Indiana Social Studies USH.3.3
The Standard
Explain the constitutional significance of the following landmark decisions of the United States Supreme Court: Northern Securities Company v. United States (1904), Muller v. Oregon (1908), Schenck v. United States (1919), and Abrams v. United States (1919).
2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Students are expected to trace and analyze chronological periods and examine the significant themes and concepts in U.S. History. Students develop historical thinking and research skills using primary and secondary sources to explore topical issues to understand the cause for changes in the nation over time.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain what the Court allowed the government to do in each case and which constitutional power or right was at stake. They compare rulings about business, work hours, and wartime speech.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain that Northern Securities backed federal action against a railroad trust, while Muller upheld a state limit on women's work hours. They can distinguish the speech restrictions upheld in Schenck and Abrams and identify Holmes's argument for stronger speech protection in his Abrams dissent.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume the First Amendment barred all restrictions on wartime speech. They may read Muller as a ruling for equal workplace rights, though its reasoning treated women differently from men. Some mistake Holmes's Abrams dissent for the Court's ruling.
How to Assess It
- Write the four case names on the board. On an exit ticket, have students name the power or right at issue and the ruling in each case, then label Holmes's Abrams opinion as a dissent.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs four case cards and four ruling cards; have them match each pair and add the constitutional power or right involved.
Ask students to write three sentences comparing the speech the Court restricted in Schenck and Abrams with Holmes's Abrams dissent.
Run a clue game: read a case fact, and have students hold up a case-name card and state the ruling.
Show a mock headline, 'Two railroads plan to merge across five states,' and ask how Northern Securities relates to federal review.
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