Civics education is crucial to getting young people engaged in democracy

A young person watches a relative vote at the Loop Supersite in the Loop, March 29, 2023. (Pat Nabong/Sun-Times)

Beyond her trailblazing role as the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor considered iCivics, a civics education nonprofit founded after she retired from the court, to be her “most important legacy.”

“The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool,” O’Connor once stated. “It must be taught and learned by each new generation.”