The Massachusetts Center for Civic Education has published an announcement that Mike Trofi has died. Mike was a retired high school social studies teacher and a civics advocate. I met him when he attended my session at a Stonybrook/NY Bar association conference on Long Island quite a few years ago. From that time, he became a big proponent of media literacy as part of civics education, and led the effort to introduce and pass legislation in Rhode Island, working with a former student, Sen. Adam Satchell. Pam Steager and Renee Hobbs joined him and brought in others to help pass the bill and carry on the effort in Rhode Island while Mike continued to advocate from his position as state coordinator of We the People. His teaching career was in the West Warwick school system, where he was chair of the social studies department. This is the system that received an A+ in the Rhode Island media literacy survey by the Media Education Lab. Probably no coincidence. He was just a lovely person and a pleasure to work with. Obit here.