Event name: The 14th amendment and crises in American Democracy

Event time and place: Clarice smith performing arts center, Gildenhorn Recitation hall, November 3, 2025.

Name of Presenter: Sherrilyn Ifill

Main points made by Dr. Ifill:

Dr. Ifill began by talking about the context of the country just after the civil war. She discussed how the legislators in the North after the civil war wanted to bring an end to slavery, though it was not as easy of a task as simply doing that. Firstly, she discussed how the people who contributed to the 14th amendment and other reconstruction amendments and legislation were not just the legislators, but also the activists and other people who encouraged the legislator sto move forward with the 14th amendment, and also voiced their opinions on what should be contained within the amendment. She also discussed how they faced opposition from people in the south, and from President Johnson, and how they still moved forward with it anyway.

On the topic of the 14th amendment itself, Dr. Ifill discussed how it, in her opinion, contributes the most to what it means to be a US citizen today, in terms of rights and protections to citizens. She also discussed how it being an amendment left it outside of presidential power to determine who is or what it means to be a citizen. Dr. Ifill also mentioned some of the shortcomings of the 14th amendment; in particular mentioning how its means to prevent disenfranchisement of Black Americans by saying that disenfranchised voters would not be counted in a state's population was ineffective, as that provision was never enforced by congress or another authority.

Convincingness of the talk:

Dr. Ifill then discussed how this applies to the modern day. She said that we should be looking to “refound” America in the current day, to make it more equal, just, and work for everyone, and that we should look back to the creation of the 14th amendment for some ideas on how to go about making such a transformation.

Overall, I thought that the Dr. Ifill’s points were convincing. She provided evidence for her claims in various forms, and while I was not familiar with everything she discussed, the knowledge I had about the subject lined up pretty well with what she claimed about the subject, and, for the most part I did not see her commit any logical fallacies.

First discussing logical fallacies, the only one I noticed was not actually committed by the speaker, but instead by the person introducing them. The person who introduced the speaker gave a short speech themselves, in which they read off a lot of the speaker’s accomplishments and accolades, and said how important of a role they have played as a modern-day civil rights lawyer. While this speech did not directly state it, it gave the impression that part of its purpose was to convince you that you should listen to the speaker and consider her opinion more heavily because of her accomplishments and authority on the subject, which is the appeal to authority fallacy - you should not believe something simply because an authority figure says it is true. However this is more or less all I have in terms of logical fallacies, I did not notice any logical fallacies committed by the speaker during the presentation.

Now moving onto the actual talk, I thought that it was quite convincing. The speaker directly quoted the 14th amendment at numerous points when discussing the rights it gave and other provisions within it. She talked it’s provision regarding citizenship, and about the rights given to citizens and to all persons in the US, and she quoted the 14th amendment to support these. Dr. Ifill’s discussion of the shortcomings of the 14th amendment was similarly convincing; she directly quoted the provision whose intent was to prevent the disenfranchisement of people within the US, and discussed how it was a rather round-about way to go about preventing disenfranchisement. She also discussed historical context of how southern states acted after the passage of the amendment, discussing how they went about disenfranchising Black Americans anyway. This was supported by what I had already learned about this subject, regarding poll taxes, literacy tests, and associated grandfather clauses, and other means of disenfranchisement.

Dr. Ifill also provided historical context about the civil war, discussing how President Johnson obstructed a significant part of the North’s efforts during reconstruction. I had already learned about this part of history, and about Johnson’s presidency, and the speaker’s claims about this historical context were pretty similar to what I had learned about this time period, which helps legitimize the speaker’s claims at least for me. Dr. Ifill also discussed people outside of legislatures who contributed to the drafting of the 14th amendment and other reconstruction amendments and legislation, and said that there were various groups (lawyers, activists, Black Americans, among other people) who gave input on how to write the 14th amendment. I did not have any prior knowledge regarding these subjects, so I can’t give a particularly strong insight on these claims, however they did not seem particularly unreasonable or extraordinary, so they were not a hit to Dr. Ifill’s credibility for me.