Dr. Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative and professor of history at the University of St. Thomas, co-authored an op-ed published by The Conversation. Amid the deployment of federal agents in Minnesota, the concern for constitutional protections is explored, particularly the First, Second, Fourth and 10th Amendments. The piece reflects on the national history of federal intervention, and homes in on Minnesota’s history with law enforcement.
From the op-ed:
Forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant. Arresting journalists who reported on protests. Defying dozens of federal orders. Killing U.S. citizens for noncompliance. Asking constitutionally protected observers this chilling question: “Have you not learned?”
This is daily life in Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge, ostensibly an immigration enforcement initiative, has become something more consequential: a constitutional stress test. Can constitutional protections withstand the actions of a federal government seemingly intent on aggressively violating the rule of law?
In Minneapolis, a city still reckoning with its own grim history of policing, the federal operation raises fundamental questions about law enforcement and the limits of executive power.
Legal scholars and civil rights advocates are especially worried about ongoing violations of the First, Second, Fourth and 10th Amendments, as are other observers, including historians like us.
