Lee Hamilton set a course for Civic Education that we must continue

The calendar has a way of sharpening our sense of responsibility. In February, we mourn the loss of Lee H. Hamilton, a statesman whose life defined public service for generations of Hoosiers. In March, we mark Civic Learning Week, a nationwide call to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that sustain our democracy. The closeness of those moments is an invitation.

For those of us who worked with Mr. Hamilton, admired him, or simply benefited from the example he set, the question is straightforward: How will we continue the work that he embodied?

Lee Hamilton served 34 years in Congress, navigating some of the most sensitive national security and foreign policy crises of the modern era, from the Iran-Contra investigation to the inquiry into the attacks of September 11. Through it all, he built a reputation for seriousness, fairness, and an unfailing commitment to the institutions of constitutional government. His model of patriotism was not loud. It was steady. It rested on intellectual honesty, bipartisan cooperation, and respect for the rule of law.

In 1987, he offered a sentence that still rings with clarity: Government cannot function cloaked in secrecy; it only works when officials tell the truth. At a time when public trust feels fragile, that conviction reads less like history and more like instruction.

Yet if Hamilton’s career had ended with congressional leadership, it would still have been incomplete. What drove him, especially in the decades after he left office, was a simple belief that democracy survives only if citizens understand it and participate in it.

That belief led him home to Indiana and back into classrooms, lecture halls, and community forums. At Indiana University, he helped guide the Center on Representative Government. Nationally, he partnered with Sandra Day O’Connor to champion the civic mission of schools. He lent his name, his time, and his credibility to efforts that aimed not at the next election cycle, but at the next generation.

Here in our state, his encouragement mattered enormously to the Indiana Bar Foundation. When we launched the Indiana Civic Health Index, Mr. Hamilton understood immediately that it represented both a mirror and a map. It reflected where we were as citizens, and it challenged us to imagine where we could go. His involvement elevated the work and reminded all of us that data must lead to action.

I will always treasure the hours I once spent driving Mr. Hamilton across Indiana back roads alongside former Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court Randall Shepard as we visited communities to discuss those findings. 

Between town halls and presentations, I had the privilege of listening to him talk about presidents he had known, global crises he had helped the nation navigate, and the enduring importance of informed citizens. Despite the sweep of history he had witnessed, he returned again and again to the same theme that none of it works without civic understanding.

Which brings us to Civic Learning Week.

Launched by iCivics – the nonprofit that Justice O’Connor founded – the week of March 9–13 is a focused national effort to elevate civic education as a priority for schools, communities, and policymakers. It is both a celebration and a challenge. Celebration of the teachers and volunteers who do this work every day, and a challenge to the rest of us to match their commitment.

If we want to honor Lee Hamilton, this is how we do it.

We volunteer in classrooms. We mentor students in mock trials. We support teachers who are navigating tight schedules and tighter budgets. We insist that knowledge of our constitutional system is not a luxury or an elective, but a prerequisite for self-government.

Most of all, we model the habits he embodied of listening carefully, disagreeing respectfully, and remaining faithful to the idea that facts matter.

Mr. Hamilton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2015, the nation’s highest civilian honor. But if you asked him, I suspect he would say the real measure of success is whether young Americans are prepared to inherit the responsibilities of citizenship.

Civic Learning Week gives us a moment to recommit ourselves to that task. It reminds us that the legacy of leaders like Mr. Hamilton is not preserved in marble or memory alone. It lives in whether we are willing to pick up where they left off.

The work continues. And it is now ours. 

Chuck Dunlap is the President & CEO of the Indiana Bar Foundation.