For Immediate Release
September 17, 2007
Contact:
Christi Fish
cfish@wilkinguge.com
(909) 390-1239 ext. 105
ULV College of Law Celebrates Constitution Day
at Ontario’s Chaffey High School
Ontario, Calif., September 17, 2007 – Three students and two faculty members from the University of La Verne College of Law visited Chaffey High School today to celebrate Constitution Day, a September 17 holiday founded in 2004 to commemorate the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution and to encourage open discourse about the Constitution in federally-funded schools. Approximately 180 seniors attended the event, sponsored by the law school’s Federalist Society, which took the place of the students’ daily government and economics courses.
Professor Donna Greschner, an expert on the United States Constitution and an international constitutional law consultant, opened the discussion by providing background about the thirteen colonies, the Philadelphia convention in 1787, the need for a national government, and a description of America’s founding fathers. She also discussed the importance of the First Amendment freedoms.
“You don’t need a constitution if everyone thinks, lives and acts the same,” said Professor Greschner. “Our Constitution sets rules so that different people, people with different opinions and religions, can all live together peacefully.”
Third-year law student Jeff Roberts continued exploration of the Constitution, discussing the importance of the Federalist Papers, the “public relations campaign” used by the founding fathers to persuade the thirteen colonies to adopt the Constitution. He added that the Federalist Papers remain an important source for today’s interpreters of the Constitution.
To encourage further discourse, moderator Brent Valdez, a third-year law student and Chaffey alum, invited students to query the panel, which included third-year law student Steve Messner and Adjunct Professor Jason Anderson as well as Greschner and Roberts. Inquiries covered the following topics:
- The primary purpose of the Constitution
- The importance of the first amendment and its primary placement in the Constitution
(“The first amendment was designed to protect our differences,” said Greschner.)
- The separation of federal and state powers
- Rules of procedure for the federal government
- Constitutional amendments relating to criminal law
- The procedure to amend the Constitution
- The role of the Supreme Court in constitutional interpretation
- The application of the Constitution to present-day issues, including abortion, affirmative action, prison overcrowding and privacy/surveillance issues
Following the presentation, Professor Anderson, Ontario’s Mayor Pro Tem, invited the students to attend Ontario’s City Council meetings, held on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month. The students were also encouraged to register to vote upon their 18th birthdays to actively participate in the political process. For more information about Constitution Day, visit http://www.constitutionday.com/. For more information about the University of La Verne College of Law’s Federalist Society, visit the Web at http://law.ulv.edu/student_services/activities.html.
About the University of La Verne College of Law
Located in Ontario, Calif., University of La Verne College of Law serves over 4 million people as the only ABA-accredited law school in Inland Southern California and an additional 2.2 million people in San Gabriel Valley and Eastern Los Angeles County. For more information about the College of Law, please call (909) 460-2001 or visit the Web at http://law.ulv.edu
The University of La Verne College of Law was provisionally approved by the American Bar Association on February 13, 2006.
