Roy C. Ketcham High School

This website has videos pertaining to the entire course content.

In A More Perfect Union, Peter Sagal explores the Constitution’s most striking and innovative feature: its resilient brand of federalism. The framers created a strong national government while at the same time preserving much of the power and independence of the states. This delicate balance of power, seemingly hard-wired for disagreement and conflict, has served America well for more than two centuries. Let's take a closer look at how it has also led to tensions throughout American history and still sparks controversy today over medical marijuana, gun control, and Obamacare.

Ask Americans what the Constitution’s most important feature is, and most will say it’s the guarantees of liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights. In this episode, Peter Sagal explores the history of the Bill of Rights, and also takes on several stories ripped from the headlines, involving freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and right to privacy. Let’s take a closer look and see how freedom is defined for “We the People” as well as you the citizen.

In this episode of CONSTITUTION USA, Peter Sagal explores the high ideals of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” endowed with “unalienable rights,” that didn’t make it into the Constitution in 1787. It took three-quarters of a century, and a bloody civil war, before the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 made equality a constitutional right, and gave the federal government the power to enforce it. The far-reaching changes created by that amendment established new notions of citizenship, equal protection, due process, and personal liberty and today those notions are being used to fight for same sex marriage, voting rights, affirmative action, and immigration reform. Let’s take a closer look and see how equality is defined in this episode.

In this last episode, Peter Sagal travels to Iceland where a few years after the country’s economic collapse, leaders decided to create a new constitution, turning to the U.S. Constitution for inspiration. This prompts Peter to consider why our own founding document has been able to last for more than 225 years. He looks at the systems that have kept the Constitution healthy--amendments, judicial interpretation, checks and balances —and also at the political forces that threaten to undermine the framers’ vision: excessive partisanship leading to gridlock, money in politics, and gerrymandering. Does our Constitution stand up to the 21st Century? Have we lost the art of democratic deliberation? How are you represented – and does your voice get heard?

The University of Michigan took some pretty big steps toward stifling free speech on its campus this month. Just how important is the 1st amendment to students today, and is it our duty to protect it? Watch to find out!

Should offensive speech be banned? Where should we, as a society, draw the line where permitted speech is on one side, and forbidden speech is on the other? Should we even have that line? And should free speech be limited by things like trigger warnings and punishments for microaggressions? Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, answers these questions and more

Kids Behind Bars Documentary meeting some of America's most dangerous young offenders. The Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana is home to 40 teenagers serving terms of up to 65 years for a range of serious crimes. This programme follows those spending their first night in the maximum-security prison and others preparing to move up to adult jail. They include Blake Layman, 17, sentenced to 55 years for murder, and Ireland MacKean, 16, who says he wants to stay out of trouble behind bars as he starts a 10-year term for robbery. Narrated by David Morrissey

This documentary film looks at changing interpretations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – The laws and court cases that have expanded and, alternatively, reduced Amendment protection of freedom of expression and assembly.

Thesis of the film is that after 9 / 11, the government has taken unprecedented license to monitor, intimidate, arrest and detain citizens and foreigners alike.

The film also looks back to the Pentagon Papers’ case and compared with the cases since 9 / 11 dealing with high school students of speech and protesters march in New York City during the Republican Convention in 2004.