Panelists consider flaws of nation’s Constitution

Sam Bloch Guest Writer

In response to a federal mandate that all schools receiving federal funding must recognize Consitution Day on or around Sept. 17, Vassar held a panel Sept. 19 entitled “The Constitution: Who is Protected?” Panelists questioned the validity and application of the Constitution today.

“I think it was the quintessential Vassar response to question Constitution Day,” said VSA President Rick Rodems ’06.

Associate Professor of Sociology Diane Harriford called for a second constitutional convention to rewrite the Constitution. She said the document—which Senator Robert C. Boyd of West Virginia, the foremost proponent of Constitution Day, called “[society’s] guiding light”—viewed blacks as subhuman.

“We should think about how good [the Constitution] is because it didn’t include so many people in America,” Harriford said. “In the 21st century, rich white males do not dictate how people live.”

Panelist Daniel Ross ’06 took a more moderate stance on the effectiveness of the Constitution. He said the document allows for much interpretation and evolution, though it was written as an “incomplete” document.

“Many Americans were left unprotected by the original Constitution,” Ross said. “[But] the possibility for strengthening progressive constitutive commitments is real and should be harnessed.”

Though Rodems agreed with Harriford and Ross about the inequalities in the Constitution, he protested what he believed to be a government infringement on the states’ rights to education and expressed a concern about how the Constitution will be taught in other schools on later Constitution Days.

“In five years, are we going to have a day to study intelligent design?” he asked. “It’s a very slippery slope.”

Political science professor Molly Shanley entertained the possibilities of a racially-fair document or the absence of a Constitution.

“I’m objecting to what is almost universally said—that it is inconceivable to think of anything else [but the Constitution] happening,” she said. “It is deleterious to our country.”

Professor Emeritus of political science Wilfred Rumble discussed the significant interpretation granted to Supreme Court judges and the consequences of what he believed to be current justices’ ignorance concerning the First Amendment.

“I am not saying that the Constitution’s protections are meaningless,” Rumble said. “What I am saying is that whether they protect you and how much they protect you varies with the times and who is on the Court.”

At nearby SUNY Albany, the University celebrated Constitution Day by expanding President Kermit Hall’s “The Supreme Court and American Constitutional History” seminar to the rest of the school and the public. Seventy people from the town joined the class’ 12 students for the seminar. “Because the President is an expert on the Constitution, we felt it gave us a perfect opportunity to discuss the Constitution,” said Director of Media Relations Karl Luntta

According to The New York Times, on Sept. 16, many schools across the nation, from elementary to cosmetology, watched a webcast of Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer discussing the Constitution with teenage students. The program was also sent to schools via DVD.

But Arlington High School social studies teacher Shaun Boyce said there was no formal program or speaker to commemorate Constitution Day. Juniors at Arlington already study the Constitution in September, he said, satisfying the federal requirement of Constitutional education any time a week before or after the official Constitution Day.

Rodems expressed his doubts about the effectiveness of the day on campus, despite his belief that learning about the Constitution is “not a bad thing.”

“I imagine that the student body is about as aware of Constitution Day as they are of the Treaty of Ghent,” Rodems said.