; Whereas the powerful statements by Justice Gorsuch and Justice Sotomayor followed a 2020 Supreme Court decision that questioned the continued validity of the Insular Cases, indicating that the Insular Cases should not be further extended ; Whereas Judge Juan Torruella, who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1984 until his death in 2020, labeled the territorial incorporation doctrine a doctrine of separate and unequal , writing that the Insular Cases represent classic Plessy v. Ferguson legal doctrine and thought that should be eradicated from present-day constitutional reasoning because they run contrary to the most basic precept for which this nation stands: the equality before the law of all its citizens ; Whereas Chief Judge Gustavo Gelpí, who has served on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico since 2006, has called the Insular Cases’ territorial incorporation doctrine a doctrine of pure judicial invention, with absolutely no basis in the Constitution and one that is contrary to all judicial precedent and territorial practice ; Whereas legal scholars with a wide range of views have criticized the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation doctrine, with prominent originalist legal scholar Gary Lawson writing that there is nothing in the Constitution that even intimates that express constitutional limitations on national power apply differently to different territories , and leading Constitutional Law Professor Sanford Levinson calling the Insular Cases central documents in the history of American racism ; Whereas the territorial incorporation doctrine established by the Insular Cases is still used to perpetuate the second-class treatment of Americans living in the territories, from the denial of citizenship, to the denial of voting rights, to the denial of equality in Federal benefits programs