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Constitution Day

About Constitution Day

To encourage all Americans to learn more about the Constitution, Congress in 1956 established Constitution Week, to begin each year on September 17th, the date in 1787 when delegates to the Convention signed the Constitution. In 2004, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia included key provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2005 designating September 17th of each year as Constitution Day and requiring public schools and governmental offices to provide educational programs to promote a better understanding of the Constitution.

Constitution Day activities at ASU since 2006 are listed below. From 2006 to 2017, the ASU Library hosted various Constitution Day events.

Starting in 2017, the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership https://scetl.asu.edu/ has hosted an Annual Constitution Day Lecturehttps://scetl.asu.edu/annual-constitution-day-lecture

See the ASU News articles, "ASU professor discuss the history, importance of Constitution Day," and "5 things to know about the Constitution."

Constitution Day 2023

2023 Annual Constitution Day Lecture: "The Constitution and Civic Virtue" with Robert P. George

 

The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership's 2023 Annual Constitution Day Lecture is "The Constitution and Civic Virtue" with Robert P. George

Constitutional structural constraints on power are necessary for the maintenance of republican government and ordered liberty but, Professor George will argue, they are not sufficient. Certain virtues in the people, intellectual and moral, are no less necessary. And yet, the political order, however well-constituted it may be, cannot play more than a minor role in imparting these virtues. The major role must be played by what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of civil society—the private associations, beginning with the family, that are primary in providing health, education, and welfare, and transmitting to each new generation the habits or mind and heart that are necessary for people to lead successful lives and be good citizens.

Light snacks and refreshments will be served. 

Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Time: 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Location: Old Main, Carson Ballroom, 400 E. Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281 
 
About the Speaker

Robert P. George holds Princeton’s celebrated McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence and is Founder and Director of the University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also been the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of JD and MTS from Harvard University and the degrees of DPhil, BCL, DCL, and DLitt from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-two honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Past ASU Constitution Day Events

The ASU Library acknowledges the twenty-three Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries. Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons. We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice. ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the Library.