United States Constitution is focus of public educational forum

NEW PALTZ — The State University of New York at New Paltz is providing a free, public educational forum for the first national Constitution Day beginning at noon on Friday, Sept. 16, in Lecture Center 100 on the New Paltz campus.

The program starts with a half-hour video broadcast via satellite with U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer, who will answer questions about the Constitution in a video special with Caroline Kennedy. She will be joined by New York City students in a discussion at The New York Times headquarters. The broadcast will also be available online (www.justicelearning.org) again at 3 p.m.

A second video broadcast that afternoon will feature an interactive debate with National Public Radio’s (NPR) Margot Adler, who will host a “Justice Talking” special video-cast on “Free Speech in the Digital Age” with First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, Motion Picture Association past president and CEO Jack Valenti, and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. The debate, which will take place at the William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. will be broadcast online and via satellite from 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Congress designated Sept. 17 — the day in 1787 that the U.S. Constitution was ratified — as Constitution Day when it passed its omnibus spending bill late last year. Educational institutions that receive federal funds are expected to create educational programming on or around Constitution Day. Because Sept. 17 falls on Saturday this year, many schools are planning activities before, or after, the weekend.

For more information, contact Nancy Kassop, chair of the Political Science department at SUNY New Paltz, at (845) 257-3544 or at kassopn@newpaltz.edu.

Registration, curricula, other learning resources and technical information about the broadcasts can be found at www.justicelearning.org. Curricula and other learning resources are also available www.archives.gov.