{"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 [&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,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-24461","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_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}]}}