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Human and Civil Rights and the Constitution
The Reconstruction Amendments were intended to give our nation what Abraham Lincoln promised at Gettysburg: a New Birth of Freedom. Unfortunately, much of their power and meaning was eviscerated in a series of egregious Supreme Court rulings in the 1870s and 1880s. These rulings are just as wrong as long-overruled opinions such as Plessy v. Ferguson, but remain on the books. Read properly, the Reconstruction Amendments provide a solid foundation for courts and the federal government to protect human and civil rights. CAC works to raise public consciousness about the importance of the Reconstruction Amendments and convince politicians and judges about the mandate these Amendments create for the advancement of civil and human rights.
Think Tank
Living constitutionalism is largely dead. So, too, is old-style originalism. Instead, there is increasing convergence in the legal academy around what might be called “new textualism.” The core principle of new textualism is that constitutional interpretation must start with a determination, based on evidence from the text, structure, and enactment history, of what the language in the Constitution actually means. This might not sound revolutionary, but it is. This Report explains how we have arrived at this point, why it is significant, and what work remains to be done.