MURFREESBORO,
Tenn. — MTSU is calling on some of
Tennessee’s most esteemed judges Wednesday,
Sept. 20, to wrestle with one of the most searing issues in America today:
the constitutional role of an independent judiciary.
The university’s annual observance of Constitution Day will feature a five-member panel, moderated by author Keel Hunt, in the Tennessee Room of the
James Union Building from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Sept. 20.
Sept. 17 marks the 230th anniversary of the signing
of the U.S. Constitution. MTSU is observing it three days later to encourage more
student and community participation.
The MTSU discussion, which is sponsored by the campus
chapter of the American Democracy
Project, is free and open to the public. A campus parking map is available
at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap, and
off-campus visitors can park free in the Bell Street lot, located across Middle
Tennessee Boulevard from the JUB.
The 2017 Constitution Day panel includes:
- Curtis Collier, senior judge, U.S. District Court,
Eastern District of Tennessee, and a former assistant U.S. attorney.
- Martha Craig Daughtrey, senior judge on the U.S.
Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, and a former Tennessee Supreme Court
justice.
- Alberto Gonzales, dean of Belmont
University’s College of Law and a former Texas Supreme Court justice and U.S.
attorney general.
- Gary Wade, vice president and dean of the Duncan School
of Law at Lincoln Memorial University and a former chief justice of the Tennessee
Supreme Court.
- Penny White, the E.E. Overton Distinguished Professor
of Law and director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution at
the University of Tennessee’s College of Law and a former Tennessee
Supreme Court justice.
MTSU faculty and students will submit questions for
the panel to address, and the group also will answer questions from the
audience.
These distinguished guests are the latest in a
string of Constitution Day speakers and events that have enlightened the MTSU community
since 2005, including civil rights activist and Nashville sit-in participant Diane Nash; the Revs. C.T. Vivian and James Lawson Jr., civil rights activists who
spoke on the Voting Rights Act; longtime Iowa congressman James A. Leach, former
chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; National Public Radio
legal affairs correspondent Nina
Totenberg; a special on-campus session, via the Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education
for Students program, of the Tennessee
Supreme Court to hear three appellate cases; and even a special U.S. naturalization ceremony for 300
people taking the oath of citizenship inside MTSU’s Murphy Center.
“We've had the last couple of Constitution Days
focused on civil rights issues, memories from the civil rights era, the parts
of the constitution that had to do with justice for all, and after all is said
and done, really the very core of what the constitution is about is the
establishment of how our government functions, its three major components: the
tripartite system of checks and balances that our framers, our founding
fathers, built into the system,” said Mary
A. Evins, an associate research professor at MTSU’s University Honors College and coordinator for MTSU’s American
Democracy Project.
“And it seemed as though this year, with some
aspects of the executive (branch) feeling chaotic and some aspects of the
legislative (branch) feeling as though it's in stalemate, that maybe this was a
year to focus on that other pillar of our constitutional system, which is our
judiciary. … These eminent judges come from different backgrounds, they were
appointed to their positions by different presidents or governors, and they
will have different views of the law, so we think we can have a pretty lively
discussion.”
The university celebrates the Constitution’s 1787
signing every year with special events and programs, including voter
registration drives and readings of the document by students, faculty, staff,
special guests and volunteers across campus throughout the day.
MTSU’s WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5 will also dive
into the celebration beginning at 11 a.m. Sept. 20 for an hourlong program illustrating
the U.S. Constitution through contemporary song, hosted by Keith Bilbrey of Music City Roots and Dean Ken Paulson of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment.
For more information
about American Democracy Project events at MTSU, email amerdem@mtsu.edu or visit http://www.mtsu.edu/amerdem.
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