Living And Breathing The Document

East High’s Constitutional Law Team Wins National Championship

By Reid Neureiter, For the GPHN

When one thinks of dynasties, a few come to mind: John Wooden’s UCLA Bruin Basketball team. The Pittsburg Steelers of the 1970s. The Ming. 

To that pantheon should be added the Denver East High School Constitutional Law program, which has won dozens of Colorado state championships. This year, guided by teachers Susan McHugh and Matt Fulford, the team took home the ultimate prize, winning the National Championship in the Rayburn Office Building of the U.S. House of Representatives while competing against nearly 1,200 budding constitutional scholars from all 50 states. 

East previously took home the national title in 2009. Since 2010, Denver’s oldest high school has failed only once to win Colorado and move on to the national finals in Washington. Over that time, East has finished second in the nation (2016), third (2013), sixth two times (2011 and 2018) and seventh (2017). 

Officially called “We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution,” the program requires students to be enrolled in a yearlong civics class that focuses on the U.S. Constitution. During the national finals, students participate in simulated congressional hearings. There, they testify as constitutional experts before panels of judges acting as congressional committees. 

Each hearing begins with a four-minute opening statement by students and is followed by a six-minute period of follow-up questioning during which judges probe students’ depth of knowledge, understanding, and their ability to apply constitutional principles. The format provides students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of constitutional principles. The judges assess students’ knowledge and application of those principles to historical and current constitutional issues.

All rise

East senior and Park Hill resident Sophie Goldberg was a member of this year’s championship squad. Winning the national title is much like a fulltime job – a culmination of nine months of intensive preparation and study. Goldberg, who lives on Montview Boulevard, estimates that she and her panel-mates spent between 15-20 hours a week, including class time, researching and preparing. 

“It is a lot of work, but it does not seem like a lot if you are interested in the subject,” she says.

Goldberg spent much of her time reading about the importance of checks and balances in the Constitution, and the historic tensions between the Federalist and the Anti-Federalists in the debates over the adoption of the Bill of Rights. 

The Constitutional balance between the Executive and Congress has lately been disrupted, she explains, by modern presidents’ use of executive orders, “which has increased exponentially in recent years.” 

Goldberg attributes the remarkable continued success of East’s program to a vast amount of community involvement. In addition to teachers McHugh and Fulford, each panel has its own volunteer coach, usually a local Denver lawyer or judge, and numerous volunteer “judges,” who try to model the kinds of questioning the student panels will face in competition. 

Making better citizens

Over the years, East’s coaches and volunteer judges have included Colorado luminaries – many of whom live in Park Hill. They include Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, former United States Attorney Tom Strickland, and Clerk of Court to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Betsy Schumaker. 

This year, panel coaches and volunteer judges included Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Daniel Taubman, former U.S. Attorney and current U.S. Senate Candidate John Walsh, Denver County Court Judge Barry Schwartz, as well as Sophie Goldberg’s father, Holland and Hart law partner, Greg Goldberg. (See page 7 for additional volunteers.) 

Goldberg cites two crucial key lessons that, in his view, students take from the program: “The elegance and beauty of the American constitutional system, and that the American constitutional system is not infallible and requires education, knowledge, study, and engagement to protect.”

 Judge Schwartz has been involved in the program since 2012 and his own East graduate son, Andrew, went to nationals in 2013. Schwartz believes the program is transformative. “This program changes lives. It changed my son’s life. It opens a door to civic engagement and understanding of the essential nature of the society we live in. It makes them better citizens.” 

The benefits, according to Schwartz, are not just for the students. “The little bit of work I did has made me a better citizen. I learned more about the Constitution from these students than I have taught them.” 

Standing their ground

Doug and Maureen Wulf, who live in Park Hill on Leyden Street, echo Judge Schwartz’s view of the transformative benefits of the program. Each of the Wulf’s three children have participated, and each was able to go to Washington for the national finals, in 2013, 2015, and 2017, respectively. 

Doug Wulf, a commercial real estate broker, says that his children learned lessons that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Wulf recounted that Connor, now a college graduate, recently used the methods he learned in Con Law in order to stand up to and withstand criticism from a difficult consulting client. 

“These junior year experiences turn into collegiate or real world opportunities,” Doug Wulf says. “It really has a profound impact on the way kids study, and the way they discover their passions from academic and civic pursuits. It changes their perceptions, not just of patriotism but of self. It gives the ability to stand their ground, and gives sense of self in a social arena.” 

Maureen Wulf says that their youngest child, daughter Kelly, now a freshman at the University of Virginia, has risen to the challenges of college in part thanks to the lessons from Con Law, which requires teamwork and coordination. According to Maureen Wulf, it gives you the tools “to deal with almost any situation.” 

National champion Sophie Goldberg is still processing her team’s victory this spring. “It has still not sunk in that we won.” 

She also continues to ponder the lessons from her Washington experience, which included meetings with David Bossie, the conservative activist chairman of the Citizens United organization, and conservative Federal Appellate Judge Laurence Silberman. One thing she is convinced of is that that every participating student is now “more aware of how our country works.”