FantasySCOTUS Predictions challenges students to make predictions about pending Supreme Court cases and write analytical blog posts exploring the different constitutional issues in the cases.
Who Can Play?
FantasySCOTUS is designed for high school government, civics, history, political science, social studies, and even writing classes. Advanced middle school students are welcome to play. Teachers should sign up their classes, and add or invite their students to join. Additionally, extra-curricular clubs, such as debate teams, mock trial teams, and other organizations, are able to join. Just ask your faculty advisor sign up your group.
How to Play?
The goal of FantasySCOTUS is simple. It encourages students to learn about cases pending before the Supreme Court.
After studying cases currently pending before the Court with these lesson plans, students will make predictions about how each of the nine Justices will vote. Based on the individual student predictions, each class will submit a set of group predictions for each case.
The Cases
The Harlan Institute has selected cases of interest for students that are currently pending before the United States Supreme Cour, and created lesson plans for each case.
Each plan will provide a plain English explanation of the parties involved, the question presented, the background of the case, the opinion of the lower court, and the competing arguments of the Petitioner and the Respondent. Following this background information, the lesson plan will discuss all relevant constitutional provisions, statutes, precedents, and other relevant information needed to understand the case pending before the Supreme Court.
Predictions and Points
For each case, your class will predict how each of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court will vote. A Justice can either vote to AFFIRM, REVERSE the lower court, or RECUSE from the case and not cast a vote. For each correct guess, you will receive 10 points.If your class correctly guesses the votes all nine Justices, you will receive a 10-point bonus, for a perfect score of 100 points.
For example, in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Media Association, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that statute barring the sale of violent video games to children was unconstitutional. Your class predict that Justices Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito will vote to reverse the Ninth Circuit, and that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will vote to affirm, or agree with the Ninth Circuit. Assume your class’ predictions are correct, except for Justice Kennedy, who in fact voted to affirm the lower court.
| Roberts | Scalia | Kennedy | Thomas | Ginsburg | Breyer | Alito | Sotomayor | Kagan | |
| Predicted Vote | Reverse | Reverse | Reverse | Reverse | Affirm | Affirm | Reverse | Affirm | Affirm |
| Actual Vote | Reverse | Reverse | Affirm | Reverse | Affirm | Affirm | Reverse | Affirm | Affirm |
| Points | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
In this case your class will receive a total of 80 points because you correctly predicted 8 out of the 9 Justices (you failed to correctly predict the vote of Justice Kennedy).
If your class correctly predicts all five cases, you will receive a perfect score of 500 points.
The Winners
The winner of the FantasySCOTUS Blogs & Badges Contest will be announced at the conclusion of the October 2013 Term (roughly the last week in June, 2014.
All classes are placed into leagues based on the geographic location of the Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States.
- 1st Circuit- MA, NH, PR, RI
- 2nd Circuit- CT, NY, VT
- 3rd Circuit- DE, NJ, PA, VI
- 4th Circuit- DC, MD, NC, SC, VA*
- 5th Circuit- LA, MS, TX
- 6th Circuit- KY, MI, OH, TN
- 7th Circuit- IL, IN, WI
- 8th Circuit- AR, IA, MO, MN, ND, NE, SD
- 9th Circuit- AK, AZ, CA, HI, GU, ID, MP, MT, OR, NV, WA
- 10th Circuit- CO, KS, NM, OK, UT, WY
- 11th Circuit- AL, FL, GA
* While the District of Columbia is in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, for the purposes of this competition, the D.C. will be placed in the 4th Circuit.
The team with the most points in each Circuit will be awarded the “Chief Judge” Prize. There will be one “Chief Judge” per grade for each Circuit. The top class in the United States will be awarded the “Chief Justice” Prize.