NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS SEMINAR LED BY LEGAL SCHOLAR AND UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

The new Patriot Act has far right and far left activists up in arms. Conservatives and liberals alike say it violates the Bill of Rights by allowing the federal government undisclosed entry into private email accounts, telephone conversations and financial records.

The deeper problem, say many scholars, is that few Americans even know what their rights are.

Utah State University president and legal scholar Kermit L. Hall has teamed with two political science professors and an award-winning high school teacher to create awareness of constitutional rights as part of a “We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution” program.

Since the inception of the We the People program in 1987, 26 million public school students and 82,000 educators have been introduced to the 1791 Bill of Rights, the piece of paper that guarantees their rights to worship as they wish, express their opinion without fear of a jail sentence, or read news, rather than government propaganda, in the newspaper.

But few have been taught by one of the country‚s most eminent legal scholars and a university president to boot.

Hall, Utah State professors Tony Peacock and Randy Simmons, and a former high school teacher, Stan Harris, will work with public and private school teachers from across the nation. Educators who participate will return to their classrooms with more knowledge about the role of individual citizens in a democracy.

The weeklong seminar explores constitutional rights from the United States, Canada and England, to South Africa. (The Patriot Act would not be allowed under the South African Bill of Rights.) Participants will be asked to evaluate the U.S. Bill of Rights, and they‚ll even get the opportunity to update the work of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, designing a “new” American Bill of Rights-an activity they‚ll then ask their students to do.

“The events of the past several years have made this discussion particularly relevant,” said Hall. “We give little thought to constitutional rights as we go about our day-to-day dealings, but these rights shape every aspect of our work, relationships and personal activities.”

Hall served as editor-in-chief to “The Oxford Companion to American Law,” co-edited “Constitutionalism and American Culture” and has published numerous books and articles about American constitutional and legal history. He was featured on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” in June 2003.

We the People is sponsored by the Center for Civic Education, which promotes civic competence and responsibility among young people. Students involved in the We the People program develop greater commitment to democratic values and political tolerance, according to a Stanford University study. A study conducted in Clark County, Nev., showed 80 percent of students participating in the program registered to vote, compared with the average of 37 percent.

The seminar begins, appropriately, two days after the fourth of July. For more information contact John DeVilbiss at john.devilbiss@usu.edu, or at 435-797-1358 or 770-0511.