On Sept. 17, Sacred Heart University hosted its annual Constitution Day Hackathon, where students proposed “hacks” to the U.S. Constitution as part of a liberal arts and social sciences initiative.
Source: Danielle Grillo, Staff Writer and Photographer
“The main goal of the Constitution Day Hackathon is to encourage students to engage in critical thinking,” said Dr. Marylena Mantas-Kourounis, head of the Department of Political Science and Global Affairs. “In being asked to suggest a Constitutional amendment, or ‘hack,’ students are encouraged to learn about the Constitution, to understand it, to analyze it, to evaluate it, and to synthesize a concrete argument. These skills enhance the academic skill set and experience of all students.”
All students were welcome to participate in the event. Political science majors have engaged more with the event each year, but that has not swayed students with other majors from submitting their Constitution changes.
Sophomore Harjaap Singh submitted a hack focused on presidential pardons. He was selected due to a paper he wrote in his American Government and Politics class.
“I’m a big advocate for fairness and everyone, including the president, being treated the same. I thought that the limits on these pardons were extremely insufficient and basically put the president above all,” Singh said. “I accepted the invite because of how much I valued what I was writing about and how I wanted to talk about it.”
The high school version included students from Notre Dame Prep and Trumbull High School. Mantas-Kourounis explained that a cohort of students in both high schools were asked, “If you could hack into the Constitution, what would you change and why?” The submission process was anonymous, and Mantas-Kourounis worked with a group of Sacred Heart political science students to select two candidates from each school based on structure, originality and effectiveness of arguments.
“We believe that by critically engaging with the Constitution, the students from Notre Dame and Trumbull High School will acquire enhanced civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions,” Mantas-Kouronis said.
Mantas-Kourounis intends to grow the event even further in the future on both the college and high school level. Currently, there is another high school interested in participating next year, and students are always welcome to submit their “hacks” to the Constitution.
