Newsweek is defending an op-ed that has faced accusations of pushing the birtherism narrative against Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Dr. John C. Eastman, a law professor and former dean, wrote an op-ed for the publication on Wednesday in which he questioned whether Harris is constitutionally eligible to appear on the ticket given her status as an American resident. The next day, Newsweek’s editor in chief and opinion head wrote a separate editor’s note to defend the original column.
Eastman’s piece noted that Harris’s father is from Jamaica and her mother was from India and that neither were naturalized citizens at the time of the senator from California’s birth in 1964. He argued that may not be enough for her to be considered a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment.
“The original Constitution did not define citizenship, but the 14th Amendment does — and it provides that ‘all persons born … in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens,'” he wrote. “Those who claim that birth alone is sufficient overlook the second phrase. The person must also be ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States, and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully).”
The professor also said that his argument will likely “be dismissed out of hand” given that the “Constitution’s citizenship mandate has morphed over the decades to what is now an absolute ‘birth on the soil no matter the circumstances’ view.”
Nancy Cooper, Newsweek’s editor in chief, and Josh Hammer, the opinion editor, defended the column on Thursday, which they said was about “a long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
They also derided the accusations the column was promoting birtherism, or scrutiny over where someone was born, which was mainly used as a tactic against former President Barack Obama, and said Eastman’s piece was not engaging in it.
“His essay has no connection whatsoever to so-called ‘birther-ism,’ the racist 2008 conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing then-candidate Barack Obama by claiming, baselessly, that he was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya,” they wrote. “We share our readers’ revulsion at those vile lies.”
