Educational Media Reviews Online

Cases in Controversy: The 14th Amendment is a lucid, well-structured examination of how the 14th Amendment, arguably the most important amendment passed since the Civil War ended, has impacted American History. Using fourteen selected Supreme Court decisions from the period from 1873 to 1973, the DVD examines how the court used the amendment, and in particular the equal protection clause, to provide a legal framework for the justification of segregation. Commentators note that Plessey v. Ferguson simply represented public opinion of the day. The court neither created segregation nor could it eliminate it.

In the twentieth century the Supreme Court used the same amendment to dismantle that legal framework. In the early 1950s in Sweat v. Painter and McLarin v. Oklahoma the court began to shift to the view that the 14th Amendment prohibited different treatment of citizens by the states using race as criterion. By the time of the Brown decision, 1954, the court unanimously ruled that separate could never be equal.

A narrator provides an introduction about the circumstances surrounding each case and the events that led to its adjudication in the nation’s highest court. Actors then re-enact the heart of the decision while prominent legal scholars provide analysis and commentary. The result is an excellent explanation of the cases and of how the cases fit within the context of American history. This will be a very useful teaching tool in middle and high school history and civics classrooms.

Bonus features include the full text of the court decisions for each case, an explanation of the 14th Amendment, complete biographies of the Supreme Court Justices, and extended interviews with the legal scholars commenting on the decisions.