Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

Selective Egalitarianism In Elite University Admissions: A Look At Sffa V. Harvard, Stuart Chinn

Marquette Law Review

In striking down race-based affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA), Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion for the Court was surely one of the most significant of his tenure. In this article, I offer a critical analysis of the various opinions in SFFA, and use them as a starting point for a more general assessment of admissions practices at selective higher educational institutions.

I begin with an initial assumption that equality and leveling illegitimate social hierarchies (such as hierarchies based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity) are worthwhile normative …

Due Process Shaped By The Present Instead Of The Past: The Needed Reinvigoration Of A Lawrence Vision Of Due Process, Azor Cole

Seattle University Law Review

The recognition of unenumerated rights, rights implied from the text of the constitution, is a political battlefield waged through law with profound implications for all Americans. Generally, there have been two prongs for an inquiry into an unenumerated constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment. One is to ask whether the right to be found is objectively deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. The other is to ask whether the right to be found is fundamental to this Nation’s scheme of ordered liberty. The current Supreme Court has effectively done away with this present-day liberty analysis, saying it is …

The Evolution Of Race-Based Admissions In American Higher Education, Chenglin Liu

Faculty Articles

This Article examines the Supreme Court’s evolving position on race-based admissions policies over the past 127 years. Between Plessy and Brown, universities used race-based policies to exclude black applicants from white universities. Brown shifted admissions policies from blocking black students to accepting them. As affirmative action gained momentum, universities escalated from merely accepting minority candidates to proactive recruitment by using quotas and lowering their admissions standards. The Court in Bakke set the ground rules for race-based admissions during that period. In 2003, Grutter upheld the university’s pursuit for a “critical mass” of minority students in its entering class. Two …

Corporate Takeover: A New Clash In The Old Struggle Between Corporate Rights And Public Health, John J. Locurto, Rachel Radke, Xyruz Villariz, Jasmine Ann Castillejos

Faculty Articles

Corporations have used the federal courts to secure many of the same constitu­tional rights as individuals. As corporate rights proliferate so does corporate power to influence and resist laws that protect the public. One such law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—legislation that reformed health insurance coverage with important implications for public health.

The ACA has been a frequent target of litigation. Recent corporate lawsuits have invoked the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to challenge the ACA’s preventive care mandate, which requires health plans to cover preventive services without cost sharing. In Braidwood Management, Inc. v. Becerra, a …

Mental Health In Prison: The Unintended But Catastrophic Effects Of Deinstitutionalization, Felicia Mulholland

Touro Law Review

Prisons and jails are not adequately equipped to manage the ever-growing population of mentally ill inmates. Despite deinstitutionalization efforts, prisons have steadily become the new psychiatric hospitals and unfortunately, because of the lack of treatment and the ability to properly supervise this population of inmates, these individuals are dying by their own hands at an alarming rate. This Note argues that the lack of proper care for mentally ill inmates is a violation of their constitutional right, despite their incarcerated status. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) should incorporate more concrete and universal rules and regulations for the …

Channeling A Federal Commitment To Education Through State Constitutions And Courts, Nicole Sunderlin, Evan Caminker

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This article examines the evolution of efforts to secure a federal right to education, highlighting the unsuccessful attempts at the federal level and the shift to state constitutional litigation, which has yielded mixed and limited outcomes. Part I outlines these failed efforts and their consequences. Part II introduces Professor Black’s proposal for a federal right to education, anchored in the State Citizenship Clause. Part III presents a new federalism model that suggests federal constitutional commitments should guide the interpretation of state constitutional provisions, particularly regarding education. The article concludes by advocating for state courts to adopt a more robust interpretation …

The Meaning And Ambiguity Of Section Three Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

The Fourteenth Amendment established the constitutional conditions for the readmission of those states which had attempted to secede from the Union during the American Civil War. Section Three of that amendment, when enforced under the powers granted by Section Five, prevented the leaders of the recent rebellion from returning to Congress, holding any state level office, or receiving any appointment by Democrat President Andrew Johnson, absent congressional permission. Its focus, in other words, was on rebellious disruption of state level decisionmaking and the potentially disruptive appointments by President Johnson. Whether Section Three accomplishes anything more remains unclear as a matter …

Students For Fair Admissions Sends Us Bakke To The Drawing Board For Race- Conscious Affirmative Action In Higher Education, Monica Teixeira De Sousa

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Narrow But Deep: The Mcculloch Principle, Collective-Action Theory, And Section Three Enforcement, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In Trump v. Anderson, 144 S. Ct. 662 (2024), the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Colorado Supreme Court erred in excluding President Donald J. Trump from the Republican Party's primary ballot in the state.  The Court reasoned that the Constitution makes Congress, not the states, solely responsible for enforcing Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Scholars of Section 3 have demonstrated that Section 3 is self-executing, so the Court's rationale lacks a sound basis in the original or contemporary meaning of the text of the Civil War Amendments, the original intent of their drafters, or …

Traditional Notions Of Fair Play And Substantial Justice?: The Interplay Between Remote Work, State Regulations, And Personal Jurisdiction, Kathryn M. Couture

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Preferences In Employment After Students For Fair Admissions V. Harvard, Michael Yelnosky

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reasonable In Time, Unreasonable In Scope: Maximizing Fourth Amendment Protections Under Rodriguez V. United States, Thomas Heiden

Washington Law Review

In Rodriguez v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a law enforcement officer may not conduct a drug dog sniff after the completion of a routine traffic stop because doing so extends the stop without reasonable suspicion in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures. Tracing the background of Rodriguez from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Terry v. Ohio, this Comment argues that Rodriguez is best understood as a reaction to the continued erosion of Fourth Amendment protections in the investigative stop context. Based on that understanding, this Comment argues for a strict reading of Rodriguez, …

Book Review: Rearranging The Apple Cart: Good-Faith Originalism And The Fourteenth Amendment, Daniel Coble

ConLawNOW

This essay reviews the book by Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (2021). Ask any constitutional law professor about how judges should or do interpret the Constitution, and you will likely hear an answer that ends in “ism.” In their latest book, Professors Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick discuss an “ism” that is found in our nation’s highest court, state courts, and academia: originalism. No matter which constitutional interpretation “ism” that one follows, this book provides an intimate and historical view of what two leading originalist scholars believe is the …

Harm Egalitarianism, Michael E. Herz

Articles

In the last few years, law schools and law professors have given new attention to how questions of race can be interwoven into courses that are not explicitly about race. Much has been written about how to do so in both first-year and upper-level courses, and, from all reports, the law school classroom has meaningfully changed. My sense, though it is completely impressionistic and unscientific, is that the typical Administrative Law course may have changed less than many others. It seems fair to say, at least, that there has not developed a standard suite of topics that a professor wanting …

Privacy And Property: Constitutional Concerns Of Dna Dragnet Testing, E. Wyatt Jones

Honors Projects

DNA dragnets have attracted both public and scholarly criticisms that have yet to be resolved by the Courts. This review will introduce a modern understanding of DNA analysis, a complete introduction to past and present Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, and existing suggestions concerning similar issues in legal scholarship. Considering these contexts, this review concludes that a focus on privacy and property at once, with a particular sensitivity to the inseverable relationship between the two interests, is Constitutionally consistent with precedent and the most workable means of answering the question at hand.

Bond Conditions As Fourth Amendment Seizures, Rebecca Laden

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

“The Cruelty Is The Point”: Using Buck V. Bell As A Tool For Diversifying Instruction In The Law School Classroom, Tiffany C. Graham

Scholarly Works

Instructors who are looking for opportunities to expose their students to the ways in which intersectional forms of bias impact policy and legal rules can use Buck v. Bell to explore, for instance, the impact of disability and class on the formation of doctrine. A different intersectional approach might use the discussion of the case as a gateway to a broader conversation about the ways in which race and gender bias structured the implementation of sterilization policies around the nation. Finally, those who wish to examine the global impact of American forms of bias can use this case and the …

The State Citizenship Clause, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment declares: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” This opening sentence contains not one, but two citizenship clauses. The first defines national citizenship. The second defines state citizenship. Although significant historical scholarship exists regarding the other provisions in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment, the State Citizenship Clause has been unstudied, unapplied and, quite often, unrecognized.

Book Review, Tang (Cindy) Tian

Journal Articles

Reviewing:

Strum, Philippa. On Account of Sex: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Making of Gender Equality Law. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2022. 206p. $21.95.

Respeaking The Bill Of Rights: A New Doctrine Of Incorporation, Kurt Lash

Indiana Law Journal

The incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment raises a host of textual, historical, and doctrinal difficulties. This is true even if (especially if) we accept the Fourteenth Amendment as having made the original Bill of Rights binding against the states. Does this mean we have two Bills of Rights, one applicable against the federal government with a “1791” meaning and a second applicable against the state governments with an “1868” meaning? Do 1791 understandings carry forward into the 1868 amendment? Or do 1868 understandings of the Bill of Rights carry backward …

Takings Property And Appropriative Water Rights, Luis Inaraja Vera

Cardozo Law Review

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.”1 While courts and academics have put considerable amounts of effort into discussing the meaning of “taken” or “public use,” they have given far less attention to the phrase “private property.” Notable scholars have provided a set of definitions and frameworks to determine when a particular right qualifies as takings property. However, courts and commentators have yet to define the types of rights that are entitled to constitutional protection with sufficient precision to avoid an …

Murdering Crows: Pauli Murray, Intersectionality, And Black Freedom, Lisa A. Crooms-Robinson

Washington and Lee Law Review

What is intersectionality’s origin story and how did it make its way into human rights? Beginning in the 1940s, Pauli Murray (1910–1985) used Jane Crow to capture two distinct relationships between race and sex discrimination. One Jane used the race-sex analogy to show that race and sex were both unconstitutionally arbitrary. The other Jane captured Black women’s experiences and rights deprivations at the intersection of race and sex. Both Janes were based on Murray’s fundamental belief that the struggles against race and sex discrimination were different phases of the fight for human rights.

In 1966, Murray was part of the …

And A Public Defender For All, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Senate confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court last week means that she is soon to be the first Supreme Court justice with prior experience as a federal public defender. This is historic in its own right, though it is not quite as surprising on closer inspection, since the institution of the federal public defender — in its currently prevailing organizational particulars, anyway — dates back only to the 1970s. Still, given that several of the justices previously worked as federal prosecutors, Jackson’s confirmation injects a welcome measure of professional balance to the lineup. Moreover, Jackson can …

The Incorporation Of The Republican Guarantee Clause, Jason Mazzone

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article makes the case for understanding the Fourteenth Amendment to incorporate the Republican Guarantee Clause of Article IV. Incorporation shifts the focus of the Guarantee Clause from the interests of states to the interests of citizens; from protecting popular sovereignty as a political ideal to safeguarding more specifically rights that citizens hold and exercise in a republican system. Once incorporated, the Guarantee Clause should be understood to require states themselves to maintain a republican form of government and to act to correct departures from republicanism within their own governing arrangements. In addition, an incorporated Guarantee Clause informs the meaning …

Brown, History, And The Fourteenth Amendment, Christopher W. Schmidt

Notre Dame Law Review

Legal scholars and historians in recent years have sought to elevate Reconstruction to the stature of a “second Founding,” according it the same careful inquiry and legitimating function as the first. Their work marks the latest iteration of a decades-long campaign to displace the far more dismissive attitude toward Reconstruction that permeated historical scholarship and legal opinions in the first half of the twentieth century. In this Article, I present the flurry of engagement with the history of the Fourteenth Amendment during the litigation of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as a key transition point in how historians and …

The Intent Of The Framer: John Bingham’S Fourteenth Amendment, Michael Zuckert

Notre Dame Law Review

It is not often that a single individual is responsible for constitutional provisions as important as Sections 1 and 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. My project in this Essay is not to engage in a study of original intent, or original public meaning, or however we wish now to characterize the originalist project, but to engage in a quest for John Bingham’s Amendment, for understanding the Amendment as he understood it. Whether this gives us an authoritative reading of the Amendment for the purposes of constitutional interpretation and adjudication is a separate issue. I treat Bingham as an author and …

Equal Protection And Scarce Therapies: The Role Of Race, Sex, And Other Protected Classifications, Govind Persad

SMU Law Review Forum

The allocation of scarce medical treatments, such as antivirals and antibody therapies for COVID-19 patients, has important legal dimensions. This Essay examines a currently debated issue: how will courts view the consideration of characteristics shielded by equal protection law, such as race, sex, age, health, and even vaccination status, in allocation? Part II explains the application of strict scrutiny to allocation criteria that consider individual race, which have been recently debated, and concludes that such criteria are unlikely to succeed under present Supreme Court precedent. Part III analyzes the use of sex-based therapy allocation criteria, which are also in current …

The Problem Of Qualified Immunity In K-12 Schools, Sarah Smith

Arkansas Law Review

When thirteen-year-old Savana Redding arrived at school one autumn day in 2003, she was not expecting to be pulled out of her math class and strip searched. But, that is exactly what happened after the assistant principal suspected her of possessing and distributing “prescription-strength ibuprofen” and “over-the-counter. . .naproxen” after receiving information from another student. After Savana consented to a search of her backpack and other belongings—a search which turned up no evidence of drug possession—the assistant principal asked the school nurse and administrative assistant to search Savana’s clothes. To do this, the school officials asked Savana “to remove her …

Democracy At Risk: Domestic Terrorism And Attack On The U.S. Capitol, Lawrence J. Trautman

Seattle University Law Review

The year 2022 begins with democracy hanging in the balance. On February 13, 2021, Donald John Trump becomes the only American president to be impeached and acquitted twice. His acquittal for the second time follows a violent mob, having been incited by the lame-duck president, into marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to break into and vandalize the Capitol Building. It is now known that at least 138 law enforcement officers suffered from or received burns, concussions, rib fractures, heart attack—and at least five deaths are attributed to this insurrection. More than 725 individuals are subsequently charged for their role in this …