Resolution Stresses Civic Education as a National Priority

Nearly two dozen civic education groups, with the encouragement of the Judicial Conference Judicial Branch Committee, have passed a resolution calling for civic education to be established as a high priority for all schools. Last summer, representatives of 22 national civic education groups met in Washington to explore ways to make civic education a high priority in schools and communities. The meeting was convened by the Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch, which had formed a Subcommittee on Civic Education, chaired by Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. (E.D. Cal.). Damrell’s objective as subcommittee chair has been to involve interested judges as resource persons available to educators and leaders concerned with social studies, civics, law-related education, and American history.

Participants at the meeting recognized that a high level of civic disengagement, especially among the young, demands a recommitment to education for active and effective citizenship, and that a concerted national effort is required to inform public opinion about the value of renewing the promise of American democracy and the rule of law through civic education. Further, public and academic action is needed, and the experience, expertise and leadership of civic education organizations is central to
fostering the civic mission of education. In the months following the meeting, participants formulated and endorsed a formal resolution that "civic education be established as a high priority for all educational institutions as vital to nurturing the democratic impulse and the civic participation of young Americans."

District Court Welcomes Future Jurors Judge Gladys Kessler (D.D.C.) answers questions from the "jury" during the March 2003 Open Doors to Federal Courts program at the District Court for the District of Columbia. Students from four area high schools participated in jury selection, a moot court hearing, and jury deliberation. In the process, they may have learned how their participation in jury service has a direct impact on the justice system. Seven of the courts’ judges, including Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who welcomed the participants, conducted trials and answered students’ questions. Prior to their court experience, students were prepared for the event by law students from American University’s Washington College of Law, and attorneys from the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter.