William H. Karchmer End of Year Celebration Recognizes Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project Fellows
On April 19, the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project held its William H. Karchmer End of Year Celebration recognizing this year's Fellows. The Marshall-Brennan Fellows work with teachers, administrators, and lawyers to teach students their rights as citizens, the strategic benefits of voting, how lawmaking occurs, and other fundamental constitutional processes.
In addition to teaching, the Fellows take a year-long "Constitution in the Classroom" seminar led by Marshall-Brennan Associate Director Lisa Curtis. The Fellows learn classroom management techniques in the form of restorative justice training, as well as critical pedagogy, and master the "We the Students" and "Youth Justice" curricula.
Curtis along with U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district and co-founder of the Project Jamie Raskin congratulated the Fellows on educating and enriching the lives of the high school students they have been working with over the past year.
During the school year, the Project is able to host a variety of academic competitions and events thanks to the generous gift of the family of William H. Karchmer. Members of the Karchmer Family were in attendance, including Paula J. Caplan, Tac Caplan, and Emily Caplan-Stephenson, a founding Marshall-Brennan Teaching Fellow.
AUWCL 2L Samantha Dos Santos, who spoke to her peers at the event said, "As I look back on law school and all the opportunities thrown our way, I ask myself: Did it make me a better person? Our torts, contracts, and rhetoric classes, yes, they made us think like lawyers. The journal and externship positions I've held, yes, they gave us practical experience and built our resumes. Then I think about Marshall-Brennan. I'm leaving this year with such gratitude for a program that has genuinely made me better. It's made me a better communicator, a better advocate, a better leader and teammate, and it's made me a better person."
The 2016-17 Teaching Fellows include:
- Brishailah Brown
- Carl Gaul
- Courtney Arnold
- Erica Fersch
- Helen Osun*
- Hiba Ahmed
- Jani Loyo Ramos
- Jennifer Moore*
- Jessica McKenney
- Joshua Couce
- Larissa Zavarelli
- Luigi Orengo*
- Mackenzie Becker*
- Michelle Villegas
- Molly Mattison
- Naimah Duporte
- Nancy Elanjithara
- Pritika Ramesh
- Samantha Dos Santos
- Sanjana Biswas
- Zac Johnston
*Howard University School of Law students
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In the fall of 1999, Professor Jamin Raskin of AUWCL launched the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project named in honor of the late United States Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan, Jr. This project, founded with the enthusiastic support of Mrs. Cissy Marshall and the late Mrs. Mary Brennan, was designed to mobilize talented second- and third-year law students, as well as LL.M. students, to teach courses on constitutional law and juvenile justice in public high schools in the District of Columbia and Maryland. The national program is headquartered at the Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., and the program has expanded to licensed chapters in law schools across the country.