Law student informs thousands on upcoming Supreme Court issue
Summary
In December, the Supreme Court will hear “one of the most significant election law cases… well, ever,” according to the nonpartisan law and policy institute, The Brennan Center for Justice. The issue? Independent state legislature theory.
If you don’t know the in’s and out’s of the case, you’re not alone. Thousands are turning to Wikipedia to understand just what this case might mean for the future of United States elections. Before July though, people wouldn’t have found much. But thanks to Aaron Franklin, a third-year J.D. student at Stanford Law, there’s an entire Wikipedia article on the subject.
Aaron created the Wikipedia article about the subject as part of Heather Joy and Katherine Ott‘s Advanced Legal Research course at Stanford Law last spring. Throughout the term, students were to create an original Wikipedia article, or edit an existing one, on a particular legal topic as part of Wiki Education’s Wikipedia Student Program. Aaron understood that Wikipedia has strict rules about illustrating concepts in a neutral, non-political tone. And so far he had only observed passionate and contentious conversation about the subject in the news.
“One of the reasons that I was interested in writing the article was because I found it difficult to find an unbiased discussion of the theory that wasn’t interested in either advocating for or critiquing its justifications,” Aaron says. “It was especially important for me to accurately represent the textualist and originalist logic behind the independent state legislature theory in a way that adhered to Wikipedia’s neutrality principles. I hope readers will come away with a better understanding of exactly how ISL purports to interpret our constitution, which will hopefully allow them to develop their own sense of whether that interpretation is plausible or not.”
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