The day opens like any trial: ‘Your honors, may I start?’ Magda Khedr asks before delivering an opening argument to a bench of three student justices. After a quick nod, the Staten Island senior begins: she argues the search of a fellow student’s phone violated the Fourth Amendment.
This mock trial is part of a citywide moot-court competition that brings more than 30 New York City high schools to Fordham University each year. Now in its 41st year and linked to the city’s civics curriculum, the program asks students to research, prepare and argue cases over weeks. Fordham law students serve as the justices; their decisions aren’t legally binding, but their critiques and scores give participants a real sense of courtroom procedure and legal reasoning.
Khedr, who attends Susan E. Wagner High School, prosecutes a fictional case about a high school prank. A student is summoned to the assistant principal’s office, and while there a school resource officer searches the student’s phone without issuing Miranda warnings. Khedr contends the search was unlawful. Opposing her is Brianna Mojica, a senior at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice, who argues the encounter was not a custodial interrogation and therefore did not require Miranda warnings. In her opening, Mojica offered an analogy praised later by a law-student judge: the presence of a police officer does not automatically transform a routine school meeting into a custodial interrogation, just as the presence of a priest doesn’t make every gathering a church service.
Organizers say the value of the competition goes beyond legal outcomes. Michael Seif of the Justice Resource Center, which runs Fordham’s event, describes the goal as building a baseline understanding of government and teaching students to apply law-related thinking in everyday life. Emily Knight, a third-year Fordham law student serving as a justice, commended the competitors for their preparation, delivery and creativity.
The moot-court program arrives at a time when civics education is under national scrutiny. A recent federal initiative aimed at revising civics instruction and calls for renewed civic knowledge come amid declining national civics test scores for eighth graders since 2014 and growing concerns about polarization and civic norms.
Louise Dubé, CEO of iCivics—the nonpartisan organization Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded—says civics is as much about skills as it is about facts: how to disagree civilly, solve problems and take part in community life. iCivics offers free materials to help students develop those capacities.
Back in the courtroom, students receive feedback from their law-student judges, who score performances and point out strengths and weaknesses. Marla Kleinman, a social studies teacher at Wagner who helped prepare Khedr, says the broader civics-focused curriculum aims to give students voice and practice in civic engagement: ‘It’s okay to challenge ideas, not people,’ she tells her classes. For many competitors, the experience demystifies the justice system and leaves them more confident about participating in civic life.