Martha S. Jones (Johns Hopkins University) and Kate Masur (Northwestern University) — two historians from our Teach the Black Freedom Struggle series — filed an amicus brief challenging an executive order undermining birthright citizenship.

As described by the Brennan Center,

The historians argument centers on the pre-Civil War advocacy of free Black Americans for a broad and inclusive principle of birthright citizenship to serve as a bulwark against threats of degradation, violence, and relocation.

The brief provides necessary historical context for the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship guarantee. Contrary to the Trump administration’s argument that the Fourteenth Amendment was narrowly intended to secure citizenship for Black Americans emancipated during the Civil War, the brief argues that the Amendment was also meant to respond to the arguments pressed by free Black Americans. Free Black Americans understood the perils of living without citizenship and sought a broad and inclusive constitutional rule that would insulate questions of citizenship from future political bargaining. It was this vision that was constitutionalized in the Fourteenth Amendment.

The brief is a great resource for students on the 14th Amendment. Jones and Masur begin by calling “the Appellants’ ‘historical’ account worse than middling” and they go on to offer the historical evidence, with narrative and cases, for the following points:

The Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of the White House’s attempt to rescind birthright citizenship on Wednesday, April 1, 2026.

Both historians participated in an online class on Birthright Citizenship with the founder of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy, Sherrilyn Ifill.

Find additional resources below on the 14th Amendment.