Supreme Court determined, under the circumstances before it, that the tribe was not a person as defined by § 1983. Id. at 712, 123 S.Ct. 1887. Thereafter, the Ninth Circuit in Skokomish determined the tribe could not bring a § 1983 action to advance communal fishing rights because the tribe’s ability to enter into the treaty with the federal government was a sovereign right. In reaching this conclusion, the Ninth Circuit “[r]ecogniz[ed] that ‘[sjection 1983 was designed to secure private rights against government encroachment,’ as well as the ‘longstanding interpretive presumption that “person” does not include the sovereign.’ ” 410 F.3d at 514-15. Cf. Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Wisconsin (“Lac Courte Oreilles”), 663 F.Supp. 682, 691 (W.D.Wis. 1987) (<HOLDING>). Under the circumstances of this case, the
holding that a state university is not a person within the meaning of  1983 and therefore is not subject to suits brought under  1983 holding that the tribe was a person within the meaning of  1983 when seeking vindication for the deprivation of a treatybased usufructuary right holding that tribe may not assert its treatybased fishing rights under section 1983 holding that a state is not a person within the meaning of  1983 holding that a police department is not a person within the meaning of section 1983