Elizabeth Rene ’24 has had an interest in the court system since her high school days watching “Law and Order,” but she became particularly attentive to what was going on in the Supreme Court when Donald Trump became president.
“It was the greatest attack on our democracy and a lot of students my age felt this,” she said. “We started seeing invalidations of landmark precedents, such as Roe vs. Wade, and you don’t see that happening very often in democracies, where you establish a constitutional precedent and then get rid of it.”
That curiosity to understand what was going on in the court, an institution that is supposed to be impartial, sparked Rene to focus on the court for her senior thesis in the (HSP). She presented her work, along with 34 other students at the HSP Spring Research Conference May 3 at the A.D. White House.