IIT Chicago-Kent's 2014 Constitution Day celebration to focus on "The Press, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution"

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law will celebrate Constitution Day on September 15 with a panel discussion on "The Press, The Supreme Court, and the Constitution." The program will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. in the law school's Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Courtroom, 565 West Adams Street (between Clinton and Jefferson streets) in Chicago.

Panelists include Professor Sonja West of the University of Georgia School of Law, Professor RonNell Andersen Jones of Brigham Young University Law School, and Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and legal affairs correspondent for Slate magazine. The panelists, who have all worked as attorneys and journalists and who served as clerks in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, will bring their personal expertise to the discussion. Professor West also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and Professor Jones clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. IIT Chicago-Kent Professor (on leave) and Illinois Solicitor General Carolyn Shapiro, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and for Judge Richard Posner in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, will serve as moderator.

The program is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested. The 2014 Constitution Day program is co-sponsored by the Jack Miller Center (JMC) and IIT Chicago-Kent's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States (ISCOTUS). For more information, please contact Professor Christopher Schmidt at cschmidt@kentlaw.iit.edu or (312) 906-5389.

In 2004, Congress passed legislation requiring that every institution of higher education receiving federal funds hold an educational program about the Constitution on September 17, the day delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 to sign the completed Constitution. With a lead gift from the Andrea Waitt Carlton Family Foundation (Nashville, TN), the Jack Miller Center launched its Constitution Day Initiative (CDI) in 2011 to increase awareness of the Constitution Day mandate and assist campuses in developing substantive educational programs.

The Jack Miller Center (JMC) for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History, a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) public foundation, is committed to revitalizing education in America's founding principles and history on college campuses. The JMC partners with faculty, administrators and donors to work together to transform student access to education in American political thought and history, an education that is necessary for informed civic engagement. The JMC has a faculty community of over 700 professors on 253 campuses and is supporting academic programs on 55 campuses, including Ivy League institutions, flagship state universities, and leading liberal arts colleges. The Jack Miller Center's headquarters is located in the Philadelphia suburb of Bala Cynwyd, PA.

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, a private, technology-focused, research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law. Established in 2011, IIT Chicago-Kent's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States combines the law school's core strengths: cutting-edge legal scholarship and technological innovation. Its Oyez Project leverages information technology to make materials related to the U.S. Supreme Court instantly accessible around the world.