Professors Jessica Silbey and Patrick Shin joined a panel of constitutional scholars and authors at a public forum: "The Conversation Continues: How Does the Constitution Keep up with the Times?"

The forum, at the University of New Hampshire this fall, was the second program organized by Constitutionally Speaking, a collaboration of the NH Supreme Court Society, the UNH School of Law, the NH Humanities Council, and the NH Institute for Civic Education.

The group aims to engage citizens in debate about crucial contemporary Constitutional issues, and provide professional development for teachers to support more robust civics education in public schools.

"Civic education is essential to a well-functioning democracy," says Shin. The program helps public educators and other citizens "put sound-bite politics on constitutional issues into a more thoughtful perspective," he says.

Shin sketched the relationship between evolving notions of diversity and the constitutional concept of equality. Social context is crucial, he said, tracing the debate about diversity and equality from Justice John Marshall Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which argued for a "color-blind" Constitution, through recent and current cases before the Supreme Court determining to what extent higher educational institutions can use racial preferences in their admissions process.

"The Constitution is our nation's founding document and remains supremely relevant to our everyday life," says Silbey. She gave the audience of teachers, school officials, writers and non-profit executives an introduction to the types of privacy protected to a greater or lesser extent by the Constitution.

"Our home remains our castle," she said, noting the Supreme Court's strong support for the idea of spatial privacy, but in the area of bodily autonomy, there are continuing debates about the kinds of control we have over our bodies, and the question of private data protection is still wide open. Silbey says that the day's discussion brought home to her "how fragile accurate perceptions of law are, and how important it is to engage in conversation to identify discrepancies and work out differences."

For videos of Silbey's and Shin's presentations, and the entire proceedings of "The Conversation Continues" visit: www.constitutionallyspeakingnh.com.