Washington and Lee University School of Law Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons Scholarly Articles Faculty Scholarship 2020 Abolishing Racist Policing With the Thirteenth Amendment Brandon Hasbrouck Washington and Lee University School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlufac Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons Recommended Citation Brandon Hasbrouck, Abolishing Racist Policing With the Thirteenth Amendment, 67 UCLA L. Rev. 1108 (2020). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Articles by an authorized administrator of Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abolishing Racist Policing With the Thirteenth Amendment Brandon Hasbrouck This Essay was also published in the UCLA Law Review's online publication, Discourse. ABSTRACT Policing in America has always been about controlling the Black body. Indeed, modern policing was birthed and nurtured by white supremacy; its roots are found in slavery. Policing today continues to protect and serve the racial hierarchy blessed by the Constitution itself. But a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving the Thirteenth Amendment offers Congress a tool with which to target institutions that have preserved social, political, and official norms associated with slavery. In those cases, the Supreme Court held that Congress has broad enforcement authority under the Thirteenth Amendment to eliminate such "badges and incidents" of slavery.