framework and genetic engineering. changing the nature of nature by a few giant corporations for commercial purposes. and nanette technologies. hell it became, it's just the case in the media. no more phil donahue for women's rights, consumer, labor, all the frontier justice movements that he put out first for a huge national audience. sadomasochistic. that is an indication of the gate. another indication of the kerrey is when corporations misbehave. disaster, harming, killing, injuring, contaminating, polluting. there bell that and become more powerful than ever. that's a sign of decay. all street's collapse, washington bailouts. the bankers are more powerful than ever. in the science area you see the level where 100 years ago, 50 years ago there would be a new

technology, there would be a public hearing, proposals for regulatory standards. .. we are now the world's leading debtor thanks to things like wto and china. >> thank you. yes? >> first of all i would like to thank you for being on top of the most important issue of our day once again.

i do have a question. what is the difference between what you are trying to do with your book and the overlap with the movement to pass a constitutional amendment on the subject of corporate bersin hood? >> this is a much more tightly organized effort to put a million people on the ground and their community, around, including doing something about citizens united. that is part of stripping the corporation of personhood. it's a more intense effort. a lot of times when you get people to say yeah we would like to overturn citizens united and we should let exxon all the corporations get as much money as they want independent expenditures against any alleged did, any candidate that the local, state and national level. that is the supreme court sideboard. yeah, let's get a petition and let's get some op-eds. let's get some earrings -- hearings in congress. that is nowhere near enough. you want a tightly motivated

steam group of people who are going to stay with the requisite resources. the whole movement to overturn citizens united i don't think has $2 million behind it. justice needs resources. it doesn't just need full-time people, part-time people, volunteers, creativity. it has got to have material resources and that is what this does. csr l..org. try it out. >> thank you so much for your speech today. i have a small correction and a question. the correction is about one of the examples that you gave. while i share your frustration that 800 americans die each week because of lack of access to health care and i agree there are so many people around the world who should look to us,

don't think israel is one of them. israel has been denying palestinians, millions of palestinians from health care. i don't think that is one of the shining examples that should be used to convince us to move forward. my question is, i think you know many of us are familiar with a proposal of fundraising. it is working on line. it is a kickstart to a successful movement. can you elaborate a little about who and how this money will be spent? who will spend the money and how will it be spent? >> what it is, you are quite right by the way to point that out as you did. it is interesting that the u.s. gives $3 billion a year to israel that israel does supply a universal health care for israelis. i'm not sure, the israeli arabs but certainly not the west bank

and you begin to wonder where that there should be a eighth israeli foreign aid program in the in the u.s.. in other words we are behind not just western countries. there are a number of countries in the other hemisphere's that have universal health insurance so we are way behind. theodore roosevelt proposed universal health insurance 100 years ago. president truman in the 1940s. we still don't have it. a horrendous casualty. the money will go to the center for study of responsive law, the founding center for all the various groups that we have started in washington throughout the country. and we will be responsible for its deployment so we are really saying look, we have been at this for a long time. we have an impeccable record and we certainly have all the accounting reports and so on. but if you sign on its because you already a grade with this agenda. that minimizes delay and

conflict. we have to have more groups like that where instead of just coming together and then fighting like crazy internally and e. wrote in the whole momentum, you say we want you to come together if you agree with this agenda. that doesn't mean you don't have any further input. it just means you're not going to say well, i think land erosion is the worst problem and that is what we should be getting control of. land erosion comes from corporatism. militarism comes from corporatism. remember eisenhower's military-industrial complex? the ideas to focus on corporatism even though we might have our own immediate local priorities but if you overcome corporatism your unleashing wide said it political energies and democratic institutions that will then deploy on the kind of specific grievances that you have. that is true from military and

foreign-policy. >> first i would like to thank you for your talk and i. i really enjoyed your comments on corporatism. my question is how it relates to politics. i attended a great lecture you gave at the university of iowa about 14 years ago about the difference in politics as we are approaching the voting cycle between the democrats and republicans and i believe the argument is and you can correct me because i believe i'm just quoting you, but i think that it was that it didn't matter which one got elected because they are both in the pocket of corporate interest and i was wondering, that was 12 years ago. my question basically is, in the last 12 years and specifically after bush the second, if there had been, if you had any comments at this point after seeing that if you still feel the same way or you know if you have any thoughts on that.

>> do you mean on 2000? >> not 2000 election specifically but at the time both parties were in the pockets of corporations and it didn't really matter who we elected but given the last 12 years have you had any change of thoughts on that still recognizing corporatism is still the major player? >> corporatism dominates them to the court. there are differences in social security. the nature of medicare although there are democrats who want to overrun medicare as well, medicare advantage etc. but on the big issues of corrupt corporate control of elections and money, militarism, foreign-policy, distortion karen mislead the public budget where the people send their tax dollars to washington and they recycle it through the wealthy and the powerful and bailouts, handouts and giveaways, you name it. and almost department by

department they are very similar. i don't see really any difference in the department of transportation under obama, under bush, under clinton except there is one trend and that they are all getting worse. regardless of whether it's democrat or republican because putting their own people in charge, the money in politics gets worse. and the question is do they both flunked? they are both undeserving of support and if we do support them because we think one is not quite as bad as the other we are in complicit. if you support obama because he is not as bad as whoever is going to challenge him or mccain you are in complicity with what is going on in afghanistan and all over the world. the obama doctrine of prosecution, judge jury execution on suspicion with outfitting the courts or international law -- letting the courts or international law decide, you are complicit. there are people who say we are

not going to be complicit any more. we are going to vote our conscience or we are going to vote for a ride in and the only way we can protest, unless we develop this kind of movement and other similar movements to provide more choice for the voter. norway has seven or eight parties, germany has eight or nine parties. we have two parties blocking any ability to grow from one election cycle to another and that is because we have a winner-take-all, money system of politics. >> would anyone else like to ask any questions? do you want to come down here because c-span is recording this so if you could speak into the microphone.

>> yeah, thanks for the speech and everything. it was great. but, you know it's great, i think that we can all read the book and there are many things that we are all -- the drive us crazy and make us incredibly angry, and i wouldn't doubt that people are mad and you know people can be cynics. maybe i might be one, but i don't think people are afraid that they don't have power as much as they actually don't want to do anything. not just you know, people out there, who you can show an example it's great to move away. i mean even people in this room. and it's the fear of biting the hand that feeds us and if we are addicted to -- off coupon and wherever there is people drinking coke and eating doritos and people here me

included who probably would not give up their ipads are there iphones or their imax or whatever it is and they're probably going to debate about what is better, detroit or the iphone. even busboys and poets, supporting italian water. so, my question is you know like labor was abolished but why? we showed how blue bad slavery was or because people stopped wanting to buy cotton as much? so okay you can complain and we can get angry and we can show people that we are angry but at the end of the day does he get people from getting what they want? $100 million, and i hate to be a cynic but that is pocket change for any major corporation that we are trying to fight. so, what do we do about people's

addictions to the things corporations give us? >> first of all it's pocket change but for citizen groups it's big pocket change and try the lobby and see. we have taken on corporations over the years with much smaller, much smaller budgets starting with auto safety, because there are some feedback, some help in the congress. senator magnuson, senator nelson, people who representative certain interest of the people's safety. you make a very strong case for -- when i was your age i could've made the same rendition and i went to the library at the college and i read all the philosophies of pessimism including the paragon of power and i was not convinced because i came to the conclusion that while you may be right, what you

say has no function other than further withdrawal and wallowing in despair. now there are people before 1775 who probably were pretty despairing of the british empire the most powerful army in the world and they did create a perfect system but from their point of view the farmers, they did something pretty spectacular. they surprised themselves because they have a different level of expectation. they were irritated enough to get steamed, you see? so there is an argument to be made that dictatorial regimes bring the worst out of people, out of ordinary people because they are so desperate. it's like you know, the fight of all against all. desperate for just getting through the day and again their livelihoods. there's also an argument that a more democratic society brings the best out of you and all of a sudden people you never thought

would be community and neighborhood leaders, people participating in the occupied, where did these people come from? because they saw an opportunity to elevate themselves into society and to pursue what senator daniel webster once said, the great work on earth is just us. notice that word is the most forgot word, fairness and justice but without justice you can't have freedom and liberty. so it is good for you to be skeptical, as long as you stay skeptical and you don't become cynical. a skip has doubts but charges forward with those doubts. a cynic withdraws, becomes like diogenes, jumps into a tub. so there is a difference there. we have enough examples in the history of human beings where out of despair and enforce

enforced to gravity and powerlessness people's spirits have risen up and a lot of things we are thankful for that we inherited that are still around we are doomed. a few people who carried forward a broader public sentiment so they didn't have majorities on the front lines, but they reflected a need or a change of much greater number the people supported. that is what you have to look for. the occupy movement gets stronger as the public sentiment supports it, right? why do you think -- it isn't just that you are staying here overnight, which is part of it. it is they are taking the polls and they are saying there are a lot of people who are fed up and a lot of them are working in companies and a lot of them are working in government, a lot of them are at universities or elementary schools or neighborhood groups are chernobyl groups are on the streets or in the jails for

trivial offenses, etc.. so that is why if i may give you some unsolicited advice, work your skepticism into the public philosophy. where do you want to go? where do you want to be with your generation, 10, 20, 40 years and have a higher estimate in your own significance to make that change. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. >> the this is not the model, it's a model and it can be replicated right down to the local level. i can be replicated for statehood, for d.c. for example and we have got plans for that, don't we? >> and i want to add that i think one of the best antidotes

to being a cynic or a skeptic is to visit and occupation. it really is a mind changing experience and i think whether you visit it to just go and interact with the people they are or whether you visit it to serve a meal or do something to be engaged, it's really quite remarkable. i was really thrilled to walk to mcpherson square on a friday night. this was a couple of weeks ago, and just see groups of people, young people that are huddled around and you know they are talking about very important significant issues rather than hanging out at a club or watching television or sports, something that is a little bit more mindless but it's very exciting to see young people being so engaged. i was up in new york that the occupation there and saw the same experience as i saw today. people are sitting and debating

issues that you wished people have been talking about for a long long time so i think there is nothing better than an occupation to overcome any kind of cynicism you may have. >> also you know they have their own libraries, their legal aid, their medical booths all over the country. anybody watching this program we want to give them free books and materials for libraries and occupy all over the country. >> the occupation at freedom plasma had just requested us to give them 20 copies of the people's history of the united states by howard zinn and we were delivering to the them on monday so they want to start a book club on howard zinn's history. those are the things that i think keep the spirit alive and keep you hopeful. i wanted to ask you one thing mr. nader regarding the polarization taking place in this country. i can't help but feel like we are we are having this gathering here but there are other gathering somewhere that are

looking at a different paradigm and seeing things very differently. how do you bridge that polarization? how do you bridge the two entities that complement each other and we always have to settle for the make the leaf thought that keeps changing. how do you bridge that? >> well corporatism has been very effective in pitting libertarians and authentic conservatives against livered -- liberals and progressives. they do disagree on regulation of business for example but look at the areas where libertarian authentic conservatives like lott ron paul and liberals and progressives agree on. very critical of the military budget, very critical of empire, very critical of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, very critical of the patriot act and the suppression of civil liberties, very critical of corporate and governmental invasion of privacy. very critical of the sovereignty charade hinchey impact of nafta

and the world trade organization, very willing to push for tough law and order, corporate crime enforcement. that is a pretty good start. both of them would like more investor and pension funds, mutual funds and investor control over these runaway corporate executives. these are really important. not that i don't disagree on unions. they will disagree on some of the things that that isn't what i see emerging. ron paul and barney frank have a passport with staff to cut the bloated à la terry budget and military contracting corruption. you couldn't have to representatives further apart on say the issue of unions or federal regulation but on that issue, they are converging and if you look at the magazine, american conservator and the

"nation magazine," sometimes if you didn't see the title you were wonder which you are reading whether it's military, foreign-policy, the military budget. corporate welfare is another area where there is a convergence. libertarians dislike intensely, and their whole intellectual history going back to their philosophers, dislike intensely big concentrated business that is so powerful it can go for corporate handouts and subsidies and welfare as a form of unfair competition against small businesses. so these are huge areas that are beginning to converge but the companies are always trying to say, you have to go after the liberals. they divide and rule but increasingly what i have seen is it's coming together like this. the people who voted against the

indefinite imprisonment amendment were both conservatives and liberal democrats. so, in answer to your question those are like 10 major bridges that have doctrinal support. they have philosophical support and they have representatives in the corridors of government that can advance. they have to overcome that divide and rule diversion impact by the corporate lobbyists. and by the way that could be the most important combination in the country politically. it was the liberal alliance with conservatives on capitol hill that blocked the reactor and ended that boondoggle at -- river in tennessee. there are examples where once you get those two groups behind on congress they can be unbeatable but they have got to deal with this divide and rule approach.

>> thank you. i want to also make an announcement. we have this coming sunday, we have mr. harry belafonte will be here from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.. i've been reading his book called my song which will be signed and policy studies will be doing an interview with him on the main stage main stage there in the main room. but one little story to be told which is fascinating and reminded me of you mr. nader is that sammy davis jr. lost an eye to an accident where the part of the wheel, which was used to be made pointy because it looked you know more or whatever, when the car hit another car front the sharp part of the wheel went into his eye and made them blind. i didn't know that but it was the work that you did on auto safety that would have prevented that from happening. >> it's the steering column.

i have to say i got stained years ago. i was losing my friends to highway crashes, much more than they do today. there was a much higher death rate and i would lose them in high school. i would lose them in college or they would come back. holy chicks. the minute i -- paraplegics. the minute i saw people in detroit were keeping on the seatbelts, collapsible steering columns, stronger door latches, head restraints, airbags i really got stained and i met a lot of engineers and a lot of human factories who knew much more than i did about the automobile highway driver interaction but they didn't get steamed so it's not just what we know. it's that emotional intelligence that is so important to change the way we go through every day and leave part of it for collaborating in a just and deliberative democratic society.

>> the book is "getting steamed to overcome corporatism." mr. nader, thank you so much for being here. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author of book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv at c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> i.d. believe that the west for all of its historical shortcomings, and i'm skating in my book in discussing the shortcomings, they have to be admitted. for all of the shortcomings you ask still today -- the u.s. represent the most acceptable and workable university, universal political culture.

spain now on your screen on booktv is sought by then he has written this book, "get it on" what it means to lead the way. keni thomas tell us about your experience and your connection with blackhawk down. >> i was part of the regimen and we were part of the guys to win who went in on that mission initially arrayed. >> 94? >> 93, close though. was initially rate and everything changed when the first helicopter got shot down

and just like that the course of our lives change. so what i get from that, anybody is going to make it out and others didn't he will spend the rest of your life thanking the people for that day. i know by the grace of god that is the only reason i'm still here so you will ever use every opportunity canted tell their story. i'm going to tell their story. >> keni thomas walk us through that day. >> i can tell you my experience was we came in on a mission and everybody thought it was going to be a normal thing. it was a little bit risky. what we didn't know was that we would lose 18 guys, seven wounded. there were 130 of us that went in. tone of us got winded and a ton of us got hit and it would have been significantly higher had it not been for the level of planning and training but mostly

the leadership at every level and i mean from the one private who saved everybody all the way to general garrison, was leadership at every level that saved us and we know that in by the time the morning rolls around and you know the story we were there to help the pilot, waiting for for the pilots we could get his body out of the wreckage. in the morning pakistanis came the demolitions came, the tenth mountain came, the cooks put on body armor and every single one of those guys, they all came in and volunteered and in the morning we put the one to guys on the trucks, the chucks drove away and the rest of us ran out. there again you make it out, you spend your life thanking those folks and it's an extraordinary story. as good as you've heard the story nobody can tell us about david floyd and ken hastings in ramallah you in the way that i can because these were my guys. >> when did you leave the rangers? >> i got out of the military at the end of the '90s and picked up my guitar and started doing

music at the time. this whole book thing is new world for me. >> why are you writing this now in 2011? >> that's a good question. i get a chance to tell that story to a ton of people and the more people that you can reach i feel like the more folks, the more chance you have to make a difference with leadership and i started doing so many events. why hasn't anybody written the story down? actually was ollie north, you really need to write this. we wrote it and it was simple as somebody saying yes. it was that simple and all of a sudden you have this book that is on tv. we are and walmart. your book is in walmart, you know something is happening so it has been a heck of a ride. >> what is this about music and the guitar? >> i work in nashville and i do country music. we have a whole audience from that side of the world. you have all these fans coming

in for the music and now you have these new people you are meeting at events like this that are coming in for the book and they are all coming for sublive in starting to figure out what the message is which is, set an example, lead the way, you are extraordinary. you can do millions of things if you're willing to shoulder that burden. >> who do you play with in country music? >> name it. the only people i have not opened up for yet is faith hill and tim mcgraw so if they're watching the need to give me a slot. as the opening act you get to see everybody who's been doing it for a while. >> keni thomas is a well-known that you were an army ranger in your prior career? >> it is. people know what i did and it affects music now and then. i feel you have to entertain on stage and when you write a story, that is how you captivate them. you tell them a story but at the end of it all whether it's the

guitar or the microphone or whether it's a book you better have something to say. obviously what i have to say is lead the way. >> keni thomas is the author of this book, "get it on" what it means to lead the way, veteran of. [laughter] down talks about his experiences. >> next, richard thompson ford argue civil rights laws have been distributed by individuals, special interest groups and the political left and right for personal gain. it's about an hour. >> good evening everyone. i am dan atkinson the director of -- university of san diego california extension and it's my pleasure to welcome you here for the opening event in our 2011/2012 series of forums. i want to begin by thanking the narrow sciences institute.

they are very gracious hosts for this series and provided the use of this beautiful hall to us and other groups at no fee so he we tangled them for that. also i want to mention the la jolla -- he provides media sponsorship for this series and as you have all noticed tonight we have two film crews here to document the program. as is their custom we have ucs g. filming and they will be filming the event for teacher broadcast broadcasts and broadcast and web streaming and tonight we are pleased to welcome a crew from c-span's booktv and they will be filming this for broadcast on c-span. our program tonight will be an intergroup format and will be followed by 15 to 20 minutes for questions from the audience and we will be taking your questions in written form on the index cards that were passed out as you came in. our interviewer, dr. jennifer bergen will select the questions

and read them for mr. ford's response. been at the conclusion of the question and answer period we will have a book signing and the book signing table is here at the foot of the stage to my left. as you have probably noticed mr. ford's book is available for purchase at the entrance of the auditorium. finally please note no video recording, audio recording or photography is permitted during two nights event and please also take a moment to turn off phones and other electronic devices. it is my pleasure now to introduce jennifer bergen who will introduce tonight's speaker. dr. bergen is a visiting scholar at the university of california san diego and she has also taught at the university of san diego and at harvard university where she earned her ph.d. in english and american literature. she is active as an author and editor in a wide variety of genre's end is also a producer of independent films.

her latest book titled call and response, the key debates and african-american studies, was co-edited with henry louis gates jr. and published in 2010. please join me now and welcoming dr. bergen. [applause] >> thank you. it is my pleasure to welcome richard thompson to the foreign. he is that george diaz professor of law at stanford law school and is a regular contributor to slate and has printed for numerous newspapers including "the new york times" and "washington post." his first book, racial culture, published in 2005 critiques racial identity politics including multiculturalism while also strongly arguing for racial justice. in his second book, the race card, published in 2008 in selected as a "new york times" notable book professor ford

argues that ubiquitous claims of discrimination or playing the race card are extracting attention away from racial injustice. he concludes that we need to quote began by looking at racial injustice as a social problem to be solved collectively rather than discrete wrongs perpetuated by bad people. this year he has two books coming out. universal rights down to earth which analyzes human rights struggles around the world and argues for the need to shift to the universal principles and engage locally with local institutions, laws and social relationships in order to bring about meaningful change and "right gone wrong" how law corrupts the struggle for equality that we are focusing on today. and which is called a crisp analysis of our civil rights laws and a prescription for how to move beyond that.

i work on african-american history as dan said and sedin recently reviewed the history of african-american debate with henry louis in our book, called and response in from my wrist perspective one of the -- his ability to pull back and look at long-running debate from a fresh vantage point. this is particularly important in our time of polarized politics when so many debates are reduced to little more than alternating talking points. and while he grapples with conservatives and liberal ideas he maintains an eye on the greater social good. he also has a strong business history which comes clear in his discussions of the powerful and important role that civil rights legislation has played in eliminating legal discrimination in america and also in his critique the cases that have moved us away from the historical legislation at the roots of the laminating group discrimination.

many of you have seen the senate review of "right gone wrong" in yesterday's "new york times." jeff rosen writes ford should not -- offers a middle-of-the-road critique of civil rights law. his book is sharp and surprising and caps the discrimination debate at clarifying new light. will you join me in welcoming richard thompson ford. [applause] in "the new york times" review of your last book, the race card, orlando patterson praised her work writing, the end result is a vigorous and long overdue shakeup of the nations failed discourse on race. in this new book, is it motivated by the ideas being think need needs shaking up? >> in a sense, yes.

i want to attack the idea that every social injustice is a civil rights issue and they think since the 1960s in particular there is a very powerful movement almost exclusively in terms of civil rights. the result has been fed a wide range of disparate issues with different causes that are in many ways incommensurable are shoehorned into a single approach, an approach that tends to focus on bias, on discrimination as the central evil, and i think that is bad and another consequence has been an over reliance on courts and legal as an akin is -- mechanism and lack of attention to other forms everything from public persuasion changing hearts and minds and also the legislative process, the popular branches of

government. and so, the result has been a narrowing of imagination about how to think about social injustice and a narrowing of imagination and thinking about potential solutions and those are the kinds of ideas that i do think our ideas that are important and play an important role but have been kind of occupied or crowded out by other ways of thinking. >> how interesting. that ties into something you write about in the race card, something called racism without racist. can you talk about that little bit? >> absolutely. the idea of racism without braces as i see it is most of the social injustices particularly in the area of race but also many other areas addressed by civil rights type legislation don't involve races

or they don't prove bigots and racists and bias animus. instead what we have a problem that is much more complex in nature that are the result of the legacy of past discriminatory practices but perhaps not contemporary racists and bigots cases in which there is bigotry it's very difficult to detect. in some cases it may be unconscious. in cases where their range of other social institution of day-to-day practices that may since the innocent or at least dennison in terms of intent, in terms of the mental state of people engaging in those practices but nevertheless perpetuate injustices and it's this kind of second-generation of racial injustice and social injustice that we most desperately call for a new approach. >> gives us this is the --

specific example on something we need a different approach to confront. >> the high incarceration rates of african-american men. there is a great deal of data about this. to my mind it is one of the most severe remaining legacies of america's long, sad history of overt racial discrimination and yet, now i don't want to suggest that there are no racist beliefs and no racist prosecutors. there certainly are, but the disparity can't be explained by old-school jim crow digga tree. instead you have a collection of factors including neighborhood segregation such that racial minority groups particularly african-americans are more likely to reside in neighborhoods where crime rates are high in. they are more likely therefore to get caught up in crime and

particularly the king kind of conspicuous crimes that attract police attention. you have the problem of economically deprived neighborhoods, neighborhoods and which in which in some cases be gray market which is already teetering on the edge of criminality is one of the main sources of income for many people so you have a hold, the isolation of the underclass such that they don't have access to job opportunities. they don't have access to good role models. all of these factors that are legacy of past discrimination but for the most part not the result of ongoing bigotry and ongoing overt discrimination. these are resulting in high incarceration rates for young black men so you have a collection of social injustices but the attempt to address them by trying to find the big it is not going to produce results.

>> right. most of it can't be explained by bigotry but some of them can. you are suggesting a two-pronged approach where civil rights laws for court cases that may not apply like racial profiling or corrupt police then for larger issues like for policy or other kinds of solutions? >> yes, i am certainly not suggesting we abandon the civil rights approach. there continue to be instances of overt discrimination and covert discrimination that we can detect and can discover and civil rights laws are important and correcting those forms of discrimination but the attempt to shoehorn in the entire problem into that relatively narrow approach has been unsuccessful and in many cases, we find that is either very difficult, it's difficult to

prove discrimination and is controversial whether discrimination is the main cause of the problem even in something like racial profiling. the fact that there is a disparity in the number of people for instance stop by police or arrested by police in terms of race does not in and of itself prove that the police have acted with racially discriminatory bias. it may be that again because crime rates are higher in neighborhoods in minority neighborhoods, the natural focus of the police on high crime neighborhoods has led to some of these disparities and so we need to look to more comprehensive solutions as well, not an exclusion of the civil rights approach but as a supplement. >> you open this new book with a case of the jena six. can you talk about this case and why it has sets up some of these arguments for what is gone ron? >> the jena six is an example of a case that got a lot of know to write a because it drew attention to a real problem but

it turned out not to be a great example of the broader social problem. the broader problem is again the high incarceration rates of young black men, problem in the criminal justice system, racial inequities in disparities. this specific case involves six young black men and a small town in the south who were arrested for an attack, an assault. one in particular was charged initially with attempted murder. obviously gross overreaching on the part of the prosecutor, huge overcharge but that charge was subsequently reduced. he was also tried as an adult in that conviction was reversed on appeal but the surrounding circumstances were such that initially it sounded like the perfect case for an old-school jim crow style racial bigotry. there was a tree that was in the school at jena that was described as the white tree were only white students could sit

and when a student asked whether he could sit under the white tree the next day there was a news hanging from the tree. not the next day but later, there was a news. the racial tensions began to run high and from the outside like a little redneck town that was persecuting the six young men. as it turned out, the facts on closer examination were somewhat more ambiguous. first of all the assault was a real assault. it was six athletes being beat one young man senseless until he was unconscious. and was taken to the hospital. so some criminal prosecution was appropriate. the incidents that were seen as obvious incidences of racial bigotry were on further examination more ambiguous. wasn't clear that the white tree was really restricted to white students. later peoples that in fact all students of all races sat under the tree. so the point is that as the facts became more ambiguous it

looks less and less that the case of justice and more like a complicated case that involved rossi tutorial overzealousness and racial tensions in which all sides bore some plane etc.. >> one of the categories of "right gone wrong" are these confiscated ambiguous stories where people try to fit into a narrow possibly old-fashioned sort of condition of one right side and one wrong side. it's much more complicated than that. >> that's right. but that doesn't mean there is not an injustice. >> absolutely. there other kinds of categories you talk about, for example some of the most contentious issues you discuss have to do with education. can you talk about for example your discussion of accommodations in the public schools like adhd? >> yes. so the story here is we begin

with, because of the way legal analysis often works we operate by analogy so we begin with the case where civil rights type solutions are a relatively good fit and we move through cases where they were pretty bad fit. so in the case of disabilities the case where there is a pretty good fit involve severe disabilities that are conspicuous, things like someone who is in a wheelchair, someone who is legally blind and in those cases it is quite clear throughout american history there has been overt bias and discrimination. people are squeamish -- that they discriminated in a way that is analogous to the types of jim crow style discrimination that people of color face, the types of discrimination that women have faced and workforces and public accommodations. but we move from that too to in the public schools, if you don't

accommodate someone with a disability you are discriminating against them. again you can see if you look at someone who is in a wheelchair, refused to put in a ramp in order to help the person with a wheelchair gain access to the building but you might say maybe the reason he refuses because you are biased against people in wheelchairs and you don't want them around. we move into cases like adhd on the other end of the spectrum, a mild disability that in many cases experts find hard to distinguish from what you might call garden-variety wandering mind. so then, in a milder cases the experts are in agreement about that it can be hard to distinguish. then you have a case where an accommodation, in other words something that might take the form of something like more time on a timed exam or in in the case of hyperactivity, a

community from normal school discipline perhaps in some cases, one-on-one extra tutoring. it may be that will help that student but the question is whether in the context of scarce resources at the same types of intervention would be just as usual for the student with the garden-variety wandering mind, the one that doesn't have a diagnosis whether it is a matter of civil rights to say the one student is entitled to extra resources from a cash-strapped school and the other student is stuck with in some cases quite an adequate education that most kids get. my claim is that we need to look to improving the educational experience for everybody and that may well mean making quite significant changes in the curriculum but looking that is a question of individual rights does not make sense and produces perverse results and distributive inequities that are hard to defend. >> it's an interesting question because as a parent with

children in the public schools, you also want your children's potential to be maximized so from a social justice perspective i can totally see that you would say -- i'm thinking of example say that is more extreme. if you have those premade babies in the hospital that are a million dollars so from an outside perspective you say oh, scarce health care resources, we can put them all -- but if you are the parent, 2 million, 3 million you are in a different sort of position so it seems like i really like you to open up the issue in your book where you make people think about sort of what are these larger moral issues but at the same time they are balancing individuals wanting the best for their children. it's an interesting case. >> i don't believe the parents of those children for pushing as hard as they can to get every thing for their kids. but the question is a matter of public policy is whether it

makes sense to set up a system in which people, one group of people are entitled to a claim on scarce resources and another group of people are not entitled where in many ways the two individuals are similarly situated because of course the kid with the garden-variety wandering mind, they have parents too and those parents want to maximize their kids education but they are stuck with what is left? >> right, right or they're not able to navigate the system as well. city or they are not able to navigate the system as well so then you bring in the inequity that involves the resources, the wealth in the savviness of the parents so drawing on public resources you have a situation which there is an almost built-in bias in favor of the wealthy, the powerful as opposed to those without resources and without sophistication. >> so interesting. many of the examples you cite in

"right gone wrong" are of individuals who are using civil rights laws to get what they see as their own rights or entitlements. you argue, extremists on both the left in the in the end the right have hijacked civil rights for personal advantage. can you talk about some of the more political ones of these issues whether it's something on the left or something on the right? >> beasher although it to say sometimes it can be hard to tell the left in the right apart in some of these debates but not always. so i will give an example and then you can decide whether you think it is the left or the right. so, both in federal law and in state law for cases i'm about to talk about our under state civil rights laws. extremely important in making sure that women have access to the workplace and women have access on equal footing to public accommodations. places like restaurants and bars and what have you.

now these laws have been used by in order to overturn ladies night at local bars and restaurants. of california's one of the states where ladies night is a violation of civil rights laws. it's also chewing many other american states and if that one person overturns a mother's day promotion on the basis that it was sex discrimination they didn't win that suit but the point is that this was a plausible lawsuit to a lot of people because taking an extreme view of the prohibition against sex discrimination rather than look at it according to its purposes and according to a sensible public policy purpose which is to make sure women have equal access to the market and equal access to public institutions. we have taken a kind of abstract view that would also sweep ladies night under the same prohibition. that doesn't make sense and whether that is left or right i'm not sure.

>> that's complicated. >> is complicated. some feminists would argue equality means equality no matter what. >> you could argue that, i really found myself thinking about ladies night he coasts, they know it seems so funny but the funniest thing about it is i was reading through it and i thought wait a minute, if women are getting special treatment there and if it's economic, women are paid less and maybe if we get rid of these kinds of customs maybe that would be a good kind of idea so i'm thinking this and that i'm reading that it's actually been who are suing to get the discounts. so i say oh come on. so i was going back and forth when i was reading howell was playing out in the courts. but that seems like it's a little bit more complicated. it's not a man wanting his mother's day bag. it could be that these things have a higher price and we don't

know how to get rid of women getting paid less. we can talk about that and a direct attempt now about the walmart class-action suit. to lead ladies live for a little bit but it seems like a if we got rid of those kinds of things, the special treatment of women, we could then see what happens. maybe they wouldn't be the sense that they could be paid less because they are going to be treated all the time. >> i have my doubts that cause-and-effect would work in that way. [laughter] but seriously, it's important, if we keep our eye on the appropriate goal, i suspect that we would have better luck both in dealing with the wage gap between men and women while leaving these kind of trivial matters or perverse suits like ladies nights to decide. at least he wouldn't be wasting resources litigating cases that don't amount to much but at the same time i think it's important to zero in on the fact that when we are talking about social

inequity, we in this case are talking about discriminatory treatment against women and the idea that a guy that wants a free drink at ladies night -- >> no, not the man. i am with you there. i was just saying the larger sort of custom. but let's talk about the class-action suit that walmart, that was against walmart, a more direct intent to use the law. this shows how much these issues are in play in that i first received a copy, the preview copy of "right gone wrong" and in it says we will see, so to this open possibility and by the time the actual book came out, it had been dismasted -- dismissed as a class-action lawsuit. >> the walmart case was a very

interesting and important piece of litigation. most of the suit involves statistical evidence or for most of the evidence that the plaintiffs presented, the statistical evidence was quite compelling that there was a pattern of discrimination on the basis of sex that walmart such the women were not getting anything close to the number of a promotions one would expect in an even-handed employer to have. walmart drew its managers mainly from its wage, hourly wage employees and although the hourly wage employees were something like, want to say 75% women, by the time you got to upper management the number of female managers was more like 10%. the problem in the walmart litigation was that it was hard to find, it was impossible to find