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Most United States citizens consider ourselves fortunate to live in a modern, maturedemocracy. We appreciate the great freedoms and abundant material things our democracy affordsus. But while we all know the old adage that freedom is not free, neither is democracy. Our systemdepends on citizens being in ultimate control of the government through a written constitutionwith checks and balances, frequent elections, term limits, free speech, free press, the right topetition the government, the right to bring lawsuits against the government, referendums, recalls,and more. Unfortunately, too few of us take the time to actively participate in our democracy.

Which brings up another adageyou only get as much out of a thing as you put into it.So, how much are we putting into our democracy? How much are we as a countryinvesting in making sure our citizens are informed, knowledgeable, and prepared to fullyparticipate in our continuing experiment in self-government?

Our Current Investment in Civics EducationSchools can help prepare our youngest citizens for their critical role in our democracy. In fact, public education in the United States historically had the three related purposes of preparingstudents to participate in life as citizens, to engage in adult work and careers, and to becomefunctioning members of their communities.

The first goal is essentially civics education. What value do we place on achieving thisgoal today? Governments at all levels have given little support to developing civics educationover the last thirty years, according to the March 2, 2021, Educating for American Democracyreport sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department ofEducation. At the federal level, we spend five cents on civics education per student each year,significantly less than the fifty-four dollars per student for Science, Technology, Engineering, andMathematics education. Danielle Allen, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethicsat Harvard University, discussed this disparity in an Oct. 8, 2020, interview on Harvard EdCasttitled The Role of Education in Democracy. Her point was not that less money should be spenton STEM, but that the lack of support for civics education results in an inability for young peopleto understand democracy, be motivated to participate in it, [and] to have the skills and tools theyneed to participate effectively in democratic self-government.

The Cost of Neglecting CivicsIn a wonderful, wide-ranging discussion sponsored by the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies on April 14, 2021, titled Civics as a National Security Imperative, UnitedStates Supreme Court Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch discussed the importance ofcivics from their perspective as judges of the highest court in our country. Justice Sotomayor citedthe wide disparity on STEM and civics spending discussed above. Both Justices discussed thetroubling lack of knowledge about how our government functions, the low rate of participation ingovernment, the surprisingly large number of people who disapprove of democracy, and howpervasive false information is in our society, especially as spread by social media.

The Justices identified these dangers as resulting from a lack of civics knowledge, whichequips citizens to discern false information regarding our government and its functioning. JusticeGorsuch noted that more often in history, democracies fall not from external threat but frominternal discord. He noted democracy is not an automatic thing. Recently, foreign enemiescapitalized on our internal divisions and discord to further divide us, and Justice Gorsuch noted, it is no surprise that a lot of the false misinformation spread on social media is deliberately spread by our enemies to sow disagreement internally in the country.

Our democracy suffers when we as citizens are unable to fulfil our responsibility as theultimate control of government. We have to make reasoned decisions at the ballot box and in theother means of exercising our power. We cannot fulfill this responsibility when we do not knowhow our government functions. As Justice Gorsuch stated, when we are uninformed, not only dowe allow unresponsive and dysfunctional government, but we also allow foreign and domesticthreats to endanger our democracy.

Among the strengths of the American legal system are civility, civil discourse, constructivedisagreement, critical thinking, and respectful dialogue. Both Justices spoke of how society atlarge could use these principles, practiced every day in our courts, to bridge the divides we nowface.

By failing to educate our young people and ourselves on our government and our civicresponsibilities, we risk losing the freedoms we value so highly. We may have well-educatedSTEM students, but if we lose our democracy, in what kind of country will they live? In thatevent, we will all have to ask ourselves, did we pay the appropriate price for democracy?

Curtis L. CollierUnited States District JudgeChair, Eastern District of Tennessee Civics and Outreach Committee

Carrie Brown StefaniakLaw Clerk to the Honorable Curtis L. CollierImmediate Past President, Chattanooga Chapter of the Federal Bar Association

Eliza L. TaylorLaw Clerk to the Honorable Curtis L. Collier

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In the recent opinion What is the Price of Democracy?, the authors advocate a return of basic civics in the education curriculum. I wholeheartedly agree and thank them for their advocacy. However, I find it somewhat disturbing the learned authors used the term democracy 15 times, but not once used the term Republic in their writing. Both terms are necessary to accurately substantiate and better explain the authors advocacy.

To illustrate, the opening paragraph should have read Most United States citizens consider ourselves fortunate to live in a modern, mature democratic Republic. We appreciate the great freedoms and abundant material things our democracy affords us. But while we all know the old adage that freedom is not free, neither is democracy.

There are other places in the opinion where Republic rather than democracy is the proper term to describe our country. By using the noun Republic appropriately to accurately describe the United States, and the use of democracy to describe the political process used to operate our Republic, the authors would demonstrate the difference and help inform a reader who may not have the benefits of a Civics class.

Ironically, the misused terminology helps to show the need and necessity to return a course in United States civics to our Republics education curriculum.

Bryan Bowen

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What Is The Price Of Democracy? - The Chattanoogan