UW Plans Constitution Day Activities

The University of Wyoming’s annual observance of Constitution Day this year includes a presentation by a woman whose student free speech case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969.

Constitution Day is observed each year by UW on Sept. 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the nation’s founding document in 1787. Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and George Washington were among the 39 delegates from the original 13 colonies who signed the Constitution.

The UW program featuring free speech icon Mary Beth Tinker will take place the following day, Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 5:30 p.m. in Room 129 of the Classroom Building. A reception will follow. “A Conversation with Mary Beth Tinker” is hosted by UW’s Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Program and the School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies.

In 1965, when Tinker was a 13-year-old student in eighth grade, she and her brothers and sisters, along with other students in their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, decided to wear black armbands to school to mourn the dead on both sides of the Vietnam War. The Des Moines school board tried to block the students from wearing the armbands, and most of the students who wore them were suspended. The American Civil Liberties Union took the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in the landmark 1969 decision that students in public schools have First Amendment rights.

In addition to the Sept. 18 event, UW students and employees will find Constitution-themed cookies available wherever UW Catering cookies are sold starting Monday, Sept. 16. They’ll be available until they’re sold out.

To learn more about Constitution Day, visit www.uwyo.edu/acadaffairs/constitution-day/ or www.constitutionday.com.