Vol. II of Civic Engagement, Justice, and the Law in a National and International Context

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce Vol. 2 of “Civic Engagement, Justice, and the Law in a National and International Context”. For the most part, Vol. 2 offers a continuation of the same theme that attracted contributors to Vol. 1. This is the public role of universities, undoubtedly several centuries old. In the US, it runs in a straight line from Thomas Jefferson’s founding of the University of Virginia, to the Truman Commission report on universities and democracy, and to Campus Compact and the civic engagement movement of the 1980’s as well as contemporary developments. In Volume 1, the interaction between civically engaged universities and relevant laws and regulations proved of special interest, highlighting debates over DEI, historic differences with respect to the role of coercion in educational contexts in the thought of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush and the implications for policy today, and different scenarios of campus activism and protest.

Recent developments make the need for Volume II clear. Just in the last few weeks, the abolition of the Department of Education, the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds from Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University, and Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, in addition to other legal changes related to the civically engaged University, underscore the urgent need for further conversations.

The highlights of Volume 1 included the following:

- Paul Carrese’s meditation on America’s civic emergencies, including a dangerous level of polarization and the loss of faith in our institutions, and in institutions of higher education specifically. How can a combination of university civics and liberal education help address the crises?

- Kody Cooper’s connection of the civic institutes movement, in its legal and ethical dimensions, to the vision of the American Founders.

- Chris Green’s argument for a 14^th Amendment obligation to ideological neutrality, owed to students, at public universities.

- Boleslaw Z. Kabala, Eric Morrow, Casey Thompson, and Payton Jones’ case for considering the tax incentivization of universities to bring about more civic engagement opportunities for students—ranging from speech to assembly to protest—in the spirit of the tax pressure upheld by the Supreme Court in Bob Jones University vs. USA. Now, as then, we might consider the use of the tax code to advance goals in light of the existence of national crises (of continuing segregation and polarization, respectively).

- Adam MacLeod’s reflection on equity in the Aristotelian sense, which helps us to reason well together, and which is opposed to the use of the word in more recent and post-Marxist applications.

- Greg McBrayer’s distinction between liberal and civic education, which as elaborated shows how waiting until college to address students' civic deficits may be too late, and that even emphasizing civic education in a more substantive way at the high school level potentially stands in tension with liberal education.

- Constantine Vassiliou’s prescription for civic learning in modern commercial society. This requires a Montesquiean familiarity with constitutions and positive laws, and it stresses minimal scientific and technical literacy even as it aims to protect young people from an overreliance on certain forms of technology in the classroom. The overall purpose is to cultivate future citizen–legislators of a commercial and technological order who can make both prudent and technically informed decisions in support of liberty.

Specific anticipated articles in Vol. II include treatments of the place of law in university level civic education, the role of parental rights for Christians as well as those in other world religions, the legal framework and civic importance of historically black public colleges and universities, law and legal restrictions in the governance of education, questions of judicial supremacy vs. departmentalism as they affect these debates, and the Supreme Court as dialogic instructor, itself educating justices.

As always, we welcome your feedback, and we look forward to many robust exchanges!

Dr. Bolek Kabala
Prof. Dr. Justin Dyer
Prof. Dr. Lee Ward
Dr. Casey D. Thompson
Dr. Adam M. Carrington
Guest Editors

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• civic education
• civic engagement
• civic institute
• civic leadership
• constitutional democracy