Sotomayor urges better civic education so people know difference between presidents and kings

NEW YORK (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, questioning whether Americans understand the difference between a king and a president, told a New York Law School crowd Tuesday that improved civic education across the country would help people make better decisions.

Sotomayor, speaking at a panel discussion during a “Constitution and Citizenship Day Summit,” did not make comments that were overtly political and did not directly address any controversies of the moment. President Donald Trump was not mentioned.

At one point, though, she raised doubts about how much Americans are being taught about civics in schools.

“Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president? And I think if people understood these things from the beginning, they would be more informed as to what would be important in a democracy in terms of what people can or shouldn’t do,” she said.

She decried the lack of education about civics and how democracy works, even giving her version of Ben Franklin's famous anecdote at the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia when he was asked whether the nation would have a republic or a monarchy.

“We have a republic, madam, if we can keep it,” she recalled that Franklin said.

Sotomayor called social media “one of the largest causes of misinformation on the internet.”

“If you are only hearing one side of the story, you are not making an informed decision,” Sotomayor said. “The world is a complex place and issues are always difficult.”

The Bronx-born justice said she became interested in civics in grammar school, where she began debating issues, and improved those skills when she learned to debate both sides of a single issue.

At the end of her remarks, she urged students who watched in a large auditorium or saw her on video screens in overflow rooms to think about everything in the world that is wrong and “everything that's happening in the United States” and realize ”we adults have really messed this up."

She said she's counting on today's students to find solutions.