Law, Democracy, and Society Class Participates in Moot Court with Federal Judge

A group of nine students from Joshua Weinstein’s Law, Democracy, and Society class traveled to Philadelphia on February 29 to observe and learn from Federal District Court Judge Joshua D. Wolson. The day began with Judge Wolson summarizing his educational background, legal career, and service as a federal judge. Students then participated in a Q&A session with Judge Wolson. Everyone took away at least one new insight from the conversation.

The students additionally had the opportunity to participate in a moot court in front of Judge Wolson. A moot court features appellate-style arguments. It differs from a mock trial in that moot court is appellate law deciding whether the trial court erred in its decision. The students were broken into two groups.

Group 1 argued Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L. Rebecca Wargo ’24 represented the petitioners, who claimed that B. L.’s online Snapchat post was not protected under the First Amendment. Nicholas Caputo ’24 and Omar Williams ’24 represented the respondents, who claimed that B. L.’s post was protected speech.

Group 2 argued Artisan, et al. v. Commonplace School District, a case that dealt with a myriad of issues, including but not limited to questions surrounding Texas v. Johnson‘s “expressive conduct” standard, whether schools can regulate off-campus student activity, as well as other substantial disruption under Tinker. Haila Desai ’24 and Dinah Megibow-Taylor ’24 represented the petitioners, while Chelsea Mohammed ’24 and Grace Ward-Gallagher ’24 represented the respondents.

Judge Wolson engaged in a rigorous back and forth with both groups, but provided helpful and encouraging feedback after the oral arguments. Both Judge Wolson and Mr. Weinstein were quite impressed by all of the participants in the moot court oral argument competition. 

Funding for this experiential learning opportunity was provided by the Cully Miller Social Studies Endowment at MFS.