The Fourteenth Amendment
Citizenship and equal protection
Defines citizenship and requires every state to provide due process and equal protection of the law.
Ratified 1868 · 3 minute read
Published by Quasi-Legal Institute · Report an error
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
In plain language
Limits on the states
This restriction is aimed at state governments. In practice, the Supreme Court has used the Due Process Clause, rather than this “privileges or immunities” language, to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states.
Why it was written
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War, to guarantee citizenship and basic legal protections to formerly enslaved people and to stop states from denying them. Its first section is one of the most heavily litigated parts of the Constitution.
Due process and equal protection
Due process has two sides. Procedural due process asks whether the government used a fair process before taking something from you, such as notice and a hearing. Substantive due process asks whether the government has a good enough reason to interfere with certain fundamental rights at all.
Equal protection means the government cannot treat similar people differently without a sufficient reason. Courts look hardest at laws that classify people by race, and apply less demanding review to most other kinds of distinctions.
Applying the Bill of Rights to states
When the Bill of Rights was ratified, it limited only the federal government. Over the twentieth century, the Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause to apply most of those protections to state and local governments as well, a process called incorporation. This is why the First and Fourth Amendments limit your city police and your public school.
The other four sections
The reading above covers Section 1. The amendment has four more sections. Section 2 changed how states are counted for representation in the House, and it reduces a state’s representation if it denies the vote to adult male citizens, a penalty that was never enforced and has been overtaken by the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments.
Section 3 bars anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office, unless two-thirds of each house of Congress votes to lift the ban. In Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court held that states cannot enforce Section 3 against candidates for federal office. Section 4 says the public debt of the United States must be honored and that debts incurred to support the Confederacy are void. Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment with legislation, a power the Court limited in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) by holding that Congress cannot redefine the rights the amendment protects.
What it means in school
In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court held that racially segregated public schools violate equal protection. In Plyler v. Doe (1982), it held that a state cannot deny free public education to children because of their immigration status.
Due process also applies to discipline. In Goss v. Lopez (1975), the Court held that a public school student facing a short suspension is entitled to be told what he is accused of and to have a chance to tell his side first.