Posts Tagged civic literacy
Burning Down the Village to Roast a Pig
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Education / Youth on March 19th, 2011
One of my favorite lines from a Supreme Court decision was delivered in the opinion striking down the mis-named “Internet Decency Act.” The Court compared the measure to burning down a village to roast a pig. The “pig” this time is the budget deficit, which is unquestionably a very significant problem. Unfortunately, Congress is attacking [...]
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Restoring Civic Literacy
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on February 18th, 2011
The following text is a speech I recently gave to the Indianapolis Chapter of the League of Women Voters about the abysmal state of historical/constitutional knowledge in America. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— When I was asked to speak, my “assignment”—or at least my intention—was to discuss one of my recent books, “Distrust, American Style.” In that book, I [...]
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A Constitutional Culture
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on January 23rd, 2011
In the wake of the horrific shooting in Tucson last month, PBS’ Mark Shields made an “only in America” observation. “This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a [...]
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Can We Rescue Civic Literacy?
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on September 23rd, 2009
My research focuses on something I call “Constitutional Culture.” The investigation of “constitutional culture” is considerably broader than legal analysis; it focuses upon the reciprocal relationship between our laws and legal norms and the broader culture within which those norms must be understood. In other words, I study how constitutional values operate within a very [...]
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