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Insular Cases

The Insular Cases are a series of opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1901 about the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish–American War.[1] Some scholars also include cases regarding territorial status decided up until 1914, and others include related cases as late as 1979. The term "insular" signifies that the territories were islands administered by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs. Today, the categorizations and implications put forth by the Insular Cases still govern the United States' territories.

When the war ended in 1898, the United States had to answer the question of whether or not people in newly acquired territories were citizens, a question the country had never faced before. The preliminary answer came from a series of Supreme Court rulings, now known as the Insular Cases, which responded to the question of how American constitutional rights apply to those in United States territories. The Supreme Court held that full constitutional protection of rights does not automatically (or ex proprio vigore—i.e., of its own force) extend to all places under American control. This meant that inhabitants of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico—"even if they are U.S. citizens"—may lack some constitutional rights (e.g., the right to remain part of the United States in case of de-annexation)[2] because they were not part of the United States. Today, many legal scholars such as José Julián Álvarez González, Christina Burnett, and others[3][4] refer to the Insular Cases as a constitutional justification for colonialism and annexation of places not within United States boundaries.[5] The Insular Cases "authorized the colonial regime created by Congress, which allowed the United States to continue its administration—and exploitation—of the territories acquired from Spain after the Spanish–American War."[6] These Supreme Court rulings allowed for the United States government to extend unilateral power over these newly acquired territories.

The Court also established the doctrine of territorial incorporation, under which the Constitution applied fully only in incorporated territories such as Alaska and Hawaii. Incorporated territories are those that the United States Congress deems on a path to statehood. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution applied only partially in the newly unincorporated Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The Supreme Court created the distinction that unincorporated territories were not on the path to statehood, which effectively allowed for the Constitution to apply differently.[7]

The rulings are widely considered racist.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] The Downes v. Bidwell called the people of the insular areas "alien races" and the DeLima v. Bidwell ruling termed them "savage tribes."[11] The Downes v. Bidwell case further suggested that "the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles" of "alien races" "may for a time be impossible". The District Court of the Virgin Islands called out the cases' "racist doctrine" and the era's "intrinsically racist imperialism".[8]

  1. ^ Lin, Tom C.W. (2019). "Americans, Almost and Forgotten". California Law Review. 107. SSRN 3454210.
  2. ^ Levinson, Sanford & Sparrow, Bartholomew H. (2005). "Introduction". The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion: 1803–1898. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 9780742549838. OCLC 58976044 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ "Professor Christina Burnett Testifies on Status of Puerto Rico". Columbia Law School. June 2, 2010. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  4. ^ Burnett, Christina Duffy; Marshall, Burke; Joseph, Gilbert M.; Rosenberg, Emily S. "Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution". BiblioVault. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  5. ^ Meléndez, Edgardo (Spring 2013). "Citizenship and the Alien Exclusion in the Insular Cases: Puerto Ricans in the Periphery of American Empire". Centro. 25 (1): 106–145.
  6. ^ Torruella, Juan (Fall 2013). "Ruling America's Colonies: The 'Insular Cases'" (PDF). Yale Law & Policy Review. 32 (1): 57–95. JSTOR 23736226.
  7. ^ "Chapter Three: American Samoa and the Citizenship Clause: A Study in Insular Cases Revisionism". Harvard Law Review. 130 (6: Developments in the Law–The U.S. Territories): 1680–1693. April 2017. PDF Archived 2017-10-27 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ a b Neuman, Gerald L.; Brown-Nagin, Tomiko (May 25, 2015). Reconsidering the Insular Cases: The Past and Future of the American Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-9796395-9-3. Archived.
  9. ^ Fitzpatrick, Peter (May 2, 2001). Modernism and the Grounds of Law. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00253-0. Archived.
  10. ^ Wiecek, William M. (2001). The Lost World of Classical Legal Thought: Law and Ideology in America, 1886-1937. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514713-1. Archived.
  11. ^ a b Cepeda Derieux, Adriel I. Cepeda; Ortiz, Alejandro Agustin (February 10, 2022). "The Most Racist Supreme Court Cases You've Probably Never Heard Of | News & Commentary". American Civil Liberties Union. Archived from the original on February 1, 2024. Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  12. ^ "Backgrounder on Campaign to Overrule Insular Cases". Equally American. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  13. ^ Bernal, Rafael (August 10, 2022). "Supreme Court faces new pressure to reconsider racist 'Insular Cases'". The Hill. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  14. ^ Mack, Doug (October 9, 2017). "The Racist Supreme Court Cases That Cemented Puerto Rico's Second-Class Status". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2022.

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