“Your honors, may I start?” Magda Khedr clears her throat and addresses the court.
After a quick nod from one of the three justices, the prosecutor begins her opening argument. “We contend that the search of Carmen Bundy’s phone,” Khedr says, “was a clear violation of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”
And so begins a day-long trial in New York City. In this case, the prosecutor is a high school senior from Staten Island. It’s part of an annual moot-court competition in which students from more than 30 city high schools research and prepare cases for weeks. The justices are Fordham University law students; their rulings aren’t legally binding but offer important lessons about how government and courts work.
For many young people, the legal system is a black box: they see inputs and outcomes but not what happens inside the courtroom. Now in its 41st year and tied to a citywide civics curriculum, the program aims to change that.
The case Khedr, a student at Susan E. Wagner High School, prosecutes is fictional: a high school prank leads to a student being summoned to the assistant principal’s office. While inside, a school resource officer searches the student’s phone but does not read Miranda warnings. Khedr argues the search was unlawful. Brianna Mojica, a senior at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice, counters that the meeting wasn’t custodial interrogation. “Just because a school resource officer who is a certified law enforcement officer is present doesn’t mean the questioning is custodial,” Mojica says in her opening statement, offering an analogy that, later, a law-student judge praises: “Similar to how the presence of a priest doesn’t turn a gathering into a church service.”
Civics education is under national scrutiny. The Trump administration announced a new coalition of conservative groups to revise civics instruction ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary, saying the initiative aims to renew patriotism and strengthen civic knowledge. The move comes as national civics test scores for eighth graders have declined since 2014 and concerns about polarization and the erosion of democratic norms have risen.
Louise Dubé, CEO of iCivics, a nonpartisan nonprofit founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, emphasizes that civics mixes government, history and social studies but is foremost a set of skills: how to disagree civilly and solve problems. iCivics provides free materials to help students understand democracy and develop participation skills. “To understand service to your neighbor, your community, your country and value that as part of who you are,” Dubé says.
Michael Seif of the Justice Resource Center, which oversees Fordham’s competition, says the goal is a baseline understanding of government and the ability to apply law-related thinking in life. For students, the month-long competition offers hands-on learning; law-student judges don’t issue binding decisions but score performances and provide feedback. Emily Knight, a third-year Fordham law student and one of the justices, praised the students’ preparation and delivery, noting Mojica’s priest analogy as particularly memorable.
Marla Kleinman, a social studies teacher at Wagner who helped prepare Khedr, says the school’s civics-focused curriculum aims to give students their own voices. “It’s okay to challenge ideas, not people,” she tells her students.