On Feb. 28, American University Washington College of Law hosted a panel about the Fourteenth Amendment, which discussed the amendment’s impact on education culture and policy today. The panel was part of a larger conference titled, “The Constitution And Its Culture Wars,” covering First and Fourteenth Amendment issues in education, as well as discussions about the civil rights movement. The event was organized and hosted by the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, & the Law (JGSPL), a student-published journal that serves as a forum for discourse on gender issues and feminist legal studies.
The Fourteenth Amendment panel was moderated by Professor Susan Carle, who specializes in civil rights legal history at American University. Joining her for the panel were four acclaimed speakers who each provided diverse insights into the amendment’s purpose and educational implications: Jin Hee Lee, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Legal Defense Fund, Jon Greenbaum, the Founder of Justice Legal Strategies, Leslie Annexstein, the Assistant Vice President for Equity and Title IX Coordinator at American University, and E. Christi Cunningham, the Director of the Education Rights Center and Professor at the Howard University School of Law.
The panel covered a range of issues but had some key throughlines. One of the primary focuses of the panelists was to completely dismantle the present false narrative surrounding DEI. Lee explained that after the first Trump term, there developed an “ahistorical narrative” about our country, which stands on the false premise that there is “no present-day inequality.” This harmful narrative is currently manifesting itself in the current administration, which is already attempting to expunge marginalized experiences: asserting that there are only two genders, eliminating certain words like “equity,” “barriers,” or “excluded” from the National Science Foundation, and rolling back DEI initiatives.
DEI initiatives are particularly important in creating educational opportunities for marginalized communities. However, according to Cunningham, they have recently been painted as a “give-away,” when in reality, genuine access and power have never been available to marginalized groups. Annexstein seconded this point, referencing Thurgood Marshall’s statement about how the Constitution has been “defective from the start,” never believing in or intending to promote equality for all people.
As a result of this skepticism surrounding the disadvantages of certain communities, necessary support systems—especially within education—have been pulled, such as affirmative action. Greenbaum described his experience witnessing Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, explaining that the right-wing and now Supreme Court’s weaponization of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause has intimidated and prevented “perfectly legal activities” within DEI from happening.
But beyond the threat to diversity within education, panelists emphasized that in attempting to implement the Fourteenth Amendment’s values of “equal protection,” more focus must be placed on equity. According to Lee, while lots of institutions have implemented DEI programs, they’ve neglected to acknowledge and explain why those programs exist in the first place. Simply put, their focus is “a lot about diversity, not enough about equity.”
Of course, it’s much easier to add diverse perspectives to an institution than to change its fundamentally exclusive structure. But the resounding message from the panelists was to not shy away from seemingly impossible aspirations. Lee emphasized that if there’s anything the right has done well, it’s imagining and pushing for a vision of the law that does not yet exist. She closed the panel with a rallying emphasis on community organization, as opposed to remaining “tunnel-visioned in trying to convince a courtroom.” Only when the left commits to a greater vision of equality, she underscored, can they actually work towards achieving it. “Let’s not settle for breadcrumbs.”
