Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Hepatiche.

I'm Hannah McCarthy.

And ring the bell and strike up the band.

We are excited to announce the finalists for this year's student contest.

There ought to be a law.

But before we share the winning submissions, can you tell me how you settled on this topic?

Having students submit proposed legislation?

I got to admit this idea came from a supporter of the show.

Her name is DK Holland. She gave a TED Talk entitled,

Kids Should Help Run Their Schools. She's a friend of the show.

She heads the Inquiring Minds Institute, New York City.

She is a relentless advocate for getting students civically engaged as early as humanly possible.

DK wrote me that some of her students were confused about outdated laws.

It's specifically racist and sexist laws that are still on the books in some states.

And I thought, how about we have kids look into those and report back to us?

So this contest was initially there ought not to be a law?

Exactly. But it turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined

to research outmoded local legislation.

So we opted to have students tell us what new laws should be created instead.

And my goodness, we got a lot of laws.

If someone making minimum wage can't even make their rent,

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