Rather than expanding on the excellent editorial on the opposite page Tuesday on the subject of a letter printed on this page last Friday, I m going into word-nerd mode on a letter appearing here today. Politics have encroached into Every. Single. Area. of our lives. And in the fight over the definition of "insurrection," we ve headed there again.
<p>The nominees reflect diverse scholarly approaches to Black history across time periods and subjects, including public health, slavery, public history, pedagogy, reproduction, and politics. </p>
Disqualifying Insurrectionists and Rebels: A How-To Guide
The U.S. Capitol viewed through a security perimeter after the Jan. 6 riot. (Flickr/Victoria Pickering, https://flic.kr/p/2krWqEA; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)
In recent days, severalscholarsandlawmakers have suggested that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment might be used to bar Donald Trump and some of his allies from ever holding federal or state office again. The Section 3 route is a plausible alternative, or potentially a supplement, to the more traditional route for sanctioning state criminals: impeachment. But a number of unresolved questions remain regarding Section 3’s scope as well as the process by which the lifetime ban can be invoked. Here, I flag the most important questions, answer some of them, and offer tentative guidance to lawyers and lawmakers seeking to apply Section 3 to individuals who participated in or abetted the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.