14th Amendment

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  6/1/2023
  

  New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson

  by Richard Hasen and Dahlia Lithwick

  A 1952 memo that Rehnquist wrote defending "separate but equal" was raised during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and dismissed as work-for-hire. It is now clear that he supported the narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment that the current court majority hopes to use to undermine civil rights. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  

  Why Everyone Born in the US is a Citizen, and Why it Matters

  by Amanda Frost

  In upholding birthright citizenship in the case of US v. Wong Kim Ark, the court invoked English common law, rather than claims to citizenship rights and freedom by escaped slaves, as the foundation of the 14th Amendment's definition of citizenship. This makes the principle vulnerable when it should be unassailable. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2023
  

  The 14th Amendment Should Put a Stop to Debt Ceiling Hostage Taking

  by Eric Foner

  The provisions of the Reconstruction Amendments dealing with the national debt were tied to the nation's short-lived commitment to interracial democracy in the South; today they offer the Biden administration a possible tool to use if Congress pushes to the brink of default. 

• 
• SOURCE: Balls and Strikes
  10/28/2022
  

  Eric Foner: Originalism and the Color-Blind Constitution are Intellectually Indefensible

  The historian says that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was on the right track to argue that the meaning of the 14th Amendment must be understood in context of its authors' intention to end the race-based subjugation of Black people. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/28/2022
  

  SCOTUS Affirmative Action Cases Hinge on History of Brown and the 14th Amendment

  by Linda Greenhouse

  Neither Brown nor the 14th Amendment were driven by a belief in a "colorblind" Constitution; instead, they were rooted in the historically specific context of racial oppression. The plaintiffs in two cases before the court want to obscure that history, says veteran court reporter Linda Greenhouse.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  10/17/2022
  

  SCOTUS Declines to Hear Challenge to Citizenship Law Disadvantaging American Samoans

  Residents of US territories are able to receive birthright citizenship if an act of Congress grants it to them. While Congress's refusal to do so for residents of American Samoa has clear racist roots, the Court declined to hear a case challenging this exclusion. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  8/2/2022
  

  A Substantive Due Process Explainer: What Was the Basic Weakness of Roe?

  The application of the 14th Amendment to extend broad guarantees of individual rights is recent; the history of the doctrine of substantive due process has more frequently been used to protect the interests of corporations and the powerful. It's time for a new legal approach.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/21/2022
  

  Will the Dems Use 14th Amendment to Punish States for Voting Rights Crackdowns?

  Congress is entitled under the Amendment to strip states of representation if they don't maintain a republican form of government. Do proposed voting rights restrictions and other red-state legislation qualify? 

• 
• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  1/26/2022
  

  Rep. Cawthorn Lawyer's Defense against 14th Amendment Disqualification? Confederate Amnesty Act

  It is perhaps fitting that Cawthorn, who faces a challenge to his eligibility for office based on his endorsement of the march which led to the attack on the Capitol, would invoke an amnesty for Confederates as a defense. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/29/2021
  

  The Lack of Federal Voting Rights Protections Returns Us to the Pre-Civil War Era

  by Kate Masur

  New vote suppression bills in multiple states threaten to return the United States not to the Jim Crow era but to the period before the Civil War and Reconstruction when civil and political rights were protected or denied according to state politics. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/16/2021
  

  Congress Must Invoke the 14th Amendment to Stop Trump from Running Again

  by Tom Coleman and John C. Danforth

  A former Congressman and former Senator, both Republicans from Missouri, demand that Congress invoke the 14th Amendment's provisions on insurrection to bar Donald Trump from holding office in the future. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/12/2021
  

  Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump

  by Eric Foner

  The 14th Amendment empowers Congress to bar persons involved in insurrection against the United States from holding office. This can't remove Trump, but it can stop him (and anyone found to have plotted the Capitol rioting) from returning to office. 

• 
• 8/30/2020
  

  Constitutional Textualism and Congressional Debate Over the 14th Amendment

  by Alan J. Singer

  Supreme Court decisions based on text without context have been responsible for some of the greatest perversions of justice in United States history, mostly around denying the scope of authority the 14th Amendment grants to the government to enforce civil equality.

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  8/14/2020
  

  Birtherism 2.0

  by Matthew Yglesias

  Right-wing challenges to Kamala Harris's eligibility for the presidency depend on a legal argument that American-born children of immigrants are a lesser category of citizen. There is no basis under the Constitution for this. 

• 
• 8/16/2020
  

  Of Course Kamala Harris is a Citizen

  by Derek Litvak

  John Eastman's claims that Kamala Harris is not a natural-born U.S. citizen fly in the face of 14th Amendment jurisprudence and Eastman's own prior defenses of Ted Cruz's eligibility for the presidency. 

• 
• 8/16/2020
  

  Citizenship, the 14th Amendment, and Trump’s War on Undocumented Immigrants

  by Alan J. Singer

  Recent attacks on Kamala Harris's citizenship and eligibility to serve as Vice President depend on willful misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment and ignorance of the specific racist injustices it was written to prevent. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/16/2020
  

  US Congress could Use Reconstruction-Era Civil Rights Powers to Protect Black Lives Today

  by Richard Johnson

  The U.S. House of Representatives could use a provision of the 14th Amendment to strip congressional representation from states that suppress the voting rights of black residents. 

• 
• 9/1/19
  

  Restricting Automatic Citizenship to Children Born to Americans Serving Abroad Is Only the Latest Effort by Trump to Dismantle Birthright Citizenship

  by Derek Litvak

  Trump and conservatives are attempting a wholesale constitutional revolution by dismantling birthright citizenship. Here's why birthright citizenship is so historically important. 

• 
• 1/16/19
  

  William Barr Needs a History Lesson

  by Derek Litvak

  When conservatives claim birthright citizenship is not a part of the Constitution, they are ignoring America’s long history of slavery, discrimination, and segregation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  12-4-18
  

  First as Farce, Then as Tragedy

  by Manisha Sinha

  Donald Trump wants to destroy the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship. But before he sought to eliminate it outright, his elite predecessors mangled, misread, and misused the amendment in the service of capital.