The Buffalo teacher is attending the Supreme Court Institute

Crump, who grew up in a South Bronx housing project, decided he wanted to empower young people of color to pursue education as a path to success.

In 2021, he completed the University at Buffalo’s Teacher Residency Program, an accelerated certification that places student teachers in Buffalo Public School classrooms for a full school year in preparation for leading their own classrooms in the city for at least three years .

That’s how Crump ended up in the Supreme Court chambers in Washington DC, where he served as the highest court judge in the land – not as a lawyer, but as a teacher.

Crump, who has taught social studies at the Frederick Law Olmsted School in Buffalo since completing the UB program, won a spot at the 2024 Supreme Court Summer Institute hosted by Street Law and the Supreme Court Historical Society.

The six-day program gives social studies teachers experience, strategies and content to “broaden the way they teach about the U.S. Supreme Court and its cases,” according to Street Law’s website.

Crump was one of 60 faculty members selected for the institute at a time when the Supreme Court is both news and history, raising questions about legal ethics, political bias and the future of reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

“It was a unique experience,” says Crump.

He discovered the institute while teaching a high school law class, using curricula on governance, civics and law from Street Law, a nonprofit organization focused on empowering marginalized communities through education.

He flew to DC on June 12 and spent the week observing and researching Supreme Court experts, along with 29 other teachers from across the country. The following week another 30 teachers attended. The only other teacher from New York told Crump that she applied three times before she was finally accepted.

The first night they had an orientation dinner at the D.C. headquarters of law firm Jones Day, whose roof overlooks the Capitol.

The next day they experienced the high security (armed guards, electronic devices, two metal detectors and magic wands) and complete silence required in the Supreme Court chambers.

“Five minutes before the judges come in, they tell everyone to shut up,” Crump said. “Someone continued to cough and was asked to leave.”

Crump said the room was packed with attorneys arguing in court, leading to three rulings issued that day. Judge Brett Kavanaugh read the court’s decision upholding access to the medical abortion pill mifepristone, which he wrote.

Judge Clarence Thomas then read two decisions he had written, one ruling that Donald Trump’s name could not be trademarked on an anti-Trump T-shirt and the other a ruling that employers (in this case Starbucks) could make it easier to fire employees. trying to organize unions.

Crump’s cohort had to question CNN Supreme Court reporter Kimberly Robinson and attorney David Casazza, former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, who offered “inside information” such as the tradition that the youngest justice, currently Ketanji Brown Jackson, was the is given the task of ordering lunch. before the court.

They also met with Chief Justice John Roberts’ counsel, Robert Dow, and visited an exhibit on school desegregation that highlighted the “Little Rock Nine,” black students who integrated Little Rock schools in Arkansas in 1957.

Crump had taught the subject to his eighth-graders using a book called “Little Rock Girls,” he said. “I was really moved by that.”

He even got to serve as a judge in a moot court case at Georgetown University Law Center, using the 2022 case O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, which decided that school board members who are citizens of the board’s social media blocked, had violated their rules. First Amendment rights.

As far as Crump knows, he is the first BPS teacher to visit the institute, and he plans to share what he’s learned.

He said the experience will take his teaching on the judiciary of the U.S. government to the next level, and he has been asked to lead professional development sessions for fellow teachers at the Supreme Court in the fall.

He also hopes to form a mock trial or moot court team at the high school level to get students interested in the law at an early age as practitioners and not as offenders.

“It was a phenomenal, life-changing experience for me, and I don’t plan on letting this opportunity evaporate,” he said. “I want to use this experience to move the needle on behalf of my students.”

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The Buffalo Next team gives you a complete picture of the region’s economic revitalization. Email tips to [email protected] or contact Buffalo Next Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435.