“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation
The Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, with a mission to promote a better understanding by students and educators of issues relating to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and particularly the First Amendment. This mission will be achieved through professional development for educators, as well as student programs such as those created by the Johnson County First Amendment Foundation.
The Johnson County First Amendment Foundation is a Field of Interest Fund housed at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation that came into being because of a First and Fourteenth Amendment Court U.S. District Court Decision in Case vs. Unified School District Number 233 in 1995 dealing with the banning of the Book Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden.
We create opportunities for civic engagement, professional development, and unbiased constitutional dialogue focused on major topics in First Amendment law.
Constitutional Lecture Series
We invite authors and scholars to speak about their latest non-fiction publications, exploring emerging Constitutional and First Amendment issues. Attendees are invited to engage with those authors through question and answer sessions. They also receive a copy of the author’s text!
Continuing Legal Education
In partnership with local Bar Associations, including the Federal Bar Association Chapters of Kansas and Western Missouri, we regularly hold Continuing Legal Education Events for attorneys focused on Constitutional law.
Author’s Corner
To spur conversation and engage the public in First Amendment and Constitutional education, we invite nationally-recognized legal scholars to share their knowledge and discuss novel topics related to civics and the Constitution.
Civic education has never been more important.
66% of U.S. adults could name all three branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—while 10% could name two of the branches and 7% could name only one.* About one in six people (17%) could not name any branches.*
Only 24% of people were able to name the freedom of religion as one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment*
Politicized polarization of the American public is widespread and is graining ground.
Education and enhancing trusted sources of information can provide a way out of a polarized climate.
We seek to enrich our community by providing necessary support, training, and unbiased information on the Constitution and civics to K-12 teachers.
*Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center
Our Story
On December 22, 1999, Shook, Hardy & Bacon made a charitable contribution of $200,000 to establish the Johnson County First Amendment Foundation (JCFAF). This amount includes the fees that were paid by the Olathe School District because of the firm’s successful representation of the group of students in this First Amendment case. The Foundation’s mission is “to promote a better understanding among Kansas students, particularly in Johnson County, of First Amendment and other Constitutional rights that ensure a free society’s freedom to write, freedom to publish, and freedom to read.” The two principal attorneys for plaintiffs in the Annie case, J. Eugene Balloun and David J. Waxse, were instrumental in establishing and organizing the JCFAF Field of Interest Fund. A field of interest fund is usually a funding conduit that narrows the scope of programs and activities it funds to a particular field of interest and, as such, has a limited scope. The Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation was born out of a desire to broaden the programs that could be offered and the participants those programs can serve.
To fulfill its mission of promoting a better understanding among Kansas students of constitutional issues, the JCFAF has produced programs for students including presentations by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Professor Laurance Tribe of Harvard University, and First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams. They have also sponsored an essay contest during Banned Book Week and supported student participation in the Center for Civic Education’s We the People Program.
In 2022, the JCFAF invested $50,000 to support the startup requirements of the Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation as a 501(c)(3) Charitable Education Foundation. These funds supported pilot programs advancing constitutional education in Kansas through teacher professional development and student programs. They included resource analyses of the books Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders and The Constitution’s Penman, Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter by Dennis C. Rasmussen (Syracuse University), Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities by Joe Schmidt and Nichelle Pinkney, and Mark Graber’s Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty, The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform After the Civil War. The Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation has also conducted seminars for educators including constitutional scholars such as John Finn (Wesleyan University), John Kincaid (Lafayette College and the Center for the Study of Federalism), Henry L. Chambers (University of Richmond School of Law), Thomas Vontz (Kansas State University School of Education and the Center for Social Studies Education), and Linda R. Monk (independent constitutional scholar and author of The Bill of Rights: A Users Guide and the Words We Live By). In addition, the Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation has provided virtual seminars which included Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, the former Dean of the University of Missouri Law School and now the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Florida Law School, and Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale University and the Yale University Law School. This direct access to first-class scholarship and information is unique in its kind in the state of Kansas.
Now, the Kansas 1st Amendment Foundation is a standalone organization that has developed an array of programs to promote a better understanding of the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. Executive Director Ken Thomas, A Kansas Teacher Hall of Fame Inductee, counts over 30 years of experience in designing and teaching Advanced Placement (AP) United States History, AP U.S. Government and Politics, Comparative Government, and adult undergraduate and graduate education programs. Under Mr. Thomas’ direction, the Foundation is expanding its programming from a lecture series to professional development opportunities for public educators and a Legal Career and Technical Education (CTE) program for high school students in Kansas and the surrounding areas. The recent expansion includes education opportunities for students to better prepare them for college admissions and career opportunities in the legal field such as paralegals, court reporters, investigators, and lawyers.
