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This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson looks at the 1918 case Hammer v. Dagenhart. In this case, the Supreme Court analyzed the constitutionality of a federal law banning the shipment across state lines of goods made in factories which employed children under the age of fourteen. In a decision overturned decades later, the Court held that Congress had overstepped its constitutional power in attempting to regulate the production of goods.

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Twenty years ago, the Court decided the First Amendment case of Allegheny County v. ACLU (1989), holding (5-4) that a crèche with the words “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (Glory to God in the highest) displayed on the grand staircase of the county courthouse violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. In the same case, six justices Court held that a joint Menorah-Christmas tree display outside the city-county building did not violate the Establishment Clause.  This Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson encourages students to analyze the facts and reasoning in this decision.

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This Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson focuses on a case involving expressive conduct, and what is for many a deeply cherished symbol of America—the US flag. In a closely divided (5-4) ruling, the Supreme Court held that states could not forbid burning the US flag in protest, because doing so would violate the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

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Our first Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution of the new school year looks at a case involving student privacy rights. In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court held that peer-grading was not a violation of students’ privacy as protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Furthermore, the Court reasoned that to interpret the law otherwise would have drastically altered the balance of federalism.

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This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution focuses on two cases that tested the limits of the First Amendment, and that demonstrated the United States’ commitment to freedom of speech. In these cases, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1968), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects individuals’ rights to express their views, even if those views are considered extremely offensive by most people.

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This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson focuses on the rights of the accused case Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (2003). In this case, the Supreme Court upheld Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute, reasoning that requiring individuals to identify themselves to police officers investigating crimes was not unreasonable. The law did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches, nor the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

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In commemoration of Women’s History Month, this Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson focuses on the landmark case of Taylor v. Louisiana (1975). In this case, the Supreme Court held that states could not systematically exclude women from juries. The constitutional issue in the case was not the right of individual women to serve as jurors, but the right of accused persons to be tried by a jury made up of a “representative cross section of the community.”

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This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution focuses on the Civil Rights Movement case Edwards v. South Carolina (1963). South Carolina arrested one hundred eighty seven peaceful segregation protestors for creating a “breach of the peace.” The Supreme Court overturned their conviction, holding that the only reason they had been arrested was the expression of an unpopular viewpoint—expression protected by the First Amendment.

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Tina Fey, accepting a Screen Actor’s Guild Award in January 2009, joked about not receiving “residuals” (or payment) for broadcasts of “30-Rock” on the Internet. But is it a laughing matter? The Internet has brought serious challenges to intellectual property, and to those who make their living as actors, directors, writers, and musicians. This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution focuses on MGM Studios v. Grokster (2005), in which the Supreme Court was asked if companies that produce Internet software expressly designed to let users to “file swap” or share copyrighted music with others who had not paid for it were responsible for the copyright infringement that resulted. The Supreme Court unanimously said yes.

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Many citizens take it for granted today that one power of the Supreme Court is to review the constitutionality of laws. This power, known as “judicial review,” was not firmly established until fifteen years into the Court’s existence, and was articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall in the landmark case we spotlight this month: Marbury v. Madison (1803). In essence, Marbury is the landmark case that made almost all other landmark cases possible.

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This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution focuses on a case which tested the limits of religious liberty: Reynolds v. United States (1878). The Court ruled unanimously that a law banning polygamy was constitutional, and did not infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

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The Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling at the end of last year’s term with the case District of Columbia v. Heller. Richard Heller challenged the District’s law banning virtually all handguns on Second Amendment grounds. The Court agreed with Heller, finding the ban unconstitutional and holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep suitable weapons at home for self-defense unconnected to militia service. The impact of this decision will continue to be analyzed for many years.

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This month we spotlight the landmark criminal procedure case Gideon v. Wainwright (1963). The individual at the center of this case, Clarence Gideon, sent a handwritten petition to the Supreme Court challenging his conviction for breaking into a Florida pool hall. He argued that he did not have a fair trial, because he had not been given a lawyer to help him with his defense. The Court held that the Sixth Amendment’s protection of the right to counsel meant that the government must provide an attorney for accused persons who cannot afford one.

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The decision in one of the most important student speech cases to reach the Court in decades came at the end of last term. The case, Morse v. Frederick (2007), concerned the rights of a public school student to unfurl a banner reading “Bong hits 4 Jesus” at a school-sponsored event held off school grounds. We begin this school year with this landmark case on the rights of public school students.

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As the school year comes to a close and students are giving student government speeches and commencement addresses, we spotlight the landmark student expression case Bethel v. Fraser (1986). In this case, the Court considered whether the First Amendment protected a student-government nomination speech filled with sexual innuendo.

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In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty systems then in place were unconstitutional violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments. In response to the decision many states changed their death penalty systems. Four years later in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional.

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This year is the 60th anniversary of the landmark property case US v. Causby (1946). In this case, the Court held that owners of a chicken farm had to be compensated for the lost value of their land, when the government’s actions made farming on the land impossible.

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The rule that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment may not be used at trial, which many Americans are familiar with from television crime shows, has its origins in the landmark Supreme Court case Mapp v. Ohio (1961). In this case, the Court held that states must abide by the “exclusionary rule” – a sometimes-controversial means of ensuring justice.

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As the school year draws to a close many are thinking about summer reading. In the Supreme Court case Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the Court held that the First Amendment limits the power of junior high and high school officials to remove books from school libraries because of their content.

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One of the most controversial Supreme Court rulings of the past year was the decision in Kelo v. New London (2005.) The Court held that that the phrase “public use” from the Fifth Amendment can be interpreted as “public benefit.” Therefore, the government can take private property from an individual in order to turn it over to a private developer if the taking will result in “economic development” for the region.

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This month we spotlight the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). While the Court held that the right of privacy within marriage predated the Constitution, the ruling asserted that the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments also protect the individual’s right to privacy.

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During the month of February, Black History Month, we spotlight two landmark cases involving racial discrimination in jury selection: Strauder v. West Virginia (1879) and Smith v. State of Texas (1941) . These landmark cases declared that racial discrimination in jury selection, whether by law or by systematic exclusion, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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This month we spotlight one of the earliest and most important cases exploring the division between state and federal power: Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). In this Commerce Clause case, the Supreme Court affirmed Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, and held that by virtue of the Supremacy Clause, state laws “must yield” to constitutional acts of Congress.

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This month we spotlight the landmark freedom of religion case Reynolds v. United States, in which the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law banning polygamy. The Court ruled that the First Amendment does not give people the right to break laws because they claim religious obligation to do so.

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Jose Padilla, who has been held as an enemy combatant by the United States for the last three years, was indicted last week on conspiracy charges. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving enemy combatants, Hamdi v. Rumseld (2004). In this month's eLesson, students will explore this landmark case on the rights of the accused.

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We begin this school year with a spotlight on student rights and the 1985 case of New Jersey v. T.L.O. In this case, the Supreme Court held that while the search warrant requirement does not apply to public school officials, teachers and administrators are bound by the Fourth Amendment’s essential requirement that searches be “reasonable.”