Citizenship as Foundation of Rights: Meaning for America

Richard Sobel ’71, a visiting scholar at Northwestern University, tackles the relationship between citizenship and the right to vote, right to employment, and right to travel in the U.S. in his new book Citizenship as Foundation of Rights (Cambridge University Press). Examining these issues through the lens of current political debates on topics from immigration to national identification systems, Sobel argues that these ID schemes contradict the constitutional rights guaranteed by American citizenship.