{"id":234528,"date":"2026-05-17T14:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T14:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:12:49","slug":"nyc-bar-association-gives-high-school-students-fresh-take-on-the-declaration-of-independences-250th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234528\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Bar Association gives high school students fresh take on the Declaration of Independence\u2019s 250th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historian Lisa Anderson of the Gilda Lehrman Institute provided more than 200 high school students with fodder to correct their peers and family members about the Declaration of Independence<\/a> during a civic education event at the New York City Bar Association<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cActually\u2026\u201d she had the group of students recite together in a joking, know-it-all tone, before diving into her lecture on \u201cTen Things to Know About the Declaration of Independence That Most People Don\u2019t Know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bar association\u2019s event<\/a> comes ahead of the 250th anniversary of the founding document and the establishment of the United States of America, which will be commemorated on July 4 of this year. Friday\u2019s event featured remarks from two United States District Court for the Southern District of New York judges, Magistrate Judge Katharine Huth Parker and Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who\u2019s also from New York and who went to public schools in New York City, it means a lot to me to be able to welcome you, fellow New York City scholars, to this very special event in this very special year,\u201d Swain said. \u201cThe ideals embodied in the words of the Declaration \u2014 equality, fairness, and the belief that laws should serve the people \u2014 are what inspired me to pursue a career as a judge, working to ensure justice for all under the law. There\u2019s something special about learning this history and working to extend its reach in a place that helps to shape it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s presentation expertly avoided truisms about the Declaration, making the lecture engaging for the high schoolers.\n<\/p>\n

Declaration of Independence \u2018process was not perfect\u2019<\/p>\n

She brought up some important historical context that sometimes gets deemphasized in the common imagination of our founding, like the fact that sporadic battles with Great Britain were happening across the country before the Declaration.<\/p>\n

She also pointed out how the Declaration fits into the many forms of New York exceptionalism, in that our state \u201cwas kind of a pain\u201d when it came to signing the document. In fact, New York was actually an abstention on the vote to pass the Declaration because \u201cthe colony isn\u2019t run especially well,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Anderson also openly addressed the contradictions in the Declaration over slavery, arguing that most significant edit that was made to Thomas Jefferson\u2019s original draft was the removal of the section in which he criticized King George for \u201cwaging a cruel war against human nature itself\u201d in bringing human bringing into captivity and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process was not perfect, but this was a significant improvement because once again,\u201d Anderson said, asking the students to join her in a refrain of, \u201c\u2018Monarchy is stupid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the rest of the day, students were tasked with working alongside volunteer lawyers and educators to reflect on whether the grievances in the Declaration of Independence still resonate with them and debate whether it lived up to its own promise.<\/p>\n

\"\"United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Katharine Huth<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Historian Lisa Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Historian Lisa Anderson of the Gilda Lehrman Institute provided more than 200 high school students with fodder to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44876,30766,53391,22954,39664,91913,80316,55294,91914,91915,91916,9,24,31804,55,54,56,91917,91918,91919],"class_list":["post-234528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-250th-anniversary","tag-american-history","tag-civic-education","tag-declaration-of-independence","tag-federal-judges","tag-gilder-lehrman-institute","tag-high-school-students","tag-july-4","tag-katharine-huth-parker","tag-laura-taylor-swain","tag-lisa-anderson","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-bar-association","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-revolutionary-war-history","tag-slavery-debate","tag-u-s-founding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234528","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=234528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}