New Dean at Chapman: Wants to Reinterpret the Birthright Citizenship Provisions of the 14th Amendment

JOHN C. EASTMAN today was named the new Dean of Chapman University School of Law.  According to his law faculty webpage (here), Eastman is Professor of Law and Director of The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. Prior to joining the Chapman Law faculty in August 1999, he served as a law clerk with Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court of the United States and with Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After his clerkships, Dr. Eastman practiced with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with high honors in 1995. Eastman also has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Government from Claremontl. Prior to law school, he served as the Director of Congressional & Public Affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan administration and was the 1990 Republican Nominee for Congress in California’s 34th District.

in 2005, Professor Eastman testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims and contended that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment has been misconstrued as mandating birthright citizenship. Rather, in his view, the clause was a codification of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which quite clearly exempted from the automatic citizenship provisions children of parents who owed allegiance to a foreign power – i.e., those who were in the U.S. only temporarily (and particularly those who were in the U.S. illegally).  Click here to see the testimony.

It seems fair to say that Eastman holds the minority view among legal scholars about the meaning of the citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment.

KJ