Our Courts: A Sandra Day O’Connor Game
Posted in News
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor revealed Wednesday that she will be working on a new video game designed to teach children how United States courts work. The game, currently titled Our Courts, will consist of two distinct parts and will be released in stages beginning this September.
The first part of the game is a free online civics program developed with the Georgetown University Law Center and Arizona State University. The interactive online program is designed for students in grades seven through nine and is intended to supplement existing courses or act as a standalone program. The website, www.ourcourts.org, hopes to engage students by forcing them to consider real legal issues. For instance, Reuters summarized a hypothetical game scenario presented by O’Connor: “one element would focus on … a school attempting to stop students wearing a T-shirt with a controversial slogan — a free speech issue designed to elicit argument about the 1st Amendment.”
O’Connor was scant on details concerning the second part of Our Courts, but stated that it would be designed for children to use in their free time. O’Connor realized the value of reaching children through modern technology by interaction with her grandchildren. Citing statistics that children typically spend forty hours a week using media, including video games, O’Connor stated:
If we can capture just a little bit of that time to get them thinking about government and civic engagement rather than playing shoot-’em-up video games, that’s a huge step in the right direction.
O’Connor became involved with the game’s development out of concern over the increasingly negative partisan criticism of judges and courts. O’Connor hopes that Our Courts will counter such criticisms and educate a largely ignorant public:
In recent years I’ve become increasingly concerned about vitriolic attacks by some members of Congress, some members of state legislatures and various private interest groups …. We hear a great deal about judges who are activists — godless, secular, humanists trying to impose their will on the rest of us.
With partisan attacks and political pressure mounting, it’s much more difficult to achieve fair and impartial judgments from the judges who are serving.
When asked if she played video games herself, O’Connor stated that she did not.
Source: Reuters
