Street Law Remembers Senator Ted Kennedy
by
August 27, 2009
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Silver Spring, MD
After Robert F. Kennedy’s tragic assassination in 1968, a number of his friends and family members, including Ted and Ethel (Mrs. Robert) Kennedy, started the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial (now the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights)—a foundation dedicated to the rights and responsibilities of youth.
Several years later Street Law began with Georgetown University Law Center law students teaching practical law lessons in the District of Columbia Public Schools. In 1972, the first mock trial competition was conducted in Washington, DC, between Eastern and Wilson High Schools. Sitting in the audience that day was the RFK Memorial Executive Director David Ramage, whose daughter was on the Wilson High School mock trial team. After the trial Mr. Ramage indicated to Street Law co-founders Jason Newman and Ed O’Brien what a marvelous effect participation in the mock trial had had on his daughter and that he would like to meet with them and discuss Street Law. Thus began Street Law’s close association with the Kennedys (Ethel Kennedy often attended the mock trials) resulting in Ed O’Brien, Lee Arbetman, and Ed McMahon—the Street Law textbook’s original co-authors—each being named RFK fellows during the 1970s.
The Kennedy family was also instrumental in helping Street Law expand from Washington, DC, and the Georgetown Law School program to other law schools across the country. RFK Memorial staff identified leaders in their network who were receptive to empowerment and social justice programs for children, and many of these people brought Street Law to law schools and urban school systems where they lived.
Ed and Lee would often run into Senator Ted Kennedy at events and he always remembered Street Law fondly as a program the RFK Memorial had helped to start. In September of 2005, at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for John G. Roberts, Senator Kennedy complimented Roberts on his involvement with Street Law’s Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers. More than 30 years after the RFK Memorial’s involvement with the launch of Street Law, Senator Kennedy remembered his family’s commitment to this program. As the nation and the world mourn Ted Kennedy’s passing, the education Street Law, Inc. continues to provide works to bring us closer to the “justice for all” that Senator Kennedy strived for during his lifetime.
Source:
(Reproduced with permission)
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Law School-Based Programs
Topic: Civic & Law-Related Education
Topic: Democracy/Human Rights