On March 27, Howard University launched its 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy, housed within Howard University’s Law School. Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill was recently appointed as Howard’s inaugural Vernon Jordan Endowed Chair in Civil Rights and as such, the center is the first project officially launched by Ifill in her new position.
According to a press release that both announced Ifill’s appointment and the creation of the center, Ifill discussed the necessity of the project and alluded that the tenets of democracy itself are under attack from the Trump administration.
Ifill was previously the leader of the Legal Defense Fund from 2013-2022, when she stepped down from her position.
“At this moment of democratic crisis in our country, we must return to the 14th amendment and its powerful and pragmatic conception of a post-Civil War America grounded in the values of equality, justice and a reimagined vision of citizenship,” Ifill said.
She continued, “That vision includes a clear-eyed confrontation with the stubborn persistence of white supremacy and its ongoing threat to the promise of our new country. For that reason, launching this center at Howard in the 21st century at this time of profound democratic crisis, surrounded by Howard’s impressive faculty and extraordinary students, seems not only appropriate, but imperative.”
According to Diverse Education, the center will adopt a multidisciplinary approach to studying the 14th Amendment, exploring its principles through the lenses of law, business, and the arts to understand their relevance across these fields.
The 14th Amendment addressed the fallout of the Civil War, guaranteeing birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law.
Originally, these precepts were created to give Black Americans full citizenship and the protections that come with being a citizen which they were previously denied for centuries by the United States.
Recent arguments from the Trump administration and other conservatives have twisted the equal protection clause into a nonsensical position that such a thing as anti-white racism exists.
As Ifill told NPR‘s Michel Martin in a March 28 interview, the 14th Amendment does not only impact immigrants, but touches a wide range of people in this country, including Black Americans. Ifill also laid out her vision for how the center engages with the public during the interview.
“There are people all over this country who will proudly and passionately tell you about their Second Amendment rights. But when was the last time you heard somebody, an ordinary American, tell you about their 14th Amendment rights, even though those are the rights that guarantee equality in this country, that ensure that the state cannot take things from you without providing you with some due process, and that guarantee birthright citizenship? And the point of the center is to create the curriculum, both formal and informal and the kind of narrative that Americans can get their hands around so that they will come to cloak their conception of these rights that we take for granted in constitutional terms,” Ifill told NPR.
Ifill concluded, “There are other provisions of the 14th Amendment that I want to explore as part of the work of this center. It is the longest amendment to the Constitution…And part of the purpose of this center is to fully familiarize Americans with the richness of this important Constitutional amendment. And that would include all of its provisions that I think are quite relevant for the challenges that we face today.”
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