This film examines the history of guns and gun ownership in our society from the Revolutionary War to modern times and the complicated debate over what the founders intended when they wrote the Second Amendment. Does it protect a right of individuals to keep and bear arms? Or is it a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations like the National Guard?
Awards and Honors
Freedom of Assembly: National Socialist Party v. Skokie
This film explores the First Amendment right of the “people peaceably to assemble” through the lens of the U.S. Supreme Court case National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. The legal fight between neo-Nazis and Holocaust survivors over a planned march in a predominantly Jewish community led to a ruling that said the neo-Nazis could not be banned from marching peacefully because of the content of their message.
2021 Platinum Hermes Award
2021 Silver Telly Award
2021 Clarion Award
The 19th Amendment: A Woman’s Right to Vote
Voting is the most basic right of a citizen and the most important right in a democracy. When you vote, you are choosing the people who will make the laws. For almost a century and a half of our nation’s history, women were barred from exercising this fundamental right. This is a film about their long, difficult struggle to win the right to vote. It’s about citizenship, the power of the vote, and why women had to change the Constitution with the 19th Amendment to get the vote.
2020 Gold Hermes Creative Award
2020 Silver Telly Award
2020 Clarion Award
The Story of the Bill of Rights
The story about the struggle over the Bill of Rights is told in this documentary, which explains how these individual freedoms that often are taken for granted today were controversial among the founding fathers and how they were eventually ratified. Ten short videos address each of the amendments.
Gold Plaque from Chicago International Film Festival
Magna Carta and the Constitution
This video tells the story of the origins of the Magna Carta and explores the two most important principles that it symbolizes: rule of law and due process. Students will learn how the framers interpreted and redefined the rule of law and due process when they created our Constitution. And they will understand how those rights have been expanded and protected by the U.S. Supreme Court through two landmark Supreme Court cases: U.S. v. Nixon and Powell v. Alabama.
Award of Excellence from the Best Shorts Competition
Platinum Best of Show Award from the Aurora Awards
Certificate for Creative Excellence from the U.S. International Film & Video Festival
Children's Programming finalist in the 59th CINE Gold Eagle Awards
Freedom of the Press: New York Times v. United States
This documentary examines the First Amendment’s protection of a free press as well as the historic origins of this right and the ramifications of the landmark ruling in New York Times v. United States, the Pentagon Papers case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prior restraint is unconstitutional.
Platinum Hermes Creative Award
Clarion Award
Award of Excellence - Special Mention from Best Shorts Competition
Silver Award in Online Film & Educational Video from Davey Awards
Gold Award from CINDY Awards
Search and Seizure: Mapp v. Ohio
In 1957, Dollree Mapp stood up to police who tried to enter her home without a search warrant. Her act of defiance led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Mapp v. Ohio that limited police powers. This documentary explores the Fourth Amendment case in which the Court ruled that evidence illegally obtained by police is not admissible in state courts.
CINE Special Jury Award
CINE Golden Eagle Award
Clarion Award
Certificate of Merit from the Chicago International Film Festival Television Awards
Award of Excellence from the Best Shorts Competition
Chris Statuette from the Columbus International Film + Video Festival
Silver Award from the International Academy of the Visual Arts
Award of Excellence from Videographer Awards
2013 Silver Award from Davey Awards
Gold Award from the Aurora Awards
Key Constitutional Concepts
This three-part documentary discusses why and how the Constitution was created at the Constitutional Convention, explores the protection of individuals’ rights in Gideon v. Wainwright, and examines the limits of presidential power in Youngstown v. Sawyer.
ABA Coalition for Justice Award
Aegis Award
Bronze Telly Award
CINE Golden Eagle Award
Clarion Award
Silver Hugo Award from Chicago International Film Festival
US International Film and Video Festival
Videographer Award
Habeas Corpus: The Guantanamo Cases
One of our oldest human rights, habeas corpus safeguards individual freedom by preventing unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment. This documentary examines habeas corpus and the separation of powers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks through four Guantanamo Bay cases: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush.
Award of Excellence from the Best Shorts Competition
Gold Award for Best of Show from the Aurora Awards
Silver Screen Award from the U.S. International Film & Video Festival
Gold Eagle Award from the CINE Gold Eagle Awards
Gold Award from CINDY Awards
Silver World Medal from New York Festival's International TV & Film Awards
An Independent Judiciary: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Cooper v. Aaron
This documentary, featuring Justice Stephen G. Breyer and leading constitutional scholars, chronicles two key moments that defined our understanding of the role of the judiciary: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Cooper v. Aaron.
ABA Coalition for Justice Award
Bronze Telly Award
CINE Golden Eagle Award
Right to Remain Silent: Miranda v. Arizona
This documentary explores the landmark Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona that said criminal suspects, at the time of their arrest but before any interrogation, must be told of their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and Sixth Amendment right to an attorney.
CINE Golden Eagle Award
Clarion Award
Bronze World Medal from New York Festival's International Television & Film Awards
Distinguished Achievement Award from the REVERE Awards
Aurora Awards - Platinum Best of Show - Social Studies
Gold Award from CINDY Awards
Platinum Hermes Creative Awards
Award of Merit from Best Shorts Competition
Silver Screen Award from US International Film and Video Festival
Legislative Process: How a Bill Becomes a Federal Law
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R., Texas) explain the complex process of turning a bill into federal law in discussions with high school students.
Videographer Award of Excellence
Korematsu and Civil Liberties
This documentary explores the landmark case Korematsu v. U.S. (1944) concerning the constitutionality of presidential executive order 9066 during World War II that gave the U.S. military the power to ban thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas considered important to national security.
Gold Hermes Creative Awards
Jury Selection: Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company
This documentary tells how an African American construction worker’s personal-injury lawsuit against his employer evolved into a landmark jury selection case Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. on the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.
CINE Golden Eagle Award
CINE Special Jury Award
CINE Master Series Award
A Call to Act: Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
This documentary tells the story of Lilly Ledbetter and her U.S. Supreme Court case Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.. Ledbetter’s fight for equal pay for equal work eventually involved all three branches of government and resulted in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
ABA Silver Gavel Award
Bronze Telly Award
Award of Excellence Special Mention from Best Shorts Competition
Gold Award from CINDY Awards
Clarion Award
Silver Award from the DAVEY Awards
Platinum Award from Hermes Creative Awards
Yick Wo and the Equal Protection Clause
This documentary examines the case Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) in which the Supreme Court held that noncitizens have due process rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The Court said that unequal application of a law violated the rights of a Chinese immigrant.
CINE Master Series Award
CINE Special Jury Award
CINE Golden Eagle Award
Platinum Hermes Creative Award
Bronze Telly Award
Short Documentary Film winner from Los Angeles International Film Festival
Best Documentary Short from DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival
Best Short Film from Show Me Social Justice Film Festival
Silver Hugo Award
Platinum Hermes Creative Award
Gold Camera - US International Film and Video Festival
Honorable Mention - Columbus International Film + Video Festival
Thurgood
“Thurgood” is a production of the critically acclaimed play starring Laurence Fishburne as the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court justice.