Silver Chips Endorses Raskin and
Starts a War of Words
July 2006
by Howard Kohn
This isn't about Ida Ruben. This is about Jamie - he's the best.
- Eve Gleichman, Blair Student
The Washington Post editorial of June 17 made it seem the editorial board of Blair High's student newspaper, Silver Chips, had endorsed Takoma Park's Jamie Raskin in the District 20 State Senate race out of pique at his opponent, incumbent Ida Ruben.
It's true the top editors of the paper, often described as one of the best in the country, felt Ida brushed them off. They had managed to get her on the phone once, but she was too busy to talk, and three messages they left went unreturned, according to editor Eve Gleichman. (Ida says she doesn't remember the messages.)
But the Silver Chips' endorsement was based far more on Jamie's work in local student politics dating back to a 1996 decision by the Montgomery County school board to ban the showing of a TV debate about same-sex marriage, titled "Shades of Grey" and produced by Blair students.
Jamie, a first-class constitutional scholar, went to bat for the students at a time when the smart money made many mainstream Democrats jittery around the subject of wedlock for gays and lesbians. Jamie, in his fired-up way, started in with arguments about censorship and got the school board to rescind the ban.
Instead of simply returning to life at American University, where he is a professor, Jamie recruited students from his law classes and lawyer-friends to teach high school students in the metropolitan area about their rights. "'Shades of Grey' was a textbook case where the very rights students are taught to respect in civics class were abridged," he says.
He also wrote a textbook, We, the Students, and enlisted the widows of Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan to form the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project that, with his book as the main guide, expanded the teaching of student rights into semester-long classes in several states.
"He has really helped kids - future teachers, journalists, lawyers - understand the Constitution," Eve Gleichman says.
By endorsing Jamie, meanwhile, the editors did manage to get Ida Ruben's attention. She called the Blair front office to insist on "equal time" in the paper, a too-little, too-late move the Washington Post said made her look "like an ill-tempered rookie."
Silver Chips has ceased publication for the summer, and the Democratic primary will be held soon after fall classes begin, so probably nothing more will come of Ida's complaint. Regardless, Eve says the editors are solidly behind their endorsement: "This isn't about Ida Ruben. This is about Jamie - he's the best."
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