Teaching Constitutional Law with the Marshall Brennan Program: Washington College of Law's Impact on High School Students

Summary

The Washington College of Law's Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project works to bridge the gap between the judicial system and the nation's educational system by providing curricula and legal training to high school students in the DC area. The Project uses a two-pronged approach: fellowships, where law students are placed in DC high schools to teach legal education to students; and moot court competitions, where students are trained and coached on constitutional law, as well as presented with a chance to practice their courtroom skills. The Project also offers a summer institute for teachers to become trained in the area of constitutional law. The Marshall-Brennan Project aims to equip high school students in the DC area with the knowledge and understanding of the U.S. Constitution, to introduce them to the judicial system, and to motivate them to pursue higher education.


The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project is an initiative of the Washington College of Law and is based on the teachings of US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The project works to increase the knowledge of the US Constitution amongst high schoolers and to increase the chances of them going on to higher education. The program has two major parts: The first is a fellowship program, where law students from the Washington College of Law are placed in DC high schools to teach students about the US Constitution. The fellowship program also aims to introduce students to the legal system and its specific legal doctrines. The second part of the program is the moot court competition, where students are trained and coached on constitutional law topics, such as free speech and the Fourth Amendment. They are also given the chance to showcase their knowledge and understanding.

The Marshall-Brennan Project has had a positive impact on the DC area, as high school students are being trained in the area of Constitutional Law. The program has also aided law students, as the fellows are able to gain real-world experience teaching in a classroom setting. The program has reached over 8000 high school students and law students since its inception in 1998. The goal of the project is to increase the number of high schoolers who go on to pursue a higher education.

The Washington College of Law's Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project is an educational initiative aimed to increase the understanding of the US Constitution among high school students in the District of Columbia. The two-pronged approach of the project includes fellowships, which place law students in high schools to teach students about constitutional law and provides a moot court competition, where students are trained and presented with a chance to showcase their knowledge. Since its inception in 1998, over 8000 high school and law students have been trained through the program, and the goal of the project is to increase the number of students who pursue higher education. The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project is an ambitious program that works to bridge the gap between the legal system and educational system in the DC area.
 

Bringing the Constitution to High School Classrooms

The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project was established in 1999 by the Washington College of Law at American University. The goal was to provide high school students the opportunity to study the Constitution and gain a better understanding of the legal system in our nation. The program is managed by a professor from American University's Washington College of Law and their partner professor from the Kogod School of Business. Through the program, the professors are able to provide legal education to over one thousand high school students in the local DC area, as well as other locations around the country.
 

Inspiring Youth to Understand the Constitution and Effective Lawyering

Now in its twentieth year, the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project has taught over ten thousand students the United States Constitution, effective lawyering skills, and the ability to identify and solve constitutional issues. The program has made a major impact on inspiring these young students to practice law and become part of the legal community. Through the program, students are also given the opportunity to enter an annual essay competition, which encourages them to research and write about constitutional issues.
 

Campus Program and Competition

In addition to the program in local high schools, the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project also runs a summer program on the American University campus. The program is held for seven weeks and during that time, students are taught about the Constitution, legal cases, and the various Supreme Court decisions. At the end of the summer, the students have the opportunity to take part in a Constitutional Law Mock Trial Competition. This competition enables the students to apply what they learned and use it in a courtroom setting.
 

Continuing to Inspire Students

The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project continues to benefit students each year by providing them with the opportunity to learn about the Constitution in a practical setting. Through the high school program, and the summer program on the campus of American University, students are given the opportunity to understand the Constitution and how it shapes the nation. This program provides them with a better understanding of the justice system and gives them the desire to pursue a career in the legal field.

Students from WCL (now joined by students from Howard University Law School as well) apply to become Marshall-Brennan fellows in the spring semester—usually of their first year. Approximately 40 law students are admitted to the program. The law students are assigned to teach a regular elective class on Constitutional Law in one of 18 participating area high schools. Many of the fellows teach in pairs.

There is "always an extraordinary interest" in the program among WCL students, says Professor Stephen Wermiel, who is the biographer of Justice Marshall and runs the program with Professor Raskin.

In the high school class, Washington College of Law students teach from We the Students: Supreme Court Cases For and About Students, written by Raskin. The book is designed as any law school casebook would be, with case examples and analysis. The difference is that the explanations are geared towards high school students, and the cases address Constitutional issues and cases involving schools, such as Fourth Amendment issues in locker searches and prayer in schools conflicting with the separation of church and state.

As the law students teach the high school students Constitutional Law, they themselves are learning it in a concurrent advanced law school course (all the law students complete basic Con Law in their first years at WCL). Half of each law school class session is spent discussing the finer points of the cases taught to the high school students; the other half is spent discussing teaching methods and sharing strategies.

The high school class is an approved course in the D.C. school system, and all Marshall-Brennan fellows are licensed as substitutes, says Wermiel. Fellows act as teachers, doing grading, planning lessons, going to back-to-school nights, doing parent conferences, and giving tests and grades. "That's a wake-up-call experience for a lot of them," says Wermiel.

Back at law school, the fellows "write splendid papers, because they are informed by their practical experiences in public schools," says Raskin. The law students are learning from the high school students, as well as the other way around. This is "not an ivory tower exercise," Raskin adds. The program works to "break down the barriers between the two Washingtons," says Raskin, referring to the wide gap between the federal government, its related institutions, and universities in the city, and the city's own residents and schools.

The program also empowers the district's students by teaching them their rights and how the court system works. Knowing the Constitution puts these students in a "stronger position just to be citizens and participants in our civic democracy," says Wermiel.

For the law students, in addition to the fact that the best way to learn something is to teach it, they are able to give back to the community, Wermiel adds.

While some WCL students attended the high schools in which they now teach, there have not yet been any Marshall-Brennan program high school alumni who have come to WCL for law school. As the program is only six years old, however, it is still early. "We're eagerly awaiting our first one," says Raskin.

The high school students not only learn how to analyze cases and how they relate to specific Constitutional Amendments, but also participate in a program-wide moot court competition. The students have one competition in the fall and one in the spring on one topic (this year, it's the juvenile death penalty). The moot panels are made up of lawyers, law professors, and even some district court judges.

Some students make arguments that are very similar to those made before the actual Supreme Court, says Marshall-Brennan fellow Fernando Amarillas. His students, like all those in the program, practiced their oral arguments in class and prepared cases based on the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

After the program competition, the local winners go to a national moot court competition. One of Amarillas' students will go to nationals. He is very proud of that student, adding, "I don't think I could have done it that well."

Even if these high school students do not decide to go to law school some day, the program gives them tremendous training. Being able to give an argument with concise supporting points and knowing their rights and the Constitution are all "wonderful benefits," says Amarillas, "It's information not many adults have."

Sometimes, just having a Marshall-Brennan fellow in a school can change the tone of conflicts that come up in the high schools themselves, says Raskin. In one participating high school, administrators planned to exclude an otherwise-qualified girl from honor society membership because she was pregnant. The Marshall-Brennan fellow there, able to participate in the school as much as other teachers would, was able to talk to administrators and helped work out a solution so the girl was not excluded.

In another school, a girl wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom, and was getting some heat from other students. "The fellow was able to change the discussion," says Raskin, to educate the students in the school on the girl's right to bring whom she chose as her date. Although it is not their main function, the fellows can inject some thought about Constitutional rights into everyday school life.

The Marshall-Brennan program is spreading to other law schools. In addition to the partnership with Howard University, the curriculum has been adopted at Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, and by Arizona State Law School. This March, there will be a meeting of current participating schools and other law schools considering adding the program.