Constitutionally Speaking

In addition to working in Campus Ministry, I also teach two social studies classes and am the advisor for our Youth and Government program.  Thus, I was very excited to take four students to see former Supreme Court Justice David Souter speak in Concord on Friday night.  I've seen presidents, senators, governors, etc. but I've never seen a Supreme Court Justice speak.  It was quite exciting and we got front row seats.

Souter spoke with Margaret Warner of PBS about a number of topics but got very passionate about teaching Civics in schools.  He cited some statistics about the number of people who know very little about their government and echoed Thomas Jefferson saying something about those who don't know about their freedoms will cease to have them (or something like that).  One of our students, Joe Fahey '13, asked the first question during the Q&A and asked Souter how he would have voted on the health care law!  The crowd laughed and cheered and Souter had a huge smirk on his face.  He joked that he was taking a pass on the question but did talk about commerce and insurance (I kind of lost him to be honest!)

The kids truly enjoyed the evening which is a kick off to a year long program of events dedicated to Civics education in New Hampshire.  In addition to Joe, the students who joined me were Lydia Denis '13, Connor Fitzgerald '13, and Erica Fowler '13.