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The 14th Amendment

By Ramtin Arablouei~https://www.npr.org/people/705934700/ramtin-arablouei?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Rund Abdelfatah~https://www.npr.org/people/705948878/rund-abdelfatah?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Julie Caine~https://www.npr.org/people/932084484/julie-caine?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Casey Miner~https://www.npr.org/people/1164825622/casey-miner?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Peter Balonon-Rosen~https://www.npr.org/people/1200219773/peter-balonon-rosen?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Anya Steinberg~https://www.npr.org/people/1083994396/anya-steinberg?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Lawrence Wu~https://www.npr.org/people/852630008/lawrence-wu?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Cristina Kim~https://www.npr.org/people/1136600125/cristina-kim?ft=nprml&f=1243870144|Devin Katayama~https://www.npr.org/people/1136603747/devin-katayama?ft=nprml&f=1243870144

Mandel NganAFP via Getty Images
The US Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. in February, 2024.
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Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It’s shaped all of our lives, whether we realize it or not: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Bush v. Gore, plus other Supreme Court cases that legalized same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, access to birth control — they’ve all been built on the back of the 14th.

The amendment was ratified after the Civil War, and it’s packed full of lofty phrases like due process, equal protection, and liberty. But what do those words really guarantee us?

Today on the show: how the 14th Amendment has remade America – and how America has remade the 14th.

Guests:

Kenneth Mack, the Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History at Harvard University.

Vernon Burton, the Judge Matthew J. Perry Distinguished Professor of History at Clemson University.

To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.

Filed Under: Race & Equity, WPLN News Tagged With: ,

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Rachel Iacovone, Director of Multiplatform Publishing

Rachel Iacovone (YAH-kuh-VOAN-ee) is WPLN's Director of Multiplatform Publishing, which is a long way of saying she leads all the ways the news reaches you (this website, social media, This Is Nashville and more). She began her public radio career covering politics in Florida during the 2016 presidential race. In 2019, Rachel came to Nashville as a local Morning Edition, and later All Things Considered, host before her passion for data deep dives, visualizations, photography and social media storytelling pulled her off air and put her online fully.

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