It’s Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020. Today marks the 233rd birthday of the United States Constitution. But you might not know it, because on campus, Hillsdale College barely makes a passing reference to the occasion. That needs to change. Hillsdale should observe Constitution Day as an official holiday.
Last week, while students at colleges across America enjoyed the extended Labor Day weekend, Hillsdale students and faculty labored as on any other day. Hillsdale’s decision to shun a federal holiday founded by labor unions and colored by socialist undertones is on-brand with the college’s independent values and habit of swimming against the cultural current.
But to ignore Constitution Day, a day fundamentally aligned with Hillsdale’s values, is curious.
Each year during the summer sessions, Hillsdale does not hold classes on Memorial Day. Recognizing a holiday dedicated to the fallen is fitting, especially for a college that strives to defend American values in its own way. Similarly, our campus takes time to remember the 9/11 attacks with an annual ceremony that acknowledges tragedy and inspires patriotism. Likewise, it would be appropriate for Hillsdale to celebrate the birth of a document so important to our nation and college.
The college’s Washington, D.C. campus, the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, has been celebrating Constitution Day since it opened in 2010. Each year, the program includes speeches, debates, and roundtable discussions about the “continuing relevance of the Founders’ Constitution for American politics today,” as its website states. This year’s two-day program is headlined by United States Attorney General William Barr. Last year, Vice President Mike Pence dropped in on the excitement. Past speakers have included United States Senator Tom Cotton, talk radio icon Mark Levin, and former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
On Hillsdale’s main campus, however, there are no such festivities to mark the occasion. According to politics professor Mickey Craig, celebrating Constitution Day is something Hillsdale has done sporadically over the years but for whatever reason has not been a permanent part of its calendar.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Craig said of recognizing Constitution Day as an official school holiday. “It should be done.”
To many familiar with the college, the Constitution may be the first thing they think of when they hear the name “Hillsdale.” We are the school known across the country for requiring every student to complete a course on the Constitution, making our online Constitution classes available to the public for free, and distributing pocket Constitutions in an effort to reinstill civic awareness. We have a satellite location on Capitol Hill to give students practical experience in the Federal City as well as two graduate schools dedicated to training statesmen. Most recently, we have acquired the Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Connecticut, complete with a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. All this makes failing to mark Sept. 17 even more puzzling.
It may be argued that every day is Constitution Day at Hillsdale, and it is true that we discuss the ideas and implications of this document on a daily basis. But that should not prevent us from giving it a particular day to be honored. Indeed, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams predicted the event would be “solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” How much more should we commemorate the signing of the Constitution, the document that frames the ideas articulated by the Declaration?
A campus Constitution Day doesn’t have to mean a day without classes. It could include something as simple as a banner in the student union and a rousing speech in front of Central Hall, or it could entail more elaborate programming with a renowned guest similar to the Kirby Center’s event. It might involve fireworks and student bands performing patriotic music or something more academic, like an essay contest on a pressing Constitutional issue.
Regardless, as an institution that considers itself a “trustee” of a Western tradition best expressed by the “American experiment of self-government under law,” it behooves Hillsdale College to note the Constitution’s birthday on campus as well as in the nation’s capital. Constitution Day gives us a prime opportunity to stand against the tide of progressivism and recognize the document that has safeguarded our rights for more than 200 years. That is something truly worth celebrating.
Madeline Peltzer is a senior studying politics.
