administrators who are still employed, the administrators who victimize me personally, and i know of students that they have victimized since my time. these are people who are, you know, being referenced in multiple title ix complained to are still there. and so we need to be talking about what we do when schools are not following the voluntary resolution agreements, when they're having multiple complaints. there are a lot of schools that have had none, but there are also problem institutions. we need to be talking about -- we cannot remove all federal funding. that needs to be away with the federal government to acknowledge that a school is not doing a good job. they have started really reaffirming the need to change policy. calling for it for a lot wonder, but unfortunately sometimes it is the federal government sort

of stamp of approval of the students will right and that survivors were right. the thing that can be a powerful tool, but not so much the removal of all federal funds. >> this is really an important challenge because i have not had as much experience making laws as the folks at this table, but i have tried to enforce them over the years. making a statute enforceable is a real art. part of it depends on crafting a penalty that is realistic and enforceable. my sense is that we still have work to do on the penalties under title ix first because the penalty hence the students more than anyone else. it is, right now, very draconian for all those reasons it probably will be enforced. it would be nice to have a

statute that was often force in. really this out to be an area where it should be because the universities of to be eager to be complying with the standards and expectations that title ix creates. so i would appreciate your continuing to think and senator claire mccaskill is right. i have been wrestling with this issue. maybe we cut the university president compensation by half. just joking out there. but not really. now, who do -- how do we impose a penalty so it says to people who are in charge, you know, you really need to take this issue seriously. most university heads, i hope my belief do now, but how do we get

their attention and a world where there are a lot of competing issues for their attention. >> i think -- and you guys tell me, i think there are worse things than monetary penalties. if you start messing with an institution's reputation they come around pretty fast. and i will tell you, that was a huge driver. and i was not even close to it. you guys were doing your job. it was a huge driver. and i think they did a great job working with you to come up with solutions. and so, if there was some way to advertise it -- >> name and shame carries a lot of weight. there was a reason why colonials put people in stock for dare to. you know, many i agree with you that that can have an impact. the naming of 55 institutions under investigations after we

got a lot of attention. if you can think more about this issue and make some suggestions to us, that would be welcome. >> one thing to notice that we, obviously, have the authority to sue institutions that are out of compliance, either by filing a title for a lawsuit on a complaint that we have gone or based on a referral from the department of education or by intervening in a private sector lawson. and we have a range of remedies that we seek in addition, of course, individuals can file lawsuits and seek damages. the liability standard that the supreme court has set for obtaining damages as a valley stringent one. >> i wanted to ask about that. the actual knowledge, deliberate indifference, and the one that kills me is the students has to show harassment was severe, pervasive, and objectively

offensive. this seems to me that is right for legislation. as a half to be severe and pervasive? is in severe enough? is a pervasive enough? the notion that it has to be of three -- i mean, it really , you know, it just seems to me of the private right of action has been so severely limited by that supreme court division. it should be something -- i mean , maybe just something you could speak to about the ability of the students to bring a private right of action with a severe limitation. >> i agree. one of the issues we have had -- and we have not had one client pursuit of private right of action under title ix. >> and how many plants have you represent it? >> thousands. our education workers about 25%.

>> essentially there is no private right of action. >> that is telling. >> it is unfortunate because of the fact that we -- many of our clients -- i think we have to take an idea of who we are talking about, and 18 or 19- year-old was brand new to the community who is in crisis or having trauma and we are expecting them to get to a certain person at a certain level who has actual knowledge. in many cases, especially if it is a tenured faculty member who is committing assessment to about harassment, the ability to get to the right person being a victim and let them know -- i mean, there have been a number of cases in which numerous people have come forward, gone the supervisors, public safety, and then it's just not enough. i just think it is not going back in the you will get an 18- year-old will get to a vice chancellor who will get to the dean of the college to report their rape. it is not likely, and i think that standard is a little the void from reality. >> is is that this could be an

area that we could work on legislatively to codify what is required for private cause of action. you know, obviously there would have to be evidentiary requirements, but it seems that the actual knowledge bang -- that's really tough. the pervasive -- >> act of knowledge of a pervasive problem. >> that is the next piece. actual knowledge, most of our clients can't even get to unless they have gotten to us first. the second pieces that the school acted deliberately in differently. oftentimes any action -- >> could we into actual knowledge? >> i don't know. >> it seems to me it is not hard , reports have come to a coordinator.

>> the thing that isn't in without the look and a. >> i would make two points. the first is the when we are seeking injunctive relief, which is to say changes to policies and procedures, but not damages, we at the department of justice and the department of education apply a different standard than the damages one. we will hold universities accountable if they even knew or should have no and if they fail to take reasonable steps to effectively address the problem. >> why shouldn't that be the standard or something like it for private right of action? >> the other thing i have noted, in 2008 there was legislation introduced. senator kennedy, i believe, was the lead sponsor which included

modifications. i don't believe that bill was never the subject of a hearing. but there is legislative language of was introduced at that time that would address what the co-sponsors thought was too demanding. >> let's take a look at that. >> what about the statute of limitations for filing a complaint? is 180 days -- i'm looking at -- is 180 days realistic jack? >> often students don't know that they have the right to file a complaint. they don't know what title ix is. they don't know that it provides them remedies. when schools mistreat them they

often go home, take time off, don't realize what has happened, and by the time they speak to an attorney the 180 days has passed. >> what do you think? >> yes. we often have to make a claim that allows non date of discriminatory practice was passed. we are making an argument that a year later when they tried to engage the was a discriminatory practice. we are having to make that argument. there's something to say of the department of education -- we have not been turned down folks. >> it seems as though we should not have to do legal gymnastics. >> i think it is important tech coach.

180 days is one semester. that means that you have one semester, basically, to decide whether not you want to file a complaint. it's not that long. if we're looking at something that happens and assumes first semester, which is common. it often happens in the earliest days of one's college education, they then have until the end of their freshman year, perhaps, to file a title ix complaint and if they don't have the next three years possibly living with their assailant on the same campus. we can be looking at horrible circumstances coming out of just missing a deadline. and oftentimes, again, people don't know and it also makes it difficult to show oftentimes, you know, the pattern of behavior. there are ways around that, but

even still, it is something that the student should be thinking about. that should not be a worry. that should not be yet another hoop that a survivor has to continue to jump through in order to just received their educational rights. >> one thing i would add, and it is just information to share with your students, colleagues. under title iv, which is the law of the department of justice enforces that applies to public universities, there is no statute of limitations. that would not be helpful for students at sandhurst, but it would be helpful potentially for students at missouri, minnesota vortexes because those are campuses over which we would have jurisdiction. >> but once again this is a great example of how complex it is. how much time you have to file a complaint should not have anything to do with where you are attending school.

you know, there should not be, i don't believe -- there is no rational public policy as to why a student at one university would have one semester and a student at the university of missouri could take a year or year and a half and maybe not even come forward until contacted by someone that works and job like katie's to say, listen, i know you did not want to come forward. we have had another woman come forward you have the exact same thing happened. he should not be precluded from filing that complain because you happen to be at a private university. >> i think that is a good idea. >> one of the challenges as we listen to this conversation, a student does not know title ix, title iv. a student knows that something devastating as happened to them. and it is incumbent upon the university to be sure our

students are informed. i don't even know the students know that civil-rights were violated. i don't know that they have that level of knowledge. and so we have a responsibility for education and their responsibility to i'm sure that we are accountable so that what you are really struggling with, which is where to properly legislate to help us, one of the things that we have to do and have to be equipped to do is hold ourselves accountable. i think that there has been enough evidence that across the nation there are some that are not doing such a good job, i think that most people both that the higher level administration where i sit as well as those who are close to the students and student affairs and then our crisis centers certainly want to do the right thing. and so, as you think about moving forward with whatever you may propose to fair legislative gaps that needs to be some

opportunity for accountability to be bill within. otherwise you get a compliance culture, and i don't think that is what we want. >> we don't want someone at the university in charge of making sure every box is checked. >> coming back to a legal services issue, to what extent do you think there are opportunities and a need to expand the legal services that are available. >> i think there is a huge expansion that is needed. often times when we talk about these cases just within title ix prompt and equitable standards we talk about how the accused student has or should have the right to counsel and almost never have the conversation about the victim or complaints right. and it is not that specific schools are in any way not allowing that. most schools are coming to the realization that both parties should be able to have counsel. we are desperately trying to

replicate, but at the same time we're looking for other attorneys to take on this quest. one thing i want to talk about from earlier leads directly back to this. we are familiar with our boston regional o.c. our office. we know many of the players, have submitted many complaints. when i get calls -- i am a technical assistance provider, i get calls from legal assistance to victims attorneys all over the country, and they tell me, i am going to file with this office. i don't have many answers. i don't know that there is watchdog public oversight of these offices, and i would like to see more transparency to know more about how they're deciding. i would like to see more transparency not only in just a 55 that were named, would like to know when other complaints are filed. eventually i would love to as the national center that is able to watch over where these are going and have some kind of consequence or understanding of

where all of these 12 regional offices are going because i think that makes a difference, especially to these attorneys. i can tell them what my experience says but i cannot help them with that particular office, and i am not sure they are consistent with each other. >> maybe we should look at -- maybe we need a study by gao to look at of see our offices around the country, doe the o.c. are. >> we do not. to actually analyze the different policies that are going on. i know we have done that and a lot of other agencies where we have looked and found that the way they were handling things, and i just know at gsa, for example, the western region was a little off track in terms of their annual conference.

it was not something that was a huge problem, and no one had never really looked to see how the different @booktv that might be a good way to get that as an initial step. >> i am incredibly helpful that everything is consistent. at this point it is difficult for me to work with attorneys and help them without that knowledge. >> i can now lists schools. and now we did one time. it is hard to figure out why it is good to do it once but not on an ongoing basis. does anyone have a problem with the schools that are being investigated? >> also, one thing that can be worrisome is depending upon the size of the school simply the fact that the school is under investigation may be in identifying information which may be enough to have members of the community know who the survivors. everything that we're doing has to be couched in this idea of survivor centers.

you know, if an investigation is ongoing their is a right to know. the fact of the matter is, it has often times fallen on the shoulders of survivors to come forward and then the schools. the reason why they did this list is because we were not talking about it. here are talking about the schools who were filing complaints against because students were publicly filing complaints. that is not a burden. >> i would like to ask. having this information the public, one of the things i think is interesting, the only list that came forward, that a program of education office of civil rights handles several statutes, and even under title nine there are investigating.

i think this is a good conversation, but it does get more complex and time-consuming of we're talking a releasing -- are we talking about all the statutes or only the sexual violence? that is what we need to talk about and figure out how we can support that happening because it takes time and energy. and i know the there is some desire and commitment to make it happen. i think a lot of us would like to see it happen, but navigating that beyond sexual violence is something to talk about. >> the other pieces that from a person who is trying to help the president really wrestle with this and think about how we do it and do it well, we struggle to try to find who is doing what well across the country. and that is not easy to find. so while i understand there is large capital in going public give their is mishap or

environment that is problematic. i would love to see those institutions that have demonstrated sustainable evidence-based results from doing things well. >> that's a great point. >> well, that is what i was trying to get that. i was sort of trying to get at -- you stated much better than i did when i was asking the sam mills about what model he would pick to tell us what works well, but i think you put it much better. in the idea of an investigation, you know, typically if you are doing criminal investigation you don't confront the guy. i understand that part of it, but on the other hand, your point is that confirming an investigation would also confirmed the name of a survivor . >> again, this is sort of contingent on where is

happening. we have seen a lot of people from larger schools, and investigations, if you go down the list, you know, schools like arizona state that are much larger, but there are also schools that are having investigations that are local schools that our communities, cosmetology schools, things like that but have much smaller and norman. so one thing that worries me is making blake and statements that every single investigation as soon as it is launched will be made public. just that it will be an identifying characteristic. it's so important to keep naming the schools that are being investigated. >> while we are on the subject of transparency, i think it's important that we talk about openness and transparency. we have heard from lots of complaints to have no idea about the status of their

investigations who have had open investigations with the ocr for four or five years and are not aware of the status. so i think to the extent that we can facilitate that communication between these ocr regional offices and complainants, i think that would be helpful. >> and another area that has recently been expanded on his ocr investigations have taken a broader approach to investigating campus claman's is a good thing. in not talking about one instance, but ocr is going in and interview airing other people i did not file a complaint, what i was interviewed. that factor into their final decision. however, the students that are being interviewed in the intermediate you are not filing complaints are not often

entitled to the same rights and results that are being afforded to those who have filed a complaint. and so, for example, if i did interview and i, you know, show that my grades dropped heavily when my assailant was on campus and in the semester of following my sexual assault, i am not given a great remains that might be part of an agreement that the student has with someone else. if another student has to take a summer classis, isn't that -- interviewed by ocr, ocr knows of the student has to take summer glasses that costs money, they will not necessarily be receiving financial reimbursement. >> the problem as somebody who wants to get to the point that we are providing victim services at the point of access that are so robust that they have access to not just mental health help but advocacy help that they realize that coming forward is

important. i understand all of us have respect around confidentiality in that this has to be victims centric, but if we are going to provide the exact same remedies that we are going to really work against people being willing to come forward. if we don't get people to come forward we will never hold these folks accountable. ultimately there is someone who is committed a felony. >> and they are likely to commit it again. >> accommodations call available regardless of whether you decide to go through the adjudication disciplinary proceeding. >> and you are saying, they are not applied fairly even though they should be. >> what i am saying is, basically, if one student files

a title ix complaint because of grievances and their investigation caught ocr is going in an interview and other students who were sexually assaulted on that campus and went through those same proceedings and faced the same barriers and face the same harassment from administrators. >> i see what you're saying. >> those students who have reported. >> i see what you are saying. i misunderstood. okay. >> i think the guidance is fairly clear. what you just described is out of compliance. and so i am not -- i am not to judge in other restitution sitting here, but certainly i feel like we are clear that if a student in forms an appropriate person who is responsible at the institution that the sexual violence or harassment, they are entitled to some remedy both in the interim and once all decisions have been had whether

they're is a formal process are not. >> complaints. >> just want to be clear that that is in noncompliance issue more than anything. >> very clear that what you are illustrating would definitely have been -- >> it depends upon who you told, but it is clear that they should have given you in term relief. >> yes. when ocr comes in and ocr, a voluntary resolution agreement, oftentimes there are remedies that come up such as great remains that this didn't may not have filed a ocr complaint went through a riemann's process. >> a couple of things we need to talk about. resources, which i want to talk to with you, but the whole confidentiality. this is not for our guests in the apartment of justice because she cannot comment. i want to give debra and katie a hypothetical. i would like everyone to weigh

in. the are a in a dorm gets an e-mail from someone that faugh. attached to the mayor was a video. the video shows someone in her dorm passed out being sexually assaulted by two or three yen and. she recognizes the person in the video. she goes to the person, and the person in the video, the victim, the survivor says, i don't want you to do anything. it is none of your business. i don't want to talk about it. you should delete the video and forget that you never saw. now, i have read the q&a on confidentiality and safety on campus.

what should that are a do with that video, if anything ? >> for most staff members, particularly housing student staff it is written in their contract or their job expectations that they are not a confidential person to report different things to give that individual has to report up, but they should also be transparent to that person that is directly involved that i am a reported party. here is what is going to be happening with this information, and you have these rights as a victim survivor. and so it is recognized that various staff members from of faculty on campus may haul that responsibility and need to be upfront about it. and they did receive that information from someone because someone felt it was important to share and to do something about that. on the flip side, that staff member is also referring that victim survivor to an agency or

a resource that can be completely confidential but that individual can disclose more or more in-depth what their rights are. ..

on the one hand are a's are oftentimes and not in all cases paid employees of the school so they are taking on the responsibility and alongside that comes ideas of mandated reporting. so i'm outside university employees do have to adhere to mandated reporting sort of measures and in that way the ra would have to report. at the same time i think there needs to be, just because an ra has to report something happened does not mean an investigation has to go on. >> that's my next question. do we agree that a report has to be made? >> why would they not? i mean they are by accident they are agents of the university. they are in positions of trust. they have the responsibility to advise and protect students. why would they not be? >> i will jump in here because if we make that a statute are

a's have a notorious for holding multiple hats and leadership roles so if an ra chooses to also be a sexual assault crisis counselor advocate there's a contending statute where they are not required to report that kind of information and mustn't report that kind of information so that's one of the complexities of if we were to require student staff housing to report that information where it might conflict. >> so i think the university of missouri might be the odd one out. that's a mandatory reporter for us. and one of the things that we are looking at right now because we have all employees as mandatory reporters except for those that are exempted because of other protections hipaa for example and the like. we are looking for who should we do set of confidential reporters and are considering that is it task force and recommendation to our leadership but this point

because it's just like you describe not only do we want to be aware of it but we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to inform the victim not only of all the resources available to help him or her in their crisis and trauma but also making sure that rights are protected and the opportunity to proceed with any kind of other investigatory processes are there. so it's absolutely in our institution a requirement that they report. >> wants its reported i assume its reported to the university administration. does the university administration than have any duty to report this to university police for investigation for two criminal justice authorities for investigation or the municipal police department for investigation? is there any duty to do that?

>> i would like to speak really quick way about the fact that there are tools available to schools even if they weren't reporting even if an ra did not report personally identifying information which is an option. you can classify iras that way. even if you are just counting this statistics it makes it very clear that there are things that you can do on campus about that incented about the culture about systemic change that don't have to do with this mandatory reporting that might violate the confidentiality violate the privacy cause problems that we are raising here by mandating or legislating the issue. there are things around climate surveys about changing atmosphere in campus rearranging offense thinking about what you allow. there are so many things you can do on campus that i don't think schools are taking advantage of all the systemic changes to throw off our hands and say the solution is this mandatory up

the chain to law enforcement, i'm not sure that is a check or balance on the things that schools already have the tools to do because those outside at yours wouldn't necessarily require those kinds of changes either. >> what you're saying is that the university title ix gets this video, looks at it and it's very clear who the young woman is that it's very clear who the two or three young men are and they can go take action against the two or three young men and kick them off campus? >> the timeline coordinator can. that's pretty clear but with the ra you -- the schools are supposed to be upfront whether they coordinator not in that situation. >> now this is somebody who has come to school before they are 18 and there is a statutory crime that has been committed against a minor to these people

just let these perpetrators go even though they have got the evidence they need and they don't need the victim? they have got the evidence they need to convict someone? >> let me take one step back here. in essence when you have the video of that nature and i do think the protocol and the faq addresses this. what is says is if you name an ra is a responsible employee that they must report so they will have to turn over the video. if the victim says i don't want to have anything to do with this it doesn't mean it's a request for confidentiality. that point the coordinator gets to waive balance and analysis of the victim's request for confidentiality and against campus safety risks. >> but lindy i read that. i am a prosecutor. i'm reading this and going are you kidding me? they are weighing whether or not

and it's exacerbated the three guys on the football team. so here is these university authorities. they have got three young men that they have video evidence of a felony crime being committed and they are weighing whether or not they are going to do something about those perpetrators? >> where they don't need the cooperation where they have enough evidence to take action periods and to protect the public. >> there are a couple of things that i would like to say. first off note case is an open and shut case for sexual violence. the unfortunate reality is. >> i have had a few. >> of course and there are but there's a two to 3% success rate. the two to three% rates that are in jail and those are unreported. those are numbers that are exacerbated by historical

questions and groups that have historically really poor interactions with the criminal justice system specifically people of color. i think that when the individual is required to report something that happens to their title ix coordinator that's one thing. schools have mandated reporting rules and that's completely acceptable but when we are then talking about mandating a report to the criminal justice system we are not taking it a step further out of the hands of the survivor. when someone is sexually victimized they lose complete agency in that situation so all steps that must be taken after it must be done to an agency. that's something that is done by rape crisis council and a technique in all these frameworks so when you are having a survivor has to not

only have a conversation with their ra about the fact that the ra is a mandated reporter. then probably conversation with the title ix coordinator and on top of that have a conversation with the criminal justice system which historically has not treated survivors well. that's really difficult. that's really difficult and now we are seeing three huge events that have the potential of the to be incredibly traumatizing and triggering and have really serious mental health risks for the survivor. we are actually talking about endangering the welfare of the survivor by making them go through really traumatizing processes without returning any sense of agency to them and to me that's something that can't happen. >> i think it's really hard. after having done years of my own casework i think it's hard for people to understand that victims often in that initial stage or an assault i like to call a pushing the waltz out

they literally mass loss hierarchy of need. there's food and shelter. they cannot satisfy those needs victims have no way of making more complex and compensated decisions like whether or not i'm going to pursue a civil rights violation complaint. oftentimes they're not in a place where they can make and understand the consequences and impacts of that early stage. why i feel so strongly that confidentiality is that allows victims time and space. one of the things i found it recently is the military system has something similar to what the faq talks about in terms of restricted and unrestricted. i would be curious to see whether or see whether not bear any kind of statistics with them at the shows it victims went in the restricted lane first after certain amount of time they chose to go unrestricted and be more open and file more complaints. >> we are seeing a spike in an strict objective but that has been because we took the

incredible step that i would love to take throughout the country and that is now a victim at the point of the report gets their own lawyer. the victim is getting at the moment of report has made it difference. don't hold me to this but i think the increase in unrestricted reports since the special victim's advocate was put into place has jumped by 30% in just the last year. and believe me i have had victims and all of us who have handled these cases know how incredibly traumatic it is and how hard it is and how many victims i have struggled with keeping in the process. we could get a conviction and they just couldn't do it. because of the mental health needs they had. you have to be very respectful of that. i don't want to give the impression but i also know that

for every case when perpetrators get away with it we are creating more cases and if we take the position that the criminal justice system is historically bad to victims than we are giving up on making the criminal justice system is starkly better for victims because they are intertwined and that is why on the next roundtable we will spend most of our time on that. >> think what you are saying about the way we interact as survivors at the moment of her report to either of these buckets we are talking about is far more crucial in a mandatory requirement. i think that is where a good conversation lies because i don't know -- these are wonderfully trained university representatives. i don't know if that is every case. this is a path that could be in great danger for survivors on campus that doesn't necessarily

necessarily --. >> you said we could ask each other question if that's okay. that hypothetical that came up as i was writing a note for us at the university we are considering an ra who gets that video to then go directly to the title ix coordinator who reports directly to the chancellor so you remove some of the things that cat described earlier in terms of getting to the leadership and if that title ix coordinators of person that goes to that student and not the ra well-trained able to provide a wealth of information about resources and potentially bring crisis management people to that person to help them through that trauma does that make a difference than in the response that you gave? >> as opposed to the ra going to the title ix coordinator and the title ix coordinator approaches

the young lady? >> again i was taking advantage of the. >> i think it's a great question. >> i've seen it happen a couple of different ways where the student ends up coming to be the victim as a result of being outed so to speak or those that come to me directly. however they get to me they get to me and i'm glad we can move forward on investigating if that's the appropriate row. what i think is more challenging is leadership's understanding of the role of the title ix coordinator. where the position is housed in the rome of authority is different everywhere. one institution i can report to five people down and another institution i could report to the number one person so i think there is a challenge with respect to leadership's understanding of the role of title ix coordinator and the level of authority. that's a challenge. >> senator mccaskill and

wanted to make a quick point. the criminal justice system does need to be improved and i think that improvement is very welcome and i think in a lot of ways perhaps legislation may be the place for that but at the same time we don't want to have survivors acting as guinea pigs for that system and the campus system has the ability to be more easily changed and is a place were survivors have been feeling more comfortable. and i think to say the criminal justice system needs to be improved and therefore we can't be shuttling people away from it or giving students multiple options might be dangerous just because it's a system that has something good and we don't want to say the only way to change it is to keep working with it and then send everyone there. if that makes sense. for example i talked to the

police and i had a pretty open and shut case i was told then they ceased investigating because it was a same-sex sexual assault. >> listen there's no excuse for that and that is where you know there should be obviously i mean believe me i understand. i'm so old that i had cases that all the men in my office said we can't take this case to trial because the woman was on birth control and we can't take a case against someone who is on birth control. that's how old i am but i watched statute get enacted and i watched victim advocates being hired. i watch the violence against women's act being passed. i watched grants going out where and most prosecutors offices now there's an entire cadre of highly trained people that worked hand-in-hand with sex assault victim stayed in and day out and there are thousands of

prosecutors across this country that handle these cases with professionalism and a great deal of sensitivity to how difficult is it is for the victim so i'm not discounting that there are many problems we have to address but i can't sit here and just with a broad sweep state criminal prosecution across the country is at hand handed and ineffective and professional in terms of dealing with victims needs because i personally know that that's not the case. i really know while there are horror stories across the country how the criminal justice has mishandled cases there are also many heroes across the country within the criminal justice system that have done yeoman's work in this area and i think it's important to get that balance out there frankly for victims to hear about that balance. i think so often victims hear the horror stories and they don't realize that there are men and women across this country that have dedicated their lives

to effectively prosecuting these kinds of crimes and protecting victims rights in the process. i think it's important that victims hear both of that rather than oh you don't want to go there. it's going to be terrible if you go there and i'm worried that too much of that is going on right now. >> i think part of the progression that you stated eloquently as there are now victims advocates and many of our courts and increasingly in the military which is as you said accounting for some of the increase in reporting. so just as a general proposition to folks here disagree with the idea that we ought to have more of the thames advocates and maybe even required? >> one idea that has come up that i've had which i think might be really helpful is these victim witness advocates are really fantastic resources that a lot of prosecutors offices and das are using and perhaps having

the victim witness advocate liaisons both the victim does decide they want to go to the criminal justice system there is an individualized -- understands title ix and understands that campus's policies as well as the criminal justice system so that way the student is introduced to the people who are doing amazing work right off the bat in the criminal justice system so that's the route they choose to take they have the best resources. >> that's a great idea. let's talk about resources. i'm confused and i know this is asking about any specific cases or why or why not certain cases are taken up the doj but the pipeline of these cases and i think you said 25 lawyers. 25 lawyers and i think we have 8000 institutions. i mean it doesn't take anybody long to figure out that you all

are drinking from a fire hose in terms of the work being presented to you so i'm trying to figure out where these cases are going that you want handling them and how are we prioritizing them and what kind of urgency can we bring to this debate about public resources that are desperately needed for department of education for the department of justice and frankly, the applicatiapplicati ons are we getting? when he talked about the funding from doj to montana for example is that from the same pot of money that the grants that go for domestic violence, is that the same pot of money or set specified separately? >> thank you for these questions and i'm happy to answer them. i wonder if i could just very briefly talk about the topic that we just left because i do think there are a couple of

things to note. the first is that one of the benefits of the panoply of tools that the justice department has is that we have the jurisdiction and authority to investigate and address sex discrimination in law enforcement so that of course is part of what we ended up doing with the missoula police department and the office of public safety on campus which we addressed under our law enforcement responsibilities. so while that is done by a group of lawyers is also limited in size. there are tools to address patterns of sex discrimination in the way in which law enforcement response to sexual assault. i think more globally i think everyone at this table undoubtedly shares the ultimate goal of increasing reporting both universities and were criminal conduct is involved to law enforcement increasing accountability for perpetrators,

increasing the protection of survivors, increasing the opportunities for students to feel safe on campus. my instinct is that the pushback that you are hearing here is about how we best achieve that old. i think thinking structurally about it. we don't want to do things that will inadvertently decrease the amount of reporting and the opportunity for universities and law enforcement to weigh in. i think john this is what you were saying that i think the experience of others in the justice department is supporting victims and making sure in the first instance they feel comfortable and supportive and they they can get the services that they need on a confidential basis may be the key ultimately to increasing that kind of reporting. anyway on the resources front and i will ask my colleague

allison randal to respond of the grant funding but with regard to civil rights enforcement you know we do the best we can. we have a think extraordinarily dedicated and competent attorneys. actually i think there are fewer than 25. last count there were some are in the neighborhood of 22 or 23. we try to choose her cases wisely. we tried to choose those where we can have the impacts on practices around the country so in working with the university of montana our hope is that the progress that the university there has made all not the restricted to that campus. that other universities will look at the agreement that is posted on our web site, will look at the guidance or that department of education. a look at the amicus briefs we filed on legal standards and use those materials to better stand our own responsibilities and the

ways in which they can implement effective measures on their own campuses. we have tried to do technical assistance. we have coordinated with the department of education on releasing guidance so as i mentioned we discussed the most recent ethics extensively as we did in the deer colleague letter. there are number of guidance documents not in this context but another context of education that we have released jointly with them. so again could we do more with more resources? absolutely. we would love to have more resources to do this work, yes. do we do absolutely the best we can and is this a priority for the department's? absolutely clearly so. the final thing i would note is that the civil rights division is the enforcement arm of the department but we do have offices across the departments that do this work. the office of violence against

women, the office for victims of crime the national institute of of -- the bureau of justice statistics the office of justice programs which also gives grants to law enforcement and others. all of those resources work together and are in litigation with people in all those offices so we can bolster the work we are doing. so we entered into an agreement with the university of montana. they ensured they got a grant so that they could fund some of the improvements that are being called for. alice and you want to add something about funding? >> sure. i can say that we receive many more applications than we can find. that's an issue across her office. generally we fund may be 50% of the most of the applications we receive. i don't have the exact number for the campus program but we will provide that to you.

it's very competitive and we wish that we could fund all of the campuses that are coming forward and seeking our systems. >> we but love the stats on that the money that you have in the break down of where it's going, how many campuses are applying, how many campuses are receiving. that would be really helpful to us because one of the things we have talked about is even more specific grant programs for example should title ix be required to have training? should a title ix coordinator bureaucrats at training? should the people adjudicating these cases administratively should they be required to have training? if we are going to require training now some universities i would make the statement that they could find ways to do this training without money from the federal government but many universities couldn't because i'll universities are struggling

they have got costs. all we have to do is look at tuition. >> may be the tuition octagon to a dedicated fund. >> that might be something we could look at but we would love to get the statistics. >> it looks like in fy13 we had 127 applications and we can make 28 awards so a huge disparity in the demand and what we are able to do and we'd be happy to provide you many more additional statistics to follow up. >> frankly i'm disappointed there are only 128 applications. there are a a lot of colleges ad universities and if there'll be may 128 that are asking that publicly tells us we have got a lot of work to do. >> he since the inception of our campus program we have funded 388 institutions which certainly is a drop in the bucket compared to the total number. >> something that i would be curious to see is which of the 55 schools recently added are in

its 128 that applied? are these the schools that perhaps are doing the best job? >> there are few public stories of schools deciding not to apply for that grantor stopping in applications i think those might be something we can talk about another time. they weren't interested in hearing all of the suggestions or requirements. >> they weren't interested in all the requirements? bea. it's a great grant. it has a lot of things that schools need to proactively do and change on their campus and that might not be something the school has decided to undertake. >> that's important to know. so if there is an ocr, there's a complaint about how we university is handled in one of these investigations and a regional office of the

department of education office of civil rights determines that it has merit can they then do penalties without referring it to you? i want to make sure i understand how this practically works. >> he i can't speak for the department of education but my understanding is they do an investigation. if they find a violation they attempt to negotiate a resolution agreement with the university that will bring the university into compliance. if they can't negotiate such an agreement at that point in time they can refer to us for litigation so we can get involved then. if we have an independent complaint either because we fund the school which means that people can come to us under title mind orender title iv we often do these investigations jointly. >> he okay. i guess what i'm getting at, i

need to figure out how many complaints are out there where you are not getting involved and nothing is happening. in other words when education gets to the end of line they won't cooperate, they can't get anything done, they can't get some kind of voluntary resolution and for a number of reasons maybe because you don't have any evidence of more than one incident or you don't have a severe enough situation because you can't take them all. you all don't take it and then then -- i need to know how many of those there are. >> again i can't speak for the department of education. i know their office for civil rights shares the department of justice's commitment to addressing this problem. >> oh i know they do. there's no question about commitment. i think a lot of this is a resources issue. i'm not being critical of the kind of work you are doing or how much is that you are doing. i need to be able to show, we

need to be able to show our colleagues that this is the body of work that needs to be done and this is what is getting done. we can't demonstrated in in this budget environment we will have difficulty getting resources and there's no doubt in my mind if we are only giving 20 grants to college campuses to address this out of a thousand college campuses we obviously are nibbling at the edges here. >> he my guess is that the data will show that we are nibbling at the age -- edges or less. >> i would like to speak to the parallel with the need for more funding for investigators and whatnot. it's exactly the same thing in higher education. we are advocating for funds for its high line coordinators and resources for marketing for campaigns etc.. we are trying to do the same thing trying to provide training

there are not enough title ix coordinators to go-round so if you want to be in a job search is a title ix coordinator you have lots of options. schools are looking for them. there are are not enough trained personnel. >> there's a difference which in the good title ix coordinator and the not so good. >> i will go back and say there's a definite parallel here to your work in attempting to come up with the resources to do this well and our institutions are doing the same thing. we are trying to come up with the resources to do it well. >> in the smaller schools the bigger issue is the title ix coordinator -- one time she had four or five different jobs anymore added to the list of things that she needed to be working on the more concerned i became for her. i think in some ways it's making sure there's a commitment from the top down that they are adequately given the ability to

do the job. >> let's turn a t-wall. this is something that we have not talked about? we have had resources and anonymous reporting and we have had mandatory reporting. is there anything that we have not talked about today that is on your list that we should know about? >> i have two pieces. were you going to say something? >> dana was. >> he osha's going to piggyback on the conversation about the need for maurice's -- resources. often assigning of these voluntary resolution agreements there aren't enough ocr folks to go-round and monitor the ra's. i've heard from students where this same administrators on campus. where ocr has asked the school to do more consent programming but actually what that looks like on the ground is pie making

contest. >> literally playmaking comtesse? >> literally i have spoken to a student at university following the signing of a voluntary resolution agreement they were bringing people together but that's not getting at the real issue. so i think if you have more folks from ocr looking at the schools after the signing. >> a good point. >> there were two pieces in the question that you asked to make sure we don't leave anything left unsaid. the conversation about prevention and one of the things that we know is substance abuse or alcohol abuse which is so closely correlated to some of these instances that lead to incapacitation and we are really trying to figure out because again we are trying to teach culture so that prevention efforts. i mean there's a lot out there

and i know the white house task force mentions an effort to try to provide data. i go back if i'm making a recommendation to our president i want some evidence and demonstrated success of sustainability of those efforts. likewise around sustainability for training i have heard a number of different things today around different federal offices that provide resources on training. i don't know that there is one place to go to find all of those resources and if there is a place please let me know. i don't know where that is. i know you can find things looking in different places but you might miss something. if there are resources put forward at the federal level for training i would encouraged a training model because i don't know how people would be able to sustain it similar to what we think about in our institution. unless we can do this in the house at some point in time and

stand on our own 2 feet we won't have a sustainable change. i would hope that this same conversation is happening on a national level. >> the point that you raise about prevention and that comes back to title ix or the sexual assault prevention coordinator and it isn't necessarily only a dig schools because in the roundtables i have held i found that some of the schools that devoted the most attention and that most resources were the smaller schools as well. they devoted them not just to respond to hearing from survivors but to reaching out to and practically engaging in bystander intervention to stop this stuff from happening. it may well be that the hypothetical that senator mccaskill gave you the video being taken occurs but often there are people there who can

intervene and the programs that were started to change the culture i think are very important as well. there are resources for those programs not just for the prosecutorial end of it. >> i also think it's important to note that a good response is prevention. there was a recent study done where it was shown that if a school is setting a norm expulsion for acts of sexual violence it's a preventative measure and people are less likely to commit assault if they have that over their heads. obviously when you talk about larger cultural shifts that gives us two to four years out but even still being able to set that is the norm at the national level has repercussions in all sorts of ways.

>> up by the way is true i am sure but that comes back to the point that senator mccaskill was making about somebody who has committed a crime while respecting the need for confidentiality and i think some of the comments here have been very very important on the need for confidentiality. the reason to prosecute, one of the reasons is to deter. expulsion may be one of the remedies but when the crime occurs one of the reasons why prosecutors so vehement about going after it and vigorous is because deterrence is an important value. >> respectfully though i think as long as we have for 2% conviction rate in this country we are not string this crime. >> there's a different standard of evidence between higher education disciplinary proceedings. >> i believe beyond a reasonable

doubt that it's hard especially in consent cases but i don't know where the 2% figure comes from. i will tell you this. i handled hundreds of these cases myself personally. i guarantee you my conviction rate was much better than 2% and i handle a lot of cases. so i don't know what that is being judged from where the 2% figure is coming from but i guarantee you it's not accurate for professional prosecutors offices this train sex crime -- i don't know where the numbers coming from. >> is coming from a study called the justice gap. essentially where the 2% is coming from is the statistics are if you have 100 rapes committed 17 go to law enforcement and seven of those go to trust occasion or trial. three are convicted and two are incarcerated so it's 2%.

>> that's very different. >> sometimes is used in different ways but that's where the number comes from. >> your talking about 17 out of 100 ported. >> correct. >> and than 7%. >> go to trial. seven of the 17 that have come forward come to trial. i don't know if that's necessarily taken into it. >> we have got guilty pleas. >> i'm not sure. that's the answer to her that statistic is coming from. >> i think it's important prosecutors can't be criticized for not prosecuting cases that have never been reported. they can be criticized for not aggressively prosecuting cases in treating victims with respect when they do come forward but what we have got to do is provide the kind of structure around this issue where victims have every opportunity to make a decision, to decide for themselves what they want to do

and feel comfortable that they are going to have support, good information and adequate resources throughout the process. if we can do that then we are going to have a lot more than 17 that will be reported out of every 100 we will have a lot more convictions. the cases that are being reported i guarantee the conviction rate is higher than 2%. >> or victims being able to pursue justice on their own. >> one other thing i would add about prevention is clearly the right thing to do. it also can be the legally required thing to do because if a school has had an incident of sexual assault one of the things that title ix requires is that it take the necessary steps to ensure that does not recur. that means that they have to do structural things to identify

the source of the problem. if it is all called then they may need to have the greater law enforcement or campus security presence at places where alcoholic going to be present. they may need to mt. bystander intervention programs. they may need to work with their students or with the heads of greek life for others to discuss how to spot problems before they emerge and what to do about them. so i think it is a critical aim to do from the outset but it is also something that the university falls short it can add to its liability for subsequent incidents and that's something that i think can. >> frankly probably few universities even know that is part of the potential repertoire used against them in these cases.

we talked when they had the meeting earlier. part of the problem here is that i would doubt many universities may know something about the university of montana but probably more don't know about it then do. it is one of those problems, if we did for pension in response to your cases unless we figure out a way to get you four times as many lawyers immediately we are probably not going to -- that we really want to put in it >> that is where the climate survey can be helpful. also on an ongoing way as well. >> we talked about the climate survey the last roundtable. i would like to propose another idea and it was suggested when you are doing the phonecalls. financial aid has a web page for

all the financial aid officers in the country. they have a listserv. they shootout a weekly e-mail every saturday morning. there are electronic announcements, training calendar etc.. it's all on line for financial aid officers. could there not be something for title ix coordinator says while? they could have training components in another way to look at it is with a federal national emergency system. for someone to be a first responder they have to have a certification every year. title ix coordinators are often first responders so if there were educational components and modules that could be done. there is module 100, 200, 300 whatever for the federal national emergency system. but the participants due to be certified. is there something available for a title ix coordinator so to do

this well there isn't a single association for title ix coordinator's. there are lots of associations addressing it. >> i would add that there is in statute or program for technical assistance under title ix that hasn't been funded in several years. there is a vehicle to do this sort of thing or to get resources flowing in these programs. we could use them. i think your suggestions are spot on and we may want to write new ways to do it but we also aren't always taking advantage of the ways we are to have. >> the technology piece of this automates this communication piece. having a title ix webpage that bantered the university montana settlement and every piece of data now that going immediately to every title ix officer in the

country, that's a terrific idea. have to be careful we don't hire a contractor and spend a lot of money on it though. >> one thing that all of you are aware is the white house task force created a task force called model loan.gov which does contain some of these materials and i think will grow over time. so suggestions about useful things in tools that could be put on that web site would be very welcome. >> that's a great web site. i don't know if it will specifically fit the needs to the extent that we would like them to. >> i will piggyback on that. one of the things we are looking into is the forensic investigator training that is available and what we are learning is that it's inconsistent from what we are hearing across the country of what would be considered to be best in practice. the other thing that i need to

delve in more on friday as i've been looking at some of those training modules if we were to have a cadre of them is that there seems to be some disconnect and implementation to eventually train our own. i would be interested in delving into more about the forensic investigators and the competencies that are needed and when they are well-trained did they fall short? >> i will tell you that they do fall short sometimes even when they are well-trained. the training is the first key and the vast majority of professional law enforcement that gets the training does a great job with it. i will tell you that you are right the next roundtable will deal with this in terms of al qaeda training is law

enforcement base especially the forensic interview. that's the key the first interview that title mine coordinator has with the victim or whoever the university designates to have that victim how that interview was conducted is so important as to what happens. we know this from looking at a lot of a lot of statistics and in missouri one of the places that they are doing a masterful job of doing this kind of training for the military is at ft. hood. i am sure you could access their training down there. i'm sure they'd be happy to accommodate you. it just so happens i know about that because i'm busy trying to get all the military to access this training and i think that they would make every effort to accommodate training people that are not in the military and in fact they told me that when i visited them not even a month ago. >> something that has been on my

mind. senator blumenthal earlier in senator mccaskill as well were talking about the sanctions and intermediate sanctions against schools. how we could come up with a method of finding something that is effective. this idea of having a sliding scale. that is dependent on the endowment of the university how large it is and where that money goes. it could be towards these programs. i think you have a good point that oftentimes universities don't have the funds themselves or don't have that allocation to have all the resources available so perhaps having a sliding scale so perhaps going to the federal government and going to doj but also internally the allocation of money the allocation of resources to hiring a physician and things

like that. i think that's a way to make punishments not only a school that is out of compliance that are efficient and effective but also having feedback into positive things. >> anything else? >> yes, if i may. to give you an example of why title ix coordinators need as much help as possible i've been having having coordinator's call me from across the country. in my limited and with assistance tried to come up with a chart, a visual with the intersection of the dear colleague letter white house task force violence against women act section 304 for five and try to come up with how does this all work and what are we supposed to do for why? this is just an example of how we are attempting to get a

better understanding of this. >> we would like to have one of those for the record. and cathy if you could redraw that diagram in a way that would make more sense, we can change all of this to make it more seamless and integrated so there's not the conflicting and overlappioverlappi ng and that is one of the things we are trying to do here is to try to make it less complicated for the people on the frontlines. >> great. anybody else? >> suspend terrific. this is why i think roundtables are better. we wouldn't have have gotten one-eighth of this information at a hearing. >> i think it's been great. >> it's been really terrific. we have gotten a lot of good information a lot of good ideas. i think the more we do this the more we understand how important it is that we all communicate with each other.

stovepiping in this area is not ever going to work. we all have to talk to one another and we all have to be sharing what we know and what we know needs to be done. so please this is communication that will continue. feel free if you have other things that we need to know about or if you have questions we are going to be working on this for a while. we have one more roundtable and we will get the survey results out and we will be looking to draft legislation sometime late this month. i'm thinking we will jaw up legislation with an eye on getting it through the senate lickety-split right? >> fast-track. >> we will have a piece of legislation that we will begin working on within a few weeks and we want to make sure we don't over legislate and we address all the problems we need to address so thank you all for coming very much. i really appreciated.

>> thank you. [inaudible conversations] in april the supreme court ruled 5-4 that limits on individual contributions during an election

cycle is an unconstitutional violation of verse amendment free-speech rights. >> we are living very really dramatic period. mad. it is the beginning rather than the end. and there are real structural problems. i mean yes we are going to be living -- i mean i am not an

economic forecast but everything i've read suggest we will be living with an unusually high levels of unemployment, a lot of pain from over indebtedness. the quarter of the countries on food stamps eyes on tv. it's not a great depression. we are not repricing exactly what happened in the 30s but it's a version of that. >> rushes only member of parliament to vote against annexing crime area -- crimea talked about the russia ukraine conflict in u.s.-russian relations. from the heritage foundation this is an hour and 10 minutes.

>> good afternoon. welcome to the heritage foundation and the louis bearman auditorium. we welcome all to join us on these occasions on our heritage.org web site as well as those watching on c-span this morning. of course we will welcome questions at any time simply e-mailing us at speaker@heritage.org for any of those watching on line. hosting our discussion today is dr. ariel cohen senior research fellow on russian and eurasian studies and our institute for international studies. he has first-hand knowledge of the former soviet union and the middle east and is focused on such issues as economic development and political reform in the former soviet republic u.s. energy security the global war on terrorism and the

continuing conflict in the middle east. he has served as a consultant for the executive branch and the private sector on policy toward russia central and eastern europe the caucasus and central asia. he co-authored russian imperialism and crisis as well as eurasia and violence focusing on the eastern european region. please join me in welcoming dr. ariel cohen. [applause] >> thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. it is my particular pleasure to welcome ilya ponomarev to the heritage foundation. it is a pleasure because i always admire people who have courage to speak truth to power. it is not easy in any society. it is particularly not easy in today's russia.

ilya ponomarev could have a wonderful life in russia. he was the youngest president of the company back in the 90s at the age of 24. he worked for multinational oil services companies. he is extremely gifted as a youngster's 14-year-old he was teaching computers in the soviet nuclear physics institute to the old guys who didn't know at that time about pcs. so either a career of a conformist politician or a businessman would have saved him a lot of trouble. instead, he decided to take principled stances. he was the only one in the duma

who voted against the so-called propaganda law and most importantly he voted against it the annexation of the crimea. and that took a lot of courage. he worked in this country in high-tech. he has a background in investment and as i said already in oil and gas. he was a member of the duma for the just russia party and he is really a political start and any other democracy he would have been already a vice minister, a minister and a respected member of legislation. instead as he is going to tell us he is going is rough and is becoming rougher. so welcome and let's have a

meaningful conversation. [applause] >> so the first question i would like to ask you, what made you vote the only vote against annexation of the crimea? ..

whatever dreams we have about the union, about the projects, went down in ashes. we were always think about the issues of national security and were seeing that nato should never come to ukraine and ukraine should remain neutral. insure insure and that was pretty much supported byianan ukraine people in 2013, and ukraine indicated that from 15 to 17 percent were in favor of joining nato, others were against. now after our move, majority of ukraines want to be part of nato and that's also not beneficial for russia. thirdly, is the question of international investments and technological climates in my country. we have now became alienated

from the rest of the world, and even without -- like an open confrontation, which i'm skeptical about the sanctions on russia but it's clear the investment climate is significantly worse than it was just half a year before. the capital of -- from russia this year is estimated in between 150 billion and 200 billion usd. that means that every single citizen of russian federation pays more than $1,000 for annexation of crimea, and that is twice as much as we are investing in health care. this is seven times -- seven and a half times more than r & d -- >> per capita basis?

>> in absolute figures. the budget for health care in russia is 71, and capital, 150 plus. >> let me ask you this. the ideological and spiritual climate in russia that a lot of folks in the u.s. have a hard time following because of the language, because we're preoccupied with our domestic issues-obamacare, we're preoccupied with china -- >> good for you. >> but to focus on what is happening in russia socially, and ideological are you have to live there or spend a lot of time doing that, like myself, being taked to the russian facebook. it's a fast change from sort of

laissez-faire, soft authoritarian model we had in the past decade, and from the 2000 to 2004 and then again maybe under medvedev it was authoritarian but not particularly harsh as far as authoritarian model are concerned. ukraine is -- the change start to happen even before ukraine, with the ban on adoption of russian kids, with the ban on support of russian nonprofits by western fighters, the antigay propaganda law. so all kinds of things that the state is increasing its interference in people's lives. how does ukraine affect that and where is it all moving? where is it going? >> ariel, i think those

changes -- they're pretty much on the surface. the fundamentals, and the fundamentals are such that russia, and united states, is a nation which believes in its mission, and our missions are pretty similar. we believe in freedom. we believe in distributing our core values. and it was communist time when russians thought that those communist ideas are the life of freedom and liberation for our neighbors nation and for the rest of the world. and we -- >> the coalition with the united states. >> we believe that -- -- [inaudible] >> never heard of --

>> really, you know, official numbers, 28 million perished during world war ii, and that is something that is every single family in russia has suffered, every single family has, and with -- getting to ukraine today, what role is -- >> i'm getting there -- >> so there was the mission which suddenly disappeared in thousands but didn't go anywhere. it was still there, and the biggest national idea for russia during all those years was victory day. >> may 9th, not may 8th. >> because of the time difference. >> the european victory in world war ii. >> stalin made sure it won't we the same day as the europeans are celebrating.

okay. >> anyway, so that is our main national holiday and that's what's unites the whole nation, the fight, and -- against fascism and how it was presented to the nation by president putin is that in ukraine those are western sponsors who came to power, and he illustrated that with the flag of former ukrainian liberation army who were alive during world war 2, and he used that to prove that these are fascists who are fighting against both russian and ukrainian nation. so misinterpretation that we are looking just to protect russians or russian-speaking minorities. no. for the overwhelming majority of russians, we are continuing world war ii, and we are

liberating -- really liberating -- ukraine from the fascist threat, and more we're thinking about really creating the whole of europe because what is -- really liberating the whole of europe because what is europe, this gay people, these arabs would are destroying european civilization and christianity and putin is always referring to those values of christianity and our beliefs and our tradition, and whatever. so extremely conservative from the sense. so that's why he is in movements like french -- >> the head of national front. >> and other ultra right conservatives in many countries, and after recent elections to european parliament, they were in all russian media -- were presented as a huge success of

those rights. >> is there a paradox -- you have some family members who were specialists on different political moms in the outside world. so the soviet union, until about '87 or even '89 was a great supporter of communists and leftist movements all over the world. wrote my masters thesis about that. now only 25 plus years later, russia is viewed or putin is viewed as not just an ally but as a guiding light to the neofascist hungarian party, or to german national democratic party which is neonazi, and somehow they ukrainian ultra

nationalists are put aside and, by the way, the percentage of election of the president of ukraine is 10% whereas in france and hungary it's 20% or high are for these guys. so what is the swing of the pendulum from left to right? what's going on here? >> i think those extremes, they are getting pretty close to each other, and if you look on u.s. example, and our russia today, it's been admired by both tea party followers and "occupy wall street." >> you are not that familiar with tea party -- >> not that familiar, right. >> i will show you example -- >> with the exception except for a member of congress i cannot

think of anyone who admires. >> so it's actually pretty natural because putin, during last 20 years in general, of our officials, they're trying to capitalize on the soviet union, trying to flip from the idea of revolution and the leftist idea empire idea, and still extremely popular and still been seen by as the most successful leader of russian in all ages. >> stalin officially? >> there are a lot of stipulations on that but what i'm saying is about a national polls, that people who still support stalin and identify themselves. stalinists is 25% to 30% in all poll.

>> think positive of stalin. >> yes. >> despite the fact that research indicates that over 20 million -- >> 20 million is not accurate. doesn't matter. could be 100,000, still -- >> you're taking the civil war, the collectivization of agriculture, and the rerepression. >> my opinion is that stalin during soviet union times was always seen some driven on the leftist agenda. right now, is being seen as a great emperor, the great conqueror, and the beholder of the empire, and putin is trying to do his background from stalin, and trying to capitalize on that. >> do you remember when putin said, we were weak and the weak are beaten? that was a direct quote?

i want to move on to something that is close to your heart, innovation and foreign investment. you were lead on the skokol project that was brought to partial end, and i don't see anything that is replacing it as sort of a magnet for pushing forward russian high-tech, getting young entrepreneurs to develop their ideas. from what i read a lot of people emigrate, people who want to do business in their 20s or early 30s. what is going on with that? what are the impediments today to investment and entrepreneurship in russia. >> you know, there are two trend

in that community. one trend which is more visible, more vocal, and probably larger in quantity, is what they're saying is the trend to immigrate. several visible examples like russian mark zuckerberg, the founder of russian version of facebook, and as you might know, you know, that's what i like to boast with, facebook is number four russian social network, not even number two or number three. the fourth is facebook. so, our engineers are really great and the greatest of them was durov, and he said that he no longer wants to stay in russia because of the attacks on security people and particularly

from mr. -- who is trying to take over as a company. then our biggs i.t. company is now under big attack. our first and the biggest company, company ideas announced he is moving outside russia so there is a significant fleeing. >> flight. >> flight of this groups. from the other side, several of our developers were focused on domestic markets. they think that it would be bigger military procurement, higher demand for domestically developed technologies, and so that they would be getting more

money. my personal opinion is that the increase in domestic spending for new technologies would be not so significant as people expect. russia during recent 20 years of liberal reforms, new liberal reforms, lost its ability to produce a lot of high technology products, and relies heavily on importing them from the outside, and he store serial production of those things would be extremely difficult and lengthy. >> but i saw pushing mr. -- agosin is the vice rem year for military industrial -- he was pushing to shut down the gps stations on the russian territory, and i don't remember

if he threatened or actually made the move to curb the use of russian booster rockets the space station, at least there was the threat. are there any accomplishments like with maybe space launches? what are their accomplishments so far of this very statist approach to innovation and high-tech? >> you see i was always very vocal proponent of creating our own technologies, which would at least go with international peers and gradually replace them. >> as import substitution or global competition. >> global competition, and domestically to use our internal markets to boost the demand and to make money for our high-tech

companies, and glonost is a great example of such technology. >> do you believe without competition in russia from foreign competitors -- >> exactly my point. if you're shutting down the competition then you have no drive to increase your service, and to increase quality, and quality is not yet there. it's being gradually improving, but is not yet there. it has all the chances to become a global competitor with gps but we need to have like five years of stable work to achieve that. same thing with, say, our domestic payment systems. russia -- i was one of the programs that i was supervising was a transition to electronic services, government services, and --

>> egovernment? >> right, egovernment. like, e-government, and we wanted to develop our own visa type cards to pay for those sort of services, and that way sufficient market for them. but -- >> this is your work with ministry of communication. >> that is right. but at that time our ruling party voted against because they were affiliated with several banks which were against and easier to work with visa and mastercard. now because of the national security concerns they're trying to shut down visa and mastercard but there's no replacement so by shutting them down, just disrupt your payment services four your client -- >> the russians are still using the abicus. >> you're outdated. the penetration of trade cards

in russia is 82%. >> lea get back to your concerns as a legislator. in the legislative process, bringing back the issue of ukraine, too you think the russian legislative system, the russian system of government that according to my opinion that i wrote about and published as one of the first thingses i've done here at the heritage foundation in 1993 when russia was considering different constitutional drafts. i said that drafts that later became the russian constitution arestromly extremely centralizing and this is going to backfire, it's going to

create too much internalization of the executive branch and not enough balance of power of legislative and of the judiciary. do you see ukraine demonstrating that? if yes, also, what will be the solutions. >> i'm not supposed to argue about that at heritage foundation. >> it was in russian. >> but i really agree with what you have just said. i think that indeed our problems have started from the constitution of 1993. it was undemocratic, it was adopted in up -- undemocratic circumstances. the majority of russians didn't vote for the constitution, and on the public referendum which took part in december 1993, even according to official numbers,

it was very narrow margin of -- when the majority abstained. and that's really the fundmental problem for russian political and social and economic system. >> what other problems? >> the problem that the constitution was -- from the french constitution but the president was -- and it was artificially given more powers than to the french president. in french system, president is part of the executive branch, and in the russian system, president is above all three branches. so, the idea of checks and balances is -- in yeltsin's period of time that was at least

balanced by personality. if yeltsin had ideas about democracy but even with those ideas in 1996, the elections were -- how do you say polite lie -- very far from being -- and so i think that actually it was not mr. yeltsin but the leader of the communist party who has won that election, and i'm very much -- i very much believe in the idea that if at that time would be allowed to win and claim victory, being a very weak person by himself, that would be very healthier for the political system because that would create an example of transition -- >> democratic transition -- >> like happened, example, in

poland. >> knowing both issue don't think he is exactly a democrat. >> just pretty weak and he also has certain business groups which were begging him at the time and i think he would be bound by his obligations and not be able to change the system dramatically. of course there would be self setbacks but they were not so drastic has many people believed. >> does it say in russian history cannot suffer conditionality, so we don't mow what would happen but looking at the system today, could -- do you think it's working? tao do you think changes are needed and if so what kind of changes would better serve the russian society and the russian political life? >> that one of the biggest disputes in the ranks of russian

opposition about the role of constitution and the baltic constitutional reform, right now the majority of the opposition leaders lean towards deep and profound constitutional reform and transitioning from republic to par himry public and we have example are in pret medvedev that nothing happens if the company is without a president. so -- >> there was a president, de facto. >> it was a prime minister, he was a letter of parliamentary majority so that's exactly how it work. and the president was pretty weak. so i think that it is a proven example that it would be safe and that the country would not collapse. >> or you can have a constitutional monarchy like

some suggest. >> that's also very possible. very, very possible -- >> would you support that? >> i truly would, because i think that according to the russian tradition, we have such arch types in our fairy tales and the monarch is the person who judge, not the person who rules, and to have such ultimate judge at the top with not supposed to give any executive decision, but was supposed to be the ultimate ruler between -- in the conflict of different business and political groups. that, i think, is very -- >> we have that, too, it's called the supreme court. >> yes, yes, and that is -- we have this discussion before. i really think that the judicial

system should be the main system. should be the real spinal cord of the political system in russia. should not be neither executive nor legislation, it should be judicial system. >> okay. so, just to -- >> to finish, not everybody in the opposition shares this because 0 some of our colleagues, many of -- especially new liberal type positions, they -- >> can you give us an example? >> say, like, people like -- were part of the yeltsin -- they say, let's just restore the constitution. the constitution was good. just law enforcement. so let's just restore the constitution. >> part of the circle that pushed throw the yeltsin.

>> that's right. and other people, like our famous lover and the opposition leader, he says no, the system is good, that putin is bad. so -- >> it would be better. >> let me step in his position and i will identifying the corruption and the system will start working, which i don't believe. >> you said something very interesting you. said that the organizing narrative, the organizing myth of russia today is a identifying against fascism and naziism in world war ii in coalition with the west, i would stress, and everybody knows -- even school children who will learn -- >> don't tell me that. i know. >> i'm telling our audience, the c-span audience, that even the kids that will learn russian history from the unified history book that is publish orei