Civic Thought and Deliberation

Many posts have discussed deliberation.

Civic Thought: A Proposal for University-Level Civic Education b Benjamin Storey & Jenna Silber Storey at the American Enterprise Institute

• There is widespread, bipartisan concern that American universities are not adequately preparing students for citizenship. The most ambitious efforts to attend to this problem to date have been undertaken by Republican-led state legislatures, which have mandated that state universities create new academic units for civic education.
• While this innovation has been undertaken to meet political needs, its success or failure will be determined by academic standards. To meet those standards, these new academic units will need to define and execute a distinctive intellectual mission.
• An intellectual mission in the fullest sense requires a coherent program of teaching and research in a specific and demanding discipline. This report sketches the outlines of such a program, which we call “Civic Thought.” As its core elements are derived from a consideration of the intellectual demands of citizenship, it may be useful to all those working toward the renewal of university-level civic education.

.In a democratic republic such as our own, citizens need to learn howto deliberate with others who have different perspectives and experiences. They need to be capable of evaluating different arguments and considering different needs as they consider the best possible course of action for the country as a whole.

...

Contemporary citizens should learn to consult and evaluate different forms ofexpertise in the course of deliberating between alternative courses of action. Insofar as the citizen’s responsibility is, however, for the whole of our common life in all its complexity, political decisions cannot be derived from the counsel of any particular specialist.

...

 Since citizens need to learn to deliberate together about problems that call for action, the approach of Civic Thought is best characterized by a phrase borrowed from Hannah Arendt—the “willingness to take joint responsibility” for the problems one’s country faces and the remedies that might be employed to address them. For example, while considering the national debt, scholars of Civic Thought would consider it as our problem, and they would inquire into how fiscal accountability might be restored without neglecting areas where spending is truly necessary. The willingness to take joint responsibility for the challenges facing one’s country means, in Arendt’s words, refusing to adopt a posture of “estrangement” from it, an attitude of unquenchable “dissatisfaction . . . and disgust with things as they are,” and striving rather to understand oneself as implicated, for better and worse, in the unfolding history of one’s political community

Holocaust Denial

 Nick Robertson at The Hill

A fifth of Americans ages 18-29 believe the Holocaust was a myth, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov. While the question only surveyed a small sample of about 200 people, it lends credence to concerns about rising antisemitism, especially among young people in the U.S. Another 30 percent of young people said they didn’t agree or disagree with the statement, while the remaining 47 percent disagreed. Only 7 percent of Americans overall believe the Holocaust is a myth, according to the poll.

 Congress and the White House have placed special attention on fighting antisemitism in recent weeks as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues to divide public opinion. Leaders of top universities were grilled by a House committee this week on the topic, drawing criticism for vague answers on what comments constituted antisemitic harassment. About a third of Americans described antisemitism as a “very serious problem” in the poll, with just more than a quarter of young people saying the same. 

On Friday, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), introduced a bill to reauthorize the Never Again Education Act, providing federal funding for Holocaust education. “Failing to educate students about the gravity and scope of the Holocaust is a disservice to the memory of its victims and to our duty to prevent such atrocities in the future,” Rosen said in a statement. “At a time of rising antisemitism, reauthorizing the bipartisan Never Again Education Act will help ensure that educators have the resources needed to teach students about the Holocaust and help counter antisemitic bigotry and hate.”

From a 2018 survey by the Claims Conference

• Nearly one-third of all Americans (31 percent) and more than 4-in-10 Millennials (41 percent) believe that substantially less than 6 million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust
• While there were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, almost half of Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one – and this percentage is even higher amongst Millennials

 The survey asked an open-ended question: "From what you know or have heard, what was Auschwitz? 

......................................................All adults ..................Under 35

Concentration camp ........................40% ............................22% 

Death/extermination camp ..............23% ............................11% 

Forced labor camp ............................1% ...............................2% 

Other ................................................21% ............................31% 

Not sure ...........................................20% .............................35%

Civil Juries

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Lawrence/Mayer ed., p. 274):

Juries, especially civil juries, instill some of the habits of the judicial mind into every citizen, and just those habits are the very best way of preparing people to be free.

It spreads respect for the courts' decisions and for the idea of rights throughout all classes. With those two elements gone, love of independence is merely a destructive passion. 

Juries teach men equity in practice. Each man, when judging his neighbor, thinks that he may be judged himself. That is especially true of juries in civil suits; hardly anyone is afraid that he will have to face a criminal trial, but anybody may have a lawsuit.

Juries teach each individual not to shirk responsibility for his own acts, and without that manly characteristic no political virtue is possible.

Declines in Civics and History Proficiency

 Donna St. George at WP:

Just 13 percent of the nation’s eighth graders were proficient in U.S. history last year, and 22 percent were proficient in civics, marking another decline in performance during the pandemic and sounding an alarm about how well students understand their country and its government.

The findings, released Wednesday, show a five-point slide since 2018 in the average history score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, often called “the nation’s report card.” In civics, eighth grade scores fell two points, the first decline ever recorded on the tests, which cover the American political system, principles of democracy and other topics.

Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, referred to the results as “a national concern,” saying that “too many of our students are struggling … to understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government works and the historical significance of events.”

Youth Civic Engagement

From the Brennan Center:

Civic engage­ment is a key indic­ator of adult­hood. Young adults respond to the social and polit­ical issues of the day in a vari­ety of ways. After the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020, young people demon­strated against racial injustice in more than 10,000 peace­ful protests around the coun­try.

foot­note1_g6xcuor1 That fall saw record numbers of youth turn out for the pres­id­en­tial elec­tion; half of eligible voters ages 18–29 parti­cip­ated, compared with 39 percent in 2016. foot­note2_3ycctnz2 Climate change like­wise cata­lyzed young people, as nearly 30 percent of Gener­a­tion Z and Millen­ni­als made dona­tions, contac­ted public offi­cials, volun­teered, or protested, surpass­ing Gener­a­tion X and Baby Boomers. foot­note3_pisb­s1c3 Young people are commonly assumed to be disen­gaged, disil­lu­sioned, and unin­ter­ested in civic life. These trends chal­lenge that propos­i­tion.

Research­ers have consist­ently found that early civic engage­ment is mutu­ally bene­fi­cial to young people and to the communit­ies in which they parti­cip­ate. For example, devel­op­mental psycho­lo­gist Parissa Ballard and colleagues found that early civic engage­ment is asso­ci­ated with posit­ive health outcomes later in life. Voting, volun­teer­ing, and activ­ism in young adult­hood were related to improved mental health, greater educa­tional attain­ment, and higher personal and house­hold incomes. foot­note4_n49aljr4 Beyond these indi­vidual bene­fits, young adults are import­ant contrib­ut­ors to their local communit­ies. Tufts University’s Center for Inform­a­tion and Research on Civic Learn­ing and Engage­ment (CIRCLE) projec­ted that in the 2020 elec­tion cycle, young adults would play a partic­u­larly import­ant role in the pres­id­en­tial battle­ground states Wiscon­sin, North Caro­lina, and Flor­ida, as well as in Senate races in Color­ado, Maine, and Montana and congres­sional races in Iowa’s 1st District, Maine’s 2nd, and Geor­gi­a’s 7th. foot­note5_9alq4i75 The youth vote proved decis­ive in several states where the margin of victory was less than 50,000 votes, includ­ing Arizona, Geor­gia, and Pennsylvania. foot­note6_um60jqh6

National legis­la­tion and educa­tional policy reflect the import­ance of prepar­ing young people to become engaged and parti­cip­at­ory members of soci­ety. Recog­niz­ing the mutual bene­fits of community service for the advance­ment of communit­ies and the well-being of young people, Congress passed the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. The first law created the Commis­sion on National and Community Service to support school-based service-learn­ing programs, volun­teer and service programs in higher educa­tion, youth corps, and national service models; the second merged the commis­sion with the National Civil­ian Community Corps to estab­lish the Corpor­a­tion for National and Community Service, to support volun­teer and service oppor­tun­it­ies for all Amer­ic­ans. In 2009 Congress passed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve Amer­ica Act, reau­thor­iz­ing and expand­ing national and community service legis­la­tion to support lifelong volun­teer­ism and community service. Through these acts, Congress has emphas­ized the need for civic engage­ment, which helps youth become informed citizens as well as active members of their communit­ies through­out their life­time.

School curricula rein­force the expect­a­tion that young people will become engaged citizens. Accord­ing to the Center for Amer­ican Progress, 40 states and the District of Columbia require a civics course for high school gradu­ation, and 16 states require a civics exam to gradu­ate. However, only Mary­land and the District of Columbia require community service for all high school gradu­ates. foot­note7_eslmnjr7

1 Armed Conflict Loca­tion & Event Data Project (here­in­after ACLED), Demon­stra­tions and Polit­ical Viol­ence in Amer­ica: New Data for Summer 2020, Septem­ber 2020, https://acled­data.com/2020/09/03/demon­stra­tions-polit­ical-viol­ence-in-amer­ica-new-data-for-summer-2020/.
foot­note2_3ycctnz
2 Center for Inform­a­tion and Research on Civic Learn­ing and Engage­ment (here­in­after CIRCLE), “Half of Youth Voted in 2020, an 11-Point Increase from 2016,” April 29, 2021, https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-2020–11-point-increase-2016.
foot­note3_pisb­s1c
3 Alec Tyson, Brian Kennedy, and Cary Funk, “Gen Z, Millen­ni­als Stand Out for Climate Change Activ­ism, Social Media Engage­ment with Issue, ” Pew Research Center, May 26, 2021, https://www.pewre­search.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millen­ni­als-stand-out-for-climate-change-activ­ism-social-media-engage­ment-with-issue/.
foot­note4_n49aljr
4 Parissa J. Ballard, Lind­say T. Hoyt, and Mark C. Pachucki, “Impacts of Adoles­cent and Young Adult Civic Engage­ment on Health and Socioeco­nomic Status in Adult­hood, ” Child Devel­op­ment 90, no. 4 (2019): 1138–54, https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12998.
foot­note5_9alq4i7
5 CIRCLE, “Youth Elect­oral Signi­fic­ance Index (YESI), ” last updated August 18, 2020, https://circle.tufts.edu/yesi2020.
foot­note6_um60jqh
6 CIRCLE, “Elec­tion Week 2020: Young People Increase Turnout, Lead Biden to Victory, ” Novem­ber 25, 2020, https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/elec­tion-week-2020#young-voters-and-youth-of-color-powered-biden-victory.
foot­note7_eslmnjr
7 Sarah Shapiro and Cath­er­ine Brown, “The State of Civics Educa­tion,

Civic Education and Civic Virtue

 Albert Cheng and Jay Greene at National Affairs:

Civic education does not occur merely within the life of the school; it also occurs in homes, neighborhoods, the marketplace, religious institutions, and any other voluntary association in which individuals gather with others to unite around a common purpose. It is within the context of these communities that people learn to seek the interest of others instead of their own and to work together for their mutual flourishing. It is where they practice virtues like showing kindness, hospitality, and charity to others. It is also where they practice having the courage to defend their convictions or compromising to build coalitions with those whose views may not fully align with their own. These and other "habits of the heart," as the late sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues articulated nearly 40 years ago, are cultivated in all spheres of civil society. Schools are but one of the many institutions where this kind of formation happens.

Civic education, then, requires a kind of knowledge. But not merely civic knowledge, narrowly understood as knowledge of history and government institutions; it also requires knowledge of ultimate things — of truth, goodness, and beauty — so that a flourishing polis can be discerned.

Civic education likewise requires training in a kind of skill. But not merely civic skill, narrowly understood as possessing competencies in democratic procedures like voting, petitioning, assembling, or staying informed; it also requires cultivation of habits that give rise to the practices of good citizens. In sum, civic education requires the cultivation of civic virtue for making sense of civic knowledge and guiding the application of civic skills.

The "Lincoln-Douglass" Debates!

Gillian Brockell at WP:

Of all the paragraphs in a bill to ban “divisive concepts” from being taught in Virginia public schools, Section B3 may have seemed the most innocuous. After all, it was in the part of the proposal that defined what could actually be taught in history classes, not the myriad things that would be banned or the consequences teachers could face for teaching them, including prosecution and getting fired.

Section B3 of the bill, which was sponsored by Republican freshman Del. Wren Williams, defined what could be taught as “the founding documents,” like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, excerpts from the Federalist Papers, the writings of the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic “Democracy in America.” Oh, and one more thing: “the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.”

It was a clear reference to the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of the high points in this country’s intellectual, moral and civic history, but there’s just one problem: Lincoln did not debate Frederick Douglass.

 By Friday morning, Frederick Douglass was trending on Twitter, and the bill had been withdrawn.

Frederick Douglass: "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/4398

Case on Civic Education

Mark Walsh at Education Week:

Students asserting the right to an adequate civics education have lost their appeal of a federal court ruling that dismissed their suit accusing the state of Rhode Island of failing to prepare them for the duties of citizenship.

Like the federal district judge who had ruled in the case, now known as A.C. v. McKee, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston, lauded the student plaintiffs for their effort but ultimately concluded that their suit could not prevail.

“The students have called attention to critical issues of declining civic engagement and inadequate preparation for participation in civic life at a time when many are concerned about the future of American democracy,” a unaninous three-judge appeals panel said in an unanimous Jan. 11 decision.“Nevertheless, the weight of precedent stands in the students’ way here, and they have not stated any viable claim for relief.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2018 on behalf of 14 students, but was also a proposed class action on behalf of all public school students in Rhode Island. It alleged that state officials have failed to provide students with a meaningful opportunity to obtain an adequate education to prepare them to be capable citizens.

Lawlessness

 Gary Schmitt at AEI:

A recent Washington Post poll has some 34 percent of U.S. adults saying that “violent action” against the government is “sometimes justified.” If more than a third of “adults” are willing to hold such a view, it is not difficult to imagine how an even greater percentage think it is okay to ignore laws and norms that don’t require putting up one’s fists or worse.

In preparation to moderating an event in late December featuring Diana Schaub’s new book, His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation, I re-read the three speeches featured in the volume: the Lyceum Address, the Gettysburg Address, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. The Lyceum Address, in which Lincoln discusses the challenges of perpetuating America’s governing institutions, is particularly apt for thinking about the meaning of January 6.

Lincoln’s argument, prefiguring the famous line from Pogo that “We have met the enemy and he is us,” was that the danger of sustaining the experiment in American self-government would not be some conquering foreign power, but instead “would spring up amongst us.” “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” Lincoln then goes on to describe several instances of mob violence that he said had been plaguing the whole of the nation.

Lincoln’s answer to this problem is a “reverence for the laws” so deeply held that it becomes “the political religion of the nation.” How deeply? Deeply enough to moderate American individualism and its propensity to resist any restraint. Let it, Lincoln said,

be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

Needless to say, that is a far cry from the state of U.S. civic education today, in which STEM dominates school curriculums and where the Left emphasizes activism as the key to producing model citizens, while the Right focuses on testing that often only requires a bare minimum of knowledge of U.S. government processes.

The very fact that, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, two-thirds of Republicans—“the law and order party”—don’t see what happened at the Capitol on January 6 as an attack on the government is remarkable. No less remarkable is the continuing silence from virtually all the Republican leadership in describing the events of that day for what they were. Failing to call the insurrection out for what it was—an assault on the constitutional order itself—and hoping that it will just fade away as a memory implicitly legitimates what occurred then and does next to nothing to head off future mobs from pursuing the same course.

Campus Free Speech

The Bipartisan Policy Center has a new report titled “Campus Free Expression: A New Roadmap.” From the executive summary:

• First, colleges and universities must address the perceived tension that pits academic freedom and freedom of expression against diversity, equity, and inclusion in creating a respectful learning environment for all. While not ignoring that there may be expression that is hurtful, we believe profoundly that free expression is an essential means to an inclusive campus in addition to being essential to higher education’s academic and civic missions.
• Second, colleges and universities should take steps to encourage more viewpoint diversity on campus. Exposing students to a wide range of perspectives and methods of confronting issues is essential for both a well-rounded education and as preparation for the rigors of citizenship in a diverse society.
• Third, colleges and universities should adopt strong policies for the protection of free expression for students and faculty, to forestall hasty or ad hoc responses to controversial expression, and to defend the expression of unorthodox and controversial views.
• Fourth, colleges and universities should elevate the skills and dispositions necessary to academic and civic discourse as a deliberate aim of the collegiate experience. Formal protections for free expression are necessary but insufficient to create a culture of free expression, open inquiry, and respectful, productive debate on campus and in our country. We have a national civic skills deficit, which colleges and universities have an essential role in remedying. Matriculating students typically need coaching and instruction in these skills and habits of mind, and our aim should be to graduate students who raise the bar for national discourse

Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed:

Lori S. White, president of DePauw University and a member of the task force that met for a year to write the report, said during a panel discussion Tuesday about the report's release that she recently navigated her own campus speech controversy: she said that after a professor used the N-word in a classroom context, DePauw faced calls to ban the use of the N-word on campus.

White, who is Black, responded to these calls in a campus memo at once condemning the N-word as a “despicable and hateful word that has been used throughout history to dehumanize people who look like me.” At the same time, she wrote, banning the word “raises questions as to whether books such as John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ or Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ which I read as an English major, could still be assigned or whether a film class could watch a Dick Gregory film that I have watched many times or whether a music critique course or a student listening to music in their residence hall could listen to certain rap music artists.”

Robby Soave at Reason:

While most students think their professors adequately encourage diverse viewpoints in the classroom, don't want speakers disinvited from campus, and are comfortable sharing controversial opinions, 85 percent of liberals think professors who say something offensive should be reported to the university.

That's according to a new survey of student attitudes conducted by North Dakota State University's Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth. Many of the results were positive: Most students—both liberals and conservatives—said their professors create environments that allow for many different viewpoints to be shared. Large majorities also opposed the rejection of controversial speakers from campus.

In general, conservative respondents were more supportive of free speech norms—and also more fearful that they would be punished for speaking up—than liberal students. But on many questions, majorities of both groups responded the way a free speech supporter would.

Probably the most concerning result was that 70 percent of students—85 percent of liberals, 41 percent of conservatives, and 65 percent of those classified as "independent/apolitical"—wanted professors reported to the administration for making offensive statements. Most students also felt this way about other students who said offensive things.

Information Disorder

From the Aspen Institute:

The Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder is making 15 recommendations to help government, private industry, and civil society advance solutions to and reduce the greatest harms in America’s urgent mis- and disinformation crisis. Among many other critical challenges, the ambitious report covers legislative and executive action on transparency, disclosure, and platform immunity; the collapse of local journalism; community-led methods for resisting imbalances of power further propagated by bad actors; and accountability mechanisms for “superspreaders” of lies.

Published in the Commission’s Final Report, launched today, the recommendations together aim to increase transparency and understanding, build trust, and reduce harms. A summary of each is provided at the end of this press release, along with a list of the commissioners.

…

Read the Final Report detailing the recommendations on the Aspen Institute’s website. Those seeking to learn more about the Commission on Information Disorder are invited to visit AspenInfoCommission.org.

RECOMMENDATIONS

What follows is a high-level overview of the final recommendations of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder.

Recommendations to increase transparency

Public interest research

1. Implement protections for researchers and journalists who violate platform terms of service by responsibly conducting research on public data of civic interest.
2. Require platforms to disclose certain categories of private data to qualified academic researchers, so long as that research respects user privacy, does not endanger platform integrity, and remains in the public interest.

High reach content disclosure
Create a legal requirement for all social media platforms to regularly publish the content, source accounts, reach and impression data for posts that they organically deliver to large audiences.

Content moderation platform disclosure
Require social media platforms to disclose information about their content moderation policies and practices, and produce a time-limited archive of moderated content in a standardized format, available to authorized researchers.

Ad transparency
Require social media companies to regularly disclose, in a standardized format, key information about every digital ad and paid post that runs on their platforms.

Recommendations to build trust

Truth and transformation
Endorse efforts that focus on exposing how historical and current imbalances of power, access, and equity are manufactured and propagated further with mis- and disinformation — and on promoting community-led solutions to forging social bonds.

Healthy digital discourse
Develop and scale communication tools, networks, and platforms that are designed to bridge divides, build empathy, and strengthen trust among communities.

Workforce diversity
Increase investment and transparency to further diversity at social media platform companies and news media as a means to mitigate misinformation arising from uninformed and disconnected centers of power.

Local media investment
Promote substantial, long-term investment in local journalism that informs and empowers citizens, especially in underserved and marginalized communities.

Accountability norms
Promote new norms that create personal and professional consequences within communities and networks for individuals who willfully violate the public trust and use their privilege to harm the public.

Election information security
Improve U.S. election security and restore voter confidence with improved education, transparency, and resiliency.

Recommendations to reduce harms

Comprehensive federal approach
Establish a comprehensive strategic approach to countering disinformation and the spread of misinformation, including a centralized national response strategy, clearly-defined roles and responsibilities across the Executive Branch, and identified gaps in authorities and capabilities.

Public Restoration Fund
Create an independent organization, with a mandate to develop systemic misinformation countermeasures through education, research, and investment in local institutions.

Civic empowerment
Invest and innovate in online education and platform product features to increase users’ awareness of and resilience to online misinformation.

Superspreader accountability
Hold superspreaders of mis- and disinformation to account with clear, transparent, and consistently applied policies that enable quicker, more decisive actions and penalties, commensurate with their impacts — regardless of location, or political views, or role in society.

Amendments to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996

1. Withdraw platform immunity for content that is promoted through paid advertising and post promotion.
2. Remove immunity as it relates to the implementation of product features, recommendation engines, and design.

 

Public Opinion on Racial Reckoning

From Pew:

Opinion on the current national reckoning over the history of slavery and racism in the United States casts these divisions into stark relief: Among U.S. adults overall, 53% say increased attention to that history is a good thing for society, while 26% say it is a bad thing and another 21% say it is neither good nor bad.

Among Black adults, 75% say heightened public attention to this topic is a good thing, with 54% saying it is “very good” for society. Majorities of Asian American (64%) and Hispanic (59%) adults also view this positively, though much smaller shares say it is a very good thing, compared with Black adults. Among White adults, however, fewer than half (46%) say greater attention to the history of slavery and racism in the U.S. is good for society, with just 24% saying it is very good – about a third (32%) say it is bad.

The partisan divide in these opinions is even wider: Just 25% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say greater attention to the history of slavery and racism is a good thing; far more (46%) view it negatively, while 29% see it as neither good nor bad. Democrats and Democratic leaners – across racial and ethnic groups – express overwhelmingly positive views of increased attention to the topic (78% say it is good for society).

A Discussion of Deliberative Democracy

 

Across Talk is a new monthly video series hosted by Lincoln Zaleski, a disinformation specialist at Renew America Together. In our fifth episode, Lincoln chats with Selene Swanson, a Research Fellow at the Project on International Peace and Security. Selene describes her research regarding combating social polarization in the US through deliberative democratic forums. Renew America Together is a 501 (c)(3) organization designed to promote and achieve greater common ground in America by reducing partisan division and gridlock. Our mission is to revitalize public and political discourse by teaching and promoting civics, citizenship and civility. 

• Read Selene's white paper here: https://www.wm.edu/offices/global-res... 
• Check out PIPS: https://www.wm.edu/offices/global-res... 
• Visit our website: https://renewamericatogether.org/

Sotomayor and Gorsuch for Civic Education

Mark Walsh at Education Week:

Two U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday renewed their calls for improving civics education, saying the future of the republic depends on it.

“Our democracy is at risk not only from foreign but from domestic enemies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during an online discussion sponsored by several groups.

“Democracies crumble from within,” said Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. “They crumble. And there becomes a hunger for a certain faction to take over because they’re intolerant of others. They think they know the right answer and others do not.”

Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama and is considered among the more liberal members of the court, while Gorsuch ... is conservative on many issues. But both have worked on civics education initiatives since they joined the high court, and they have spoken jointly on the topic at least once before.

 

Teaching Patriotism

At Education Next, Frederick Hess and Matthew Rice report on series of conversations with a politically-diverse cross-section of leaders from education policy and practice.

Should schools teach “patriotism”? Not so long ago, simply asking this question would have prompted surprised looks. The answer would have been, “Of course.” Today, things are much murkier. The term “patriotism,” once innocuous, is now ideologically charged. The idea of teaching patriotism has become controversial, supported by the right (See “History, Critical and Patriotic,” in the Spring 2020 Education Next) and greeted with skepticism on the left. Both sides ultimately suggested that finding middle ground would require thinking about patriotism as something more complicated than “love of country.”

For those on the right, patriotism was a question of appreciating the sacrifices that have afforded Americans comfort and freedom and of all the things that unite us. In their view, patriotism is the foundation for civic instruction. On the left, “teaching patriotism” was seen as jingoistic and an excuse to downplay America’s failings. Referencing the current political climate, those on the left also saw “patriotism” as a term freighted with partisan meaning, tinged with xenophobia, and invoked by Republicans as a partisan rhetorical device. Indeed, some of the progressive participants argued that asking immigrant or minority students to be patriotic is immoral—that America needs to be worthy of patriotism before schools should teach it.

There were some intriguing efforts to devise middle ground on this score. On the right, one teacher acknowledged that because “patriotism” is such a loaded term, he prefers to talk about teaching students to be “invested” in their communities. He reasoned that patriotism is less important a goal than “stitching children into the public sphere,” thereby cultivating a sense of gratitude for our system of democracy and teaching student to appreciate our institutions without necessarily insisting on the kind of emotional attachment often implied by patriotism.

On the left, a participant suggested the much of the controversy surrounding patriotism could be sidestepped by distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism. He argued that American-style patriotism should be about loving the nation’s foundational values more than the nation itself. Translating that into practice, he argued teachers can teach students to love the ideals of America without insisting on a love of nation. After all, he observed, “teaching kids to love their country” is something that China or North Korea do—American “love of country” is something that should arise organically. Whether such approaches can help overcome the divide is an open question, but they open an opportunity worth exploring.

Courts, Civic Education, and Social Media

Chief Justice John Roberts's annual report:

 Hamilton, Madison, and Jay ultimately succeeded in convincing the public of the virtues of the principles embodied in the Constitution. Those principles leave no place for mob violence. But in the ensuing years, we have come to take democracy for granted, and civic education has fallen by the wayside.  In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital.  The judiciary has an important role to play in civic education, and I am pleased to report that the judges and staff of our federal courts are taking up the challenge.

By virtue of their judicial responsibilities, judges are necessarily engaged in civic education. As Federalist No. 78 observes, the courts “have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.”  When judges render their judgments through written opinions that explain their reasoning, they advance public understanding of the law. Chief Justice Earl Warren illustrated the power of a judicial decision as a teaching tool in Brown v. Board of Education, the great school desegregation case.1  His unanimous opinion on the most pressing issue of the era was a mere 11 pages—short enough that newspapers could publish all or almost all of it and every citizen could understand the Court’s rationale. Today, federal courts post their opinions online, giving the public instant access to the reasoning behind the judgments that affect their lives.

Tocqueville and Civic Education

Cynthia Bambrick at Political Science Now:

While most of us may not live in the sort of townships that Tocqueville observed in the Early Republic, we can still glean lessons from the experiences of those who did. Specifically, we can see the importance of the moral education of citizens. Tocqueville implicitly challenges us to look beyond the reasons to vote that we may offer in favor of a holistic view of civic life. How much easier would it be to convince people that they should vote if they already saw the fruits of other efforts? When rooted in prior, concrete experiences, casting a ballot is no longer a singular and abstract exercise, but occurs against a backdrop of actual ties to community and, by extension, ties to country. People will not need to be activated to vote because they will already be spurred into action.

On this account, then, creating opportunities for people to make some visible contribution to their communities is key to fostering a sustainable civic participation. But how might we apply this lesson in the much larger, more complex country in which we find ourselves today? Taking a cue from Tocqueville, we too may begin with the very local, highlighting and even creating opportunities for students to connect with their communities. We may begin by thinking about the classroom or residence halls as spheres of civic life, for example, perhaps building up to the university community and larger city. Many educators already take such steps, building their classes around service-learning opportunities, community outreach projects, and the like. Their efforts are to be commended.

Civic Education

Danielle Allen at The Washington Post:

Over the past few decades, our nation has undergone a significant decline in the provision of civics education. We downshifted from delivering three courses in civics to most high school students in the mid-20th century to now delivering one single-semester course to approximately 85 percent of students, as Michael Rebell points out in his recent book “Flunking Democracy.” He also reports that by four years after the implementation of No Child Left Behind, a meaningful percentage of school districts had reduced social-studies instruction to devote more time to English and math (33 percent in a nationally representative sample of 299 districts). Statewide skills tests that focus on math and English language arts, important as those subjects are, give schools no incentive to invest in civics instruction.

The shift has been most significant for low-income students in low-resourced schools. As a 2017 report from the Education Commission of the States puts it, “Urban schools with low-income, diverse students provide fewer and lower-quality civic opportunities and affluent white students are twice as likely as those of average socioeconomic status to study the legislative process or participate in service activities and 150 percent more likely to do in-class debates.”

The results of our disinvestment in civics education appear stark. Only about 30 percent of U.S. millennials consider it “essential” to live in a democracy, while 72 percent of Americans born before World War II do, according to political scientists Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk in “The Democratic Disconnect.”

Citizenship and Civic Education

Rebecca Burgess has a paper at AEI titled "To transmit or transform the republic? Citizenship, civic education, and the `cords of [constitutional] affection."

Key points:

• Although US public opinion about America and the principles for which it stands are mixed, this seemingly schizophrenic attitude is probably not that surprising given the large, diverse, and liberal character of the republic today.
• This state of affairs calls for some clarifying reexaminations of how an education in citizenship is thought to benefit and perpetuate the American regime.
• Understanding civic education as transmitting or transforming the regime changes the purpose, shape, and content of a civics curriculum.
• Ultimately, even in a rights-based social compact order informed by “reflection and choice,” a robust citizenship involves not only a set of intellectual principles but also emotions or passions that are not readily quantifiable.

Jefferson, Adams, Citizenship, Friendship

Alexander Khan at National Review:

Citizenship in America is in a troubling state. In 2015, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni conducted a survey of college graduates which found that only 28.4 percent could name James Madison as the father of the Constitution. Thirty-nine percent did not know that Congress had the war power, and roughly 45 percent did not know the length of congressional terms. In 2017, the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 37 percent of Americans could not name any of the rights in the First Amendment, and that only 26 percent could name all three branches of government. Gallup poll results from 2018 reveal that young Americans’ views of capitalism and socialism have switched since 2010, with only 45 percent of respondents now professing a positive view of the capitalist system. A November 2018 YouGov poll revealed that Americans’ patriotism and knowledge of civics was troublingly low. More recently, in January 2019, Gallup released survey results which showed that 30 percent of younger Americans, a record high, would like to permanently leave the U.S. Unfortunately, these results are not shocking. Each new poll extends the long line of depressing findings.

...
 While liberal education will never be a cure-all for the disgraceful state of civic life and historical knowledge in America, its renewal in a spirit of friendship is essential if we seek to tackle our citizenship deficit. Students educated in such an environment will not only deeply understand the ideas and principles of the Founders and of Americans throughout history, but they will also come to understand their own connection to those ideas. They will feel invested in the future of their country and in the principles that form its foundation. This educational environment will also affect the concern and interest students have in what government does, how it acts, and the way in which they see their rights and duties. Robust engagement in the classroom naturally translates to the open marketplace of ideas and the active world of citizenship. These students will serve as examples to their fellow citizens, expanding the education of the classroom to the entire country. In the fight to restore civic life and knowledge in America, the rebuilding of liberal education in the spirit of Jefferson and Adams’s friendship is an essential component.