Summary

Both Supreme Court doctrine and the scholarly literature on the constitutional constraints on policing generally begin and end with the Fourth Amendment, ignoring the Fourteenth Amendment’s transformative guarantees designed to curtail police abuses and safeguard liberty, personal security, and equality for all regardless of race. This Article corrects this omission by providing the first comprehensive account of the text, history, and original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s limitations on policing. It shows how the Fourteenth Amendment changed our understanding of the constitutional guarantee of the right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures and added to our foundational charter a prohibition on all forms of discriminatory policing.

Read the full text of “We Do Not Want to be Hunted”: The Right To Be Secure and Our Constitutional Story of Race and Policing below.

Race, Policing, and the Constitution Video Series

“Race, Policing, and the Constitution” is a three-part video series produced by the Constitutional Accountability Center to highlight the constitutional history behind the 4th and 14th Amendments, explicitly including efforts to protect Black Americans from police abuse and violence. 

Inspired by CAC’s latest scholarship, “We Do Not Want to be Hunted”: The Right To Be Secure and Our Constitutional Story of Race and Policing, this video series unpacks discriminatory policing and sets the stage for constitutional remedies.

The series features voices from CAC President Elizabeth Wydra and Civil Rights Director David Gans, Raben Group Principal and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the Department of Justice Elliot Williams, and Justice Reform Program Director at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Sakira Cook.