Chief Justice Roberts Says Judiciary Fights Fake News with Civics Education

In his 2019 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts notes that John Jay only contributed five of the 85 essays in the Federalist Papers because he was injured in the line of duty protecting fellow citizens from a mob incited by fake news:

Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote under the shared pseudonym “Publius,” but historians have since deciphered authorship of the individual essays. John Jay appears to have shouldered the lightest load of the trio, producing only five of the articles. Perhaps if Jay had been more productive, America might have re-warded him with a Broadway musical. But his low output did not arise from lack of industry. Historians have deduced that Jay’s productivity was in fact hindered by a calamity that arose in the midst of the Federalist project—the Doctors’ Riot.

In the winter of 1788, New York newspapers reported accounts that medical students were robbing graves so they could practice surgery on cadavers. In April, the chatter gelled into a rumor that students at New York Hospital were dissecting a schoolboy’s recently deceased mother. An angry mob stormed the hospital, and the mayor gave some of the medical staff refuge in the city jail. When the mob marched on the jail, John Jay, who lived nearby, grabbed his sword and joined Governor Clinton to quell the riot. In the ensuing commotion, a rioter struck Jay in the head with a rock, knocking him unconscious and leaving him, according to one ac-count, with “two large holes in his forehead.” Hamilton and Madison pressed the Federalist project forward while Jay recovered from his injuries [Chief Justice John Roberts, 2019 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, 2019.12.31].

Chief Justice Roberts exhorts us to fight rumor and mob violence, not with swordsmanship but with civics education. He notes that the judiciary plays a key role in educating all Americans about the Constitution:

By virtue of their judicial responsibilities, judges are necessarily engaged in civic education. As Federalist No. 78 observes, the courts “have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.” When judges render their judgments through written opinions that explain their reasoning, they advance public understanding of the law. Chief Justice Earl Warren illustrated the power of a judicial decision as a teaching tool in Brown v. Board of Education, the great school desegregation case. His unanimous opinion on the most pressing issue of the era was a mere 11 pages—short enough that newspapers could publish all or almost all of it and every citizen could understand the Court’s rationale. Today, federal courts post their opinions online, giving the public instant access to the reasoning behind the judgments that affect their lives [Roberts, 2019.12.31].

Chief Justice Roberts also notes many projects the judiciary conducts to promote civics education, like mock trial opportunities for students and educational resources for teachers.

If Governor Kristi Noem decides to ride her civics-education hobbyhorse again in the 2020 Session, she should note that Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t say anything about the vital role of multiple-choice tests in developing the skills of citizenship. Instead of fiddling with graduation requirements, perhaps the Governor can help our civics education by speeding up that UJS project to put all South Dakota court documents online for the public… and by abandoning her Trumpist attacks on journalism and speaking more honestly about the vital role the press plays in maintaining our Constitutional Republic.