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The Ripple Effects Of Slaughter-House: A Critique Of A Negative Rights View Of The Constitution, Michael J. Gerhardt
The Ripple Effects Of Slaughter-House: A Critique Of A Negative Rights View Of The Constitution, Michael J. Gerhardt
Vanderbilt Law Review
Upon seeing Niagara Falls for the first time, Oscar Wilde reportedly remarked that it "would be more impressive if it flowed the other way." I have a similar reaction to a series of narrow Supreme Court interpretations of the fourteenth amendment, beginning with the Slaughter-House Cases, decided in 1872, and extending to the 1989 decisions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. In Slaughter-House the Court interpreted the privileges or immunities clause of the fourteenth amendment as merely protecting interests other federal laws already protected, while recently the Court interpreted the due …
Recent Developments, Law Review Staff
Recent Developments, Law Review Staff
Vanderbilt Law Review
The fourteenth amendment provides that "[n]o State shall . ..deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."' The amendment thus explicitly forbids the state to engage in certain conduct, but places no express restriction on the acts of private individuals. Although the Supreme Court has consistently held that state action is a necessary element of a fourteenth amendment violation, the concept of state action was expanded to cover activities arguably private in nature to the extent that by 1970 the Court …