District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands

The United States District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands recognized the winners of this year’s Ninth Circuit Civics Contest. The Ninth Circuit Civics Contest is an essay and video contest for high school students in the western United States and two Pacific Island jurisdictions. This year’s theme focused on “The First Amendment and the Schoolhouse Gate: Students’ Free Speech Rights.” The civics contest was open to high school students in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington state, the U.S. Territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Students were invited to submit creative and thoughtful videos and/or essays capturing the theme which focused on students’ free speech rights. The contest challenged students to address “What are students’ free speech rights – and responsibilities – on and off campus?”

In the CNMI, a total of 5 videos and 88 essays ranging between 500 to 1,000 words in length were submitted to the Ninth Circuit.  The essays were returned to the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands without any name or school identifiers to be judged solely on the students’ understanding of constitutional principles, clarity and effectiveness in expressing the theme, grammar, spelling, and composition, and use of footnotes and bibliographies properly attributing information taken from other sources.

The winners for the essay contest were:
1st Place ($100): John Lawrence Apit, Marianas High School)
2nd Place ($75): Jenny Min (Marianas High School)
3rd Place ($50): Samantha Flores, (Marianas High School)

The winners for the video contest were:
1st Place ($100): Wendy Zha (Marianas High School)
2nd Place ($75): Amena Mahmud (Marianas High School)
3rd Place ($50): Grace Ju  (Marianas High School)

ESSAY	VIDEO
1st Place John Lawrence Apit	1st Place Wendy Zha

The first-place video and essay were submitted to the Ninth Circuit to compete with the first-place winners in other districts for a cash price of $3,000 (1st place), $1,700 (2nd place), or $1,000 (3rd place).

An award ceremony was held on June 3, 2022 in the third floor courtroom for the participants of both the Ninth Circuit Civics Contest and the District Court’s 2022 Law Day Photo Contest. Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona was present to congratulate the students.
 

Winners for the 2022 Ninth Circuit Contest and Law Day Photo Contest pose for a group photo. Front Row: Samantha Flores, John Lawrence Apit, Yu Rong Jiang, Tyler Camacho, and Grace Ju. Back Row: Xinyi Ni, Wendy Zha, Amena Mahmud, Seongeon Heo, and Grace Kim.

 
Marianas High School Language Arts Teacher, Ashley Beck (far left), received the award certificate for her student Jenny Min. Beck poses with the other civics essay contest winners (left to right) Samantha Flores, John Lawrence Apit, and Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona.