At first, some grumbled and noted the irony. A new federal law requiring schools to teach about the Constitution didn’t seem to fit the spirit of the document they were supposed to celebrate.
But when the day came, schools and colleges showed there are as many ways to honor the nation’s founding charter as there are to interpret it.
A law passed last year requires the federal government and any school receiving federal funding to organize Constitution-related activities on or about Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787. With that day falling on a Saturday this year, many events took place on Friday.
At numerous schools, that meant watching broadcasts of talks by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer on the Constitution, or a debate on “free speech in the digital age” at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Elsewhere, teachers and students re-enacted the debates of the founding fathers or followed lesson plans put out by civic groups.
But colleges seemed to have the most fun complying with the law. A professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut set the Bill of Rights to music. Wittenberg College in Ohio offered a year of free pizza to the winner of a Constitution essay contest, and served “presidential pierogies” and “patriotic pasta” in the cafeteria. Boston University organized a panel on peer-to-peer file-sharing featuring a producer named DJ Cheap Cologne.
Other schools planned their activities next week. Marlboro College in Vermont was organizing a samba parade of faculty dressed as articles and amendments.
That probably wasn’t what West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, who carries a copy of the Constitution in his pocket, had in mind when he inserted the measure into a giant spending bill last year. But in a telephone interview Friday, Byrd said fun was fine.
“I am pleased with the enthusiasm that teachers and students and educators all over the country are showing,” said Byrd, who en route to a Constitution lecture at Shepherd University in his home state. “They seem to be interested in this Constitution more than ever.”
The law applies to schools of all shapes and sizes – including Irene’s Myomassology Institute, a massage school in Southfield, Mich. that had to comply because some students get federal financial aid.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
