Know Your Constitution contest leads to real learning

Last fall the Iowa Bar Association put out the Know Your Constitution test for students grades 9-12. The test consisted of a 50 question open-book multiple choice test and a short essay question. The goal of the test was to get students to learn about the U.S. Constitution. Before I participated in this I would say I knew a good amount of information about the Constitution from previous social studies classes. However, I did not know as much as I thought until I had to research a lot of the questions for the test. I knew that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land and sets up our government, but it goes into further detail that not many people know about. The Constitution and its Amendments lay out the powers and responsibilities of the government and its branches and gives the rights of its citizens.

I knew that the Constitution laid out the three branches of government; executive, legislative, and judicial, and gave directions of what each branch should do. Through this experience I learned that the President has to give the State of the Union from time to time; not every year like I thought. I also learned about the process of the impeachment of the President; which I had only heard of before. The President is tried for impeachment by the senate and the trial is presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court while the power to convict the President of impeachment lies in the House of Representatives. I also learned about how the branches work together in the important decisions of the country and how much it takes to make those decisions constitutional. Like how much of congress and the president needs to ratify a bill for it to be passed. As you can see I learned a lot about our Constitution and its importance in our government, you can imagine how much the hundreds of other students that took the same test learned. Imagine if we all learned more about the Constitution and how important it is to the running of our government how much would we find that we did not know about our government.

The essay portion of the test dealt with a court case where two white students were suing a university because of discrimination. The university prefers students of a non-white race when considering admission. In my essay I argued for the students using the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The equal protection clause was meant to provide protection of civil rights from laws for all groups of people, specifically minorities of the time period, in the post-civil war America. In this case I argued that the students were being discriminated against because the preference is now on the minorities and the white majority is not being given an equal chance. The 14th Amendment is now being used to protect groups that might not have been thought of protecting when it was originally written. It is interesting how the Constitution and its Amendments are being used differently today than they were meant to when they were created and are still being debated in the courts. For this reason I feel it is important for Americans to have the basic understanding of the Constitution.

' Annika Horning, born and raised in Cedar Rapids, is a junior at Jefferson High School, and participates in band, several sports, service club, church activities, and the Leadership for Five Seasons program. She was a finalist in the 2016 'Know Your Constitution” Project sponsored by the Iowa State Bar Association and is designed to enrich understanding and appreciation of the Constitution.