Lesson Plan
High School

Masato Ogawa
Ontario High School

Should the Government go beyond the normal
limits of its authority during wartime?

Goals of this lesson plan:
After the September 11 attack, the legislative and executive branches enacted a series of measures seeking to punish those responsible and to prevent future violence. The ensuring debate about the propriety and legality of these measures has largely been a discussion about whether they have simply applied the constitutional principals in the context of a national crisis, or whether people in authority have threatened core beliefs about governance and civil liberties.

In this lesson, students consider two examples of the use of authority during wartime. The first concerns the government's treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The historical event has enormous relevance to contemporary issues of interest to high school students including equity and social justice. Second concerns the USA PATRIOT Act, which enacted six weeks after the devastation on September 11. The act allows the government to hold non-US citizens without formal charges and to keep them in detention indefinitely as long as the attorney general certifies that he has "reasonable grounds" to believe that the individuals in question are terrorists or represent a threat to national security.

During this lesson, students will be encouraged to participate in a debate on the issues of what the limits of authority should be during wartime. They will be able to explain and define the positions they have taken on the use of authority during wartime. Students, using various primary and secondary sources, will be able to build their own perspectives on civil liberties and issues of national security.

Objectives
•Students will learn and understand the principals of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
•Students will be able to explain and define the positions they have taken on the use of authority during wartime.
•Students will be able understand civil liberties and equity and the issues of national security.

Materials
•Handout 1: Bill of Rights
(Available at www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/bill_of_rights.html)
•Handout 2: Bill of Rights hypothetical situations
(Available at ncinfo. iog.unc.edu/programs/civiced/teacherresources /ELPUnits/ billofrights)
•Handout 3:Background information of the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II
•Handout 4: Executive Order 9066 (Available at www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od9066t.html.)
•Handout 5: Civilian Exclusive Order (Available at www. askasia.org/for_educators/instructional_resources/lesson_plans/asamww2/instruct.htm)
Handout 6: USA PATRIOT Act (available at www.lifeandliberty.gov)
•White board
•Butcher paper
•Markers

Timeframe:
Two class periods (80 minutes each)

Procedures

Day 1
1. Distribute copies of the Bill of Rights and Bill of Rights hypothetical situations, working in groups or individuals. Have students read the hypothetical situations and decide whether each one contains a violation of the Bill of Rights. Have them write the number of the amendment and the appropriate phrases from the amendment that relates to the situation.

2. Read the brief background information of the Japanese-American Internment during World War II. Explain that on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signed of Executive Order No. 9066, setting in motion an unprecedented internment of Japanese Americans and those of Japanese descent and that the internment did not end until after World War II.

When the United States entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese immigrants and their descendants, including those born in the United States and therefore citizens by birth, were placed in a very awkward situation. The immigrants were resident aliens in the United States, a country at war with their country of birth.

Amid the hysteria following the U.S. entry into World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the War Department to prescribe military areas from which any group of people could be excluded. This served as the legal basis for the evacuation and internment of over 110,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Most were forced to sell their homes and businesses and suffered huge losses. Schooling and careers were completely disrupted.

Even more than 56 years after the closing of the camps, the Japanese-American internment experience continues to deeply affect the Japanese-American community. Below are six suggestions for teaching about Japanese-American internment.

3. Ask students to identify several issues of the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

• Was the United States right in responding to the bombing of Pearl Harbor with the internment of Japanese Americans?
• Do you think that the internment violate the U.S. Constitution? Why?
• Do you think something like the Japanese-American internment could happen in America or other countries today?

4. Hand out a copy of Civilian Exclusion Order 108. Have students read the copy and discuss several questions regarding the order. For example,

• What articles or things were persons of Japanese ancestry allowed to take with them according the order? What articles or things were not permitted?
• What would you take with you if you were being relocated and only had 2 days to pack and could only take things which you could carry?
• Do you think that the order violate the Bill of Rights? Why?

Day 2
5. Ask students to read the Fifth Amendment again. Explain that it contains basic rights of people accused of committing a crime. Have students identify these rights, circling the terms unless, except, and without wherever they appear. Explain that constitutional rights are not always absolute. These terms signal exceptions. Ask the following questions:

• Which rights have exceptions? Which do not?
• What implications might these exceptions have for those accused of terrorist activities in the United States?
• Should non-US citizens as well as citizens possess these rights?

6. After the September 11 attack, the legislative and executive branches enacted a series of measures to punish those responsibilities and to prevent future violence. On October 26, 2001, six weeks after the devastation on September 11, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act to increase normal security by strengthening immigration detention, and deportation controls, among others. Ask students how this act compares to Executive Order No. 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order 108.

7. Divide the class into four or five groups to argue the merits of USA PATRIOT Act.

8. Have students write about how they think about civil liberties and issues of national security. Do you think that some civil liberties must be surrendered during wartime? Do you agree that a person in authority can go beyond the limits of his or her authority?

Bill of Rights Hypotheticals

THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND YOUR LIFE

John Spicer and Posie George
Hibriten High School

(Available at www.ncinfo.iog.unc.edu/programs/civiced/teacherresources /ELPUnits/ billofrights)

Read the following hypothetical situations and decide whether each one contains a violation of the Bill of Rights. For each, write the number of the amendment and the appropriate phrases from the amendment that relates to the situation.

1. A 20-year-old college student starts his own newspaper which often prints articles making fun of the local mayor. The mayor is angry and gets his aides to the papers off the stand before they can be distributed.

2. A woman is being tried for murder. The prosecuting attorney forces her to take the stand and testify.

3. A student wears a button to school urging people the vote for a certain candidate for President of the United States. Some other students don't like the candidate and ask the principal to force the student to take off the button. The principle refuses to tell the student to remove the button.

4. A dentist is being sued for $500,000. He wants a jury to hear the case but the judge refuses his request.

5. A young woman is being tried for treason. She is accused of selling plans for building a nuclear warhead to Iran. The judge believes it would be dangerous to let the public hear her ideas. He refuses to allow anyone to view the trial.

6. A group of teenagers gather quietly on a street corner. Neighbors complain and ask the police to arrest them for getting together as a group. The police refuse.

7. A town needs more land to build a new elementary school. A woman's property is needed but he wants to keep it. The town forces her to sell and gives her twice the property's actual value. She sues to get her land back.

8. The government tries a man for murder and loses the case. A jury says he is innocent. The district attorney who prosecuted the case is mad and promises to keep trying him until they get a jury to convict him. The defendant thinks this is unfair.

9. The Postmaster General of the United States has a cross and a nativity scene installed at all Post Offices throughout the country during Christmas time. Government funds are being used to purchase the cross and nativity scene. The mayor of a predominantly Jewish town demands that the cross and nativity scene be removed from her town.

10. A man living on a quiet residential street erects a giant billboard on his front lawn. The billboard has neon lights advertising a new breakfast cereal that the man invented. The city has zoning laws against this type of sign in a residential neighborhood and demands that it be removed.

Answer Key
1. IS a violation of the student's First Amendment right to free press.

2. IS a violation of the woman's Fifth Amendment right protecting herself from self-incrimination.

3. IS NOT a violation. The principal behaved in a constitutional manner by refusing to violate the student's First Amendment right of speech (wearing a political button is considered political speech protected by the First Amendment). If the principle believed the button could cause a riot or seriously disrupt the school, the principle could prevent the student from wearing the button.

4. IS a violation. The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial if requested in civil cases where the value in controversy exceeds $20.00.

5. IS a violation. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a public trial.

6. IS NOT a violation. The police were upholding the teenagers. First Amendment right to assemble when they refused to arrest the teenagers for standing on the street corner. However, if the group was blocking access to a store or house, police have the right to remove them.

7. IS NOT a violation. The Fifth Amendment allows the government to take private property for public use, as long as the owner receives a fair price (called compensation of property).

8. IS a violation. The Fifth Amendment prohibits a person from being tried twice for the same crime.

9. IS a violation of the First Amendment which forbids the government from establishing a religion.

10. IS NOT a violation of the First Amendment. This type of zoning law is constitutional. Local governments have the right to enact reasonable zoning ordinances.