For much of the twentieth century, the U.S. government authorized and invested heavily in segregation and racial inequality. Often it did so through federal programs authorized under Congress’s Spending Clause powers. Federal spending allowed powerful national investments in areas like health, education, and housing but frequently created segregated hospitals, schools, and communities. From the New Deal onward, Black leaders pressed constitutional arguments to hold the federal government responsible for its role in deepening racial inequality. Early on, federal lawyers and administrators recognized the strength of those arguments but explicitly decided against halting federal involvement in Jim Crow.

Decades later, the civil rights advocates prevailed. By the 1970s, the federal courts overwhelmingly agreed that the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection component barred federal subsidies or support for racial discrimination. The same “noaid” principle was codified in the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, from the 1980s onward, this hard-won constitutional mandate became increasingly difficult to enforce, blocked by judicially constructed procedural obstacles. The substantive Fifth Amendment ideal of preventing the federal government from aiding systemic discrimination receded because of increasing challenges to its substance, judicial fatigue with institutional oversight, and the sweeping scope of the problem—along with collective amnesia regarding the prior decades of constitutional struggle.

This Article reveals that forgotten constitutional history. After excavating the Fifth Amendment struggles, I argue that the no-aid norm, and the underlying reality of long-term federal participation in racial apartheid, should be remembered and debated once again. The costs of forgetting the constitutional principle and its history are significant: Civil rights frameworks have been distorted, leaving no systemic check or means of redress for the discriminatory use of federal funds. Further, the nation’s constitutional memory and deliberations have been shortchanged, leaving us unable to reckon with the past honestly and adequately. Our polity should again debate federal constitutional responsibility for Spending Clause programs, and, in doing so, confront the nation’s obligation to repair the apartheid it once bankrolled.

在 20 世纪的大部分时间里，美国政府授权并大力投资于种族隔离和种族不平等。通常它是通过根据国会支出条款权力授权的联邦计划来实现的。联邦支出允许在卫生、教育和住房等领域进行强有力的国家投资，但经常创建隔离的医院、学校和社区。从新政开始，黑人领导人通过宪法论证要求联邦政府对其在加深种族不平等方面的作用负责。早些时候，联邦律师和行政人员认识到这些论点的力量，但明确决定不停止联邦对 Jim Crow 的参与。

几十年后，民权倡导者占了上风。到 1970 年代，联邦法院压倒性地同意第五修正案的平等保护部分禁止联邦补贴或支持种族歧视。1964 年具有里程碑意义的《民权法案》也将同样的“noaid”原则编入法典。然而，从 1980 年代开始，这项来之不易的宪法授权变得越来越难以执行，受到司法构建的程序障碍的阻碍。由于对其实质的挑战越来越大，司法对制度监督的疲劳以及问题的广泛范围，以及对前几十年宪法斗争的集体失忆，第五修正案中防止联邦政府帮助系统性歧视的实质性理想消退了。

这篇文章揭示了被遗忘的宪法历史。在挖掘了第五修正案的斗争之后，我认为应该再次记住和辩论无援助规范以及联邦长期参与种族隔离的潜在现实。忘记宪法原则及其历史的代价是巨大的：民权框架已经被扭曲，对联邦资金的歧视性使用没有留下系统性的检查或补救手段。此外，国家的宪法记忆和审议已被缩短，使我们无法诚实和充分地回顾过去。我们的政体应该再次辩论联邦宪法对支出条款计划的责任，并在这样做时面对国家修复它曾经资助的种族隔离的义务。