About 300 history, political science and social studies teachers and students from high schools throughout the state will participate with lawyers, judges and state attorneys in the 22nd Annual Law Day program on Friday, May 5, 2006 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the University’s Feinstein Providence Campus.
The theme for the interactive workshop series is “Liberty Under Law: Separate Branches, Balanced Powers” to help students better understand what the country’s founders intended and accomplished in creating a government of separate powers. This theme was chosen as it enables Law Day programs to show how the branches have their separate spheres and separate powers, but work together for the common good.
The event will include a keynote address by Chief Justice Frank J. Williams, many interactive workshops, and a student panel. Rhode Island Bar Association President Philip M. Weinstein will offer opening remarks and URI’s Urban Field Center Director Marcia Marker Feld will be presented the Judge DeRobbio Award for her dedication to Rhode Island youth and leadership in social justice. Feld, who announced her retirement earlier this year, was one of the Law Day program’s founders.
Workshop topics for the day include: Checks and Balances and Our Courts; Search and Seizure in Schools; Juvenile Justice System; Cyber-Bullying; Truth in Sentencing; Identity Theft; Leadership In a New Century: An Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence; and Downloading from the Internet? How much is Legal?
Students attending are from Tolman and Shea High schools and the Blackstone Charter School from Pawtucket; the International Charter School from Providence; and from Burrillville and North Smithfield high schools.
The Urban Field Center’s law-related education project and the Rhode Island Bar Association support Law Day to promote knowledge and awareness of the law within the Rhode Island Urban Community. Over the past 22 years, thousands of students and their teachers have participated in the annual event in Providence.