The Lord Was Not on Trial is the  personal story behind one of the most important First Amendment cases in U.S. Supreme Court history; the case that set the foundation for the separation of church and state in public schools. Dannel and James McCollum, two of the children of Vashti McCollum, whose objection to her son taking religious training in school which led to the landmark  ruling join us.

Who are some of the worst First Amendment offenders? Robert O’Neil reveals  the winners of the annual Jefferson Muzzle awards, given Wednesday by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

Conservative historian Larry Schweikart tackles some of the key issues confronting our nation today: education, government bailouts, gun control, health care and the environment in What Would The Founders Say?

The ACLU wants Chicago to stop installing new cameras to the city’s surveillance network because it’s an invasion of privacy and there is a  potential for wrongful conduct. Adam Schwartz with the ACLU joins us. Then later, Mike Mease with the Buffalo Field Campaign tells us why a judge’s ruling  to continue the slaughter of Bison who roam Yellowstone is not welcomed.

How free are students and teachers to express unpopular ideas in public schools and universities? Not free enough, Joan Del Fattore suggests in Knowledge in the Making. She investigates battles over a wide range of topics that have fractured school and university communities—homosexuality-themed children’s books, research on race-based intelligence, the teaching of evolution, the regulation of hate speech, and more.

In January 2002, for the first time, the Olympic Torch Relay visited Alaska on its way to the Winter Games. When the relay runner and accompanying camera cars passed, high school senior Joseph Frederick and several friends unfurled a banner reading BONG HiTS 4 JESUS. The book by James Foster is an  in-depth look at student rights within a public high school. Then, JW Rinzler has collected the celebrated sounds from Star Wars and put them in a new book-and-audio collection, The Sounds of Star Wars.

According to author, Brad O’Leary, there is a war raging in America and on one side sits religion and freedom and on the other side, atheism and Satanism.  He says that American liberty hangs in the balance and he takes you deep inside the battle to save our nation’s Judeo Christian identity in America’s War on Christianity.

Congressional Quarterly reporter Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel, who teaches constitutional law at American University, have produced what will likely be the definitive biography of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan who was  arguably the most influential liberal justice in history. Their latest book is Justice Brennan.

Christmas has become the season for fighting about religion, yet in the land that first separated church and state, religion actually united citizens during the crisis of the Revolution. Historian Thomas KiddLater, reveals how fervent evangelicals forged a new political order based on an American alliance of freedom and religion in God of Liberty. Rob Boston, senior policy analyst at American United discusses his article ” Holiday Hokum: Don’t Believe Right Wing Lies About Christmas in Public Schools”.

Over the last few decades, the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts have undergone a dramatic shift to the right, the result of a determined effort by right-wing lawmakers and presidents to reinterpret the Constitution by reshaping the judiciary. Distinguished law professor and constitutional expert Erwin Chemerinsky demonstrates in The Conservative Assault on the Constitution, how these changes affect the lives of every American.