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tv   Smerconish  CNN  July 8, 2023 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT

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this is hard to believe but it's on tape. a nail salon robbery didn't go as planned for an alleged thief in atlanta when the customers and workers simply wouldn't give the assailant the time of day. >> everybody get down! empty out your pockets. empty out your pockets! get down! >> despite repeated demands, give me your money, the patrons are continuing to ignore this would-be thief. you see the one woman who actually walked out of the salon, seemingly unfazed by it all. the suspect did, however, allegedly take one woman's phone before fleeing the scene and we understand it's actually been recovered. thanks so much for being with me. i'm fredricka whitfield. smerconish starts right now.
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>> which is more cruel and unusual? one of the most influential appellate courts erupted in public disagreement over one of the most difficult issues of our time, homelessness. having recently decided matters of affirmative action, student loans and adoption, on top of last year's rulings concerning abortion, guns, religion and climate change, scotus might soon have the final word here, too. at issue, ordinances in grants pass, oregon, which would impose fines on homeless people for encampment on public property. a trial court was faced with this issue, whether cities can impose criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter. it held the ordinances were unconstitutional and constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. the matter came before the powerful ninth circuit court,
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which has jurisdiction for much of the western united states and all of california. the ninth circuit has been regarded as a progressive bastion, but elections have consequences. president trump has able to appoint ten judges to the ninth circuit, president biden seven. it limited what idaho could do with regard to its homeless. this time a three-judge panel similarly ruled against a city's effort to regulate its homeless population. when grants pass then sought to have the matter considered by the entire ninth circuit, it could not get the required majority vote from all active members of the bench. that's when all hell broke loose among the judges. there are 29 active judges, the denial of a fullw drew 1 dissents and other stements. many were blistering. as "the oregonian" reported, many who dissented argued that the grants pass ruling created a confusing set of rules based on a flawed interpretation of the
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constitution and made the judges into inappropriate homeless policy czars. the original ruling placed a straightjacket on west coast cities that are left with little recourse to deal with an insurmountable and rise in homelessness. thconservatives on the court struck a united front as "los angeles times" put it in their response, the conservative wing painted a dystopian portrait of an american west deprived of public spaces and under siege. in response, two clinton appointed judges wrote that the dissent d exaggerated the original r which, quote, holds onlyhe governments cannot criminalize the act of sleeping with the use of rudimentary protections such as bedding from thents in some public places when a person has nowhere else to sleep. it does not establish an unrestrained right for involuntary homeless persons to sleep anywhere they choose.
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i previously reported on tragedy of homelessness in los angeles and san francisco, both cities subject to the law established in this decision. after touring skid row in l.a., and continue the tenderloin in san francisco, i came away thinking it's not the core issue. but a manifestation of what drives the problem namely mental health and drug addiction. so the real question becomes, is it cruel and unusual to impose a fine on homeless people in a public encampment? that's the view of the ninth circuit panel. or is it cruel and unusual to allow individuals who, due to mental illness and drug addiction, lack the capacity to make sound judgments to keep themselves safe? i have a feeling the supreme court is going to take on this se and decide the latter. but i want to know what u think. go to smerconish.com and answer this this week's poll question. which is more cruel and unusual?
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fining the homeless or leaving them alone? joining me is the lawyer who is a partner in the firm of gibson dunn. thank you for coming back. what's wrong with the majority thinking that if there's not a bed for someone, it would be cruel to fine them? >> this is an urgent crisis. in this case it's about giving cities the tools they need to solve it. the court's decisions from the ninth circuit have created a situation that's unworkable. it's caused paralysis in a time when we desperately need action. the ninth circuit's view of the eigh is unprecedented and no other court in the country has adopted it. right now when we're faced with this crisis of thousands of people who are dying on our streets, cities need to have the flexibility and the tools to address it. the ninth circuit's opinions are really a serious part of this problem that have tied the city's hands in addressing this crisis.
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>> the two who wrote the majority opinion, the two clinton appointees, they say this is being mischaracterized. we're simply saying you need to have a bed for someone before you go and criminalize their behavior. if you don't have the beds, then you're limited. >> what the ninth circuit has held in these decisions actually is that the cities can't prohibit anyone from camping in public until there are enough shelter beds for everyone. again, no other court has adopted this sweeping view of the eighth amendment. and if you look at the numbers of the shear magnitude of this problem, it's unworkable because there are, for example, in the city of los angeles alone, over 70,000 homeless individuals right now. so it is, in the meantime, an urgent problem. >> right. i'm playing devil's advocate. i happen to see this in similar
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fashion to your position. but the majority in this case says hold on, it's fundamentally unfair if they have nowhere to go. if there's not a bed, they have nowhere to go. what's the response to that? >> this is a complex problem, as you said. this is a problem that cities need to debate. local communities need to figure out what the right solution is in each community. we need to hear from experts in mental health, substance abuse, housing. there's no one size fits all solution. what the ninth circuit's decision has done is take that debate off the table. it's put courts in charge of homeless policy across the western united states, and the results of these decisions can be seen by anyone who walks down the street in any of our cities, and from san francisco to phoenix right now, both of those cities are under federal court injunctions preventing them from
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doing anything to address this problem. that's what's cruel and unusual. this is a tragedy and these decisions are hurting the very people they were meant to protect. >> i remember we had a conversation, the two of us, after boise. you wanted the supreme court to take the boise case and it didn't. do you think the court is going to take this matter now given this ruling? if so, which way do you think it goes? >> we certainly hope that the court will. we had hoped that the ninth circuit would take up the case in reverse course, but it refused to do so. now there are millions of people across the entire western united states who are looking to the supreme court to untie the hands of our local governments and to allow us to take action. >> i hope that people's eyes did not glaze over during the setup, but i thought it was important to try to set the stage. what's the takeaway?
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what just happened here for someone who is paying partial attention and wants to understand what it means to them? >> well, 16 judges on the ninth circuit have really sounded the alarm. they have said that this decision, these decisions are wrong. they are causing this problem to worsen. conditions have gotten so much worse since the last time we spoke, michael. we hope that the supreme court will intervene to help solve this problem. >> thank you. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you. what are your thoughts? hit me up on social media. i'll share some during the course of the program. by the way, we've got a new feature at smerconish.com. you can live chat during the show. i'll pull some of those comments also. from the world of youtube, what do we have? we already know how this court will rule on any case involving homeless people, says harvey. i guess, meaning he thinks --
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are you talking about the ninth circuit? they have changed in their composition. i think you're talking about the supreme court of the united states. i think they need to take this case. they should have taken the boise case. they didn't. the country needs defined parameters relative to how to deal with this problem. and right now, the western united states, i agree with her characterization and that of the dissent. they've been put in a straightjacket and this seems to limit their opportunities to provide help tpeople who desperately need it. this seems to limit their opportunities to provide some o need it. i want to know what you think. go to smerconish.com and answer the poll question. which is more cruel and unusual? up ahead, a federal judge ruled against the government being automobile to tell social media how to moderate certain contact, calling out the most massive attack against free
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speech in united states history. i'll talk to one of the plaintiffs who says his approach to covid-19 was censored. now that race-based college admissions are out, legacy admissions are under fire. i'm going to try to make the case that they should stay. [sneezes] can a can of lysol take care of my snotty sofa? can-do mildewy tiles? can-do - these? - yup, it's the can-do can. nothing kills more germs on more surfaces than lysol disinfectant spray.
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this week a federal judge in louisiana restricted the biden administration's interaction with social media companies. judge dowdy said if the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in united states history. this might be an overstatement, but by the time this case winds through the appellate process, it might produce one of the most cons quench consequential speech decisions. the case was brought by the attorneys general of missouri and louisiana and half a dozen other plaintiffs, who "the new york times" described as follows, quote, five individuals who campaigned agast masks, argued that vaccines did not work, opposed lockdowns and pushed drugs that medical experts denounced as
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ineffective. to address what it believed to be the spread of misinformation, white house officials and public health agency leaders held biweekly meetings with tech companies over how to curb the spread of what they regarded as misinformation during the pandemic. former white house director of digital strategy rob flaherty and covid-19 adviser andy slavic were in constant contact with social media executives. here's an example of what ensued. this an e-mail following an april 2021 meeting between biden administration and youtube officials about vaccine misinformation and efforts to combat it, rob flaherty, assistant to the president and director of digital strategy, wrote that his concern about misinformation on youtube was, quote, shared at the highest and i mean the highest levels of the white house. the white house remained concerned that youtube is, quote, funneling people into hesitancy, adding, quote, we
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want to make sure that youtube has a handle on vaccine hesitancy and is working toward making the problem better. throughout the entire opinion, the judge highlighted several uses of the words we and partnership, reinforcing the idea that the government was pressuring a private company about curtailing speech. the ruling provides exceptions when it comes to posts involving criminal activity, national security threats, voter suppression, or foreign interference in elections. krit i warn it could durr tail efforts to combat online misinformation. the justice department is appealing and requesting a stay. a white house official defended the administration's actions saying the government, quote, has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections. two of the plaintiffs have been guests of mine on cnn and on my
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siriusxm radio program. they co-authored a piece for smerconish.com entitled "the beauty of vaccines and natural immunity." here is how they are identified in the legal opinion. the plaintiffs are infectious disease epidemiologists and co-authors of the great barrington declaration published on october 4, 2020, they criticized lockdown policies and expressed concern about the damaging million and mental health impacts of lockdowns. they allege that shortly after being published, the gbd was censored by google and facebook, twitter and others. joining me is an epidemiologist, who is a professor of health policy at stanford university and has a ph.d. in economics. welcome back. doesn't the government have some degree of obligation to inform social media platforms about that which might be harmful to the public? >> i mean, the government has the platform.
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they can say whatever they want. no one is stopping them. the question is whether the government can use power and force to tell social media companies who to censor and threaten those companies if they don't comply, as they actually did. in discovery, we found that rob flaherty sent emails to facebook directly threatening regulation around section 230, saying effectively, that's a nice company, wouldn't it be terrible if something were to happen to it if you didn't censor these people, these ideas. they were protecting its own misinformation, criticism of its misinformation by censorship activities. for instance, "the new york times" story -- >> i guess what i'm saying if the government had limited to providing what it regarded as
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valid information without being coercive, and i think in this opinion when you look at the examples, what i just showed, this is coming from the highest level, and i mean the highest level of government. i think it turned coercive. but i don't think the government surrenders its own speech write. the white house press secretary has the opportunity and right to speak on behalf of the administration on a day-to-day basis. what i'm trying to say is there's a balance somewhere in there that's necessary. fair? >> yeah, i agree. don't think it's -- this decision doesn't say the government can't speak. i don't think anyone was looking at it would think that. what it says is the government can't coerce social media companies to censor me, but just because they disagree with me. just because i'm criticizing their ideas. and they got it deeply wrong. they were wrong about mask mandates, and yet they forced youtube to take down a video of
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me talking to governor desantis in a public video because i said there's no high quality evidence that child masking does anything, which is absolutely true. there's still no randomized trials. they forced social media to censor true content because it was inconvenient criticism of their policies. >> what i remember about the great barrington declaration, i being interviewing you and cole dorf and discussing would we be better protecting the most vulnerable and letting the virus run its course, more quickly getting to herd immunity. i published your essay on my website. but what ended up happening to you on that issue among the big tech platforms? >> so shortly after we published it, google de-boosted it. in some countries, you couldn't search for the term for it. facebook took down the
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declaration page with no reason. there's another article that documents this. the tech companies, i don't know exactly the government role in this, but i can say the tech companies definitely de-boosted the signal around the declaration. but shortly after we wrote it, we had an e-mail from the head of the nih telling tony fauci there should be a devastating takedown of the premises of the declaration calling me a fringe epidemiologist. the government played a big role in this censorship effort to create this illusion there was a consensus around their policies, when there wasn't. >> i read an essay that said this opinion is a huge blow to vital government efforts to harden u.s. democracy against the threats of misinformation. you would say what to them? >> i mean, the best way to combat misinformation is by real, true speech.
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if the government thinks there's some idea floating around that's dangerous, combat that with speech that says and evidence that says the idea is dangerous and here's the truth. if the government is trustworthy, people will believe them. it's not possible for anyone to claim they are on mission and always wright. certainly not the government. it's very dangerous to say that. they should engage in discussion like other normal human beings rather than using its power to suppress the conversation from happening. essentially, to issue a negative social credit score to people who disagree with them. that's the dangerous thing. >> the internet is a fire hose of information. i think it takes effort on everybody's part to make sure we're combatting misinformation. i want the government to have a seat at that table. i think i made clear earlier it's when they get coercive and tell the tech giants they want
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something taken down that i think they've crossed a line. here's some social media. stay where you are. put it on the screen and let's see what it says. during covid, many things labeled as misinformation turned out to be true. i guess austin connolly is making your pitch. take the final word. >> it's absolutely true. on mask mandates, did they work? i don't think so. did lockdowns have tremendous harm? absolutely. we're seeing the case of what's happening to kids. did the vaccine stop you from spreading covid? it did not. these were deemed misinformation. you have n a complicated issue, you have to let all voices speak. having the government coerce social media companies to prevent that speech from happening actually worsened the consequences of the epidemic. i think more people are dead because of it. >> thank you for being here. i'm sure this debate is going to continue on in the social media world as people have just heard what you said.
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thank you. make sure you go to smercosh.com. relative to homelessness, answer this. which is more crl and unusual? this pertains to the grants pass, oregon case, now decided by the ninth circuit? is it fining the homeless, or is it the alternative of just leaving them alone? a new lawsuit claims that at harvard legacies are nearly six times for likely to be admitted and given the end of affirmative action, this now constitutes a civil rights violation. but as someone who benefitted from legacy admissions and is now paying it forward, i've got a different take. plus a south carolina town of a little over 3,000 inhabitants was swamped last weekend with 50,000 donald trump supporters. that's in a state with two of
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its own presidential candidates in nikki haley and tim scott. what does that mean for the odds of trump getting the nomination or being elected again despite his indictments? eeches) (energetic music plays) there he is! it's right there! ♪ oh, he's straight ahead. he's straight ahead. straight ahead. go go go. ♪ cover more ground in the kia sportage turbo-hybrid. kia. movement that inspires. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance
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for months we have listened as leaders try to guess the political impact of donald trump's multiple indictments. indictments seemingly have bolstered him thus far, at least among republicans. if fani willis is next to charge him, it may only amplify his campaign even more. last week was extraordinary. he brought in an estimated 50,000 supporters to a tiny town in south carolina, where the population is just over 3,000 people. he drew a crowd 20 times that number. this was a striking contrast to who is thought to be his biggest rival at the moment, governor desantis, who held an event in that same state last week. desantis only bringing in enough enthusiasm to fill a local activity center. in 2016 trump won the state with over 30% during a crowded primary season. what make this is week's crowd size even more shocking is he's now running against two locals
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for the gop ticket. former governor nikki haley and current senator tim scott, both recently held events of their own in south carolina. couldn't come close to drawing what trump drew. even though that's not enough to make the state waiver in its support, he's already secured endorsements from the governor, three congressmen and its senior senator. despite his legal woes, trump is heading the republican race effortlessly and the money doesn't lie. cnn reports the former president has nearly doubled its $18.8 million from the beginning of 2023. his campaign earned $35 million in donations in the most recent quarter. voters appeared eager for ron desantis to join the race. he hauled in $20 million in fundraising in his first six weeks of campaigning. yet the latest polling shows him at 51%, desantis at 22%. trump gained support following his second indictment.
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in april he was polling at 46%. he's up 5 points. and it's not a matter of too much competition as some proposed, as in what if the field narrows. even in a narrow two-candidate field, nbc says trump beats desantis 60 to 36. what does the wagering tell us? joining me to talk more about it is co-founder and ceo john aristotle phillips. welcome become. your betting market for the gop nomination, it seems to resemble the current polling, but it's got trump running even stronger against desantis. tell me what you see in the gop nomination fight. >> so in the republican nomination fight, it's interesting. you have trump, as you point out, with a commanding lead. desantis has done -- he had a rough launch to his campaign. he's at 22% odds at this point.
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he's really gone done a bit in the betting odds. it's interesting to see the second tier of republican candidates. scott, ramaswamy and christie, all at 6% odds. they are looking to overtake desantis. they've got a ways to go. then the other candidates in the republican side haven't registered much at all. >> on the democratic side of the aisle for that nomination, when i checked this morning, it was biden at 68%, as i like to think of it. interestingly, gavin newsom at 18%. rfk jr. at 13%. kamala harris, the vice presidt, in a fourth position. at do you see in that wager? >> biden w dfting slowly, drifting downwards. that's been arrested.
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he seems to be settled at 70% odds or 68% odds this morning. news iinteresting because newsom is not even a declared candidate, but he's running around the country giving speeches on biden's behalf. he says he's not a presidential candidate, but of course he is a presidential candidate. you have kennedy, who i think has some room to grow. he's at 13% odds. and it's interesting to see where his support is coming from, but kennedy could be the wild card here on issues such as vax and other issues where the other two above him aren't cutting the mustard. the democratic and the republican races are wide open still. but there's a clear front runner on the republican and democratic side, but their loss is the gain of those below them. >> finally then, two quick slides. when you look at the election winner by personality, biden 43,
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trump 31, desantis and newsom both at 14. there it is. i'm putting it up on the screen. enou ask generically which party, then it's the democratic party 57%, republican 45%. why when you ask generically are there greater odds for the democrats than when you ask by personality? i hope you understand my question. what's the answer? >> i do understand the question. the answer is somewhat complicated. but when they are putting their bets down, they're not necessarily saying who is going to win. they are saying who they think has room to grow. for instance, trump at 31%, if they think his odds are going to go up, they might like trump at 31% for the general election and hate him at 41%. so you can get in and out of these markets if you think they're overpriced or
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underpriced. so it doesn't necessarily correlate. >> is there really some predictive value to it? quick answer. >> it's predictive. the stats show the betting markets are far more predictive than polling. >> john aristotle phillips, thank you. i appreciate it. >> thank you. more social media reaction. what do we have? he was right. he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not lose a vote. truly amazing. at least when it comes to the nomination fight, that seems to be the case. not that it ought to be a factor, but you have to believe it's entered the mind of the fulton county da, fani willis, if she indites him, those numbers could go up even higher. time will tell. jack smith still seems to be aggressively pursuing other leads. there could be multiple indictments still to come. i want to remind you to answer this week's poll question at smerconish.com.
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it pertains to homelessness. which is more cruel and unusual, fining the homeless or leaving them alone? still to come, as soon as the supreme court put an end to affirmative action in college applications, a lawsuit was filed to end legacy admissions at harvard. i get it. but i'm also wary of ending the practice and i'm going to explain. just the three of us girls. i never thought twice about feeding her kibble. but about two years ago, i realized she was overweight. she was always out of breath. that's when i decided to introduce the farmer's dog to her diet. it's just so fresh that she literally gets bubbles in her mouth. now she's a lot more active, she's able to join us on our adventures. and we're all able to do things as a family. ♪ get started at betterforthem.com
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college admissions from an admittedly 61-year-old white former fraternity brother. if i'm acknowledging all of my stereotypes, i should add that i'm bald. a complaint was filed by lawyers for civil rights, a nonprofit in bostonalging that harvard's admissions process violates the civil rights act. in a presselease they noted nearly 70% of harvard's donor and legacy applicants are white and they receive a substantial boost based on their status. donor related applicants are seven times more likely to be admitted than non-donor related applicants and legacies are six times more likely to be admitted.
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some college heads defended the practice of giving an edge to relatives of alumni as a sense of family about the school. at duke university, the campus newspaper found that 22% of the freshman class had parents or siblings who had gone there. in march of 2022, duke's president said in response ta faculty question, we're an institution that was made in a family, the duke family. the idea that you would ban legacy preferences or ban any particular factor as a consideration is troublesome. similarly in a 2020 piece in real clecation, then nyu senite this, i'm not a legacy admit. my parents are blue collar workers and my dad only attended classes at a state college, but i felt the benefits of keeping legacies around at my school. he noted that the engagement of legacies extends beyond donations. multigenerational families often have a stronger connection to an institution than a first generation student who doesn't have a family connected to the institution, he wrote. and he's right.
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i was once a legacy admission to lehigh, where my father obtained a masters degree and my brother graduated four years ahead of me. i probably needed that boost to compensate for mediocre s.a.t.s. it worked out for me. i got my act together thanks to a professor and i graduated. last month i attended union weekend where my own class celebrated the 39th anniversary of my graduation. my fraternity had a nice turnout, even though we've been booted from campus and even though it wasn't a milestone year. that's me with my roommate of three years. in the room where we once lived. a high number of classmates who were present for the 39th shared stories of their children, who similarly graduated from lehigh. yes, legacies.
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i was not so fortunate. none of our four children followed in my footsteps. in retrospect, i think i oversold it. but many of my classmates with alumni children are exactly the type who come to a 39th anniversary instead of waiting for round numbers like the 40th much less the 50th. and guess what? they write checks. and they conduct alumni interviews and serve as perpetual ambassadors for their beloved institution. in short, they give back. that's the foundation of legacy admissions. the point is legacy admissions provide a life blood, financial, emotional, cultural, for colleges and universities that provide opportunities for many, including minorities. and if legacy admissions now get their time in the barrel, harm will be suffered not just by families that look like mine, but also by the families of one-time affirmative action beneficiaries, just when their sons and daughters might get the
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benefit from the family aspect of legacy admissions, it would be denied them. i think that would be a mistake. joining me is sanford williams, lecturer in law, received a bs and an mba from cornell university and a jd from the university of virginia school of law. thank you so much for being here. i understand that you and your wife both went to uva and so, too, your three kids. so here's the question, should that be a consideration when it comes to your grandchildren? >> first, thank you for having me. i do have three grandchildren and i would love for them to be considered. the short answer is if you asked me a week ago, i would probably wholeheartedly be where you are. but now given the paradigm with the current affirmative action by the supreme court, what's best for me, i would love to have the benefit. but looking at what's right for
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everyone, i don't see how i could advocate for legacy admissions and 70% are white and we have now taken out of the equation race. >> you must not have found my commentary persuasive, which is fine. but what of the idea that legacy admissions benefit everybody now, particularly in a post affirmative action world? and the gentleman from nyu who wrote that piece and said, i wasn't a beneficiary of legacy, but i shared some of the benefits of it because of the people who were. >> i think that's exactly right. i wasn't a beneficiary either. my children have benefitted. what you mentioned about multigenerational family being part of the fabric of the school, it's totally true. from watching us win national championships to reveling in the fact that we have diversity, we have a common ground and common bond.
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when tragedies happen, we have a common bond. and those things tie us to the school. and also donations is the life blood in many cases. it's very important, but again, looking at the whole panoply of things, i think it's hard to justify legacies having a beneficial preference. >> there's a provocative essay in "the new york times" today, f gacy admissions, which is the people thaare beneficiaries or historically have been are tied into networks. good, we have it. legacy students got leup in the admissionsss, but they were already on the path to success by virtue of being born into privilege. in fact, there's considerable evidence of going to an elite school like princeton made no difference in earnings. here is the y. one group got a big economic boost from going to elite schools, poor students, students of color and students whose
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parents didn't have a colle degree, and that's because t elite colleges connected them to students born into privilege, the very kind of student that legacy preferences admit to such large numbers. in other words, like a big part of college is the connections you make and the people that you meet. now if we end legacy admissions and that network disappears, minorities, too, will be harmed because they are not getting access into those connections. >> right. that's a great point. i think i have seen that in my life and my children have seen that as well. something that's important, i think from 1970 to 2010, the black college enrollment quadrupled. so there are tons of folks who now their kids are going to school. they want to reap those benefits. it's hard for me to say to say maybe we shouldn't participate in this because it's like the rug is being pulled out from under us. but, again, i go back to the initial point, looking at the
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paradigm now, affirmative action served that same purpose. the fact that it's removed means you should look at other things. i think affirmative action was still there two weeks ago, it would be a different story. >> sanford williams, thank you. provacative. i really appreciate it. >> thank you for your time. thank you for having me. i really appreciate it. >> more social media reaction. what do we have? did i persuade anyone? mediocre white man with success and status already in hand wants legacy protections to remain. what an original thought. hey, dexter, did you even hear the case that i was trying to make? i acknowledge the legacy benefits that were provided to me. but i'm paying it back. and those who go to a 39th anniversary instead of waiting for the 40th are the type that are so connect to do the institution because they're grateful for what it did for them in a way that others probably wouldn't be. still to come, more of your best and worst sial media comments.
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we'll give you the final results of the poll question from smerconish.com. who is more cruel and unusual? fining the homeless or just leaving them alone? so, no matter what, i'm running this kitchen. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon. [music playing] subject 1: cancer is a long journey. it's overwhelming, but you just have to put your mind to it
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and fight. subject 2: it doesn't feel good because you can't play outside with other children. subject 3: as a parent, it is your job to protect your family. but here is something that i cannot do. i cannot fix this. i don't know if my daughter is going to be able to walk. i don't know if she's going to make it till tomorrow. [music playing] interviewer: you can join the battle to save lives by supporting st. jude children's research hospital. families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food so they can focus on helping their child live. subject 4: childhood cancer, there's no escaping it. but st. jude is doing the work, continually researching towards cures, giving more than just my child a chance at life. interviewer: please, call or go online right now
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and become a st. jude partner in hope for only $19 a month. subject 5: those donations really matter because we're not going to give up. and when you see other people not giving up on your child, it makes all the difference in the world. interviewer: when you call or go online with your credit or debit card right now, we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt. you can wear to show your support to help st. jude save the lives of these children. subject 6: st. jude is hope. even today after losing a child, it's still about the hope of tomorrow, because. childhood cancer has to end. interviewer: please, call or go online right now. [music playing]
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let's see what we have established this week. number one, that cities need the power to deal with their homeless populations, both in the best interest of the cities, and everyone else, and the homeless community. number two, it is okay to give a platform to the great barrington declaration, and people like j combat them with information, not with
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censorship. number three, that donald trump had a good week, politically speaking, and if that is t and number four, that legacy admissions and need to be kept. now, here is the poll result. what do we have? 22,000 saying two thirds finding the homeless is more cruel and unusual than just leaving them alone. people like the outcome of that ninth circuit case. catherine, what do we have in terms of social media reaction? you just gave a megaphone to . masks don't work, vaccines don't work, hey guess what, m, and i just gave platform to you, to push back against every one of those things, and therefore, the playing surfaces level, and the answer is not to say, oh, facebook, take that
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down. twitter, take that down. cnn, don't tell us that information. no, it is to combat it with opposing information and points of view just like yours. thank you for helping me to illustrate the point i was making earlier in the program. i will see you here next week. you're sleeping. t so why do we leave so much untapped potential on the table? this is a next level bed, for a next level you. my circadian rhythm is kicking your circadian rhythms butt! it's not a competition. i know, but i'm still winning! so, it is a competition. the queen sleep number 360 c2 smart bed is now only $899. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now only at sleep number.
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