Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project
The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project is an exciting university-community partnership that sends trained, upper level law students into local high schools to teach the U.S. Constitution using Supreme Court cases involving young people. In 2007, Northeastern University School of Law launched a new Marshall-Brennan Project that has sent 37 law students into 5 high schools in Boston and Cambridge during the last two school years.
About the Program
The Marshall-Brennan Project has two program models. The first pairs a Marshall-Brennan Teaching Fellow with a host teacher in an existing course in law, goverment, or civics. The second model dispatches two teaching fellows to a school to run an after-school enrichment program. In both models, the law students are expected to be in the classroom three hours each week.
The project has developed two acclaimed civics curricula and textbooks for high school students. The first, “We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and about Students,” explores landmark Supreme Court cases about education and the rights of students. These cases help bring the Bill of Rights to life for teens by focusing on issues that affect them directly, from dress codes and student discipline to affirmative action and the funding of public education. The second, “Youth Justice in America,” exposes students to the criminal and juvenile justice systems and challenges them to think critically about how society deals with the problems of crime and punishment.
Download Information Sheet and Frequently Asked Questions
Application Process
To become a Marshall-Brennan Teaching Fellow, students must register for Teaching the Constitution and complete the 2009 Application Form and e-mail it to Roy Karp by Friday, July 31st at 5:00 p.m.
Contact Information
Roy Lincoln Karp, Esq., Project Director
E-mail: karp@civicedproject.org
Website: www.civicedproject.org
Phone: 617-792-4858
Marshall-Brennan Advisory Committee
Prof. Melinda Drew
Prof. Peter Enrich
Prof. Mary O'Connell
Prof. Jane Scarborough (retired)
