After taking home the title in the statewide civics championship earlier this year, the constitution team from Portland’s Grant High School will represent Oregon in the national “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” finals kicking off in Maryland on April 17. The three-day competition features hundreds of students from around the nation demonstrating their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, government and Supreme Court decisions by arguing historical and contemporary constitutional issues.
Sophie Durocher and Caspian Green are two members of Grant High School’s constitution team, and Angela DiPasquale is the team’s advisor. We’ll speak to them ahead of their travels to the national championship.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. What’s it like to be studying the Constitution when talk of a constitutional crisis has become commonplace? What are the challenges of preparing for a civics competition when basic issues like citizenship, the separation of powers or fundamental rights seem more in play now than they’ve been for generations?
These are some of the questions for the members of the constitution team at Portland’s Grant High School. The school has been a national powerhouse in the competition for years now. In fact, they’ve won the “We the People” championship four times in the last dozen or so years. And they aim to do it again this year. They won the state title earlier this year and they’re going to compete in the national competition next month.
I’m joined now by two members of the team. Sophie Durocher and Caspian Green are both seniors at Grant. Angela DiPasquale is a social studies teacher at the high school and the team’s advisor. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.
Caspian Green: Thank you for having us.
Angela DiPasquale: Thank you.
Sophie Durocher: Yeah, thank you.
Miller: Caspian first, can you describe the way this competition is set up, the format of this competition?
Green: It’s set up like a congressional hearing, where we’re given two or three questions in advance, where we prepare a four-minute statement. Then after that statement we get follow up questions about various constitutional principles. And the questions will differ depending on which “unit” we’re on.
Miller: And who’s asking you these questions?
Green: Various judges. We’ve had some people from, I believe the Oregon Supreme Court, but I’m not fully certain, as well as various district court judges and various lawyers.
Miller: Sophie, what interested you in the constitution team?
Durocher: If I’m being honest, the thing that initially drew me to constitution team is the musical “Hamilton” – that kind of sparked my interest in U.S. history. And then I really enjoyed learning about U.S. history last year in high school, and I knew that I wanted to learn a lot more and I thought that constitution team would be a way to engage with it a lot more directly. It also was a great way for me to understand it, I think, more deeply perhaps than some of my other classmates in regular government class.
Miller: “Hamilton” came out, what, 10 or 12 years ago – I forget when it came out – in the early 2010s?
Durocher: Yeah, fourth grade was when I started thinking about constitution team.
Miller: Whoa. So “Hamilton” came out. You were in fourth grade, and you said, “When I can, I want to be on the constitution team?”
Durocher: Yeah.
Miller: Am I right that you partly chose Grant High School because of its constitution team? That you had the choice to go to Franklin, and you said, “I want to do Grant,” partly because of this?
Durocher: Yeah, that’s correct. My mom told me about how Grant had a really good constitution team and they often get to compete on the national level. And I was like, “That sounds like something I want to do.”
Miller: Caspian, what about you? Why’d you want to be on this team?
Green: I’ve always kind of been into the news. “Hamilton” was also pretty helpful. But I also joined the Grant mock trial team sophomore year after taking the class freshman year. And I really enjoyed doing that and learning about the law, and getting to argue, especially for the defense side. So that really helped me get with a legal community. Then from there, the logical next step was constitution team.
Miller: Angela, how would you describe your role as advisor?
DiPasquale: It is multifaceted. Early on in the year is preparing students with the basics and doing upfront teaching. Then as we get into the year and get into the questions, my role is to really work with the groups within the classroom, in relation to the questions that they’re being asked. So I help support them in their research. We discuss some of the issues and how to approach some of the questions. I facilitate conversations and kind of manage the entire team, as we have a lot of activities in addition to just the classroom. We practice outside of class as well.
Miller: Sophie, can you give us a sense of the questions that you worked on for the state championship?
Durocher: Yeah, for sure. Our first question was on executive power. Specifically, it was in relation to the Supreme Court case, Youngstown Sheet and Tube. That was about an executive order that President Truman issued during the Korean War. So we learned a lot about executive orders, which are actually very relevant, with President Trump issuing a lot of executive orders. So we learned a lot about that. Also, our second question was on the amendment process and amending our Constitution, and how we interpret the Constitution; if we should interpret it as originalists or as living constitutionalists.
Miller: How did you approach that first question about executive authority, executive actions, in light of everything that’s happening right now? I guess I’m wondering how much you think of this as about learning history and how much it’s about making sense of what’s happening literally today?
Durocher: It’s definitely a combination of both. We had to learn about the history, like what really is an executive order? When did they start happening more? Because presidents have been issuing proclamations for a while, but executive orders are kind of a different nuanced thing. And executive agencies and how the president is involved with those, and also impoundments, when the president is withholding funds that Congress has appropriated, that process. So, those are all things that, throughout history, have functioned in the way the Constitution tells them to, up until now.
It’s very interesting. We would talk about an executive order from 70 years ago and then now, what’s going on with executive orders now? Here’s why it’s different. Here’s why it’s kind of getting confusing. And here’s how impoundments have been. Here’s how the Constitution tells them that they’re not really allowed and then here’s what’s going on now with President Trump.
Miller: Caspian, what about you? What were you researching for the state championship?
Green: Our first question was on protest rights and various forums. It was aimed towards whether or not the internet counts as a forum. But that one has been pretty much answered, though the court has taken some more nuance recently, so it expanded to general protest rights and rights in different forums. There’s traditional public forums, and then there’s limited public forums or designated public forums, and then non-public forums. And your speech rights are completely different for all four.
Then our second question was on AI and privacy – my favorite question so far – which was about what rights you have when third party contractors, specifically like AI databases, give that data up to the government.
Miller: To go back to that first question about speech and protest rights … Am I right that you competed in the state championship just one week after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents while he was protesting in Minnesota?
Green: Yes, actually, at the regional competition, we were checking the news in between rounds. That’s when we found out.
Miller: So how does a real, terrifying, terrible event like that make its way into the conversations you’re having among your own team or what you’re maybe even saying in the competition itself? I guess I’m just wondering how much real life injects itself into this competition?
Green: That’s a great question. When we get all of our prepared questions, we can very quickly see that there’s some ties to the modern day. But for that question, in particular, a judge asked us a question about gun rights at protests, which I had texted my unit’s group chat just two or three days prior saying, “Hey, we’re gonna get a question on whether or not you can bring a gun to a protest.” So it was definitely surprising to see that we were able to predict that. But it was also just like, this is exactly how we’re supposed to be applying these rules.
Miller: Angela, what’s it like for you, at this point, when you’re walking around the room during team meetings – I guess I’m just imagining this is happening … if this doesn’t happen, tell me – and you hear these different groups of six students talking deeply, maybe arguing deeply about constitutional issues?
DiPasquale: As an educator, it’s a dream. It’s something that I wish every student in the United States had the opportunity to participate in, because the way that they develop their ideas and their critical thinking is so powerful. To be able to not only listen to them, but then to engage with them, I’m learning as they’re learning. Because every year it’s [a] different focus on different types of material. So it’s really exciting and it’s really informative. And to watch a student’s growth over the year, I would say it is magical because students become so deeply invested. Just being able to talk about these issues and what do students think. It’s important, they’re going into next steps, phases of their lives and [are] going to be speaking to new and different people all over the country. They’ll be able to carry this with them.
Miller: Sophie, we talked about the state championships – which, in the past, you won – vaulting you to the national championships next month. Do you know yet what your questions are for the nationals?
Durocher: Yeah, we do. For nationals, we actually have three questions. Our first one is about the Electoral College and how it was intended by the founders, how it’s developed today, and if we think that we should transition to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Our second question is about political parties, specifically tensions between them, and why America developed to be a two-party system, and if we think that ranked choice voting would help eliminate the issue.
Our third question is about voting discrimination by race, what the Supreme Court and Congress’ power is through the 15th Amendment. And also, how Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 Supreme Court decision, impacted voting rights and if we should look at impact or intent.
Miller: Caspian, I mentioned earlier that these are six-person sort of mini teams that together make up your full team of 36 seniors. What’s it like? How do you navigate when there are different ideas about how to build your case, how to structure your argument, how to respond to potential questions? Six people could have six very different ideas about how to do things.
Green: Well, how we navigate that is with arguments, all the time. And they’re good, they’re respectful. We are always able to work together as a unit again. I know my unit in particular, Unit Five, we have a whole swath of personalities and opinions. It’s actually been really good because we’ve been able to really be able to challenge each other on the constitutional principles because we genuinely disagree. We also talk a lot with the other units too, who all have different disagreements on different subjects. They have valuable information that they can share with us and we have valuable information to share with them.
Miller: Sophie, just today, The Supreme Court ruled that Colorado’s law banning so-called conversion therapy is unconstitutional. Tomorrow, The High Court is going to hear oral arguments in one of the biggest cases of the year, one of the biggest cases in a number of years. It’s about birthright citizenship and the Trump administration’s efforts to get rid of that through executive order. Has being a member of this team changed the way you follow or understand these kinds of issues?
Durocher: Absolutely, yes. I follow them much more closely now. In fact, I’ve listened to the oral arguments for at least two Supreme Court hearings so far. Probably I will listen tomorrow, because I think listening to them is really helpful for my understanding of them. I’ve turned on news alerts for most of my news. So just this morning, I woke up and I saw the notification about The Supreme Court ruling. I was like, “oh wow, this is going to be big.”
And yeah, I definitely think that I also understand it a lot better. Sometimes, I’ll be looking into a Supreme Court case, I’ll see the question at the top and I’ll be like, “I know what they’re talking about. I know what constitutional principle they mean,” when they’re talking about the very specific clause in an Article, the First Amendment. I can understand it more and I can engage with it more.
Miller: Angela, what are you hoping overall that your students will take away from this experience?
DiPasquale: I would say a lifelong desire to continue learning always and having conversations, even difficult conversations, with people that they encounter. So I think that helps us grow. At the end of the day, even if we disagree, there is room for that compromise, that building, that consensus. I know that these students will take with them all that they’ve learned this year and keep building on that. And they’re going to be great citizens in our democracy. They’re going to be voting. They’re going to be involved in their communities.
And I take a great deal of pride ... I’m proud of each and every one of them. And I’m proud of them year after year, to see them go off and make their own way. Not all students go into law. Not all students become lawyers or political scientists. But this background really helps students to better understand our country and ultimately to help us steer it in a good direction in the future.
Miller: Angela, Caspian and Sophie, congratulations and best of luck in the nationals next month.
Green: Thank you for having us.
Durocher: Thank you so much.
DiPasquale: Thank you so much.
Miller: Angela DiPasquale is a social studies teacher at Grant High School and the advisor of the school’s constitution team. Caspian Green and Sophie Durocher are both seniors at the school and members of the team. They’re gonna be taking part in the national championship, along with Lincoln High School from Portland as well, next month.
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