It may not be as oft-quoted as the First Amendment or as contested as the Second Amendment, but the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution plays a critical role in supporting some of our closest-held notions of American freedom and equality.

Critics and supporters of President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship often focus on the order’s barring of automatic citizenship to children born to individuals unlawfully present in the United States. In this column, I would ...

On July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified to the U.S. Constitution, granting U.S. citizenship to Black Americans after hundreds of years of enslavement. The crucial amendment would later serve as the legal framework for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ...