Resolved: The Supreme Court Should Revisit the Privileges or Immunities Clause

The Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides as follows: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Like other constitutional guarantees, the clause’s Delphic terms invite multiple interpretations. Some read it to empower courts to create previously-unrecognized “privileges or immunities.” Others limit it to a narrow category of rights, like the ones found in the Bill of Rights, a set that courts cannot enlarge. In 1872 the Supreme Court in the Slaughter-House Cases read the clause very narrowly, limiting it to a small category of rights, such as the right to travel interstate.