I’M NOT EVEN SURE I KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS, BUT THE QUICK ANSWER IS “NO.”“Is civics education a ‘right’? Rhode Island case tests theory.”
Now 20 years old, Mr. Sesay is part of a lawsuit being decided by a Boston-based court of appeals this month that argues that students have a constitutional right to an adequate civics education.
The suit was filed in 2018, but some legal scholars say it’s taken on new significance following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, an event that the plaintiffs say underscored the need to teach students to distinguish fact from fiction, to disagree civilly, and to respect the peaceful transition of power. Democracy itself is in danger if citizens don’t understand how it works, they argue.
Attorneys for the state, however, argue that a ruling for the Rhode Island students would overreach, establishing a new “right” not found in the U.S. Constitution and usurping state and local authority over schools.
“The insurrection was part of a larger pattern of people showing a lack of understanding of how our system works,” says Martha Minow, a legal scholar at Harvard Law School who filed an amicus brief in the case. She pointed to surveys showing that close to half of Americans can’t name the three branches of government and nearly a third could imagine supporting a military coup.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, is deciding whether to reverse a lower court’s dismissal of the case and declare a constitutional right to an adequate civics education. In their appeal, the plaintiffs cite the January attack as evidence of the need for the courts to declare “that education for capable citizenship is a fundamental interest.”
Surely a proper civics education would include reading the Declaration of Independence, and what are the government’s teachers to do with the Declaration’s fourth self-evident truth, which says:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Question: who gets to define the meaning of a civics education? Pretty sure Martha Minow wouldn’t want the Declaration taught to America’s moms “domestic terrorists.” And if there is a right to a “civics” education, then surely there is a right to learn how to read, write, and calculate! But if the government is providing an education in these subjects but actually NOT providing an education in reading, writing, and arithmetic (see national test scores), then would the millions of people can’t do these things be able to sue the government?