What term describes when the Fourteenth Amendment is used to apply the Bill of Rights to state governments?


Section 1

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.

Section 2

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is exactly like a similar provision in the Fifth Amendment, which only restricts the federal government. It states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Usually, “due process” refers to fair procedures. However, the Supreme Court has also used this part of the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit certain practices outright. For instance, the Court has ruled that the Due Process Clause protects rights that are not specifically listed in the Constitution, such as the right to privacy regarding sexual relations. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court ruled that this right to privacy included a woman's decision to have an abortion. In addition, the Court used the Due Process Clause to extend the Bill of Rights to the states over time through a practice known as “incorporation.”

The Fourteenth Amendment promises that all persons in the United States shall enjoy the “equal protection of the laws.” This means that they cannot be discriminated against without good reason. All laws discriminate, because governments must make choices about what is lawful. For example, a law that prohibits burglary discriminates against burglars. But the Equal Protection Clause requires that a state have a good reason or a “rational basis” for such choices. In certain areas where there has been a history of past wrongful action—such as discrimination based on race or gender—the state must meet a much higher burden to justify such classifications.

What term describes when the Fourteenth Amendment is used to apply the Bill of Rights to state governments?

Racial discrimination has a long and pernicious history in the United States. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court upheld racially segregated public facilities, in a doctrine of “separate but equal.” But in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court reversed this doctrine regarding public schools, ruling that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Even in cases of affirmative action, where the government is seeking to counter the effects of past discrimination in education and employment, the Supreme Court has ruled that racial classifications are “inherently suspect.” Consequently, the Court held in Ricci v. DeStefano (2009) that the city of New Haven, Connecticut, could not invalidate a promotion exam for firefighters merely because a disproportionate percentage of racial minorities did not pass.

The Equal Protection Clause also applies to illegal immigrants in certain cases. In Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that prohibited children who were not legal residents to attend free public schools. The Court held that “the Texas statute imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.”

The Fourteenth Amendment allowed states to disenfranchise those convicted of rebellion or other crimes, a clause that was intended to limit the voting rights of former Confederate soldiers. Now, during the nation's war on drugs, this same provision has resulted in the vote being denied to thousands of African Americans who, as a group, have been disproportionately convicted of drug offenses. Ironically, the very same amendment that was written to ensure equal rights for African Americans now provides a mechanism to make them second-class citizens. In many states, tens of thousands of minority offenders still cannot vote due to their criminal history. According to Michelle Alexander in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Equality content written by Linda R. Monk, Constitutional scholar

What is the name for the process of using the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights to state governments?

Overview. The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine through which the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution (known as the Bill of Rights) are made applicable to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Incorporation applies both substantively and procedurally ...

What is the term used in the Fourteenth Amendment to describe?

The most commonly used -- and frequently litigated -- phrase in the amendment is "equal protection of the laws", which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination), Roe v.

What term is used to describe the way the Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights Dow to the State level?

The Fifth Amendment says to the federal government that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, uses the same eleven words, called the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states.

How does the 14th Amendment relate apply to the Bill of Rights?

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people.