Two Oregon Schools Share ‘We the People’ Title

Civics is alive and well, at least in Oregon high schools, as two local teams became co-national champions in the We the People competition held in Washington, DC. The winning teams are from Sprague High School in Salem and Lincoln High School in Portland.

The Sprague team consisted of just two students – Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams, both seniors. Lincoln’s team, dominated by sophomores, totaled 32. The average team size in national competitions is 21.

As Julia Silverman of The Oregonian reported, Oregon teams have captured the championship 10 times in the 37-year history of the national We the People competition. Grant High School took home the trophy last year. The next closest state is Virginia with five championships.

We the People is an educational program that encourages students to learn about and address a range of governance-related issues, culminating in competitions in the form of testifying before simulated congressional hearings where constitutional and legal experts ask questions. The national final invites 48 teams to compete before winnowing the field down to 10 finalists.

The New York Times published a headline that said, “Two-Student Team Stuns the Competition at U.S. Constitution Contest.” The subhead added, “Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams of Oregon won first place at the national U.S. Constitution Team competition. Then came the recount that threatened to unravel their achievement.”

The recount involved a scoring error, which resulted in a tie between the two Oregon high school teams. The tie didn’t diminish the significant achievement of Meyers and Williams. “It would be like a baseball team winning a game with four players,” The Times reported.

Meyers and Williams Background
“Meyers and Williams became best friends through a semantic argument over the word ‘homicide’ in a freshman history class,” The Times wrote. “Three years later, the wiry-thin, floppy-haired seniors at Sprague High School remained inseparable when they competed as a pair in Constitution Team, a debate-style contest where teams answer questions about constitutional law.”

Credit: Drew Precious/Center for Civic Education

“After three days of dazzling judges with their answers to penetrating questions about the Articles of Confederation and obscure Supreme Court decisions, the young men sat at the award ceremony with tempered expectations,” The Times reported. “They hoped for seventh place. When their names still had not been called as the fifth-, fourth- and third-place finishers were announced, they wondered if there had been a mistake.”

“When the two were handed their championship medals, the hall erupted,” according to The Times. “’They are gods tonight,’ a rival team’s coach said.”

The pair, now both 18, began preparing for the nationals in February. They realized they couldn’t compete with larger teams on breadth of knowledge, so they focused on going deep. “We didn’t really have a huge evidence base,” Williams said. “But what we did have was a really strong conceptual understanding.”

“They argued a Supreme Court decision that upheld an Oregon city’s ban on sleeping and camping in public spaces that critics said effectively punished people for being homeless. ‘If a burglar broke into someone’s house because they were hungry,’ Williams asked. “Does punishing them for that violate the Eighth Amendment?”

“’No, the hungry burglar could be punished,’ Meyers said. He paused and then added, ‘Get ready to hear a really, really, really stupid response. According to a theory from philosopher John Locke, it would be less wrong if the thief stole from a grocery store than someone’s house.’”

The Times reported, “On their way up the competition ladder, their insight about the nation’s founding documents made an impression. ‘My mind was kind of blown,’ said Darin Sands, a lawyer and national champion coach who judged the pair at the Oregon state competition. ‘It was just clear that they had not only studied the material but engaged with it in a very deep level.’”

The Scoring Error
On the following Monday, the third place team – Lincoln High School – discovered a scoring error. It created co-champions but didn’t diminish Meyers and Williams accomplished.

Williams, center, Meyers, second from left, holding their winning trophy, and their coach, Jacqueline Pope Brothers, second from right.

For Meyers and Williams to reach the state level was an accomplishment few small schools, let alone a two-person team, can imagine let alone achieve.

According to judges, the pair made their way through the brackets by providing insightful answers to questions. Sean McClelland, a judge who said he was “philosophically opposed to giving out perfect scores,” asked them whether judges find or make laws. They delivered a deeply informed answer that earned McClelland’s only perfect score.

The corrected scoring that made Sprague a co-champion with Lincoln didn’t bother Williams. “It’s really cool to be able to be co-champions with Lincoln,” he said. Long before nationals, Meyers joked with rivals about a fairy tale finish that seemed impossible: What if two Oregon schools tied for first?

The fairy tale was Sprague’s championship performance.

Lincoln High School Follow-Up
The 32-member Lincoln High Constitution Team was summoned to a classroom last week where they learned they were co-champions, not third-place finishers in the We the People competition.

Parents also attended when Donna Phillips, president of the Center for Civic Education, noted the scoring error, which a Lincoln High official had pointed out, and announced they were co-champions. Sprague, which had finished second to Lincoln in the state competition, won a wild-card invitation to the nationals.

“It was the latest twist in a wild showing this year for Oregon schools at this year’s competition, which tests students’ knowledge of the expansive ideals and principles of the U.S. Constitution under rapid-fire questioning from the likes of federal judges and legal experts,” Silverman reported.

Encouraging Sign
At a time when constitutional guardrails are being challenged, it is impressive Oregon high school students are motivated to learn about and expound on constitutional principles. The example could be motivational for actual Members of Congress.

Meyers and Williams both have fathers who are professors at the Willamette University Law School and grew up listening to legal discourse over the dinner table. What bonded them was a shared love of logic, knowledge puzzles and geography.

In their sophomore and junior years, Meyers and Williams competed along with a few other Sprague students in the demonstration team competition that is less rigorous than the championship bracket.

Their junior varsity participation whetted their appetite to go for broke. They decided to carve out time to prepare for the competition – “Meyers plays soccer and guitar, volunteers with the American Bar Association and the Red Cross and Williams is involved in student government, his high school newspaper and runs track and cross country,” The Oregonian reported.

“I wasn’t entirely sure that we would be able to finish writing all 12 speeches” – one for each of them on each of the six units – Williams told The Oregonian. “That seemed like a pretty Herculean task.”

Silverman reported, “To prepare, they’d hop on a Discord chat, divide up the work, go off on their own and lose themselves in research, then come back to discuss and debate with each other in conversations that sometimes lasted up to six hours.”

“You get these flow states where you’ll start doing something you love, and it’s like you lose track of time,” Williams said of their marathon study sessions. “Your peripheral vision disappears, and it’s just you in the moment doing the thing. And whenever that happens, you should pay attention to what’s happening and why it’s happening. I noticed that happening with con law prep all the time.”

The Road to the Finals
Their effort paid off. They finished fourth in the regionals, qualified for the state competition where they finished second behind Lincoln.

“In a video posted to Instagram that captures the moment they found out they had made it to nationals, the two leap to their feet in pure amazement, suit jackets and ties flapping, while the rest of the room, full of their competitors, rises to their feet in a standing ovation. A judge would later say that the two had Lennon and McCartney energy, which Meyers called his favorite compliment of their entire run.”

“Once at nationals, the Sprague team was essentially ‘adopted’ by their Lincoln counterparts, the two said, joining them on field trips to D.C. landmarks and staying at the same hotel. The two teams were seated together, grasping hands, when they found out that they’d both advanced to the top 10 teams who would battle it out in the final rounds for the title of national champion.”

The Lincoln team admitted disappointment with a third-place finish. “Our disappointment turned into pride,” said Lincoln sophomore Brian Wei. “I thought two Oregon teams in the top three was an amazing feat.”

Meyers and Williams admitted they were shocked they won. “We just love this stuff,” Williams said. “What’s always mattered to us is unlocking the next level, like getting to regionals, getting to state. It’s another opportunity to talk to more judges and give more speeches and field more questions. That’s the best part.”