A group of William & Mary Law School students are making sure Williamsburg residents are as familiar with the U.S. Constitution as they are with the Declaration of Independence.
Thursday marks the beginning of the fifth series of “Constitutional Conversations,” which begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Williamsburg Regional Library.
The series is run by students at the law school, and is sponsored by the law school’s Institute of Bill of Rights Law.
Over its five-year history, the series has dealt with constitutional issues ranging from the modern application of the 14th Amendment to how the right to privacy applies to students.
Organizers pay attention to media trends — and the Supreme Court docket — to choose topics for upcoming conversations that would be relevant to the community.
Thursday’s event is planned to be a meta-conversation on the series itself, exploring the importance of instruction on the history and development of the U.S. Constitution.
The event includes a panel discussion, featuring Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman, Executive Director of the Constitutional Sources Project Julie Silverbrook, and Frances Burroughs, director of educational program development for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Silverbrook, a 2012 William & Mary law school graduate, said constitutional knowledge was an essential element of American civics.
“It’s something all citizens should be thinking about on a regular basis,” she said.
Silverbrook’s belief in the importance of the constitution was one of the motivations behind the creation of the Constitutional Conversations series.
The program began in 2010, emerging out of an earlier law school initiative, known as the Hampton Roads Project. The earlier program focused on reaching out to middle and high school students across the region and engaging them in conversations on constitutional issues.
Silverbrook worked with the Hampton Roads Project as a student volunteer, but said finding available class time to connect with students was difficult.
Despite the difficulties the Project encountered, Silverbrook said she thought the subject matter was too important to abandon the effort entirely. Instead of working through the schools, the program would connect directly with members of the public.
“I thought we could take it out of the classroom and make it a more public conversation,” she said.
The program was moved to the Williamsburg Regional Library and reconfigured as a conversation, rather than a lecture. A panel of law students deliver a presentation on a constitutional issue or question, such as the scope of the commerce clause. The panelists then respond to questions with audience members, or engage in a dialogue on the question with the audience. That format has remained essentially unchanged over the five series.
Silverbrook said the biggest change to the series in five years was the level of participation from attendees.
“I’ve heard from some people who said they’ve felt inspired to run for elected office and became more engaged in things like local government [because of the series],” she said.
Silverbrook also said she thought the Constitutional Conversations exemplified one of the key qualities the William & Mary Law School encourages in its future attorneys.
“One of the fundamental concepts of William & Mary Law School is this idea of the citizen lawyer,” she said. “This program embodies that conception of the citizen lawyer by engaging with the community and leading them through these important constitutional issues.”
The first Constitutional Conversation of the 2015 series is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Williamsburg Regional Library. It is free and open to the public. For more information on the event, contact Co-Director Violet Boggs at 757-919-1619.
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