Free Speech Teaching Guide 3: The Problem of National Security Secrets

November 5, 2025

This guide explores the relationship between secrecy and the First Amendment by exploring two interrelated legal problems: the rights of leakers and the press to publish secret information; and the bureaucratic process by which information is classified as secret in the first place. These issues are at the heart of recent conflicts about whistleblowers and classified information – individuals like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have faced jail time for sharing secrets with the public.

Free Speech Teaching Guide 1: The Birth of the Modern First Amendment and How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind

October 6, 2025

This guide focuses on the history of free speech in one crucial year (1919), exploring how one influential Supreme Court justice changed his mind about the value of antiwar speech and in the process wrote opinions that have shaped our attitudes to free speech ever since. It provides students an opportunity to see the First Amendment evolve at a crucial hinge in its history, and it also provides them an opportunity to think about how far the rights to free speech should extend during wartime.

The Supreme Court

June 29, 2011

The Supreme Court is the final law of the land. Uncover its intricacies with this resource from PBS.

iCivics

June 28, 2011

Games can be more than mindless fluff. When content-rich, they can engage your students in learning during play.

Divided Allegiance

April 11, 2011

Being born in the United States was not always a guaranteed path to citizenship.

Teaching the Bill of Rights

December 8, 2010

Daunted by teaching the Bill of Rights and its complex vocabulary to students? Middle-school teacher Christine Valenti explains how she introduces her students to the Amendments.

Federal Judiciary

September 14, 2009

Can’t tell an affadavit from an acquittal? Learn the legal lingo.

Supreme Court Nominations

July 28, 2009

How many “yeas” and “nays” on the path to being a Supreme Court justice?

Landmark Supreme Court Cases

June 4, 2009

Intimidated by teaching legal history? Find resources for thinking about and teaching 17 pivotal U.S. Supreme Court cases at this site, designed for educators.