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Civic Education In Circumstances Of Constitutional Rot And Strong Polarization Rot, Linda C. Mcclain, James E. Fleming
Civic Education In Circumstances Of Constitutional Rot And Strong Polarization Rot, Linda C. Mcclain, James E. Fleming
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay argues that civic education is crucial to remedying what Jack Balkin, in The Cycles of Constitutional Time, diagnoses as “constitutional rot” in the United States. A twenty-first century civic education must meet challenges of polarization and growing diversity and inequality and equip people for forms of democratic participation necessary to the health of constitutional democracy. Some commentators have called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a “Sputnik moment for teaching civics”—seeing a link between the whitesupremacist/conspiracy-theory mob’s actions and the failure to instill civic virtue in “We the People.” To be capable of spurring national reconciliation and renewal, …
The Constitution, The Common Good, And The Ambition Of Adrian Vermeule, Sotirios Barber, Stephen Macedo, James E. Fleming
The Constitution, The Common Good, And The Ambition Of Adrian Vermeule, Sotirios Barber, Stephen Macedo, James E. Fleming
Faculty Scholarship
Public trust in the U.S. government has declined steadily over the last sixty years, from 73% in 1958 to 17% in 2018 (Pew 12/9/20). Public support for the U.S. Constitution has remained higher. When support for the government dipped to an all-time low of 15% in 2010, support for the Constitution stood at 74%. But the gap has narrowed. From 2010 to 2017 support for the Constitution fell from 74% to around 50%—a drop of 24 points in seven years (AP/NCC 8/12; Rasmussen 2017). These figures suggest that if Americans continue to believe that their government isn’t working, they’ll eventually …