American University Washington College of Law Hosts Local High School Students for Moot Court Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 13, 2009 – Local high school students from D.C. and Maryland will argue a hypothetical case about the First Amendment rights of high school students as part of the William H. Karchmer Local Spring High School Moot Court Competition, run by the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project of American University Washington College of Law. The event will be held at the law school on Saturday, March 14, from 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. The final round will be judged by U.S. Judge John Facciola and D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Inez Smith-Reid and Professor and State Senator Jamin Raskin.
Between twenty-eight and thirty-three public and charter high school students from the Washington, D.C. area will compete against each other in a fictitious appellate argument based on a free speech issue involving the posting of an editorial critical of a school principal on a student’s website.
The high schools represented in the local competition include: D.C.’s Bell Multicultural, Eastern, Paul Public Charter, Roosevelt, and Wilson high schools; and Kennedy High School in Silver Spring. The competitors were chosen based on in-class competitions held over the past two weeks.
The moot court competitions are a part of the Washington College of Law Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, a unique and highly acclaimed program where law students teach constitutional law in local high schools teaching students about their constitutional rights and responsibilities. The curriculum is based on the book We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About Students (CQ Press and the Supreme Court Historical Society, 2008). Written by WCL Law Professor Jamin B. Raskin, We the Students examines 35 actual cases heard by the Supreme Court that deal with the constitutional rights of students. Issues addressed in the book include such topics as religion in public schools; prayer at school athletic events; illegal locker searches; random drug testing of athletes; sexual harassment in schools and student free speech issues. The curriculum also uses a second book, Youth Justice in America, written by Maryam Ahranjani, Jamin Raskin, and Andrew Ferguson (CQ Press, 2005), which uses Supreme Court criminal procedure and juvenile justice decisions.
To arrange to attend the competition, contact Steve Wermiel at (240) 472-2444; for more information on this event or on American University Washington College of Law, please contact Jason Policastro at (202) 895-4537, or via email at policastro@wcl.american.edu.
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