Green Bay students explore the color of justice at Law Day
luncheon
April 26, 2004
About 100 Wisconsin high school students from diverse, inner-city
schools - including five from Green Bay East High School - will join
State Bar President George Burnett and President-elect Michelle Behnke;
members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Shirley
S. Abrahamson and Justices Jon P. Wilcox, Ann Walsh Bradley, N. Patrick
Crooks (a Green Bay native), David Prosser Jr., Diane S. Sykes, and
Patience Drake Roggensack; First Lady Jessica Doyle; State
Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster; and circuit
court judges, law professors, and other leaders in education,
government, and the law for a luncheon at the Capitol on April 26.
Green Bay East Principal Terry Fondow and State Bar President George
Burnett will accompany the Green Bay students. Also participating are
students from Milwaukee and Waukesha.
The event marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme
Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas, in which the high court unanimously declared that "separate
but equal" had no place in public education. The goals of the session,
which is based upon a model developed by the National Association of
Women Judges and presented around the nation, are to interest the
students in taking advantage of educational opportunities, inspire them
to overcome obstacles, and show them how the law can be a powerful tool
for change.
The students will listen to personal stories about obstacles faced
and overcome from Judges Maxine Aldridge White, Milwaukee County Circuit
Court, and Ralph Ramirez, Waukesha County Circuit Court; and Atty.
Michelle Behnke, State Bar president-elect. They will hear about the
academic requirements and skills needed for a legal career from U.W. Law
School Vice Chancellor Linda Greene, and will have an opportunity over
lunch to talk about their educational and career goals with the
presenters, the supreme court justices, the First Lady, and
Superintendent Burmaster.
The forum is cosponsored by the Wisconsin Legal History Committee (a
joint committee of the Office of the Chief Justice and the State Bar)
and the Dane County Legal Resource Center, and the luncheon is provided
with a grant from the State Bar of Wisconsin in honor of Law Day, which
is celebrated annually on May 1.
