Reference no: EM133576002

Assignment:

Topic Four: The Fourteenth Amendment: In Week 3, we discussed the constitutional amendment process and learned that there have been amendments added to the U.S. Constitution after the initial ten amendments found in the U.S. Bill of Rights. One of those is the Fourteenth Amendment that defines U.S. citizenship and offers equal protection under the law to everyone. The Fourteenth Amendment was added in order to correct for the scourge of slavery and force all states after the U.S. Civil War to accept former slaves as full citizens of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has used the Fourteenth Amendment to find that various provisions of the U.S. Bill of Rights must be upheld by the states, a process known as incorporation. Today, the Fourteenth Amendment serves as the backbone of all U.S. civil rights laws and equally supports the application of the U.S. Bill of Rights. After reviewing the readings on this topic in the Week 4 Learning Readings & Videos, consider the following:

• What is incorporation? How has the Fourteenth Amendment been used to strengthen the U.S. Bill of Rights? How has it affected the interpretation of the U.S. Bill of Rights?
• How was the Fourteenth Amendment used to create our civil rights and how is it used to expand these protections?
• According to the Fourteenth Amendment, who gets protection under the U.S. Constitution and who does not? Consider the issue of international terrorists and illegal immigrants.