In September, forty-eight judges and one Supreme Court staff attorney visited schools across the state in celebration of Constitution Day. September 17, 2013 marked the 226th anniversary of the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia.
For decades September 17th was noted on calendars as “Citizenship Day,” but rarely received much attention.
That all changed in 2004 when Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia successfully included an amendment to the federal spending bill declaring September 17 as Citizenship and Constitution Day. The language of the provision also required federal agencies and educational institutions benefiting from federal dollars to provide programming about the Constitution on that day.
The Indiana Supreme Court, through its educational outreach project, Courts in the Classroom (CITC), has sponsored Constitution Day events since 2005. Offerings ranged from student programs in the Statehouse courtroom in Indianapolis to visits by Supreme Court Justices to classrooms of school children who submitted winning entries in statewide Constitution Day contests.
This year CITC partnered with the Indiana Judicial Conference Community Relations Committee (CRC) for its Constitution Day event. CRC emphasized having more kids involved in the program. More kids meant more judges. To achieve this objective, Judge Gail Bardach (Hamilton County Superior Court), chair of the CRC, asked judicial officers throughout the state to visit a school. At the same time, CITC posted the information to its website and sent a notice advising teachers that judges were being encouraged to visit schools.
See more photos from Constitution Day 2013 on Flickr
Interested judges registered via a form on surveymonkey.com. The form gathered basic information such as the name of the school they intended to visit, the grade level of the class, and an approximate number of students. CITC sent judges who registered by September 5th a pocket Constitution to hand out to each student.
The result? Our Indiana judges celebrated the U.S. and Indiana Constitutions by visiting about 133 classes and more than 3,700 students, ranging from the kindergarteners seen by Magistrate Kimberly Schmaltz in Ohio/Dearborn County to the college students joined by retired Judge Lorenzo Arredondo in Lake County. The visits inspired both the students and the presenters. Judge Mary Willis (Henry County) wrote, “The students at New Castle High School were engaged and had lots of questions. These programs are wonderful reminders of why we love our jobs!”
This was truly a statewide outreach. Judges from the Indiana appellate courts and the following county and city courts participated: Allen, Brown, Bunker Hill, Daviess, Dearborn, Elkhart, Grant, Greene, Hamilton, Hendricks, Henry, Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Marion, Miami, Monroe, Newton, Ohio, Pike, Putnam, Shelby, Tippecanoe, Wayne, and Whitley. This information includes only the judges who participated in the activity sponsored by the Community Relations Committee and Courts in the Classroom. Numerous other judges participated in Constitution Day activities around the state, but we do not have specific data to include in this article.
What did the judges talk about with all of these students? CITC created an activity that focused on the amendment process: how amendments are proposed, how amendments are ratified, and the differences in this process between the U.S. and Indiana Constitutions. The activity was posted on CITC’s Constitution Day web page.
Of course, this material was just a jumping off point. Judges were encouraged to modify the lesson to meet their personal preferences, and the age/ability level of the classes visited. In a follow up survey, judges reported that they often began with the amendment activities, but then followed up with topics suggested by students in each class. For example, one presenter “shortened [one of the activities] and also added some other interesting tidbits [from] Indiana history in order to add a little more color to the discussion of the Indiana Constitution.”
This mass of Constitution-toting judges did not go unnoticed by the press. In advance of September 17 stories appeared in the Indiana Lawyer and on WFYI public radio (Indianapolis). Newspapers and a few TV stations across the state provided coverage of the judges’ classroom visits—including several front page stories in papers like the Rensselaer Republican and the Noblesville Times.
Emails from participating judges around the state demonstrate that the Constitution Day celebration was a hit with both students and judges. One hundred percent of the judges who filled out the follow-up survey indicated that they would be interested in participating in future Constitution Day programs. Many are already planning on participating next year—and trying to recruit even more of their colleagues. Watch for details in August about Constitution Day 2014.