Constitutional Law: The Fourteenth Amendment

Catalog description

After the Civil War, ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments--including the Fourteenth Amendment--fundamentally transformed the U.S. constitutional framework, eliminating slavery, defining citizenship broadly, and expanding who could participate politically. The Fourteenth Amendment also became a source for the articulation of various rights through its Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses and, in doing so, increased the power of the federal government over the states. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and abortion have called into question some of the past half-century of precedents regarding individual rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet many states still constitutionalize rights patterned after these same precedents. At the same time, new theories of where rights could be situated under the Fourteenth Amendment seem to be taking hold. Furthermore, the political elements of sections of the Amendment--such as the Disqualification Clause and Citizenship Clause--are coming into greater prominence again. Considering the current ferment, this course will foreground competing visions of the Fourteenth Amendment both historically and in the present, covering current and emerging doctrine. Elements used in grading: Class participation and exam.