The constitutional setting changed after the Civil War. The Fourteenth Amendment placed new limits on the states, including the command that no state deprive any person of liberty without due process of law. The Supreme Court later treated many freedoms named in the Bill of Rights as part of that protected liberty. A First Amendment claim against Congress therefore rests directly on the First Amendment; the same claim against a city, state university, or public school reaches that government through the Fourteenth Amendment. The right is familiar, but the constitutional route is different.

The route depends on who acted. State legislatures, governors, state agencies, counties, municipalities, police departments, and public-school officials exercise government authority and can be bound by incorporated guarantees. A privately owned store, social club, or newspaper ordinarily is not a constitutional state actor merely because it is licensed or regulated. Private discrimination or misconduct may still violate a federal or state statute. In unusual cases, private conduct can count as state action when government is sufficiently responsible for it, but regulation alone does not erase the public-private line.

Work through a scenario before naming a doctrine. If a city police officer searches a home, identify local government action and then the Fourth Amendment protection carried through the Fourteenth Amendment. If a private landlord conducts the same search without police involvement, the constitutional search rule ordinarily is not the source of the tenant's claim, though statutes or property law may apply. If a federal agent conducts it, no Fourteenth Amendment bridge is needed. Actor first, source second, and conduct third is the safest order.

Video lesson: Civil Rights & Liberties: Crash Course Government & Politics #23