All rise for Justice Sonia Sotomayor's warning
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks at New York Law School's Constitution and Citizenship Day Summit in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit: AP / Richard Drew
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rhetorically asked at a New York Law School gathering on Tuesday: "Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?"
She was making the point that many Americans are too unfamiliar with basic civics to fully use and take part in the democratic design of the republic. Coincidentally, President Donald Trump was greeted Wednesday by King Charles III of the United Kingdom, and other royals, at Windsor Castle. He clearly basked in the pomp and pageantry, at the carriages with gold trim, and the honor guard. The political protests that greeted him clearly didn’t matter to the president, who’s always been fascinated by the British crown, at least as a spectator.
The meeting in Manhattan, which attracted students and lawyers and judges for Constitution Week, became a modest counterpoint. Sotomayor is a board member of iCivics, an education organization founded by the late conservative Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the high court.
To Sotomayor, our scant collective knowledge of how U.S. governance works is glaring, even in law schools. "Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself that law school failed," Sotomayor said.
She named nobody in particular. But First Amendment issues work both ways on the political spectrum. That may have become clear to Attorney General Pam Bondi who drew sharp criticism from all sides this week for vowing to crack down on what she considers “hate speech" before walking back the remarks.
In the Manhattan forum, as carried on YouTube, Sotomayor kept a particular focus on the need to teach children, in tandem with their parents, about just how America is supposed to work under the rule of law.
“Civic participation is community service,” she said. “Don’t think of service always in grand terms,” she added, but as “everyday activity. Ask yourself a question — how does it help others?”
Beyond knowing how the power and proper role of governments is divided on the state, local and federal levels — and among executives, legislatures and judiciaries — are the questions of why things are set up that way.
It didn’t take a top jurist to note that the alarms about civic ignorance have been going off for a long time. A report from Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life titled “How Does Gen Z Feel About Democracy?” stated: “31% of youth express a lack of commitment to democratic principles and practices and a higher likelihood to embrace authoritarian measures.”
The federal government could help, Sotomayor said, by setting standards for achievement for civics. She noted Florida and Arizona already require students to take courses and pass tests in the subject.
For Bronx-born Sotomayor, who attended Cardinal Spellman High School in her home borough before getting degrees from Princeton University and Yale Law School, this is far from merely an academic subject.
Note her exasperated dissent when the Supreme Court majority ruled last year that Trump had broad immunity from prosecution in his bizarre effort to nullify results of the 2020 election.
"In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law," she wrote. Hopefully her words will prove hyperbolic. But people may do well to take Sotomayor's advice and at least learn the difference between an autocracy and a democracy. What could better qualify as the business of all citizens?
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
