Sweet Briar College’s Center for Civic Renewal will present “Turning Right? How the Roberts Court is Interpreting the Constitution” to mark Constitution Day on Sept. 17. It will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Tyson Auditorium.

The annual observance was created by federal statute in 2004. The law requires institutions receiving funds from the U.S. Department of Education to implement educational programs related to the Constitution on a date set by Congress.

SBC government professor Barbara Perry and associate professor Stephen Bragaw plan a brief retrospective of the last session of the U.S. Supreme Court and a look forward at upcoming cases. The lecture will be followed by refreshments that have a little history behind them.

Amid discussions two years ago about how to comply with the newly minted mandate, Bragaw joked that he would order a cake. The part about it being a joke was not conveyed to SBC President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, however, who exclaimed something to the effect of, “A cake will not do for Constitution Day!”

To Bragaw, the gauntlet was thrown. “Anyone who knows me, knows that to say I can’t do something is a provocation on a world-class level,” he said.

Trouble was, when he asked the bakery to decorate a sheet cake with an image of the U.S. Constitution they balked for fear of copyright infringement.

“It just made the point that people need to know more about our Constitution,” Perry said.

Eventually a Constitution cake was born and perhaps a new Sweet Briar tradition as well. Students, staff and faculty are encouraged to attend the lecture and reception.

Perry will discuss Supreme Court decisions that have implications across constituencies, from students’ free speech in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case to the right of workers to sue employers for pay discrimination.

“These decisions do affect people in their daily lives. But the system marches on, I think, in the way the Founders intended it,” Perry said.

Constitution Day also falls in Virginia's new Civics Education Week, which was created by a resolution of the 2007 General Assembly. Lawmakers designated the third week of September to coincide with the date.

Bragaw and Perry co-wrote the legislation, which was passed as House Joint Resolution 627. Del. Bob Tata, R-Virginia Beach, and Sen. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Martinsville, were sponsors.

“The idea was to take advantage of the federal Constitution Day mandate and turn it into a larger conversation on civic renewal and education in Virginia’s schools,” Bragaw said.

HR627 is the second piece of legislation Bragaw and Perry have helped draft and see through the legislative process. In 2005, House Bill 1769, also known as the Dillard Bill, created the Virginia Commission on Civics Education. Then-Gov. Mark Warner signed the bill into law in September of that year. He appointed both SBC professors to the commission and they continue to serve as members.

Both laws are outgrowths of a national movement to strengthen our representative democracy through knowledge and engagement in U.S. civic and political affairs. It took shape in the inaugural Congressional Conference on Civic Education in 2003, where state representatives met to develop action plans to achieve the conference’s goals at the state and local levels.

Bragaw and Perry have led the Virginia delegation in each of the four conferences held to date. The next Congressional Conference will convene in 2008

To support Civics Education Week, the commission is hosting a one-day Civics Summit on Sept. 20 for public and private school personnel and teachers who work with students in civics, economics and government. Bragaw will speak at the summit and has spent much of the summer lining up presenters.

The summit will be held in Senate Room 3 in the Capitol. Those wishing to attend can go to http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/suptsmemos/2007/inf185.html for details and to register. For more information, please e-mail Beverly.Thurston@doe.virginia.gov, or call (804) 225-2893.

For more information on SBC’s Center for Civic Renewal or its Constitution Day program, please contact Bragaw at bragaw@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6460.