The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to anyone born in the United States or who became a citizen of the country. This included African Americans and slaves who had been freed after the American Civil War.
Through its Equal Protection Clause, Due Process Clause, and by incorporating the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment has addressed issues such as which students share a classroom and whether students can be expelled without a hearing or made to recite prayers.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment provides that a state may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It applies to public elementary and secondary schools, as they are considered to be state actors.
Through its Equal Protection Clause, Due Process Clause, and by incorporating the Bill of Rights, the Fourteenth Amendment has addressed issues such as which students share a classroom and whether students can be expelled without a hearing or made to recite prayers.
Children are generally afforded the basic rights embodied by the Constitution. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment is said to apply to children, but excludes those not yet born. There are both state and federal sources of children's-rights law.
The Fourteenth Amendment only applies to actions by state governments (state actions), not private actions. Consider, for example, Obergefell, which involved the fundamental right to marry. Some state laws interfered with that right.
Thus public school segregation based on race was found in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Mapp v.
Teachers are protected from discrimination based on race, gender, and age. Discrimination based on disability or national origin is also prohibited. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects teachers at public schools.
The Fourteenth Amendment, particularly Section 1's wording of due process and equal protection, would be extensively used in the 20th and early 21st centuries, such as the Supreme Court decisions of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (racial discrimination in public schools unconstitutional), Loving v.