Task for Students

As Clerks to the Supreme Court, you are charged with tracing the origins of our American civil rights and the roots of this conflict.

• You will examine circumstances in history where asserting individual liberties or doing what was in the public interest took precedence.
• You will write and defend a position paper advising the Court of the need to either safeguard individual rights or serve the interests of the common good on one contemporary issue.
• In pairs, you will be asked to create an original metaphor to describe the conceptual unit question:

How paramount are one’s civil rights? Or...
How does the public interest influence the liberties and rights of individuals?

Credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection