Suffrage – Sex

Arguing that the debates over the Nineteenth Amendment were more than a narrow debate over female access to the franchise. Discussing the historical context underlying the Amendment and the prevailing norms at the time it was ratified that pertain to women’s suffrage. Arguing that the anti-subordination principle in the Nineteenth Amendment are relevant when interpreting the Equal Protection Clause.

Discussing a “thick” conception of the right to vote under the Nineteenth Amendment vs. a “thin” conception, ultimately arguing for the former. Contending that the Amendment’s text and history show that it confers substantive rights that would allow voting-rights plaintiffs to attack laws burdening the right to vote.

Arguing that the Nineteenth Amendment should not be thought of as a constitutional orphan that only confers suffrage to women. Discussing the proposals leading up to the Amendment and its seventy-two year history. Contending that this history is necessary to interpret modern constitutional guarantees of legal equality.

Arguing that the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment has relevance to marriage-law reform today, as it both eliminated coverture and extended the franchise to women. Looking to the text and subtext of the Amendment to argue that a proper understanding of it is relevant to contemporary challenges over legal regulation of marriage. Contending that the Obergefell Court could have drawn on the history and meaning of the Amendment to underscore that marriage implicates dual systems of governance.

Pointing out that voting rights litigation and legislation has primarily focused on the Reconstruction Amendments and not at all on the Nineteenth Amendment. Arguing that the Amendment should receive more scholarly attention, specifically as a mechanism to protect voting rights. Analyzing the pertinent legal history from Early America to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Critiquing Calabresi and Rickert’s article, Originalism and Sex Discrimination, contending that they are engaging in dynamic constitutional interpretation.

Arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment is a ban on caste and concluding that it meant to outlaw racial discrimination as well as sex discrimination. Making this claim by arguing that the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 affects how we should read the equality guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Summarizing the scholarship of those who argue that the Fourteenth Amendment did not forbid sex discrimination but rejecting those arguments as relying on isolated statements from the legislative history of the Amendment.

Arguing for a synthetic reading of the Fourteenth and Nineteenth Amendments that provides a historical foundation for sex-discrimination doctrine. Looking to the debates over suffrage to deduce historical ties between the two amendments.

Arguing that the Nineteenth amendment provides a defense for the constitutionality of Violence Against Women Act. Analyzing the meaning of the Nineteenth Amendment and contending that it means more than women’s rights to the franchise. Analyzing the historical and political context in which the Amendment was produced, discussing that the right to vote had no single meaning to suffragists.

Arguing that the Nineteenth Amendment should be used to further promote women’s empowerment and equality. Discussing the competing interpretations of the significance of suffrage in early state court opinions interpreting the Amendment. Arguing that two divergent understandings of women’s history existed that produced differing approaches to issues of women’s rights.