The United States Constitution guarantees all citizens the same basic rights and privileges; however, citizens with criminal convictions are subject to a number of regulatory restrictions on fundamental rights (such as disenfranchisement, ineligibility for public housing and benefits, employment discrimination, etc.) regardless of the seriousness of the offense. These restrictions are called collateral consequences, and they effectively relegate citizens with criminal convictions to a state of second-class citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court has published several opinions construing Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment, also known as the Enabling Clause, as not only abolishing slavery but also empowering Congress to eradicate all badges and incidents of slavery. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has provided little guidance on what constitutes the badges and incidents of slavery, and Congress has scarcely used its authority under the Enabling Clause. The countless collateral consequences that follow criminal convictions are many of the same “badges and incidents of slavery” imposed on slaves during the institution of slavery, and Congress has the authority to eradicate them via the Enabling Clause.This Comment urges Congress to eliminate all collateral consequences that follow criminal convictions and puts forth a three-part analysis to aid courts in identifying modern badges and incidents of slavery.

The media is a vital source of information, especially in times of crisis. Since the 2019 novel coronavirus became a worldwide pandemic, it has become a frequent topic of discussion in the media, and its mysterious origin has caused lots of speculation regarding its roots. Historically, scientists have named novel diseases based on the country or region in which it was thought to have originated; however, in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) publicly discouraged this practice because of the stigma it tended to attach to people and places. Despite this warning and the WHO's deliberate name selection for the 2019 novel coronavirus — "COVID-19" — the media and many public figures, including former United States President Donald Trump, have consistently used stigmatizing language, such as "China virus," associating the virus with China because the first confirmed cases of the virus were discovered in Wuhan, China. Just as the WHO warned, this stigmatizing language has created a wave of violence and discrimination towards Asian Americans and caused considerable damage to U.S.-China relations. This Article explores the correlation between the presence of such stigmatizing rhetoric in the media and the damage to U.S.-China relations. It concludes by providing suggestions to combat the crisis of anti-Asian bias and xenophobia and encourages the U.S. and China to set aside their differences and work together to alleviate tensions and end the pandemic.