fourteenth amendment — Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

The Future of Progressive Originalism: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Interpretation of the Constitution

During her confirmation hearings in March 2022, Justice Jackson introduced herself to Congress as an originalist. [1] Legal originalism is a doctrine of judicial interpretation that follows the Constitution as it was initially intended to be understood at the time it was written. This doctrine is often associated with the Court’s more conservative justices, such as Justices Antonio Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who have used it to argue against abortion and gun rights. However, under Justice Jackson’s interpretation, originalism has taken on a new form—one that is lauded for its progressivism.

Kay ZouDecember 27, 2022Voting Rights Act, originalism, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, fourteenth amendment

Teaching the Vote: The Right to Civic Education and Cook v. McKee

Education is the “very foundation of good citizenship,” wrote Justice Earl Warren in his 1954 opinion for Brown v. Board of Education. [1] Nearly twenty years later, in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that “some degree of education is necessary to prepare citizens to participate effectively and intelligently in our open political system.” [2] Often, however, public school curricula lack civic education requirements, and thus do not adequately prepare citizens to understand and engage with the United States’ democratic system of government.

Implications of Lochner v. New York

The Lochner Era, spanning almost three decades from 1905 to 1937, was one of the most distinctive periods of Supreme Court history. An analysis of the Court’s decision inLochner v. New York (1905), the three decades emerging after the Lochner decision, and the events surrounding the Court’s eventual reversal of the decision in 1937 can reveal important implications for workers’ rights in our modern era.

The Politics of Justice: Revisiting Brady

In 1963, a team of Maryland prosecutors failed to disclose an admission by homicide defendant Donald Boblit, setting in motion a case that would eventually establish one of the most important legal checks to prosecutorial misconduct in American jurisprudence. After litigation in county and appellate courts, the Supreme Court published its opinion in Brady v. Maryland. The decision and its progeny aspired not only to buttress the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment, but also to reaffirm our nation’s commitment to providing a fair judicial process.

Jaden SchneiderSeptember 7, 2018mercurial politik, Supreme Court, certiorari, fourteenth amendment, Brady v. MarylandComment