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Founded in 1999 at American University
Washington College of Law with the support
of Mrs. Thurgood Marshall and the late Mrs.
William Brennan, the Marshall-Brennan
Constitutional Literacy Project was designed to mobilize
talented second-year and third-year law
students to teach a course on the United
States Constitution in the public schools of
the District of Columbia and Maryland. The
vision for the program is to empower high
school students to be responsible citizens
and lifelong participants in the democratic
process by teaching them constitutional
rights and responsibilities through Supreme
Court cases that affect students directly.
The Marshall-Brennan
Constitutional Literacy Project counteracts
the well-known effects of “civic illiteracy” among
America’s youth by providing high school students
with a rigorous and sustained education about the
United States Constitution and how it affects them
and their families. Southern University Law Center
started its Chapter of the Marshall-Brennan
Constitutional Literacy Project in January 2009.
More than 70 high school students in East
Baton Rouge Parish School System are
involved in the Marshall-Brennan Project.
The high school students study Supreme Court
cases that explore issues concerning the
tension between the requirements of school
and the community, and the rights of the
students. Essential programs in the Project
are the Moot Court Competition and the
Marshall-Brennan Constitution Fair
In addition to facilitating instructions on the
United States Constitution, Marshall-Brennan
teaching fellows serve as mentors to high school
students, provide students guidance about college
careers and advice to those students who are
considering the legal profession. The
Marshall-Brennan fellows will reap the reward of
giving back to the community in which they are
attending law school and where many will practice
law. Through teaching constitutional law concepts,
the fellows are actually given an additional
opportunity to prepare for an important part of the
bar and to improve their reasoning skills.
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