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The future of civic education

The future of civic education
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Kevin Frazier
By Kevin FrazierMay 23, 2023
Kevin Frazier
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Kevin Frazier will join the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University as an Assistant Professor starting this Fall. He currently is a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court.

Disastrous. There's no other word to describe the state of civic education in the U.S. In the wake of the latest test results released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress it would be hard for anyone to conclude otherwise.

According to the NAEP, just one in three eighth grade students--individuals on the cusp of voting--can describe the structure or function of government. On the whole, barely more than one out of every ten students scored at or above the proficient level.

The worrying state of civic education should have been a crisis thirty years ago--when the first nationwide assessment was administered and students earned an average of a mere 259 points out of 500 (on the most recent test, students averaged 258). Though such a long spell of inadequate attention to civics may suggest that renewed attention to teaching the fundamentals of our democracy is too little, too late—to give up on civic education is to give up on our democratic experiment.

The good news is that the horrendous results have already caused an appropriate level of panic--headlines covering the dismal results demonstrate popular concern that we’re sowing the seeds of our own democratic demise by leaving the next generation the keys to a governing system they don’t understand. It’s as if we’ve left our kids a sports car and neglected to teach them how to drive a stick shift.

Assuming that this panic increases the educational resources paid to civics, the question is how to introduce students to a system that is undergoing a troubling bout of partisanship and gridlock.

Do we emphasize how our democracy should be (civic optimism), how our democracy is (civic cynicism), or how it was (civic memory). A recent experience with a group of elementary students suggests we need a mixture of all three, with an emphasis on civic optimism.

I provided a group of youngsters a tour of the Montana Supreme Court--where I work as a judicial clerk. The group peppered me with questions after I covered the basics of the court.

For the most part they asked questions pulled from the headlines: ”What happens when a judge doesn’t seem ethical?” “Do judges think about their friends when they make decisions?” “If a judge gets too old, how long can they keep their jobs?” In other words, they seemed to have received an informal civic education grounded in justifiable cynicism--justifiable because few would argue that how our system operates today aligns with how we’d expect it to run under ideal conditions.

Notably, they didn’t ask many questions about how our judicial branch and democracy as a whole have changed over time. They also didn’t inquire into when, if ever, the issues they heard discussed at the dinner table were less common or, at least, less severe. Absent having a civic memory--familiarity with the twists and turns of our democracy over time, the students appeared to think that this is how officials and voters have always behaved.

Most importantly, the students didn’t bring up any ideas for how to remedy the status quo and develop a more resilient and responsive democracy—the sort of questions that rely on an education in civic optimism.

So while we need to make sure that students understand how to drive our democracy, they must also have the skills and education necessary to decide where they’ll steer our grand political experiment.

Civic optimism is hard to teach, hard to test, and hard to measure, but if the next generation isn’t asking how we can improve our democracy from an early age, then we’ll likely be stuck in neutral.


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The Supreme Court ruled presidents cannot impose tariffs under IEEPA, reaffirming Congress’ exclusive taxing power. Here’s what remains legal under Sections 122, 232, 301, and 201.

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The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.


What Is No Longer Legal After the Supreme Court Ruling

  • Presidents may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not include the power to levy tariffs. Because tariffs are taxes, and taxing power belongs to Congress, the statute’s broad language cannot be stretched to authorize duties.
  • Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • The president may not use vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language—such as IEEPA’s general power to “regulate”—cannot be stretched to authorize taxation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • Presidents may not rely on vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language, such as IEEPA’s general power to "regulate," cannot be stretched to authorize taxation or repurposed to justify tariffs. The decision in United States v. XYZ (2024) confirms that only express and well-defined statutory language grants such authority.

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  • Congress retains exclusive constitutional authority over tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution vests taxing power in Congress. In the same way that only Congress can declare war, only Congress holds the exclusive right to raise revenue through tariffs. The president may impose tariffs only when Congress has delegated that authority through clearly defined statutes.
  • Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
  • Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
  • Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Unfair Trade Practices). Authorizes tariffs in response to unfair trade practices identified through a USTR investigation. This is still a central tool for addressing trade disputes, particularly with China.
  • Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Safeguard Tariffs). The U.S. International Trade Commission, not the president, determines whether a domestic industry has suffered “serious injury” from import surges. Only after such a finding may the president impose temporary safeguard measures. The Supreme Court ruling did not alter this structure.
  • Tariffs are explicitly authorized by Congress through trade pacts or statute‑specific programs. Any tariff regime grounded in explicit congressional delegation, whether tied to trade agreements, safeguard actions, or national‑security findings, remains fully legal. The ruling affects only IEEPA‑based tariffs.

The Bottom Line

The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.

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Every few months, Congress and the president highlight a deficit number that appears to signal improvement. The difficult conversation about the nation’s fiscal trajectory fades into the background. But a shrinking deficit is not necessarily a sign of fiscal health. It measures one year’s gap between revenue and spending. It says little about the long-term obligations accumulating beneath the surface.

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The deficit is politically attractive because it is simple and headline-friendly. It appears manageable on paper. Both parties have invoked it selectively for decades, celebrating short-term improvements while downplaying long-term drift. But the deeper fiscal story lies elsewhere.

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