Justice Souter: Students Don't Know the Basic Structure of Government

By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers

For many students, civics class stinks. Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter thinks so. "It was dull as ditch water, but by the time it was over, one knew something about the three branches and so on, and it was at least a structure upon which, as one grew, knowledge could be hung," he says. But "that is no longer true." He knows because he, Justice Stephen Breyer, and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who now heads an online civics education site, spoke at a Georgetown University Law School conference a while back. "What we came away knowing from that conference was the problem that we have to face and deal with was not one of the ignorance of the judiciary," Souter reveals, "but the ignorance of governmental structures as a whole."

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