B Y ASHLEY CASE
In most undergraduate conversations the goings on of the Supreme Court is not a wildly exciting issue, but according to Brett Dugan, “justice turns me on.” Tom Wheeler holds the opposite opinion. “If I were a Supreme Court Justice, I would rule how I feel and ignore precedent; justice is an abstract concept,” Wheeler said.
On March 22, a group of thirteen students travelled to Washington D.C. to hear oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States, the home of justice. This is not the type of trip that one can expect to get a lot of sleep on. We left Sunday morning at 8 a.m. and did not arrive in DC until about 7 p.m.
We met the next morning 4:30 a.m. with entirely too little caffeine in our veins, and headed to our line to wait. We were the first ones there and senior Jenna Calvi got the much coveted number one spot in line.
After three hours in line, we finally got our tickets and were allowed inside to get coffee, breakfast, and a little warmth into our toes before heading back out to the line to take our places.
If there is one thing that every citizen should do, I would recommend it be going to a Supreme Court session. As evidence of the value of this experience Brett Dugan, Jenna Calvi and I have all been three times now, and by no means was the latest trip our final visit to the court.
After being admitted via printed purple paper that says we can be there, the class heard oral arguments. That is the ultimate goal of the Topics of the Supreme Court class that Rebecca Purdom teaches every spring – to hear an actual Supreme Court case after spending five weeks studying it. Brett Dugan somehow snuck in with a group of law students who got private tickets to the case, and subsequently sat almost close enough to smell the lawyers arguing the case.
Our final day in D.C. started the day by waking up quite late (8 a.m.) to meet with one of Sen. Patrick Leahy’s staff members to discuss nearly every political issue under the sun. We walked to the steps of the Capitol building to have our picture taken with the senator himself, but when we got there we found that he was being joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Rep Peter Welsh.
Though I’ve gone to D.C. for three of my four years at GMC this was the first time I had the honor of meeting Leahy, and I actually got to shake his hand and have a brief “conversation” with him. If I were Captain Ahab, he would be my white whale. Tom Wheeler made a special effort to shake the Sen. Leahy’s hand and tell him that he had applied to intern with him this summer, a job he found out two weeks later that he had been accepted for.
Possibly more important was the experiences and the lesson we took from it. Nobody can compete with Tom, he got a highly coveted internship with the fourth most senior senator in Congress, but the rest of us got slightly less tangible things. Rebecca Purdom says that her favorite part of the trip was “standing on the steps as we enter the Court. The mix of anticipation and architecture is intoxicating.” What I took from this trip was an astounding conclusion: that our legal system, although complex, is highly accessible to the public. I learned to have a confidence in myself and my peers. We really prepared for this trip by heavily studying the cases we heard at the court, and were the most informed and respectful (not to mention the best dressed) of all those who sat in the public seats of the courtroom that day. I impressed myself with what I knew and was even more impressed with my peers. For any student considering taking this class, I would say do it, and don’t hesitate. It is great help in understanding our legal system. It is also great for networking and meeting people who work in DC and hold really amazing, and surprisingly accessible jobs there. There is no class that either taught me more or helped me to realize my potential more.
