Originalist Thirteenth Amendment reading makes reparations constitutionally sound

Evidence

Our current Supreme Court includes a number of justices who support the original meaning and intent of the Constitution. They used it as the basis to overturn Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion. My legal argument that reparations is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment is based on the original meaning of the amendment, as it was understood by those who were both for and against it. If the Court were to receive a legal challenge to any reparations statute and ignore the originalist arguments bolstering it under the Thirteenth Amendment or apply it in a way that made it largely unrecognizable, their racist biases would be exposed in an obvious way for all to see. And that could lead to a very different type of reform, of the Supreme Court itself, which could provide an alternate path to reparations legislation being upheld as constitutional. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 595

Categorization

• XREF: Weaponizing originalism against the originalists mirrors arguments Brown’s earlier chapters discussed on how legal frameworks have been repurposed against their apparent intent.