14th Amendment Definition

The fourteenth amendment according to dictionary.com is “an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons”. To my housemate, Tara, she didn’t even know what the fourteenth amendment was, but when asked how she defined equality she said “fairness”. To my mom the fourteenth amendment was having “the same rights regardless of sex or race”. Listing the variety of different meanings of the fourteenth amendment and/or equality takes a great part in cases that have happened recently for example, Fisher v. University of Texas. The plaintiff claimed that her fourteenth amendment right was violated when denied admission into the school …show more content…
v. Morrison was a case that represented not a battle between the state government and federal government, but the state and federal governments alliance to cooperate and help solve a recognizable national problem of gender-based violence. With this case, the courts looked at the precedent, U.S. v. Lopez, showing that Congress exceeded its constitutional bounds and it also contains no jurisdictional formation that the federal cause of action is in the essence of Congress’ regulation of interstate commerce. U.S. v. Lopez makes it clear that a jurisdictional element would support the argument that civil rights are tied to interstate commerce within the authority of Congress. In the end, the Court held that the section’s civil remedy over extended Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, enforcing powers to Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment and the language of this amendment plays a crucial role in the Constitution, placing certain limitations on how Congress may attack discriminatory issues. These limitations of the Fourteenth Amendment created a balance of power between the states and the Federal Government. Factors to consider are how the Court points out that in the Civil Rights Cases the Court held that section 5 doesn’t authorize Congress to use the Fourteenth Amendment as a source of power to remedy the conduct of private persons. The Federal Government’s argument, however, is that Congress used section 5 to remedy the actions of state actors through discriminatory …show more content…
v. Morrison the word equality and the fourteenth amendment didn’t seem to apply for the courts. A woman who is a victim of gender-motivated violence would expect some sort of equal protection. When the victim sued under VAWA, Violence Against Women Act, she probably expected to have equal protection under the 14th amendment but the courts didn’t see an individual, private case as their problem. This case was a state issue not a federal issue because it didn’t deal with interstate commerce. The 14th amendment, in this case, seemed to represent, like previously stated, an alliance with both state and federal governments to establish when VAWA under the equal protection clause should be applied. The defendant made an unfortunate point that the plaintiffs civil remedy was unconstitutional because it lacked Congress’s authority to apply section 5 and 8 of the fourteenth amendment to this case therefore the courts struck down the plaintiff’s argument. In the case Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of children in public schools primarily based on their race denies black children equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even though the physical facilities may be equal. Education in public schools is a right which must be made available to all on an equal basis. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court used the equal protection clause to help create a new idea of equality with something that would mitigate past discrimination and contradictions between