This lesson is designed to help students view political debates. The resources provided support the critical evaluation of the candidate’s performances. Body language, demeanor, appearance and positions on key issues are analyzed in an attempt to help students determine the importance of debates to the election cycle. This lesson could be used in class or as a homework assignment.
Fisher v. University of Texas (2013)
Is it unconstitutional for publicly funded universities to use race as a factor of admissions? This case summary shows how the Supreme Court answered that question in 2013.
ConSource U.S. Constitution for Kids
The U.S. Constitution for Kids offers educators and students the opportunity to read the original text of the Constitution alongside unbiased translations that are easy for students to understand. We have also included useful background information, which places each clause in historical context.
“No Event Could Have Filled Me with Greater Anxieties”: George Washington and the First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
Phillip Hamilton’s “‘No Event Could Have Filled Me with Greater Anxieties’: George Washington and the First Inaugural Address” reminds us how precedent setting our first president was. Anxious that his lack of administrative experience might make his task as the executive of a new nation difficult, Washington nevertheless proved he was as expert at statesmanship as he was on the battlefield. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
James Madison and the Constitution
In his essay “James Madison and the Constitution,” Professor Jack Rakove probes the mind of James Madison — the delegate known as the “architect of the Constitution,” explores the weaknesses of the Articles government, and develops arguments for a stronger union in a memorandum entitled Vices of the Political System of the United States. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History
The Fourteenth Amendment was the most important constitutional change in the nation’s history since the Bill of Rights. Its heart was the first section, which declared all persons born or naturalized in the United States (except Indians) to be both national and state citizens, and which prohibited the states from abridging their “privileges and immunities,” depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying them “equal protection of the laws.” Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Different Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement
Anthony Badger uses the career of President Jimmy Carter to frame the questions of change in the American South and the relative impact that economic modernization, nonviolent protest, and armed self-defense had on the end of segregation and the steps taken toward political and social equality. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Natural Rights, Citizenship Rights, State Rights, and Black Rights: Another Look at Lincoln and Race
In the real world, the ability of free blacks to enjoy their natural rights and exercise the privileges and immunities of citizenship depended on the states where they actually lived. When those states imposed a raft of legal discriminations on free blacks they cheapened the meaning of freedom and discounted the value of citizenship. I suspect this bothered Lincoln, but it wasn’t his issue. It would take other men and women, and another century of struggle, before “states rights” was abolished. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
Patriotism Crosses the Color Line: African Americans in World War II
Professor Clarence Taylor reminds us of the role African American soldiers played in the conflict—and the role their military service played in shaping the racial politics that followed in peacetime. This essay helps us appreciate the complexity of mobilization for modern warfare and drive home the impact of events on the world stage upon domestic affairs. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.
The Civil Rights Movement: Major Events and Legacies
James Patterson provides an overview of the movement, reminding us that the roots lay in the early twentieth century with the founding of the NAACP and the National Urban League and that efforts to secure equality continued through the 1940s and the postwar years. Patterson shows the variety of arenas in which the modern civil rights movement operated, from the courtrooms and legislative halls of the nation to the streets of Birmingham and the highways of Alabama and Mississippi. Free registration for students and teachers required to access resource.