Students focused their proposed amendments on a variety of issues that have dominated legal headlines in recent years, especially for New Yorkers. <\/p>\n
Student proposals included amendments related to gun reform, digital privacy and technology regulation, universal healthcare, citizenship pathways, social media age restrictions and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Each student received a certificate of recognition both from the Office of Civil Engagement and from Meeks\u2019 office. The top three students were recognized with awards, and the top student will have their essay go up against other contest winners in other counties. The final overall contest winner across the state will be announced on Law Day, May 1.<\/p>\n
The topics each student chose showed not just what issues they saw as important or topical, but displayed concern for the powers and limits given to our country\u2019s elected and appointed leaders. <\/p>\n
The final winner of the Queens essay contest was Clara Burke, who focused her amendment on the judiciary, proposing term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you to everyone who made this program possible, it was a really amazing program and I truly enjoyed every minute of it,\u201d Burke said after receiving her award. \u201cI also want to thank all the judges who listened to our speeches, it was amazing to be questioned by you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two runner ups to Burke were Nicholas Libertini, who proposed a maximum age for elected officials, and Krish Kumar, who proposed legalized abortion access across the country.<\/p>\n
It was the second annual Office of Civic Engagement Civic Essay Contest, and it marked a significant expansion from the first year\u2019s program. <\/p>\n
Over 165 essay submissions from students across the state were submitted. Queens students accounted for nearly a third of all submissions.<\/p>\n
The civics essay contest was one of the first programs created and managed by Zenith Taylor, the state\u2019s first-ever statewide civic engagement coordinator. Taylor, who used to be a Queens attorney and past president of the Queens County Bar Association, said it\u2019s been her goal to increase civic engagement and courtroom knowledge in as many schools as possible.<\/p>\n
Currently, Taylor\u2019s office is gearing up to launch the first Civics Trivia Bowl for middle school students in the spring on a virtual platform. Work on next year\u2019s Civic Essay Contest, which Taylor said will come with more new twists, is already in development.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s contest was a challenge unto itself, but Taylor said she was proud of how it ended up playing out in the borough\u2019s halls of justice. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis was nerve wracking in terms of getting it together, and I have to tell you it came together nicely,\u201d Taylor said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re already thinking about what we\u2019re going to do next year, but I also want to encourage everyone to let people know about the program,\u201d she added. \u201cIt started last year, we\u2019ve expanded it, and I hope to expand it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students focused their proposed amendments on a variety of issues that have dominated legal headlines in recent years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-179724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}