At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Julianna Davis, and Riya Mehta discuss—surprise!—COVID19. But it’s a more expansive conversation than many are, discussing the impact it’s having on young people and exploring the far-ranging civic implications of this pandemic. We'd love to hear how YOU are holding up and making sense of this moment and your thoughts about what lies ahead.  Thank you for joining us!

At this week's Round Table, Sara Chough, Julianna Davis, Inica Kotasthane, and Riya Mehta speak with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Alicia Bannon, Managing Director for the Democracy Program and leader of the Fair Courts team, and Janna Adelstein, Research and Program Associate with the Fair Courts team, exploring what’s most important for young people to understand about the courts today. Judicial decisions influence so much in our society but the courts are often a black box to us--or should we say a white box--so we discuss issues of diversity, the consequences of not having a diverse judiciary, and what it would really take to create more diversity on a broad level. Thank you for joining us!

Background Resources:

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Riya Mehta, and Sara Chough spoke with Amrutha Pagad-- journalist, blogger, and podcaster from Bengaluru, India who hosts the podcast "India Off the Record: A Reporter’s Diary," covering REAL life in India.  Amrutha gave us great perspective on how Covid-19 is playing out in India--a country with one of the lowest reported rates of the virus yet one of the highest populations in the world and that could be hugely imperiled should there be a major outbreak --as well as on youth engagement in India’s political and civic spheres.  We think you’ll enjoy this in-depth glimpse into the world’s biggest democracy!

At this week's Round Table, Sara Chough, Inica Kotasthane, and Riya Mehta spoke with Lisa Kay Solomon-- educator, best-selling author, Designer in Residence at Stanford University’s Institute for Design, and creator of Vote by Design, an innovative curriculum and set of workshops to help teens reflect on the personal qualities and political values that are most important to US when it comes to electing leaders. We think you’ll be as fascinated and inspired by the approach as we are. Thank you for joining us!

Some additional resources from Lisa Solomon

Vote by Design Leadership Criteria and Debate Worksheet 

Knowledge is Power: Rebooting Schoolhouse Rock to Fix our Civics Education

Super Tuesday: What does the future need from us?