Signal Mountain student Alyssa Neuhoff won first place in the middle school category of the Tennessee Bar Association’s 2013 YouTube Video Contest. The contest, offered as part of the national Law Day celebration, challenged students to produce three-minute videos on a topic related to the law. This year’s theme asked students to explore the importance of a fair and impartial judiciary.
Neuhoff, who was sponsored by Walden Home School, won $500 for her video, “There is no Liberty without a Fair and Impartial Judiciary.” The school also will receive $500. In addition, Neuhoff will be invited to attend the TBA’s Annual Meeting in Nashville on June 14 and have her winning video shown to leaders of the state’s legal community.
The 2013 contest theme, “The Least Dangerous Branch: The Importance of a Fair & Impartial Judiciary,” centered on Alexander Hamilton’s premise in Federalist Paper No. 78 that judiciary is “the least dangerous branch of government because it has no influence over either the sword or the purse.” Students created videos addressing issues such as why it is important to have a judiciary that is independent of the legislative and executive branches, how this structure strengthens the doctrine of separation of powers and what happens when judges are not impartial.
The YouTube Contest was created in 2010 to generate knowledge and interest in the law and the American judicial system among Tennessee students. It was the primary public service project of then-TBA President Sam Elliott, who made civics education a focus of his year in office.
Source: TBA