Teaching LGBT Rights

The history of equal rights for members of the LGBT community is something often overlooked in classroom curriculum. With the Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, it is important to look back at the men and women who fought for equality, especially right here in Philadelphia. Events, such as Reminder Day, are examples of how we can remember the contribution of men and women in the community who fought for their rights as citizens.

Japanese American Internment

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. For the next four years, more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry—77,000 of them American citizens—were removed from this area and incarcerated indefinitely without criminal charges or trial. Forty-six years and eight presidents later, on August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law.

Arguing Against Slavery

What arguments did abolitionists make against slavery? How did abolitionists propose to end slavery? These historical questions are at the center of this two-lesson unit focused on seven primary documents. In engaging with these questions and these documents, students will consider the impacts and the limits of abolition, a social movement that spanned hundreds of years.

African Immigration

Since the 1980s, there has been a surge in immigration to the United States from the African continent. African immigrants represent various nations, cultures, languages, and religions.

Civil Conversation: Immigration Enforcement Raids

Controversial legal and policy issues, as they are discussed in the public arena, often lead to polarization, not understanding. This Civil Conversation activity offers an alternative. In this structured discussion method, under the guidance of a facilitator, participants are encouraged to engage intellectually with challenging materials, gain insight about their own point of view, and strive for a shared understanding of issues. This lesson plan addresses the debate over the policies of the federal agency – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – that investigates and enforces the nation’s immigration laws.

Putting the Bill of Rights to the Test

This primary source-based workbook (as PDF or eBook/ePub) helps students explore some of the protections found in the Bill of Rights and how they’ve been tested throughout U.S. history. Each chapter includes background information, guiding questions, analysis questions, primary sources, and discussion questions. Concepts include freedom of religion, speech and press; the right to assemble, petition, bear arms, and have counsel; search and seizure; due process; and cruel and unusual punishment.

Dolley Madison as a Model for Our Times

This very short video highlights the alternative that Dolley Madison offered to the rowdy, rambunctious, and violent world of politics in her time. Professor Catherine Allgor suggests that Dolley’s preference for civility and empathy; for cooperation over coercion; and for building bridges and not bunkers is a useful model for our times.

Women as Citizens Under the Constitution

This short video traces the evolution of constitutional theory about women’s citizenship. The original Constitution is gender-neutral and women shared many rights enjoyed by men: right to petition, freedom of religion, trial by jury, etc. However, as Dr. Rosemarie Zagarri points out, women’s rights evolved slowly over time in a checkerboard fashion, culminating in the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919.

Women Before the American Revolution

This short video explores the limited rights of women prior to the American Revolution. According to the idea of femme covert, women were legally and politically subservient to their husbands. Married women could not own property and all women were considered irrelevant to the political sphere. Professor Rosemarie Zagarri notes that 80% of the freemen in the colonies could vote (as compared to 20% in Great Britain), but suffrage was still limited to men.

George Washington in Retirement

This short video describes the “retirements” of George Washington. He threatened to retire while serving in the colonial militia, but did walk away from the military in 1783 and from the Presidency in 1796. Professor W. B. Allen notes that Washington’s life-long involvement with Mount Vernon enabled him, in 1796, to immediately resume efforts to provide for his family and for the enslaved people who would be freed upon his death.