Educational Resources

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            Instructional Resources

PowerPoints

Case Studies

Historical Perspectives

Visual Arts & Film

  Writing & Discussion Prompts

Teaching About Magna Carta

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Instructional Resources

ABCs of the Rule of Law

This activity asks students to provide rule of law words for each letter of the alphabet. When all letters have been completed, the teacher may ask students to look for common themes that reflect key principles of the rule of law. Teachers may choose to use this activity as a springboard for discussing the rule of law or as a review.

Defining the Rule of Law

In this activity, the teacher and visiting lawyer will guide students in defining the rule of law as the basis of a free and open society.  Students will be asked to write a definition of the rule of law on a post-it note as they enter the classroom.  They will then view The Law Rules video and compare their notes to what Erica discusses in the video.  

Rule of Law Posters

What Do the Words Really Mean?

This activity takes an abstract concept, “the rule of law,” and approaches it word by word, drawing on students’ prior knowledge of what the individual words mean to arrive at an understandable and practical definition of this often misunderstood phrase. In the end, the activity serves as a springboard for a larger discussion of the rule of law as the foundation for all of our democratic ideals and institutions.

Lady Justice

This activity analyzes the image of Lady Justice.  Why is she blindfolded?  What do the scales represent?  Why is there a globe to her right?  How do her image and the observations the students make embody the basic principles of
the rule of law?

Rule of Law Learning Circles

Learning circles place students in two concentric circles of equal numbers.  The inner circle contains commentators facilitated by the teacher, and the outer circle consists of recorders/observers facilitate by the visiting lawyer.  Commentators will discuss The Law Rules video and the observers will look for key ideas, issues, concepts, and questions.

Concept Connections

This activity works well with Social Studies/English interdisciplinary classes.  Students will examine the various ideals and principles associated with the rule of law by completing a “Concept Connections” grid under the direction of the teacher and visiting lawyer.

Rule of Law Banners

Students will work individually to create a “Rule of Law” banner expressing the values, principles, and ideas important to the concept of the “rule of law.” In doing so, the students will demonstrate knowledge of the foundation of American constitutional government by explaining the fundamental principle of the rule of law. 

Contemporary Justice

Students will examine primary documents, specifically Bush Administration Department of Justice memos on approved interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists and President Obama's response to their release, to determine if the rule of law is being fairly applied to a specific situation. The teacher and visiting lawyer will guide the discussion. 

What is the Rule of Law?

This lesson is designed to help the teacher and the legal volunteer instruct students on defining the rule of law and the differences between our system of laws and that of other countries. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the foundations of American constitutional government by explaining the fundamental principles of the rule of law.

Rights and the Rule of Law

This activity is geared towards having the teacher and visiting legal volunteer to involve students in a discussion about the relationship between “personal rights” and the rule of law.  Students will complete a chart looking at the meaning and importance of rights provided by the Constitution. 

Using the Media to Teach the Rule of Law

Students will select a variety of media documents (i.e. political cartoons, current event, song, or magazine article) to discuss the rule of law and its relationship to good citizenship. The teacher and visiting lawyer will guide the discussion.  

Truancy Debate Activity

A Virginia legislator wants to address the serious problem of truancy in Hilltown's public schools.   We have left the format of the lesson open to the educator, be it debate, role play, or class discussion.  The necessary elements of the situation are provided, as well as pros and cons to the proposed law.

Rule of Law Quizmaster

What Rights are Guaranteed by the Bill of Rights? and Who said it? Quizmasters will be constructed from handouts.  Students can then quiz one another about the Amendments and quotes concerning justice, fairness, stability, and equality. Special thanks to John Koehler for this activity.

Rights Quizmaster

Quotes Quizmaster

Rule of Law & National Security Mock Hearing

You are a congressional committee advising the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on May 1, 2025.  Over the course of the past several years, the Agency has seen a rise in the occurrence of both domestic and international terrorism.  With increasing frequency, the groups responsible for this terrorist activity have sought to recruit United States citizens to join their organizations and engage in violent terrorist activity within the United States.

Challenges of Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses

This is adapted from a program created by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert S. Ballou.  The following activity exposes students to the timely issue of sexual misconduct on college campuses.  While not every student will attend college, every student should understand their personal rights protected by the Bill of Rights.

Activity Rubric

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Rule of Law Case Studies

The Virginia Law Foundation and Virginia Bar Association Rule of Law Project wish to thank and give attribution to Justice Cleo Powell and the staff of the Supreme Court of Virginia, especially Lori Lord and Kathy Mays Coleman, for developing these case studies for Rule of Law Day at the Capitol in Richmond;
​and Judge Pamela Baskerville and her staff for preparing the case studies for classroom use in the Rule of Law Project in Petersburg, Virginia, public schools.

Case #1: Cyberbullying

Case #2 : Student Drug Testing

Case #3: Sexting

Case #4: Prayer in School

Case #5: Armbands for Peace

Case #6: Inappropriate Signage at School

Case #7-A: Searching Personal Belongings

Case #8-B: Searching Personal Belongings

Case #9-A: Miranda Rights

Case #10-B: Miranda Rights

Case #11: Probable Cause to Search

Case #12: Teacher Gun Case

Case #13: Costly Download

Case #14: Disorderly Student

Case #15: Student Gun

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Historical Perspectives

“…governments, which have a regard to the common interest, are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those that regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.” Aristotle, The Politics (4th Century, BCE)

“Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state … is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise ….” Plato, The Laws (4th Century BCE)

“Therefore law means drawing a distinction between just and unjust, formulated in accordance with that most ancient and most important of all things – nature.” Cicero, The Laws, Book 2 (1st Century BCE)

“…whatever law a man makes for another, he should keep for himself.” Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law from Summa Theologia (13th Century)

“When you hear men talking, all they ever do is speak ill of women. And I don't quite know how they managed to make this law in their favour, or who exactly it was who gave them a greater license to sin than is allowed to us; and if the fault is common to both sexes (as they can hardly deny), why should the blame not be as well? What makes them think they can boast of the same thing that in women brings only shame?” Moderata Fonte (1600)

“Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself; or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself.…“The mutual transferring of right is that which men call CONTRACT.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

“Men being…by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this condition and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one among another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against any that are not in it. …When any number of men have so consented to make one community of government, they are thereby incorporated and make one body politic wherein the majority have a right to act and govern the rest.” John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1681)

“If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?” Mary Astell, On Marriage (1700)

“Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty; for if once it were left in the power of any the highest magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper, … there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. … To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.” Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1753)

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)

“[T]he British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition be just, the British constitution is nothing more nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government’s being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. An empire is a despotism and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy.” John Adams, Novanglus,No. VII (1763)

“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.” Samuel Adams

“To rule is easy, to govern difficult.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“‘Notwithstanding,’ thought I, ‘the many resolutions and prayers I have made in behalf of freedom, I am, this first day of the year 1836, still a slave, still wandering in the depths of a miserable bondage. My faculties and powers of body and soul are not my own, but are the property of a fellow-mortal in no sense superior to me, except that he has the physical power to compel me to be owned and controlled by him. By the combined physical force of the community I am his slave—a slave for life.’ With thoughts like these I was chafed and perplexed, and they rendered me gloomy and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind cannot be written.” Frederick Douglass, Chapter XIX (1836)

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.” Soren Kierkegarrd, Journals, 1848

“It is manifest…that the jury must judge of and try the whole case…free of any dictation or authority on the part of the government. They must judge of the existence of the law; of the true exposition of the law; of the justice of the law; and of the admissibility and weight of all the evidence offered; otherwise the government will have everything its own way; the jury will be mere puppets in the hands of the government; and the trial will be, in reality, a trial by the government, and not a ‘trial by the country.’ By such trials the government will determine its own powers over the people, instead of the people’s determining their own liberties against the government; and it will be an entire delusion to talk, as for centuries we have done, of the trial by jury, as a ‘palladium of liberty,’ or as any protection to the people against the oppression and tyranny of the government.” Lysander Spooner, Trial by Jury (1852)

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

“Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.” Jefferson Davis, 1864

"Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776." Susan B. Anthony

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.” Theodore Roosevelt, “State of the Union Address,” December 7, 1903

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule.” H. L. Mencken, “Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks” (1956)

“The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” President Gerald Ford, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, August 12, 1974

“When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.” Pope John Paul II, May 12, 1985

"The rule of law starts at home. But in too many places it remains elusive. Hatred, corruption, violence and exclusion go without redress. The vulnerable lack effective recourse, while the powerful manipulate laws to retain power and accumulate wealth." Kofi Annan in an address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2004

“I am convinced that the majority of American people do understand that we have a moral responsibility to foster the concepts of opportunity, free enterprise, the rule of law, and democracy. They understand that these values are the hope of the world.” Richard Lugar, June 15, 2009

"Uphold the Rule of Law: The rule of law—and our capacity to enforce it—advances our national security and strengthens our leadership. At home, fidelity to our laws and support for our law enforcement community safeguards American citizens and interests, while protecting and advancing our values. Around the globe, it allows us to hold actors accountable, while supporting both international security and the stability of the global economy. America’s commitment to the rule of law is fundamental to our efforts to build an international order that is capable of confronting the emerging challenges of the 21st century." President Barack Obama, 2010

“The vision that the founding fathers had of rule of law and equality before the law and no one above the law, that is a very viable vision, but instead of that, we have quasi mob rule.” James Bovard (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore)

"... rule of law strengthens the trust of citizens in state institutions and its decisions. And thereby also strengths the social stability of a country.” Angela Merkel (From a speech at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, June 12, 2016)

Additional Quotes

“Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”  John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Book II (1689)

“‘The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate [citizen], and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.’ This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.” Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)

“…whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called….” John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.”  Theodore Roosevelt, “State of the Union Address,” December 7, 1903

“The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so he does not wrong his neighbor.”  Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena” Speech, April 23, 1910

“‘The law is not a ‘light’ for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind.  The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.’”  Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (1960)

“Those who believe that humans are born with inalienable rights to life, liberty, equality, and happiness do not understand human nature or nature:  All life is a competition with winners and losers; liberty is, at best, limited by what others do, say and think; no two things in nature are equal; and happiness is unattainable because humans always want what they don’t have or can’t get.”  Anonymous

“The majority does not rule in America, but the minority shouldn’t hijack it.” Glenn Beck

“Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.”  Gerald R. Ford