Research & Analysis

Civics Lesson GRADE LEVEL: High School What is privilege? How does privilege impact the criminal justice system? On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The officer was not indicted. The story captured the attention of the nation and the media, and in many ways became the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. Many stories like this occurred in the following years and continued…

Civics Lesson GRADE LEVEL: High School How Were Youth Involved in the Civil Rights Movement? Throughout history, young people have stepped up and into leadership roles during different civil rights and social movements. This was never more evident than in the Civil Rights Movement, where young people were on the frontlines of the Montgomery bus boycotts, Freedom Rides and sit-ins. Given that student activism is on the rise again across the U.S., understanding how those young voices…

Civics Lesson GRADE LEVEL: High School How Has the Media Responded to My Social Justice Issue? Our current world offers a seemingly endless stream of media, from news stories to blog posts, Instagram feeds to social media memes, and more. Some media from news sites is fact-based straight reporting or opinion pieces advocating a particular point of view. Other pieces are thought provoking nonfiction informing us about our own communities, or places on the other side of the world. In…

GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Reflections of Biased Incidents in Basketball and White Privilege In April 2019, Kyle Korver, a U.S. professional basketball player who plays with the Utah Jazz, wrote an essay on racism and white privilege that received a lot of acclaim and attention. In the essay, Korver, who is white, reflects on several biased incidents involving his African-American teammates and his…

Teach students about the U.S. women’s soccer team’s lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation and explore how sexism manifests in a variety of ways in women’s sports.

GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Racial Discrimination and Safeguarding the Right to Vote In August 2015, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The Voting Rights Act is landmark federal legislation that was enacted during the Civil Rights Movement and was intended to prevent racial discrimination in voting. Prior to that, even though Black…