rather, the human history. >> today, we remember those who fell and we who fought right here in nory. >> watch c-span's live day special coverage of the 80th anniversary of d-day thursday, 6, featuring a speech by president biden from normandy, france. >> now, supreme court justices sonia sotomayor and amy coney barrett. they talk about the importance of civics education during a discussion hosted by the group icivics, which the late justice sandra day o'connor founded in 2009.ur. this is just over one hour. >> welcome everybody. come everybody. justices, it is so great to have you here to help celebrate civic learning week. te tuning in o were not here for the

first part of the day, this is inaugurating a full week of activity all around the united states to emphasize the centrality of civic learning at this time and the ability to govern ourselves in this democratic republic. of civic learning at this time and the ability to govern ourselves in this democratic republic. we are so delighted to be jo jua feel compelled to provide one nonetheless and to kind of add respect for their offices andha. ;ice,as born in the bronx on june 25th, 1954. she earned a ba from princeton university, graduating summa, highest academic honor presented to an undergradin 1979 she earnm yale law school. she served as editor of the

yale law journal. she later served as an assistant distctew york county district attorneys office and then litigated international commercial matters in new york city in the firm of pavia and harcourt, where she served as an associate and leader partner. president george h. w. bush nominated her to the u.s. district■[ court, southern district of new york and she served in that role from 1992 to 1998. in 1997, she was nominated by presidenll court of appeals for the second circuit, where she served from 1988-2009. and president barack obama nosoate justice of the supreme court on may 26, 2009. and she assumed this role, august 8, 2009. [applause] >> associate justice amy coney barrett was born in new orlea, . she married jesse barrett in

1999 and they have seven . she received aa from rhodes college and a jd from notre dame law school. she served as a law clerk for circuit from 1997-1998 and for justice antonin scalia of the supre court of the united states during the 1998 term. after two years in private practice in washington, d.c., she became a law professor joining the faculty of notre dame law school in 2002. she was appod judge of the united states court of appeals nt trumpociate justice of the supreme court and she took her seat on october 27, 2020. [appuse] i want to begin, justices, with this time that we are in, both civic learning week itself, and the

centrality of those themes, but also the time ware in in the country. we are approaching the 250th y of the nation's founding in a couple of years, and unlike the bicentennial debates about whoury ago, there we are as a country and where we ar things true across the board, left and right, is there has been a declining level of confidence and faith in et to that importance of civicing,a3 wanted to get to the question of confidence in public institutions and why, from your vantage point, sitting at the highest court of the land, why orld that seems abstract, we talk about trust and confidence. we when it disappears. we don't think about it much when it is there.i am curious f, why you fe len i institutions is so central not

only learning, but in civic life itself. justice sotomayor: thank you. you pointed out with the essence of the problem saying, i think benjamin franklin if i am not mistaken, where it when asked what kind of government we had, his response was, "a republic of the people." and as my colleague, justice gorsuch wrote in one of his books, he, "it's a messy thing, a republic." e is lot of voices you are trying to harmonize and function together. and entire structure of our constitution, and i think yschoy adult heard that we are a system of checks and balances, have three branches of government, that each of them hafu that they serve their functions and we banc other in an attempt to get things right.

when theres discord within one or between them, that system is going to see its cracks. individually, it can fail. the failing starts things and they can move to large things. so when we don't example, a functioning executiv legislativh stepping in. if you don't have a functioning legislative branch, you are tempting the executive to take ibility or to do more things than they were meant . similarly, you challenge a court because if the other two branchreg orot stepping up to their obligations, the citry going to look to the courts to solve problems they really shouldn't. all of these present dangers to the society. confidence, people's confidence

that our branches of government can function, means can functio. and without it, we lose something very fundamental. >> justice barrett? justice barrett: i agree with justice sotomayor that confiden in institutions is important, because institutions allow our-( republic to flouris. you asked eric, what can we do to restore confidence in institutions, i think institutions are responsive to one thing that institutions have lost a sense of is that we are a pluralistic society. perhaps, the ability to compromise which is hardwired into the constitution. it takes compromise to pass era of polarization, of some bili to compromise hasizatn,

been lost. but institutions, i think, themselves.k some in that is true of our docket. justice o'connor used to say, if d through litigation are often reflective of the battles that are being waged in the societatbut i think if we df we started a campaign for comprominds and made clear that those are the kinds of things we want to see in our institutions, i think we shouldn't underestimate the abilit citizenry to demand that kind of change. >> part of what we are both speaking to is that a public that might be losing faith or confidence in institutions, can't be goaded into increasing your you can't tell the people "you should trust us more." you a way in which participants in these institutions, in any branch of

gome and, frankly, nongovernmental institutis you . of making it so that the actual practice of power and the way arguments are either litigated literally, don't result in that scorched-earth, bitter polarization you are talking about. named some of the core elements us who are involved in the work of civic learning think about when we talk about that phrase. most americans dthinking, "todat smarter on civic learning." [laughter] >> they shld >> they should, and that is our message, the fact that they can thored in a and take a million self-governing society, is itself a product of prior generations having done a bit of thinking about what that means. you name three elements in particular, you named corecivic knowledge, you referred to branches of

it is a sad running, in civic discussions, how few americans can namell branches. now it is one piece. you talk about skills, skills of compromise, skills of rstanding the ways in which is receding in one way, another branch might move to fill a vacuum. those are skills of understanding people and finally, you talked about. norms and values and the ways in which we behave. that tried of knowledge, skills and norms, is foundational to any of the work of civic learning here. and implicit in all three of them is a word you already use, power. a lot of the conversation about separation of powers, right? but i'm curious, from your vantage point, because the language you use of the law is a language of power.

how can we, all of us in this room, do more to eamericans in a necessarily following the supreme court docket, but who understand vaguely what is going on? her. -- how ca e people and what it means to separate power? that basic literacy in power is something that seems to be absent in our society and leads people to jump to conclusions, or have a picture of what the can't do that, or expect things from people. how do you speak more broadly about our to a democracy? >> i think the work you do and the work that icivics does citizenry and engages people in those conversations. i know there are educators present, i think,t> in our schools. i love talking to schools. i will professor for a longand g

piece of it. in the supreme court, all of us went up talking to groups who come to the court to try to open the door so they can see what is going on and talk about the way we make decisions, delivery approach then. and i think sometimes storytelling can really help draw people in. story i like to tell which some of you may know, is the story of greg of texas who responsible for the ratification of the 27th amendment. he was writing a college paper and discovered that the congress can't give itself a pay raise or a pay cut, that amendment had pn 1789. watson discovered in 1782 --1925 that there was no time limit on its verification and he was single-handedly responsible to get the states to ratify it. when i tell that story to

younger students and high-school students, it kind of energizes them. person being invested in the constitution and making a difference. so the power of turning stories like that can also help draw people in. >>usti sotomayor, you also use stories in a lot of ways. >> i used stories a lot of time, as you know, eric. telling is perhaps the best way to teach. you are■i right, i think maybe your question has to focus in on what our responsib as -- and i want to use the word tizenry with a small "c." not talking about immigration status. i am talking about citizenship in terms of community, and whether each of us as members of a community, what obligations we have to undertake just but to learn. i think that is the edat missi. thankfully, weegazations like id

yours thatret. w ma of you in this room have read the constitution cover to cover? [laughter] >> this is a rooll of readers. >> yes. but i would say that that is not gestor [laughter] >> i speak[laughter] very few hands go up. i will not ask you to raise quf many audiences, how many of you have allpreme court decision cover to cover. again -- [laughter] >> a very atypical audience, think about your normal friends i don't mean normal, but think of your regular friends not involved in the realm you are involved in, you'll find

most people really don't take the time. so i think there are two components to this. s a mponent of what we the responsibility we all have as members of the larger community to teach where we can. but our equal responsibili and so we need the two things working hand-in-hand. >> really glad that you talk abouat of ethical notion of small citizenship, as you put it.ork citizen university, we often say that to the conception that citizenship is a simple equation. that power plus character equal citizenship and to live as a member of both have some undersf power and fluency. witches who decides in a county

commissioner or scoreboard or in the family, who decides, is the central question of how power is flowing. and of course, your work product is called decisions. you are literally making decisions and codifying them for a at the same time suck you talk people this is in the room today, we civic nerds who come for cilethe truth is man americ, even if they have the will, they don't have tim to actually read supreme court decisions and decipher them and understand what is meant and implied in different referenc. so the question of how like icie citizen university, like so many represented in this room today, the institute for citizen scholars, generation citizen, the reagan institute, many people whose work is actually the translation of thithhaen atn

decision-making to a way that can actually reach everyday americans. that, too, is the core of civic both of you are here not out of some sensef obligation to icivics, you are here because you are both educators, both by profession in the past, but also just by nature. you like to explain and make things understandable to folks. i want to actually reroute this question back to both of -- why civic education? why has this mattered to you in your own evolution andr personal sense of how things work in the world?■■h what was formative for you in civic learning that brought you here today?>> w had two things. the first is, when i was a i high school, i was working for a hospital in the south bronx. and the owner -- it probably could happen today -- was supporting a local candidateunts

to the candidate. [laughter] wasy first exposure to electorals, i hadn't even thought of doing it. and itasto be in the office as a 17-year-old and wch the passion with which these people and i watched volunteers coming in and out who were knocking on doors and getting the o and i realized that as citizens, we could have a voice. that politics was not divorced from the people. it is the people. and so that was my first atioas a teenager that i could volunteer and do things and make a difference. i couldn't vote yet, but i could stil t

important to help in governance. the second was when i was at college at princeton. i read in a local newspaper -- i worked in the library, and one of the library then, f is probablyi could walk into ut. would daily go and just flip through them. i read an article about a man from puerto rico whose plane had been diverted to newark. i't understand what was going on and was quite upset at the airport. the policeman who iúúntne couldn't, or didn't have trate, a bimann. they took him to trenton

psychiatric hospital. and the newspaper was reporting that it took a week for him to convince someone to call his mily so they could come and get him out. and was so struck by that story, that there weren't enough at that time, that is totally changedow, that time, many years ago, amy close to when yore [laughter] but at that time, the hospital very few spanish-speaking people. psychiatric center. d i organized the hispanic students on c to, once a week, go and meet with the patients for a couple of hours and just talk to them. to have some contact in their native language. to assist them with calls. some of them did ask us to pass

messages things of that nature. and sometimes all we did home cooked food -- i d' but friends were good enough to do that. [laughter] and play music with them. and i realized that civic early electoral politics. that is what many people think, that civic resibengement involvn elernmt official in some way. it's not just that. it is somngh it's about every act we do in that small citizenry to help solve the problem that a community has. that kind of engagement is what i call civic engagement. it is not justlectal or government structure, but

community structure. and what we each undertake as difficulties in the world around us.ng example of powerless character, but it's also an example of theay which those elts you were describing of knowledge, skills and norms, when you havehem, don't just sit there, they are not a bundle of things, to lifeu make to participate or not. incidents really interest in community involvement, and it continued throughout my career. obviously, i went into public when i was in private practice, i volunteered in the state agency and in a city agency and in a civil-rights organization. so it is not just wo y do everyday that pays you, that probably is critical obviously, to our society, but more

important isu ar to when you are not being >> i agree. i didn't talk about this in advance, my answer in many ways tracks justice sotomayor's. i didn't haveience in electoral politics at all. growing up, i don't really recall ever talking about politics at dinner or ha ayardia civic- minded. when i was a4j■ child -- i don't remember why our present lost its polling place, but it did, and so my parents volunteered theira this was in new orleans? >> this was in new orleans. so many years, our garage was where people came to vote. [laughtege>> and this wasn't a t thing, but ouraren, from late in the morning to late at

night -- andt wasn't a convenient thing for our neighbors either because there was a lot of traffic and cars parked on the road, but they saw the need so they volunteered their home to fill it. but much as justice sotomayor was ngtment in our communities, that is something also, my parents made a big valur us growing up because when they saw the needs, they filled elderly, in my neigd my mom was bringing thefood. my dad was checking on the. they were dispatching my siblings and i to go and have conversation with them so that they wouldn't be lonely. my mother fostered a baby when we were younger. all those things of seeing needs and fillingipated in toy drivest christmas every year, my siblings and i would wrap ei thn in the community that is not governmental or political that is rooted in community, that is what self-gomequires.

it requires working together as a community. le work together, you are invested in a community, you see needs and you fill them. be it the need for translation, visiting those who are lonely, itthose are the things that knit us >> we want to center sel questions that young people have brought into the roomicivics whg catalyst so many young people around the united states and we have a video which we canlay now. we're all three of these questions, and then we will come back -- -- we'll hear all three paraphrase them so that we can reconnect the thread of the conversation. ■h>> hello.that e

my name is howard and i am in 11th grade. i go to school in pennsylvania. my question th i would like to ask the justices is what do you consider[h some of your most formative civic experiences that put you on the path to the supremert >> ok, i sort of jumped the gun on harvard. ter] >> i am in the ninth grade. i go to school inew i would like to ask, considering the diverse backgrounds and viewpoints among the justices, do you navigate differences? also, are there norms or practices that you follow to help navigate disagreements with hi.in the majority or my name into 12th grade and i go to sc be, gg civics, what advice do you offer to students, partila proximity■c

engagement and also in the legal system? also, do you have any specific advice for those interested in pursuing careers in law and public >> hello. my name is and i am in 11th grade. i go to school in florida. my question is, how can young folks be encourad in a world fid with so much polarization? [applause] our thanks to howard and the others. to howard's first question, you began to speak to about formative civic experiences, and there was a throughline answeret initial question and talking about place, talking about being rooted in community. thec

orleans, if you had more time, you probably could have done a second-line parade coming inaraw orleans style, right? [laughter] what you were doing in new york and new jersey was rooted in the texture of that community and that time, demographics were beginninse■ge. so guess what a variation on this q formative civic experience is the rule in ac of civic engagement and civic responsibility whether that was in the new orleans phase of your life, or the bronx phase of your life. >> i should say that most civic learning starts in the home. amy gave her examples of sort of the bigger step than most people do, but many, p organize giftgiving to the needy either at thanksgiving or christmas. my mother, for example, was a nurse and she held anybody in

the community who required some sistance in their physical care. my mom was there. tell you the number of times i opened the door to a ng is not the day you can do that. [laughter] say, i have heard. there is a nurse who lives here and she can help me. those examples were critical to us. i do hope that i emphasizes that learning experience for most children. so, that road to civic learning starts almost always in the home. school is, i think, the second, but home is first. embedded in the question as it was asked, was that somehow that led me to the supreme court. [laughter] new a my answer to

that is no. i don't think that there is a necessary paththluck involved, in are you in the right place a? i think if you live a life with a far off goal, intending to achieve something, you run the riskhat circumstances may preclude you from reaching it, and you may live disappointed in that's a very valuable way tok perceive c esomewhere. i think it is as a way to ex la life goal that gives meaning in and of itself. and, it just so happens that when you love what youo,

people will often notice and will often lead you to better places -- sometimes it doesn't. it shouldn't matter. because if you are enjoying and you have that passion to help and to serve, itself, will provide. one of the students was askit c. foanyone who wants to be anything. find that path that excites you. >> agree with everything justice sotomayor has said, and i will say that, you never know what tomorrow will boring. i certainly 'self on the path to the supreme court, but i think in all aspects of life, you invest yourself and what's in fntth doing the best you can and making the most of the opportunities you have both for service and learni teaching and loving and building communities, and everything that falls under that umbrella.

and then you just see what the next day brings. and then you have another and perhaps a different set of opportunities to do it then. one quick word, eric, you asked about place? i think for young people especially, place might be receding in importance. but i would like to chageg peopk in front. i think, in an increasingly online world where people are living on social media or living in their bedrooms on their devices or their computers, we and, of course, covid didn't help this, but we are losing a sense ofnter interacti. but i think place and people are critical to building a civic society, just li i■x where we are entirely online and disconnected from the people who are actually around us. i think it's destructive to the social'person, but sitting in a

restaurant and win young people not talking and under tablets or phones, instead of communicating? that's distressing to me. but you are right that you cannot learn how to live with others unless you live with others. >> with others. there is may no better embodiment o that than someone or bring her memory into the room, the founder of o'connor. mentor, m breaker, pathfinder for many others in this room. many civic nerds, you all know this, but many people do not know that justice o'connor, prior to having been tapped to z=the supreme court, had been a politician. she had been member of the arizona state senate.

>> majority leader. e senate which was very purple at the time. so she had to learn how to navigate differences in conversation with people frohe l areas, people government, and people who had a real allergy to government. she had to broker deals and compromises in that role, which prepared her well for her time on the court. that pivots t the second question that was asked about how the two of you thinkutting e court. this is a perennial question. we are sittingone week after the recent decision, this time that we which you have thought about things and argued things productively, but, and we can even get a ticket to come and see your oral arguments, but

what we can't get is, of course, how you spend time with each ot us as appropriate a glimpse as you can, work you navigate differences of opinion or topic, differences in the world of view that may be expand benden topic and how as a matter of skills and norms you go about doingt both in a specific instance, but in a way that also sustains the institution and keeps it going? e ishe final product, but what you don't see until' papers are released is all the give-a product. one thing that is a very strong norm on the court is trying to accommodate one another in the drafting of opinions. one thing that's different about our from the work of the legislature is that there kind of a line beyond which we can't compromise. we wouldn't vote trade -- justice sotomayor and i both

take an oath to uphold the constituti asay what we think tt answer is to the best of our ability. so neither of us can compromise on the bottom line. but there is a lot we can compromise on and how we -- in how we write opinions. you have the ability to write an opinion more broadly or more narrowly. not everything has to be decided in an opinion. and we have a norm that people te that -- i worked very hard to do]v■p that. sometimes the opinions i am proudest of are ones in which we have been able to achieve consensus. and by the way, we do that for one another. this is an just justice sotomayor and me. we do that for one another across t, en when you don't need the vote. nc majity on the court, if someone asks, " thinabout taking this out, or taking that out?"

you are limited by what otherlee all worked very hard, down to little hard cices -- word choices, the smallest word choices, to accommodate one another. i think that really helps. i don't think any of has a my way or the highway attitude abl- you and i have been able to work together. >> i think many of us do. justice barrett is right, the knstructure of our institution where unityity, gives you a sort of built-in norm because you have to accommodate at least five people to accommodate that majority. and oen the people are targeting at different directions and you have navigate and find that metal. but there is also an attempt to reach beyond the five, and to

talk in ways that each person be with, because in the end when you are joining an opinion, you're putting your name and support behind it. now, eric, you mentioned justice o'connor. she really still is too many on my court, the person who learned to most important norm in the court, and that was a of collegiality. prior to jus o'connor's coming to the court, shriin 198d been there for a very long time, since the beginning of our court, the justices all lived in different places and far away the meeting place of the supreme court. and most of them stayed in the thjerfrom what ind dinne understand.

and it was required that everyone attend that social event. i think, although i don'knenouge confirmed it, that they didn't really discuss cases during those meals. that had fallen into, not disfavor, but there had been a period in which the court was no longer socializing as often. o'connor came to the court, should be that tradition. but most importantly, it was very, very significant to her, establishing our relationships vis-a-vis work, that we make is a priori collegiality -- make as a priority, collegiality. you mentioned she had done that when she was on the arizona state senate. she routinely had barbecues at her home in which she invited both democrats and republicans. i remember when i was being interviewed for my supreme court

nomination that, i met with many, senators, and i asked they wentchanged in the sort of partisan nature know some will not be happyi abouto having cameras in the senate and house chambers. because with the cameras, people felt no longer in obligation to t inhe room with their colleagues. so those conversations that occurred spontaneously ith corner for sitting side-by-side in the chamber were no occurrin. most of the time, the senators didn't have to be there because they had staffers watching. and i would be sitting there being interviewed by a senator who had no volume on. so he never heard his colleague

speaking.that, thankfully, we ay the nature of our work because we are in everyetogether. we are hearing each other's thoughts and thinking about each other's thou. that engagement, e engagement, being in the same place listening, part of working together. >> there is so much in what you both have said and i want to unpack a little bit of it. in describing that norm of collegiality,etting together for social gatherings or breaking bread together and talking a that are not cases before you, about family, sports, is, in part, just not about collegiality, but also humanization. it's really difficult, even in where you have to work together all the time, you can't dehumanize each other if you have actually spent time talking

about your lives, about how you wereyour hopes and dreams are for the people who are close to you. if you have talked about that, very difficult to justice is such and such. and put them in a two dimensional box. are talking about here with cameras is kind of the set of incentives and intention in civic life. part of why this room is full and people are turning in me coy habit, by n, you don't do a lot of broadcasting, you don't have cameras in the court■om.you do'o documentaries where people are exchanging notes back to haggle over language and so work in the most collegial way ssible. so there is an argument there for people get along better if they aren't feeling like they have to cameras in the way that ie reprs

creates a sense of performance. i will be less relational and more performative. all the language people like us to criticize -- used to criticize the younger generation, it's as old as it's as old as tv and radio, it's as old as one pamphlets first came out, it incentive for people to perform to their base, rathe actually deal with each other as humans. but the supreme court, through all this time, has tried to preserve a bit of a bubble of that kind of media-exempt collegiality andon i have -- and you>> eric, that is because we also have a situation where our decisions are always public. we write our decisions and explain how we got to where we

and i fear that in other public spheres, there isn't that real opportunity. eric: hmm. >> the cameras provide the opportunity for explanation, as opposed to our the citizenry sort of engage in thinking through what ledhetici. and that is a norm that i think actually. i think there was more of that in the past in america, where people actually sat down and heard debates on publications, and it used to occur very much in the senate. i remember ins where you would see, on daily news shows, clips of two senators going back-and-forth on an issue. you've got a sense of what was motivating each of them and

es tt they thought were important. today, you havereleases than ex. i think you are naming anythingn times in our work we teach, the difference between. expressing their points of view without necessarily tuning into each other or deali other. what you are describing is exchange. i had not thought of it that way, or you raised■+ something that i should accommodate somehow. i should consider that facet, and in doing that depth of free exchange within the chamberse ca little bit more on the question. you talked about the compromise and the give-and-take, but like any, the justices call this a

family, it may be a dysfunna maybe some things where you might get hot under the color, and i feel strongly about this. how do you when you were talking aboute come back and deal with each other in a way that is not still hnd tempted to dehumanize and flatten together. justice barrett: we do not speak inr conferences. he did not raise voices no matter how hot but the case. we always speak with respect. there is a norm without we speak . the chief justice begins because he has the most senior. most senior down to the most say what you think about the person, so we hear everybody out and it isot is spoken that thera back

it would be a violation of norms to do so, and that makes it easier even if inside you are 9er ayou put it.t under the you do not express that in the conference room, which makes it easier wheno back to your chambers and meet at lunch, you are not carrying over something negative. you did not feel guilty about looking someone across the lunch table. sotomayor and i sit across from onether. [laughter] >>preschool. juice barrett: that is true. we see -- sit in the seats of the ju succeeded. it is one place in our dining roomre not sit in order of seniority. we sit iner oseats you

have taken, but we sit across from one a that justice sotomayor respects me and we have affection for one aneven when we disagree deeply about the merits, we keep it true to merits, we keep it in our discussion and we keep heate page of our merits, and if there is one thing i want to communicate to you and the students were watching, the court is a place wherehave civil disagreements, and to be are simultaneously the most transparent ranch i, because it is said we know exea the decisions that we did, because we make the transparent, but we at gives us of the room to s not a rowdy the floor of parl, but we wkeryard to maintain those norms that i think we are successful. justice sotomayor: we are

generally, and the rule of hearing each other out is important, because it permits you to listen to something you disagree withj1■md know that you will get your turn to explain why you do. that is not to say -- people are passionate. there are issues that do -- that are important to people in a more visceral wayd he presentation you can see that, andas someone might come close to something that could be viewed as hurtful. it has happened in my experience a few times. generally one of our senior colleagues will call the person who was perceived as may having gotten a little close and tell them mayyou should think of an apology or patching it up a little bit, and that does happen. it the writing. occasionally someone write something that an individual

offensive, not just explanatory of a view but presently offensive to them or could ped by others as offensive, and there is dialogud it happens, bause it is just human nature. stucin your own head writing about the thing that is important to you, and you may forget momentarily how others may be perceiving it, so all of these things are ways to manage emotions without losing respect for one another and without losing an understanding that each of us isngn good faith, and i think the public discoursethere are a lot of perl a's character. i really do nott a

disagreement involves the character. we are all people of good faith. we are all very passionate about the work that we do. we are all trying best and to support the principles of the constitution as much as we ■ycan and according to the principles that guide us. i may disagree with how my colleagues approach these questions, but i am very vocal about that disagreement and i lay out why i think they are wrong, and i someday they will see the error of their ways[laughter] eric: again, you haveanswering a great so session. you have been naming some othe answers to the questions you have been posed in talking about these skills, this

knowledge that you brio and ones undergirding both of the things that you said about the court is you have to do these things because the baseline norm at the court is you are involved in an infinite game. the object is not to make a minority lose you can get rid of them and get them off the face arth and out of the court. you are stuck with each other ce here forever as long as the orev, and what you are describing are less healthy forms xcwider politicale i would rather the person from the other side to just not be here. i would rather not have to deal with the way of that thinking, i would rr that one of you because i find it repugnant or i feel they find me

repugnant, but you do not have empting us us from discomfort in that way, and in that there are a set of lessons for us outside the chambers and how to practice this kind of civil disagreement. justice sotomayor: by nature any case but i will need tic: juste are six with one perceived ideological leaning and three of others, it is 6-3 of the time, but you pointed out how many cases scramble those numbers. it is a don of folks, and i should say as a matter of norms for our scendsn the media at that one of the norms of this conversation is we do not opinions and the

particular court, but within that context, justice barrett, we were talking in the green room before we came out about the connect the dots between the personal and the civic just in family life you find it important to teach her children how to apologize, and we were reflecting conversationst or missing art that is in civic life generally, again in a social media inflamed age where it is about owning the other guy , it is about shaming them then than actually being able to on the fact that maybe i overstepped were maybe i didot see that point that you were making or maybe i just totally stepped in it. or maybe i got hot in a way wh that was not so productive, but that we have laws that are. ca you tell us more about your thinking about that?

that skill of taking responsibility for one is own part -- one's own part. justice barrett: sometimes we do need toare human, so sometimes y something that comes across may be■intend, and what i have been staring -- saying to eric and the green room at a time is apology, i try to teach my children, if there is a disagreement i say apologize. and the responses i don't feel sorry, i am not and i'm going to wait until i am to apologize. forgiveness and apology are not emotions.they are decisions. you deciledgde tthat you were wrong and sometimes even if you think the other

person misunderstood what you said, the value of a relationship can b to say, listen, i am sorry, i did not mean for it to come across that way and i did not intend to hurt you, but apology and receiving ■0apology, assuming the best of the other person, think of the rson and did not try to hurt you or even if they did, evenf they overstepped, and how many times have any of us overstepped and that something that came across in an unkind way deliberately or accidentally. it so i think those goats are important, and we were talking aboutn this is an institution in which we cannot obliterate one another. the supreme court i effort it described as an arranged marriage with no opportunity for divorce. not choose one another as colleagues, we have life tenure, so we are t , so we have to get along. i am joking about that, but

shouldn't that be true of all of us ithun■2 ■ewhy should any of o i think we should all be doing better[applause] eric: picking up on that as you spoke already to a about paths t you took and justice sotomayor, thec wisdom in your answer, you do not set out to end up on the supreme court, find a pointpassn you wind up on the supreme court. [laughter] maybe, but i went to move now -- it has been implicit in how we are talking about civil discourse. sometimes conversations about civility, and there are in fact proper■p divides in civic life.

there of deep foundational disagreement, and in our work we teach ameri argud equality, which the average american thinks i love them both. these things areh one another. tooh impedes equality and vice . there is a built-in tension between the plubus and th eunum. the ability to solve national problems and if we live in a citizen in a way like justice tomayor describing, we have do not only civility and navigate a pluralistic society, but we have to know the arguments. fluent in the first ways on what are these core things that americans will

always peraldi with them be contesting. a country that is founded on a creed is a built-in argument machine. think about my ancestors from chinaif tre were a chinese idea it would be told from xi jinping on d what the chinese idea is, but in the united state the american idea, the set of promises only gisan y argue, debate, and■t the meanings of equal protection of the law, equal justice under law, so i would like you to speak to us abho and even we oue this room of people ar highly motivated self-selected into this stuff, how we can learn more to get in these core arguments in american life and t a knowledge but as a matter of skills get comfortable

with arguing? you created a project that said, as toxic and polarized as we are in americanñd we do not need fewer arguments. we just need less that led to a better arguments project to the governors association initiative that you two s at weeks ago called the argue better initiative. trying to get republican and democratic governors to do with each other again, not like let's be fends and let's talk about sports and humanize each other, but let's learn that argue better. on the role of the state come at the citizen, the market on everyday life, and how from what you know what you do get better at justice barrett: getting better at arguing fundamentally is getting better at relating with you go about arguing and whether are demonizing

the other person, but you also asked about ho kw what the arguments are, and to argue better, but in the area of weight we do and thea constitution and figuring out th side, seek out resources like the national constitution center does a great job when it talks about cases on the court's docket. it will talk about concepts of constitutional law and present people with opposing vientwhen i wrote one of them. whatever and thenea suspension clause or 15th amendment or article one will have opposing views. you opposing views and that amendment and what it might mean in american society, andrawing the numbers are so psyched at that are nonpartisan and designed to lay out the

gumes is a way to disagree better because you have better arguments, but then back to the theme that we have been hammering on this whole time is believe me, i am not going to csotomayor's mind about fundental things, but we learn from one another. we learned to give where we can, and it is all friend in the kind of dialogue that is respectful, that apologizes when apology is necessy ic society. one side cannot take all. cannot be a complete conquest we are a huge, diverse society and we have to figure out how to live under one>> media literacyg statement right now. fake news, however you defineita

person existing in the to find sources that you can rely upon objective. there is no perfect approach to constitutional law. every textualist colleagues, there is always a principle, a reason for whyy it , but there is always a reason, world, you are not going to ada ceain subset of problems but probably the opposition into believing it is not a solution, and that is where the area of compromise become so important. when you were talking aboulibery about security, and what we do as a society is always try to

right poi , and there was a point that you have to region society is played with it various ways, some of them not so healthy. world r h th interment of the japanese, we have always as a society realized we went o far, interning american citizens with no cause other than their ancestry. sohat part of understanding that we just cannot s side. you have to study the other side arguments the to look for weakne tey pointing to and yours -- in that you will never be able to engage

in a unique full conversation. eric: the actual exchange. stice sotomayor: exactly, and eric: the last question i want to pose goes to things you have both spoken to. opposition and cannot think can about people is the opposition, in no when what you were teaching us in the patterns of behavior on the is both how to be better losers and s in the case of a setting where you are continuing having to do with eache justice sotomayor, spoke about the internment of japanese americans after pearl harbor and now how today we americans regard that as a serious error both under law and under norms, the fact that we americans have come tohat was

not a process really of legal ■nt there was an act of congress that provided reparation, but it was a matter o norms, and what i want to close on is what you will youvee institution of the court actually operates, but in our we teach that culture precedes structure. cultures, norms, values, narratives, and habits shoot to the frame of the possible when to structure, and i think so many of the things you that as a preschool, but if all of us took to heart what is a these rituals, these norms, these explicit expectations that nobody speaks twice before everyone is spoken once, that we sit in the seeds of that are not just in signed

-- i signed it inhibited seats. every one of us is a steward of his seat in civic life, and if we started thinking in those terms there is so much that we have to do, but it would have to be on purpose, and that is what is most striking about when you were describing here is how much of the culture of the cou is on purpose, and i would like you both tois wh words of advice for the young people, but for all, how can we in our lives and work build containers of culture, of civic althier direction that you have been embodying and we have been talking about here totart always by finding the best king if you start there, it is the perfect place to accept that

every human being -- there may i was a former prosecutor, and i often said prosecute as many people, conclusion that they were evil. fundamentally they were missing some component of humanity rare. r everyone has good in them■], and if you spend the time looking for that is harder to dehumanizehat person and does arguments. if you bear that in mind with wh you disagree, but they have a reason for why they are thinking a particular make o engage them in figuring that■

that there is a much more possibility that you will remain not just civil to each other, but that you might actually grow to like each other. there are historical examples of democrats and republicans, many of them with the best and -- a best of friends, andso often that they manage compromise as well, but way to improve virtually any situation if you start with the finding what is the best in each other. [applause] justice barrett: i tnk finding anyou pointed out the number of norms that we have that a very delibut over time

the court conti choose and deliberately follows and one thing i would challenge the e a deliberate choice toto d things differently than you do and spend time with them. you probably have to make that an affirmative choice, because herwise by a process of naturally people who think like you, it will probably make effort. people have book clubs, they talk about movies. why not read a book together that has to do with civic engagement? read a book and talk about it and get practice talking about ideas, arguing a ideas, and listening to the other side. listening to those arguments. we have to create opportunities for thki dialogues. justice sotomayor: got some of this from debate club.

[laughter] eric: in the semi justice sotomayor said we are talking a u. ■'we are here in a small c and■ university. to practice what justice sotomayor and justice t th each other and learning had to figure out how we should live together as a diveso that is by definition in a way that is a feature and not a bug de divided come up and if we can learn to embrace, one more round to go and pass it on to another generation. i want to thank our justices

>> it isustial formality. their primary is worthy view a the districts have gone from here to here. the way people respond their news has gone from factual, vetteds hear, where everybody has their own truth. they tune in for affirmation to get their worldviews validated. in the money of moved from the politics which were a centering force for 200 years, out to these super pac, 501(c) four's, enforcement mechanisms and primaries. and there is no calvary for members who deviate from the party line. i think those factors toge ve me it very difficult for

members toof their comfort zone. >> twods tt do not show up in our founding documents anywhere. there were democracy and the wordpr i've never seen anyone running for offan promise compromise. but with th founders had in mind was exactly that. democracy, creating an tructure that requires compromise. we have two branch not because we wanted a spare. they created"e■e an architecture that made us think twice about things along the way. and some things need to be t notion of democracy is totally dependent on compromise. you lose compromise, you don't have democracy. you cannot have a winner take all and expect to govern. announcer: a group of former lawmakers recently gathered to discuss congressional gridlock and offer their thoughts on possible solutions to finding common ground. you can watch the full event

tuesday beginning at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now are free mobile video app, or onlinean.org. ■l >> today, an unprecedented armada landed on tho these are . these are the men who took the cliffs. these are the champions who helped free a continent. these are the heroes who hoped end -- helped end a war. >> they met death on an even plain. >> the sons of democracy improvised their own attacks.

at thatent on these beaches. the forces ofom turned the tide of the 20th century. >> that road to v-e day was long and hareary and valiant men. and history will always record where that road began. it began here, with the first footprints on the beaches of normandy. >> and more than 150,000 souls setar this tiny sliver of sand upon hung more than the fat a war. but rather, the cours h stor >> today, we remember those who fell and honor all who fought right here in. announcer: watching c-span's live all special coverage of the 80th anniversary of d-day,

thursday, june 6 featuring a t bin from normandy, france. announcer: tune in to c-span's live coverage of the 2024 national political conventions starting with the republican event in milwaukee on july 15. next up, catch the democrats as they convene in chicago kicking off august 19. stay connected to c-span for an impse of democracy at work. watch replican and democratic national conventions live this summer on c-span, c-span now, mile video app, and online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics, powered by cable. uncer: a panel of columnists and journalists debate thehut its borders? the free press media company and the foundati f