WGSS 152
The Fourteenth Amendment and the Meanings of Equality Spring 2015
Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed WGSS 152 / HIST 152
This is not the current course catalog

For more than a century, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has served as the principal touchstone for legal debates over the meaning of equality and freedom in the United States. This course explores the origins of the 14th Amendment in the years immediately following the Civil War, and examines the evolution of that amendment’s meaning in the century that followed. Central themes in this course include the contested interpretations of “due process,” “privileges and immunities,” “equal protection,” and “life, liberty or property”; the rise, fall, and rebirth of substantive due process; and the battles over incorporating the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment. We will pay particular attention to how debates over the 14th Amendment have shaped and been shaped by the changing meanings of racial and gender equality, and how the 14th Amendment has transformed the promise and experience of American citizenship.