Students hear state Supreme Court
Karin Higgins/UC Davis
By Anna Sturla,
HUB Editor-in-Chief,
A group of Davis High students and teachers attended a special meeting of the California Supreme Court Wednesday.
The hearing, which took place at King Hall on the UC Davis campus, was a rare chance for selected UC Davis and Davis High students to hear the state Supreme Court to hear an actual case.
“You hear about sup. Court arguments, and as a teacher I’d read the transcripts (…) but I’d never seen it play out in person,” Kristin Swanstrom, a Davis High social studies teacher, said.
The event featured a Q&A session prior to the hearing where three Davis High and four UC Davis students asked questions of the court that ranged from career advice to rarely-hear personal opinions on budget cuts.
“I thought our students did really well,” Swanstrom said. “To have Davis High students read questions written by other Davis High students was really awesome.”
The event, the first-ever state Supreme Court hearing at UC Davis, was mostly made up of an intense debate between the seven justices and the two opposing lawyers, which dealt with whether unions had the right to protest in front of small grocery stores.
“I thought it was a really good learning experience and I took a lot from it,” said Angelea Ranzenbach, a Davis High student and captain of the school’s debate team. “I want to be a lawyer, so (I liked) seeing the attorneys and how they handle their cases.”
The Davis High students were also able to participate in a debrief session after the hearing, where they discussed the proceedings and who they thought was going to win.
“I really had a lot of fun afterward, when all the high school students go to gether and debrief, and talk about the case,” said Adam King, Davis High student and ASB president. “It was a lot more interactive, people pointing out things from the case I hadn’t noticed.”
“My only real regret is that so few students were able to go,” Swanstrom said. “It was an incredible opportunity, and I wish we could have brought more than 18.”
