From flag burning to religion in schools, American constitutional issues are too far removed from the public, which often knows very little about relevant cases, former U.S. solicitor general Kenneth Starr, Law '73, told an audience at the School of Law Monday.
About a hundred people, mostly law students, gathered for the lunch discussion with Starr, who served under former president George H.W. Bush and recently published a book, First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life.
The name Kenneth Starr should be familiar to anyone who followed the controversy surrounding the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton, a period Starr referred to Monday only as the "recent unpleasantness." Otherwise, Starr avoided the subject during his visit, focusing on the importance of increased public knowledge about the interaction between the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress.
"I wanted to write a book that would make the court much more accessible to the entire nation," said Starr, explaining his reasons for publishing with trade instead of university press.
"One of the things that people tend to argue about over the dinner table are issues like abortion, school prayer, affirmative action. I wanted to make these as accessible as possible to the American people," he said.
In his talk, Starr offered two examples of prominent constitutional issues examined by both Congress and the Supreme Court.
He began with the flag burning controversies that started with the Supreme Court striking down a Texas state law banning the desecration of the flag on the grounds that it inhibited the First Amendment right of free expression. A widespread public debate followed, and eventually Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989. It was signed by former president Bush, who noted that there were some serious constitutional complications with the act.
Yet, when Starr argued for the United States in the Supreme Court case U.S. vs. Eichman, the Flag Protection Act was also overturned by the court.
"I lost five to four at the Supreme Court of the United States, which determined that flag burning was part of our free expression," Starr said.
Starr also discussed the 1990 Supreme Court case of Bridget Mergens, a student whose request to form a Christian organization at her high school was refused by the school's principal.
The school district argued that allowing a religious group to meet in the school may limit the administration's ability to decide which groups were legitimate.
In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court decided that the students had the right to meet according to the Equal Access Act of 1984.
In the majority opinion, the Court stated that if one or more extracurricular groups existed in a school, then all should be allowed to meet on a non-discriminatory basis.
Starr concluded that more should be done to inform the public of these kinds of debates.
"[The courts] are not an area that should be viewed as the precinct of lawyers and judges. It affects us all so we should have a richer understanding of it," he said.
Starr said he supports more education on the law in high schools, and he also believes there should be television coverage of the Supreme Court, although he acknowledges that the majority of judges are "set against it."
Monday's event received positive reactions from law students in attendance.
"Although I certainly don't agree with Judge Starr's [political] philosophy, it was nice to have him over," said Joe Gagnon, a second-year student at the law school.
Brian Murry, a first-year law student, said, "Public interest in the law and courts needs to grow, although I don't agree 100 percent with [Starr's views on] media access because of the intrusive nature of the press."
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