case falls inside or outside it. The case falls comfortably inside.

The defendants here did not bribe anyone or convert public spending into private gain. They committed an intentional act that the federal program — RLUIPA, as funded — was designed to forbid. They were officers in the very institution receiving federal funds. They acted under color of state law in the execution of their job. They were not, as in Sabri, members of the general public with no operational connection to the federally funded institution. They were, as in Salinas, employees of a state institution that operated with federal funds and whose program integrity was the federal interest at stake. If Sabri authorizes reaching members of the general public for anti-corruption purposes, Salinas authorizes reaching state officers for program-integrity purposes. RLUIPA's reach to state officers in federally funded prisons falls within that authority.

Dixson v. United States, 465 U. S. 482 (1984), confirms what Salinas and Sabri together teach: this Court has long avoided "formal distinctions, such as the requirement of a direct contractual bond, that would artificially narrow the scope of federal" authority over those who administer federally funded programs. Id., at 497. The Fifth Circuit's "direct recipient" rule, Pet. App. 6a, is precisely that kind of "artificially narrow[ing]" formal distinction. It is not the rule this Court has applied.

C

The dissent's chief structural concern is that recognizing individual-capacity damages here would unsettle the Spending Clause clear-notice framework — that officers cannot have been on notice of personal liability, in the Pennhurst and Cummings sense, because they are not parties to the federal-state contract. The argument has force at the level of analogy. It does less work in light of Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion Cty. v. Talevski, 599 U. S. 166 (2023).

Talevski held that federal statutes enacted pursuant to the Spending Clause can create individually enforceable rights vindicable through 42 U. S. C. § 1983. The Court rejected the argument that the contract analogy precluded enforcement against state officials in their individual capacities: "§ 1983 can presumptively be used to enforce unambiguously conferred federal individual rights." Id., at 171. "Laws" means "laws," the Court explained, "no less today than in the 1870s." Id., at 171.

The premise of respondent's framework — that Spending Clause statutes operate only against the contracting party — would be in tension with Talevski. Section 1983 has long allowed individual-capacity damages suits against state officers; Talevski held that Spending Clause statutes can be enforced through § 1983; and no one supposes that § 1983 suits to enforce Spending Clause rights require some separate consent from the individual officer beyond the State's acceptance of the underlying funding condition. RLUIPA, with its express cause of action, asks no more of the constitutional framework than § 1983 already supplies through Talevski.

The chain that respondent's framework requires — Pennhurst-Cummings clear notice that extends not only to the kind of remedies available against the recipient but also to the identity of the defendants who may face such remedies — is not a chain this Court has previously forged. We decline to forge it now.

D

A word about Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173 (1991). Rust observed that "[i]ndividuals who are voluntarily employed for a Title X project must perform their duties in accordance with the regulation's restrictions on abortion counseling and referral." Id., at 198–199. That observation captures the structural relationship between the federally funded program and the individuals who carry it out. The state officers at Raymond Laborde "voluntarily" took their positions in a federally funded state institution. They were trained to comply with the rules governing that institution. RLUIPA was, by the time of Landor's incarceration, a twenty-year-old federal statute whose substantive command — that prison officials not impose substantial burdens on the religious exercise of inmates without compelling justification — was a routine part of corrections training and policy. The premise that these officials lacked notice, in any practical sense, that they were obligated to comply with RLUIPA is unsupported by the record. The constitutional question on which respondent relies — whether Congress could, in 2000, validly subject them to individual-capacity damages liability for their violations — is, in our view, answered by Salinas, Sabri, Dixson, Rust, and Talevski together. We answer it accordingly.

V

Two final arguments deserve brief response.

Respondent presses what it calls a "settled background of law" argument: that even if RLUIPA's text were clear and the constitutional authority sufficient, twenty-five years of unanimous appellate decisions denying individual-capacity damages should be incorporated into Louisiana's understanding of its consent at each year's renewal of federal funding. The argument's premise is that the State's consent was given against a backdrop of appellate decisions construing RLUIPA against damages, and that consent so given cannot now be reread.

We have considered the argument and decline to accept it. "[J]udicial construction of a statute ordinarily applies retroactively." Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U. S. 298, 311–313 (1994); see Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U. S. 86, 97 (1993). What this Court holds today about the meaning of RLUIPA's text is what RLUIPA has meant since enactment. The decisions of the courts of appeals to the contrary did not change the statute's text. They were interpretations subject to this Court's revision. Cf. United States v. Palomar-Santiago, 593 U. S. 321, 325 (2021). And the State's consent — given by accepting federal funds in successive years — was given to RLUIPA as enacted, not to any particular appellate gloss on it. To incorporate appellate misreadings into the statute's content would be to confer a form of qualified immunity on state institutions that this Court has not previously recognized, on the strength of nothing more than the lower courts' persistence.

Respondent's backup argument that RLUIPA itself exceeds Congress's spending authority because the practical reality of federal Medicaid funding renders the funding choice coercive under NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. 519 (2012), is not properly before the Court. It was not pressed at oral argument; it is outside the question presented; and it has not been preserved through the case's history. See Pet. Reply 21–23. We do not pass on it.

* * *

What occurred at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center was a violation of the religious-exercise rights Congress wrote RLUIPA to protect. Everyone agrees on that point. The Court of Appeals "emphatically condemn[ed]" the violation while concluding that no damages remedy was available. Pet. App. 13a. The conclusion did not match the statute. RLUIPA's text, drawn in haec verba from RFRA, authorizes individual-capacity damages against state officers acting under color of state law. Tanzin told us that twenty-five years' worth of identical operative text means what it says. Sossamon told us that "appropriate relief" includes damages outside the sovereign-immunity context. Salinas, Sabri, Dixson, Rust, and Talevski tell us that Congress had the constitutional authority to write the statute it wrote.

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.