A classroom study of the gender-neutral statute known as Title IX can spark an engaging discussion on the law’s impact.

The examination of compacts in the classroom offers an opportunity to explore areas of law that fall outside the most-taught legislative processes while serving as a jumping off point for discussions on federalism, state sovereignty, and separation of powers.

The Supreme Court closed out its 2000 term in June after issuing seventy-nine opinions and agreeing to take up more questions of interest to students and educators alike. Among the issues already slated for review after the 2001 term opens on October 1 are cases that could decide the future of affirmative action, the death penalty, and on-line pornography. Looking Back Last term was contentious for the justices, and not just because of the December decision in Bush v. Gore, No. 00-949—the case that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election. It determined both that the Florida…

The recently launched Educating for American Democracy (EAD) Roadmap reflects an awareness of how institutions, including our legal system, have shaped and defined multiple narratives of the American story.  Almost every EAD theme has a legal connection to the law, providing an effective means for student engagement. The author demonstrates how each theme might be incorporated within classrooms using a legal perspective. 

Exploring the federal regulation process for vaccine safety can launch a stimulating classroom debate on legal and policy issues related to vaccines.

This year’s Law Day, on May 1, offers an opportune moment for students to examine and debate the meaning of the rule of law and how we can advance it in times of civil distress and unrest.

Although many myths have surrounded the Mayflower Compact of 1620, it made a major contribution to the American constitutional tradition by rejecting the concept of a state-sanctioned church.  

PBS/POV Documentary"From This Day Forward" portrays an American family coping with one of life’s most intimate transformations. Years ago, when director Sharon Shattuck’s father came out as transgender and began living as Trisha, Sharon was in the awkward throes of middle school. Her father’s transition to female was difficult for her straight-identified mother, Marcia, to accept, but her parents stayed together. As the Shattucks reunite to plan Sharon’s wedding, she seeks a deeper understanding of how her parents’ marriage, and their family, survived intact. From This Day Forward is shown…

Examining the Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion rights can foster important classroom discussions on the principle of stare decisis and on judicial activism.

In the quietly powerful Raising Bertie, three black boys in North Carolina’s rural Bertie County come of age right before our eyes. Filmed over six years, they deal with the same issues that every boy approaching the leap to manhood faces—and others triggered by their specific and often precarious conditions. As the quote from James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son that opens the film puts it, “I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.” Raising Bertie has its national broadcast premiere on the PBS documentary series…