A year ago, an upstate New York college withdrew a speaking invitation to Wade Churchill, a University of Colorado professor who had characterized 9/11 victims as "little Eichmanns." Churchill's portrayal of 9/11 victims as a mixture of conscious and unwitting participants in a systemic evil of Holocaust proportions indeed was controversial. The decision of Hamilton College to retract its invitation exacerbated an existing controversy concerning the First Amendment and academic freedom. Other controversial news stories concerned stem cell research, intelligent design and the war in Iraq. This essay makes no contribution to the discussion of any of these controversial issues. Rather, the intent of this article is to provide secondary teachers of any subject with guidance for considering and conducting discussions of controversial issues with their students. Three questions frame this discourse: (1) What is the nature of controversy? (2) How do teachers determine when to engage students in a controversial issue? and (3) How should teachers conduct themselves when teaching a controversial issue?