Celebrate the First Amendment All Summer Long

In celebration of our newest gallery, The First Amendment, opening September 6, 2023, this summer we’re highlighting resources for each of the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.

Follow along as we dive into speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition through past episodes of our We the People podcast.

First Amendment Podcasts

303 Creative and Other Key Cases From the 2022-23 SCOTUS Term

In a 6-3 ruling at the end of the 2022-23 term, the Supreme Court handed down a major First Amendment decision about the intersection of free expression rights and anti-discrimination laws in 303 Creative v. Elenis. The Court held that Colorado could not force a website designer to design a site and create expressive designs that she disagreed with, which included creating a website for same-sex marriages. In this episode, host Jeffrey Rosen is joined by ACLU National Legal Director David Cole and New York Times opinion columnist David French to break down the 303 Creative decision, as well as review the 2022-23 term as a whole, other key decisions from this past year, and where the Court is headed next. 

Policing, Protest, and the Constitution

This episode features National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen in a 2020 conversation with Judge Theodore McKee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Their wide-ranging discussion covered qualified immunity for police officers, the history of racial inequality, protests and the First Amendment's right of assembly, and more.

Harriet Scott: The Woman Behind Dred Scott v. Sanford



Historians Martha S. Jones and Lea VanderVelde uncover the life of Harriet Scott, the wife and co-plaintiff of Dred Scott in the infamous case Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which the Supreme Court held that African Americans were not citizens of the United States. This divisive case greatly influenced the outcome of the next presidential election and the South’s eventual secession from the Union, leading to the Civil War. Although much is known about the case itself, little attention has been devoted to Harriet Scott and her husband, the people who petitioned for their freedom and brought the case before the Court and lived with the devastating consequences.

The Bladensburg Peace Cross Case

This episode explores the 2019 Supreme Court case The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, which concerns a lawsuit over the possible demolition of a 40-foot-tall cross that is part of a World War I memorial on public property in Maryland. Lawyers representing both sides—Ken Klukowski and Monica Miller—explain the history of the cross at issue, debate whether or not it unconstitutionally promotes Christianity, and forecast the case’s potential impact on how the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause is interpreted. Jeffrey Rosen hosts.

Free Speech and Press Cases in the Courts

In 2018, President Donald Trump’s revoked CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass. The subsequent lawsuit, CNN v. Trump, brought issues relating to press freedom and due process under the Constitution back into the news. On this episode, David French, then senior writer at National Review and Katie Fallow, senior attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, break down the latest developments in the CNN case as well as broader First Amendment issues in the courts today—exploring public forum doctrine, the legal battle over the president blocking users on Twitter, Facebook’s proposal to create its own “Supreme Court” to decide how to regulate content, and the potential effects of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange’s prosecution for publishing classified information.

To find more episodes of the We the People podcast on an array of constitutional topics, click here.

For Students

Federal Judges Association Civics Challenge

Deadline: December 31, 2023



In celebration of Constitution Day, September 17, the Federal Judges Association (FJA) has created an annual “Civics Challenge.”

Students in grades 9 through 12 will have the opportunity to take the same Civics Test given to individuals seeking U.S. citizenship. Each student who receives a perfect score will receive an “Excellent Citizen” certificate for their work and will be invited to attend a local naturalization ceremony.

The Civics Test must be given, graded, and results submitted by the participating high-school teacher to FJA Coordinator Susan DeCourcey ([email protected]) by no later than December 31, 2023. Learn more about the Civics Challenge.

The resources and practice tests for each teacher are available on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services site.

Thank you for being part of our community of educators. If you have any questions we’d love to hear from you. Please email the education team at [email protected].

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