The Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy is pleased to announce the winners of its sixth annual undergraduate essay competition. Each year, students are invited to submit essays on a timely question related to foundational freedoms and responsibilities in liberal democracies.
For 2023, we invited responses to the question:
Is it time to abolish lifetime tenure for US Supreme Court
justices? If so, what should replace lifetime tenure?
If not, why not?
All UW-Madison undergraduate students are eligible to participate. Essays are approximately 1,000 words in length. Scholarship recipients are invited to the Disinvited Dinner, hosted by the Center.
1st place: $2,500 — Bryce Mitchell
2nd place: $1,500 — Matt Wadhwa
3rd place: $1,000 — Kylie Ruprecht
Deadline: April 9, 2023
Previous Competitions
2022 Topic
“Should the federal government be allowed to mandate vaccines?”
Winners: Renxi Li, Aaron Dorf, Zachary Orlowsky, Taryn Hanson
2020 Topic
“Should patriotism be taught at UW Madison?”
Winners: Jacob Bernstein, Nils Peterson, Lucas Olsen, Cleo Rank, Tony Mattioli
2018 Topic
“Should the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—which states that ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside’—be repealed or modified to restrict more precisely the definition of who may claim citizenship?”
Winners: Dana Coggio, Ben Johnson, August Schultz
2016 Topic
“Are the goals of fostering freedom of speech on campus and of fostering a welcoming environment for all students incompatible?”
Winners: Joshua Gutzmann, Rebekah Cullum, Zawadi Carroll
2021 Topic
“Should the United States make military or national service compulsory?”
Winners: Maxwell Ruzika, Dana Craig, Jonah Edelman, Ellen Stojak, Nicholas Carl
2019 Topic
“Should social media platforms be permitted to censor controversial speech?”
Winners: Anitha Quintin, Lucas Olsen, Matthew Kass
2017 Topic
“Should the U.S. Electoral College be abolished, reformed, or left to the states to determine?”
Winners: Ean Quick, Garrett McLaughlin, Joshua Gutzmann