GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening, Language SEL STANDARDS*: Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, Responsible Decision-Making To what extent do the Brian Flores lawsuit, the Rooney Rule, and other historical issues reveal racial discrimination in the N.F.L.? In February 2022, former N.F.L. (National Football League) Miami Dolphins Head Coach Brian Flores filed a class action lawsuit against the…

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…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language SEL STANDARDS*: Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Responsible Decision-Making Baseball and Segregation In December 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that they will correct a longtime injustice in the game’s history by officially elevating the Negro Leagues (of 1920-1948) to “Major League” status. For historical context, in the…

GRADE LEVEL: High School What is the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? What was Frederick Douglass’s Argument for Why Black Men Should Have the Right to Vote?   During the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, large questions loomed about the futures of four million formerly enslaved people. The 15th Amendment, one of three crucial amendments passed in the immediate wake of the Civil War, was essential to securing voting rights for African-American men. One…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening, Language Seeing a Positive Reflection of Yourself in Media O’Plérou Grebet, a 22-year-old digital artist from the Ivory Coast, was recently in the news because he created his own emojis, reflecting life in contemporary West Africa. In an interview with CNN, he stated, "I noticed that media and most articles about Africa were talking about the bad sides of the continent only. They reduced the…

GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Does Entertainment Represent Our Increasingly Diverse Society? In September 2019, Kodi Lee won America's Got Talent, which was a groundbreaking and emotional victory. Lee is a person who is Asian-American, blind and has autism. While he is one example of on-screen diversity, there is still more work to be done to ensure that the stories told reflect all people…

Engage students in reflecting on some of the underlying problems and issues that emerged from these cases involving police use of force, undertaking research and presenting viable solutions.

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 importance of diverse literature and engage them in a study on the diversity of books in their classroom or school library.

Teach students about why slurs are and why they are harmful, helping them explore possible responses to slurs when they hear them.

GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Language, Speaking and Listening Commemorating National Hispanic Heritage Month In commemoration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we present this resource to help teachers engage students in thinking broadly and critically about the Hispanic American experience in all of its complexity. In highlighting the significant events as well as people that have made a substantial contribution…

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…

Engage students in activities that get them to think broadly and critically about the Black experience in all of its complexity.

Engage students in analyzing race, privilege and power, using the killing of Michael Brown as an example.

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” These are the words of the landmark Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954 that declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Sixty years later, even though much progress has been made, there are still great…