Constitution Day - 2026

In celebration of the 238th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's signing in Philadelphia, Miami held its tenth annual Citizenship and Democracy Week in September 2025. A series of on-campus events and programs were held to encourage Miamians to think deeply about their roles and responsibilities as members of a pluralistic democratic society. Coordinated this year by the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy, this year’s Citizenship and Democracy Week.

• Live On-Campus Oral Arguments: 12th District Court of Appeals
• Rapid Rights!
• Lecture: Adam White (American Enterprise Institute) "The Rise of Executive Power and the Decline of Everything Else"
• Rapid Rights!
• Lecture: Kristin Hoganson (University of Illinois) "The Heartland: An American History"
• Department of Theatre Fall Production: "What the Constitution Means to Me"
• U.S. District Court Naturalization Ceremony
• Free Speech Forum
• 2025 O'Hara Lecture on Law and Politics: Justice Jennifer Brunner (Supreme Court of Ohio)
• 2025 Government and Non-Profit Career Fair
• Solvita Blood Drive
• Lecture: Joshua Page (University of Minnesota) "Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice"

In celebration of the 237th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's signing in Philadelphia, Miami held its ninth annual Citizenship and Democracy Week in September 2024. Coordinated again this year by the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy, this year’s Citizenship and Democracy Week includes the following events: 2024 Joyce Hulse Manko Lecture on Government; On-Campus Oral Arguments: Ohio Court of Appeals for the 12th District; Interactive Event:  Can You Pass the U.S. Citizenship Test?; U.S. District Court Naturalization Ceremony; Rapid Rights Symposium/Discussion; Free Speech Forum; and, Ohio Intercollegiate Leadership and Government Conference.

In celebration of the 236th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's signing in Philadelphia, Miami held its eighth annual Citizenship and Democracy Week. Coordinated by the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy, the 2023 Citizenship and Democracy Week featured the following events, all free and open to the public: On-Campus Oral Arguments: Ohio Court of Appeals for the 12th District; How Does the Naturalization Process Work?; U.S. District Court Naturalization Ceremony; Rapid Rights Symposium/Discussion; Free Speech Forum; and, the Civic Career Fair.

In September 2022, Miami commemorated the 235th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's signing in Philadelphia by holding its seventh annual Citizenship and Democracy Week, a series of events held in Oxford and at the Regional campuses to promote civic learning and engagement. Coordinated by the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy, the 2022 Citizenship and Democracy Week included the following events, all free and open to the public: U.S. District Court Naturalization Ceremony; On-Campus Oral Argument Session: Ohio Court of Appeals for the 12th District; Rapid Rights Symposium/Discussion; Free Speech; Public Lecture: Daniel Ziblatt (Harvard University), "The Life and Death of Democracies"; and, the Civic Career Fair.

Miami’s annual Citizenship and Democracy Week was highlighted in the American Political Science Association’s Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Disciplines (2017) as a model of effective interdisciplinary civics programming within higher education. 

After a pandemic-related pause in 2020, Miami again commemorated the anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's signing on September 17, 1787, by holding its sixth annual Citizenship and Democracy Week, a broad multi-campus, multi-event program aimed at promoting civic learning and engagement in our local communities. Coordinated and sponsored by the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy, the 2021 Citizenship and Democracy Week included public lectures, special session of the Ohio Court of Appeals, public symposium, free speech forum, naturalization ceremony, and simulation.