Filmmaker Ava DuVernay announced on Thursday, July 16, 2026, that she has directed a new documentary for Netflix focusing on the 14th Amendment, as reported by The Guardian.
The upcoming film, titled "14th," explores the constitutional amendment that granted citizenship and civil rights to formerly enslaved individuals after the American Civil War.
It remains a central point of political contention in the United States.
Scheduled for release later this year, the project marks DuVernay's return to nonfiction filmmaking.
It serves as a direct follow-up to her acclaimed 2016 documentary, "13th," which explored the legacy of the amendment abolishing slavery.
Political Context and Supreme Court Ruling
The announcement arrives as the 14th Amendment's protection of birthright citizenship faces ongoing political challenges from Donald Trump.
On the first day of his second presidential term, Trump signed an executive order to restrict birthright citizenship.
The U. S.
Supreme Court subsequently struck down that directive in June by a 6-3 majority vote.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 during the Reconstruction era, states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
This constitutional mandate effectively nullified the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling, which had declared that descendants of enslaved people could not hold American citizenship.
The new documentary will feature various politicians, historians, and cultural commentators discussing how the amendment evolved into an ongoing national debate.
"If 13th asked who gets caged, then 14th asks who gets counted," DuVernay said in a statement. "This is not a film about the past tense of freedom.
I’m not interested in asking you to look back.
The film asks what kind of country is being written beneath our feet now … while we’re busy believing the stories we’ve all been told."
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in the June ruling, upheld the constitutional guarantees that grant citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil.
"Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community.
The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’" wrote Roberts.
"We keep that promise today."
Trump has expressed strong opposition to the judicial outcome, pledging to continue challenging the birthright citizenship rule.
Following the Supreme Court's decision, Trump posted on Truth Social: "This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision."
