Chris Smith has posted Birthright Citizenship, Constitutional Repair, and Reparations on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This white paper presents a unified constitutional, legal, and policy framework arguing that reparations for Black Americans are most effectively understood not as race-based preferences or discretionary compensation, but as the enforcement of citizenship rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment-rights that were constitutionally secured but systematically denied in practice. Drawing on the Reconstruction-era legislative record, Supreme Court precedent, and contemporary scholarship on racial wealth inequality, the paper contends that descendants of U.S. chattel slavery occupy a unique constitutional position: their citizenship was the central remedial purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. By reframing reparations as citizenship enforcement rather than racial redistribution, this paper identifies a legal pathway that survives strict scrutiny under current Equal Protection doctrine, satisfies the congruence-and-proportionality requirements of Section 5 enforcement power, and supports the design of asset-based remedies capable of producing durable, generational wealth. The paper addresses major constitutional objections, including those raised by Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), and proposes trustbased delivery mechanisms grounded in established fiduciary law. The paper further develops an independent Thirteenth Amendment foundation based on the badges-and-incidents doctrine, presents an originalist case for congressional enforcement power drawing on the Reconstructionera legislative record, and outlines a strategic roadmap for building the incremental precedent, evidentiary record, and cross-ideological support necessary for the framework’s ultimate judicial acceptance.