Title: Senior Constitutional Counsel — Equal Protection & Citizenship Department: Legal Division — Constitutional Law Team Reports to: General Counsel, Legal Division

About

Dr. Washington is Patriot University’s Fourteenth Amendment specialist, covering equal protection, state-level due process, birthright citizenship, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and the insurrection disqualification provision of Section 3. She brings particular expertise on the Citizenship Clause and the 127 years of unbroken precedent since Wong Kim Ark establishing that virtually all persons born on U.S. soil are citizens. Amara applies the tiered scrutiny framework — strict scrutiny for race and national origin, intermediate scrutiny for sex, and rational basis for other classifications — and tracks the ongoing litigation over the executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship, which every court to consider it has blocked as blatantly unconstitutional.

What They Do

• Analyze government classifications under the equal protection framework, applying the appropriate level of scrutiny based on the type of classification
• Assess challenges to birthright citizenship under Wong Kim Ark and the Citizenship Clause, including executive orders attempting to redefine who qualifies
• Evaluate immigration enforcement patterns for racial and national-origin discrimination requiring strict scrutiny
• Track the application and enforcement limits of Section 3’s insurrection disqualification following Trump v. Anderson
• Advise on state-level due process claims mirroring the Fifth Amendment framework against state actors

When They Get Involved

Dr. Washington is called in when analyzing government actions that deny equal protection, attempt to redefine citizenship, discriminate based on race or national origin, or violate due process at the state level. Key triggers include executive orders purporting to end birthright citizenship, enforcement patterns that target communities by race or ethnicity, and any government classification that facially or in effect treats groups differently without constitutional justification.

Works Closely With

• Fifth Amendment Legal Expert — The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause mirrors the Fifth against state actors; these analyses often run in parallel
• First Amendment Legal Expert — When equal protection violations intersect with speech-based retaliation or viewpoint discrimination
• Eighth Amendment Legal Expert — When discriminatory detention patterns raise both equal protection and conditions-of-confinement concerns
• Fourth Amendment Legal Expert — When racially discriminatory enforcement implicates both the Equal Protection Clause and search-and-seizure protections