{"id":24461,"date":"2026-06-26T11:47:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=24461"},"modified":"2026-07-02T11:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:59:04","slug":"reconstructing-the-reconstruction-equality-liberty-method-and-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-114\/volume-114-issue-5-may-2026\/reconstructing-the-reconstruction-equality-liberty-method-and-interpretation\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconstructing the Reconstruction: Equality, Liberty, Method and Interpretation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><i>The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s reliance on <\/i><span class=\"s1\">\u201c<\/span><i>history and tradition<\/i><span class=\"s1\">\u201d <\/span><i>in <\/i>Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization <i>reinvigorated long-standing <\/i><i>debates about the Court\u2019s use of what it claims is originalism. The Court\u2019s <\/i><i>selective view of which history matters manifests throughout the <\/i>Dobbs <i>opinion, dismissing Antebellum, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow histories <\/i><i>al<\/i><i>together and engaging in opportunistic and ahistoric originalism. The meth<\/i><i>odology used in <\/i>Dobbs <i>serves as a troubling <\/i><i>precedent and method for the <\/i><i>potential dismantling of other civil liberties and civil rights. For this reason, <\/i><i>we argue that reimagining judicial review is critically important to the <\/i><i>future of constitutionalism and Supreme Court jurisprudence.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>Specifically, this Article calls for two enhancements <\/i><i>to judicial review. <\/i><i>First, it argues for reassociating the Reconstruction with judicial review, <\/i><i>including its legal and social precursors. We recognize the value in relating <\/i><i>the fight against involuntary reproductive servitude to the Reconstruction and <\/i><i>elevating this crucial political era in judicial review, such that the true mean<\/i><i>ing and associations connected to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth <\/i><i>Amendments <\/i><i>are imbued and embedded in judicial review. Second, the <\/i><i>Article argues that full dismissal of certain histories disserves the call for jus<\/i><i>tice, constitutionalism, and accountability on matters related to human rights, <\/i><i>civil <\/i><i>rights, and civil liberties. The compelling criticisms against originalism <\/i><i>and the persuasive argument that it is no methodology at all are not incom<\/i><i>patible with our view that history serves an important function in legal <\/i><i>review. <\/i><i>Thus, the Article concludes with a thought experiment involving a <\/i><i>mixed-method review of constitutional disputes<\/i><span class=\"s1\">\u2014<\/span><i>one that turns to history <\/i><i>while not excluding the learned position of a living constitution.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/06\/Goodwin-and-Whelan_Reconstructing-the-Reconstruction.pdf\"><strong><em>Reconstructing the Reconstruction: Equality, Liberty, Method and Interpretation<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/06\/Goodwin-and-Whelan_Reconstructing-the-Reconstruction.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Goodwin-and-Whelan_Reconstructing-the-Reconstruction<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s reliance on \u201chistory and tradition\u201d in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization reinvigorated long-standing debates about the Court\u2019s use of what it claims is originalism. The Court\u2019s selective view of which history matters manifests throughout the Dobbs opinion, dismissing Antebellum, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow histories altogether and engaging in opportunistic and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13871,"featured_media":0,"parent":24456,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24461","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24600,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24461\/revisions\/24600"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}