TENNESSEE v. LANE Opinion of the Court Given the sheer volume of evidence demonstrating the nature and extent of unconstitutional discrimination against persons with disabilities in the provision of public services, the dissent's contention that the record is insufficient to justify Congress' exercise of its prophylactic power is puzzling, to say the least. Just last Term in Hibbs, we approved the family-care leave provision of the FMLA as valid §5 legislation based primarily on evidence of disparate provision of parenting leave, little of which concerned unconstitutional state conduct. 538 U. S., at 728-733.17 We explained that U. S. 274, 280 (1977), and thus enjoy precisely the same immunity from unconsented suit as the States. See, e. g., Callahan v. Philadelphia,207 F. 3d 668, 670-674 (CA3 2000) (municipal court is an "arm of the State" entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity); Kelly v. Municipal Courts, 97 F. 3d 902, 907-908 (CA7 1996) (same); Franceschi v. Schwartz, 57 F. 3d 828, 831 (CA9 1995) (same). CL Garrett,531 U. S., at 368-369. In any event, our cases have recognized that evidence of constitutional violations on the part of nonstate governmental actors is relevant to the §5 inquiry. To be sure, evidence of constitutional violations by the States themselves is particularly important when, as in FloridaPrepaidPostsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S. 627 (1999), Kimel v. FloridaBd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62 (2000), and Garrett,the sole purpose of reliance on §5 is to place the States on equal footing with private actors with respect to their amenability to suit. But much of the evidence in South Carolinav. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 312-315 (1966), to which THE CHIEF JUSTICE favorably refers, post, at 548, involved the conduct of county and city officials, rather than the States. Moreover, what THE CHIEF JUSTICE calls an "extensive legislative record documenting States' gender discrimination in employment leave policies" in Nevada Dept. of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U. S. 721 (2003), post, at 548, in fact contained little specific evidence of a pattern of unconstitutional discrimination on the part of the States. Indeed, the evidence before the Congress that enacted the FMLA related primarily to the practices of private-sector employers and the Federal Government. See Hibbs, 538 U. S., at 730-735. See also id., at 745-750 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting). 17 Specifically, we relied on (1) a Senate Report citation to a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey revealing disparities in private-sector provision of parenting leave to men and women; (2) submissions from two sources at a hearing on the Parental and Medical Leave Act of 1986, a predecessor bill