Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Episodes
126 episodes
Why America Made Christmas A Federal Holiday
A holiday can be more than a date off work; it can be a quiet pact about what a free people hold in common. We dig into Christmas as both a religious feast and a civic tradition, exploring why Congress recognized it in 1870 and how that choice ...
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Season 1
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Episode 122
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29:32
Inside The Sixth Amendment: Rights That Shape Justice
Power decides what counts as fair—unless people do. That’s the heartbeat of our conversation with Professor Esther Hong, a scholar of youth and adult carceral systems and a former appellate advocate, as we unpack how the Sixth Amendment still g...
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Season 1
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Episode 121
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18:26
What Gideon v. Wainwright Teaches About Rights, Funding, And Real Justice
A single Supreme Court decision promised that no one would face the power of the state without a lawyer. The more complex question: who pays, who shows up, and how do we make that promise real? We sit down with Professor Sarah Mayeux, a legal h...
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Season 1
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Episode 120
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18:35
Chickens, Wheat, And The Commerce Clause
A chicken counter, a wheat field, and a school-zone arrest shouldn’t define the reach of federal power—but they do. We unpack how a few pivotal cases turned the Commerce Clause from a narrow trade rule into the engine of modern regulation, and ...
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Season 1
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Episode 119
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20:29
What Citizens United Actually Changed About Political Speech
Think you know Citizens United? The headlines got the heat, but the holding was far narrower than the myth. We walk through the real story—what the Court protected, what it left alone, and why the biggest shift in campaign money came from a dif...
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Season 1
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Episode 118
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13:25
How Supreme Court Rulings Reshaped The Second Amendment
The ground under the Second Amendment keeps shifting—and the story is bigger than a single case. With Professor Nelson Lund of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, we walk through the decisions that rewrote the playbook: Heller’...
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Season 1
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Episode 117
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13:33
From Bakke To SFFA: How The Supreme Court Shaped Diversity In College Admissions
What happens when a single swing opinion steers higher education for decades—and then the Court changes course? We unpack the legal journey from Bakke’s fragmented ruling to the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions decision, tracing how Justice Po...
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Season 1
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Episode 116
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15:30
When Free Exercise Meets Compulsory Education In Wisconsin v. Yoder
A tiny truancy fine opened a constitutional door that still shapes classrooms today. We unpack Wisconsin v. Yoder, the 1972 Supreme Court case where Old Order Amish parents won a free exercise exemption from compulsory high school, and explore ...
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Season 1
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Episode 115
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13:56
Why Engel v. Vitale Redefined Faith And Public Schools
A 22-word morning prayer, written by New York’s Board of Regents, ignited one of the most significant constitutional rulings of the last century. We sit down with Professor Katskee to unpack Engel v. Vitale and the First Amendment principles it...
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Season 1
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Episode 114
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17:09
How Tinker v. Des Moines Empowered Student Speech
A simple black armband became a turning point for student rights. We sit down with Mary Beth Tinker to revisit the 1965 protest that led to Tinker v. Des Moines and the Supreme Court’s declaration that students do not shed their constitutional ...
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Season 1
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Episode 113
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50:55
How The Pentagon Papers Redefined Free Speech And Government Accountability
We trace the 15-day showdown over the Pentagon Papers and how the Supreme Court drew a bright line against prior restraint. The story moves from Ellsberg’s leak to the Court’s ruling that the press serves the governed, not the governors.
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Season 1
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Episode 112
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10:29
New York Times v. Sullivan
Professor Samantha Barbas traces how New York Times v. Sullivan reshaped libel law, empowered investigative reporting, and protected the civil rights movement, then tests the standard against today’s social media landscape. She unpacks “actual ...
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Season 1
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Episode 111
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10:50
Baker v. Carr Explained: From Unequal Districts To One Person, One Vote
Imagine sharing a district with nine times as many people as the voters next door and getting the same single representative. That stark imbalance was common before Baker v. Carr, and it’s the starting point for our deep dive into how the Supre...
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Season 1
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Episode 110
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16:39
How Brown v. Board Ended Legal School Segregation
A nine-page Supreme Court opinion changed the course of American education—and it wasn’t an accident. We walk through the legal strategy that chipped away at Plessy, the political maneuvering that elevated Earl Warren, and the consolidated case...
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Season 1
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Episode 109
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12:59
From Schenck To Social Media: How Free Speech Law Evolved
Free speech law didn’t spring fully formed; it was hammered out case by case, crisis by crisis. We unpack how Schenck v. United States, a 1919 wartime case that actually upheld a conviction, planted the “clear and present danger” idea and nudge...
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Season 1
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Episode 108
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23:27
Dred Scott, America’s Breaking Point
A Supreme Court tried to settle the slavery question and instead set the country ablaze. We unpack Dred Scott v. Sandford with Dr. Beinberg, tracing how a case about one man’s claim to freedom morphed into a sweeping judgment that denied Black ...
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Season 1
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Episode 107
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15:32
Gibbons v. Ogden: How The Commerce Clause Shapes Interstate Trade
A steamboat monopoly, a federal license, and a constitutional power that still shapes our economy—this is the story of Gibbons v. Ogden told through clear facts and sharp reasoning. We dig into how a seemingly straightforward dispute over navig...
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Season 1
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Episode 106
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10:47
Why McCulloch v. Maryland Cemented Federal Supremacy And Shaped Implied Powers
A state tax, a national bank, and a constitutional reckoning—this is the moment McCulloch v. Maryland turned a revenue measure into a blueprint for federal power. We bring Dr. Beienberg back to trace the story from the first bank fight of the 1...
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Season 1
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Episode 105
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11:47
Why Marbury v. Madison Still Shapes Constitutional Power
A delivered commission goes missing, a new Chief Justice takes the bench, and a dry jurisdictional dispute turns into a lodestar for American constitutional law. We dive into Marbury v. Madison to unpack what John Marshall actually did: not con...
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Season 1
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Episode 104
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15:50
How FDR’s Date Change Rewrote A Holiday And Tested Presidential Power
A holiday felt so fixed that few imagined it could move—until the president did exactly that. We dive into the surprising civic journey of Thanksgiving, from Sarah Josepha Hale’s decades-long campaign that convinced Abraham Lincoln to set a nat...
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Season 1
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Episode 103
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9:43
How Presidential Proclamations Made Thanksgiving A Civic Tradition
Gratitude didn’t just arrive with pumpkin pie; it was engineered through careful words and bold timing. We sit down with Dr. Paris Careese to explore how presidential proclamations by George Washington in 1789 and Abraham Lincoln in 1863 shaped...
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Season 1
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Episode 102
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25:38
How Judges Read The Constitution: Text, History, And Precedent
The loudest fights about the Supreme Court are usually about outcomes. We pull back the curtain on the methods that shape those outcomes—text, history, precedent, and values—and explain how different approaches to constitutional interpretation ...
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Season 1
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Episode 101
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19:02
Remember The Ladies
A century of episodes calls for a wider lens, and we open it fully: the founding wasn’t just hammered out in halls and pamphlets by famous men—it was argued, nurtured, and lived by women whose ideas changed the course of American liberty. We pu...
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Season 1
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Episode 100
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13:23
How A Territorial Delegate Shapes National Policy From The Northern Mariana Islands
Ever wondered how a member of Congress can shape national policy without casting a floor vote? We sit down with Representative Kimberlyn King Hines, the delegate from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, to explore the real power c...
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Season 1
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Episode 98
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11:44
Kids Edition: Founding Women
What if the founding of the United States could be heard not only in speeches and volleys but in quilts mended by firelight, farm ledgers balanced in winter, and poems that dared to test the nation’s conscience? We open the door to the women wh...
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Season 1
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Episode 99
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12:59