Stanford’s Fred Smith examines the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision, its historical roots in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the questions the Court leaves unresolved.

---

The Fourteenth Amendment opens with a simple constitutional promise: that anyone born in the United States is a citizen. In a closely divided Supreme Court decision, that understanding of birthright citizenship is once again tested through competing readings of text, history, and precedent.

In this episode of Stanford Legal, Professor Fred Smith, a leading scholar of the federal courts, joins Pam Karlan to examine the Court’s ruling in Trump v. Barbara and the history behind the Citizenship Clause. The discussion traces the Clause to Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied citizenship to Black Americans, and to the Reconstruction-era effort to overturn it, as well as United States v. Wong Kim Ark, long understood to affirm birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil.

The discussion highlights deeper disagreements over how that history should shape constitutional meaning today. Smith and Karlan explore tensions between originalist approaches, reliance on precedent, and questions about congressional authority over citizenship. At stake is not only the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the broader question of who the Constitution recognizes as part of the American political community—and who gets to decide.

Links:

• Fred Smith >>> Stanford Law School Page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.