number of professors who spoke out and said this documentary which took a position strongly in favor of victims of and sexual assault that had a number of statements and misleading things. and the makers of the documentary had a statement which i think was published in "the harvard crimson" where they said the fact that these professors were speaking out against the truth and reliability of the movie created a hostile empire met. now a naïve person might think a hostile environment just means people are mad. the word hostile environment is like the nuclear option because those are the magic trigger words related to the arrest of law. if you can show that in your workplace or whereever there's a hostile environment and if you can show that in court and that could lead to damages for the

workplace or the university or whatever. the idea that people could say well you know and sexual assault are really bad but still we have to correct misstatements and we have to care about due process for accused parties. the idea that people can disagree on where to draw the line between helping victims and protecting due process rights and a debate about where to draw the line, university's are all about that sort of debate. the idea that people would turn to using the law to either ban or in this case severely this incentivize by means of damages judgment, that i think, that is antithetical to free speech and open expression of values and that is driven by, that is driven by legal developments and

driven by harassment law which even outside of universities is insubstantial contention with the first amendment. it's the sort of thing where it incurred just universities, especially private universities that can get away with it more easily, it encourages universities to take a cya attitude and for the sake of avoiding damages judgments just to adopt the least offensive to everybody's perspective. so i think the lawyer culture of really can potentially play a strong role in cutting down on speech much like workplace harassment law even outside of universities. if you are the sort of private employer who you don't really care if your employees around the water cooler tell jokes or put little beams or whatever

hanging around their workplace, you don't really care about that but now if somebody in your workplace can say hostile work environment all of a sudden batting courage is employers to adopt policies where they say no jokes, no self-expression the workplace and so on and that's very much driven by the need to protect yourself from damages judgments. one other thing is i agree with you and that you identified modern-day defenders of free speech on campus with on the one hand federalist society types and some libertarians and on the other hand strong bastions of the aclu. this is absolutely not a left-right issue. this is a liberal and classical liberal, liberal and classic

liberal issue so the liberal left and the liberal right and libertarians are very much the air's of the free speech open expression idea of the john stuart mill idea on liberty. on the other hand those parties that want to cut down on speech are both on the left and on the right and i would say the authoritarian left in the authoritarian right. not just on the grounds that would have been nice if we lived in a bubble and could not be offended because it makes us feel bad but i would say it's actually a militant view that critiques free speech on the grounds that it contributes to power imbalances, institutionalized racist and institutionalized sexism and actually sees open expression as an affirmative harm as the sort of thing that you can. about if you hang out on somewhere for example.

so that's an element of the last left that i think is incorrect even to call liberal. when we say we often have, we often casually call people on the right conservatives and people on the left liberals and conservative people on the right might be problematic in its own ways but for the purposes of what i'm saying calling people and left mr. -- liberals is extremely misleading because its eyes been divided among the liberal left and they answer liberal left and the anti-liberal left has included marxists another types of revolutionary communists and so on. their people and the social justice movement and who can be called liberal and who actually believe in rights including free speech but also combat injustices. there many people on the left in the social justice movement called anti-liberal and they

would agree that they reject the fundamental tenets of liberalism so the opponents of free speech on campuses are both the authoritarian right and the authoritarian left and the defenders are the liberal right and libertarians and the liberalist. it's absolutely not a left/right issue. the last thing i wanted to talk about his public versus private universities. this is something where as a libertarian i think a proper way of thinking about free speech on campuses is that government universities if indeed there are government universities but given there are government universities they are state actors and absolutely need to be subject to the first amendment and need to have the broadest possible free-speech protections. private universities are just private organizations and private organizations should be able to have whatever sort of

groups, should be able to have whatever suits of -- sorts of rules they like. there would be nothing morally wrong with that. he could just choose to have a university that says we affiliate with this particular religion and we exist as a space for people to talk about their religion within the parameters of the religion and if you are going to say their religion is false you have a right to do it but not on our property so we are not going to accept you or you will agree when except you if you do that we can kick you out. that's fine and from a nonreligious perspective you can imagine that there is a university that allies itself with the social justice movement or at the inn offensiveness move in and says we are faith-based for everything and you are entitled when you come here to be in a bubble where all of your ideas are merely reinforced or something. there's nothing morally wrong with that. that was sort of a silly example

but i think you could have the universities as we believe in free speech but it always has to be done in a way that affects people. think a lot of private universities do that, and i don't think there's anything morally wrong with that. i think the position of fire their position as public universities first amendment, you violate that we sue you. private universities you don't have to do that. and if you are upfront about it we are not going to touch you because you don't make any claim to be pro-free speech but to the extent that you claim that you support those ideas, to the extent that you announce on your web site and in your promotional materials that we signed onto the liberal idea of a university and so one you are trading on the value of open expression and in that case if you violate that by shutting down a group that wants to invite somebody who

speaks against affirmative action are against islam or whatever, if you shut these people down and thereby you violate the commitments that you yourself made, they can sue you but it's okay for us to shame you. it's appropriate to shame private universities insofar as they have committed themselves to that idea at a time but with the understanding that fire does not say anything bad about byu because byu is just not made any claims that it is in that universe. on the other hand amory does make a claim so it is superb. it. do you have any views on that? >> thank you for those excellent and thought revoking topics and just a very few points about that. i have a feeling given where we both start in our outlook that

her views on this would not be that they're their so i'm not surprised that they haven't been but it is important to keep in mind that there have been universities where speakers have been disinvited because they are views were deemed unpopular and these are people for example column this to george will was disinvited from talking at university because of the backlash that word of his imitation triggered and someone who is published in the "washington post" at the same publication. he can't be that bad i guess. i speak of them are is having a policy towards invited speakers and i believe the fire organizations recognizes that amorese policy is very strong and allowing speakers to come to campus without any of valuation of whether their views are popular or unpopular and the reason for amory so-called red light rating is other things

including caress my codes and things along those lines but of course people want to see what the reasons are. you can just look at the fire's web site and go to the amory page and the talk last -- a lawyer culture who in the way at least to me as a practicing attorney and that tends to be very disappointing and that is either an explanation or an excuse for why these anti-speech policies exist. you would hope that lawyers of all people would appreciate the fact that there is a value towards having free-speech and one of the things that you appreciate early and often as a practicing attorney is that while there might ease some correct answers as to legal

questions in law school when you are out there in the real world you might have a case that is 100% justified by existing law and there is no way that anyone with a straight face could argue against you but lo and behold the other side has a lawyer whose job it is to try to convince the judge that the judge should rule in favor of outside. part of the legal culture is due to the adversarial system at least in representing issues where there may not be necessarily any support in the law but you would hope that it wouldn't be lawyers who were technically responsible for suggesting and having the implementation of policies that are so risk-averse that students on campus aren't allowed to speak their minds with all of the negative consequences that flow from it.

>> actually even though amory has a red light from fire and i think you are right some of that might lead to sexual harassment stuff, but one place where i give them a lot of credit is just like one or two years ago, the university senate at amory i adopted a so-called respect for open expression policy and this policy is administered by a committee on open expression. i actually sit on that committee but i'm not here to speak his part of that committee. i am here just as me but you can. it. and marie respect for open expression policy and that policy on its face takes a very pro-free speech and open expression position.

emory university is committed to an environment where the open expression of ideas and open vigorous debate and speech are valued, promoted and encouraged. this policy reaffirms emory's commitment to the community that inspires and supports open expression and dissent and protest. the university is fundamental it committed to open an inquiry and vigorous despite -- discussion on which its multifaceted opinion depends. the next sentence has other step is civility and mutual respect our core values in our community. this is the sort of language where when you see that language you are going to say oh is like one of those private universities that say we agree with free-speech and we also agree with not offending anybody but know it says here civility and mutual respect their core values and our committee and we ask all members of the community to waive these carefully when

exercising their fundamental right to open expression which seems awesome to me. who disagrees with civility and mutual respect and i agree with civility and mutual respect that they don't say that trumps open expression. says please consider these when exercising your rights to open expression. i think a properly interpreted of course their ambiguities but when properly interpreted the amory open expression policy takes a very pro-free expression position. in particular there is language in the policy that in my reading and corporate free speech clause clause of the first amendment so even though a private university emory is not a state actor not bound by the first amendment that emory chooses to subject itself in this policy to the first first amendment and in fact was even further because the first amendment only protects you against state actor

so if we were at uga for example and if we had an event which was disrupted by an individual student, that student would not be a state or an wouldn't be violating the first amendment. on the other hand this policy applies to all members of the community which include student so if the student violates the open expression policy by disrupting the event tomorrow for a public university has to tolerate what goes on but they don't have any affirmative, and the applications of affirmative support for protests or dissent or unpopular views. this policy does commit amory to affirmative support obligations and there are other areas where they express a viewpoint and content neutrality for example no signs or displays can be disapproved because of the content and so on. so of course a lot depends on how this respect for open expression policy is administered over the coming years but i'm hopeful that with

a strong policy like this we can get our fire numbers and get into green light territory. i think, so i give emory university senate and the ministers huge credit for taking the effort to adopt a policy like this rather than just rolling over whenever some group makes demands and empowering an independent committee like the committee for open expression to have the kind of tunnel vision to interpret and apply that policy. ..

maybe that is the name of an organization affairs or just how they choose to call themselves, but they had a number of demands many of which are not related to open expression, minority representation in faculty, staff, students, psychological counseling or other things like that. there are a number of things that do seem to be in substantial tension with open expression values. they suggested a line item in teacher evaluations. did this teacher commit any micro aggressions? and also, it calls for limiting access to a particular social app called yet jack were people have posted comments. so now, that student activist saying something

does not mean the university is doing anything about it, and the university has, in fact, not rolled over, but there is a dialogue going on of course, we will have to see in the coming months or so what happens, but i am guardedly optimistic as to the extent there is merit in some of these demands which can be accommodated, but whenever the demands go against expression of free expressionalues which would be illegal under the first amendment in a public university recognize they also violate the open expression policy here which we have voluntarily accepted, and this policy says, there is language writing the overview that this policy is paramount to every other policy of the university. literally there is no other policy at the university that we can say

trumps this unless this policy itself as an exception, for example, the policy says you cannot violate federal standard local law, described property, etc. unless you follow than exception on the face of the policy is paramount. >> and without being antagonistic to my gracious host it will be important to see how that plays out in the future because it is still under consideration, those demands and how they would be addressed. and certainly the free-speech rights of protesters, equally arguing in favor of, and so i have no problem with that type of expression either. it is just where the result of it is to back on the free expression rights of others that i would give to become very serious. >> we are glad to take

questions from the audience. we'll microphone right here and there in the aisles. >> please come up to the microphone, if you don't mind. >> lawyer culture in your opinion. hindering free speech. in your opinion, is there sort of a shift when a college student leaves college very much still like the 40s or 50s, do you think that millennial's are very much like, well whatever whatever, we are not put in bubbles, sometimes deal with things that are unpleasant. do you think you will see a shift in the kind of backlash, this idea that,

well, maybe it is not so bad >> i think that -- my honest answer is it is too soon to predict what affects the current viewpoints will have. as your question itself correctly assumes, some people may go right into areas of business culture where free expression, again, is tightly regulated as a result of the type of work that they do, and so those people may never appreciate the rights they should have enjoying as aa result of not having been exposed to them earlier in life are going to the college experience. as a grizzled veteran it is easy to talk about how when i was in college at columbia in the early to mid- 1980s

kamal there was regular student demonstrations and people walking in the doors of buildings to try to advocate in favor of divesting for companies that i do have operations are investments in south africa and perhaps some of that pressure ultimately led to the downfall of the racist government in south africa. i am not an expert in history, but i think certainly the college experience is so much different from what has been characterized as the liberal arts experience of the future where you are exposed to these ideas and the professors need to be worried about offending students based upon ideas that generations before had been exposed to or warning that somehow today this class might upset you. i was thinking of saying, in

my prepared remarks, you often here that the reason the first amendment comes 1st is because it makes it the most important, and second amendment defenders also like the fact that it is in the top two. soon thereafter that falls apart. the 3rd most important. >> the original proposed bill of rights was 12. the 1st two, one of them was the 27th amendment about compensation of legislators and the other one is the maximum or minimum number. so what we know of is the first amendment came 3rd. >> but my most direct answer possible to your question is i am not confident that having gone through the experience in a graduating from it when you went to the real world will suffice to

make people appreciate the value. >> exposure. necessary for democracy. >> that is what i am concerned about, yes. >> a little bit of concern, maybe not too much. the idea that the overall ideological requirement on campuses has been very much toward the left. that is something that is been the case for a long time. i was in college between 8993, and it was like that. i do not know when it started but it has been the case for a long time. and there is always a concern that the kids are learning these bad things, go out into the workforce and implement that stuff.

has that been happening? the academy has been so far to the left, the median of the us, and it looks like the median of the us, has that been trending right? so in any event the united states which i would describe as a central right country is very much out of line with what is taught, so it looks like as much as the social justice people want to think, we have to indoctrinate these kids and people like us say they are indoctrinate and the kids, not much happens because you guys all have agencies. number two, you may already have been indoctrinated by the time you got here. so i am concerned about this not so much because i am afraid the first amendment will become diluted or something.

if anythingif anything the first amendment has become more awesome over the last couple of decades, greater protection from campaign speech, commercial speech, protection for the westboro baptist church, how much more offensive can you get. so i am concerned not so much that these ideas will come in and affect the law but more that these ideas are bad for the college experience, just even if the world ended after college. that for the college experience itself to have an attitude. >> i had a question about organizations in the situation where freedom of association and speech kind of clash. we don't typically hold

private organizations to the same standards. but for universities that hold themselves out as best use of free speech and reneged when it comes to offensive speech, even though they are private, other ways of getting ahead, things like you held yourself out as one thing for actually misrepresenting. something like receiving federal money triggers title ix compliance and requirements for private schools that except a lot of federal money on certain types of grants or aids, and in twyman issue where they might be expected to expand federal money for state money not to abridge certain

federally guaranteed loans. >> i can speak to the 1st part of that. the organization itself suggests perhaps that more conservative students that favor more robust free-speech policies put themselves in these speech codes to demonstrate the absurdity of them perhaps and say they are being offended by some of the liberal expressions that don't seem to extend and thereby point out the fact that the prohibition of these types of speech in either direction is just strong to do. and again, you know, perhaps this is to professor pose much credit, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 -year-olds, people who

direct all his attention to themselves as a free-speech proponent, you have to have a lot of self-confidence and certainty and what you wish to accomplish. a very young age. i remember being in philadelphia in the early to mid- 1990s. you may recall, university of pennsylvania student of israeli origin was studying in his dorm room one night and i wasi was allowed group of female african-american sorority students walking by making a lot of noise, so he was upset and yelled out an epitaph toward them that brought him up on charges of racial insensitivity when it was like calling them water buffalo. arguing that water buffalo

from asia, so that is not even a voracious to death. not that we should always believe wikipedia, but so brought the student up on charges and hired lawyers and refused to consent to having a mark of his record. thanks to president lbj and the elements. and i was researching and saw that there are professors, sociology.

people who are coming right place, difficult to figure out a strategy. the students, very much to the credit. >> i don't know about suing a private universities. probably most private universities don't take such a strong -- maybe hypothetically. absolute free-speech, the absolute contrary. that is clearly contrary. a lot of you to have universities try to play both sides. you can never definitively prove they violated something.

you know, it could be given a strong enough conviction, i don't see that as being the most promising. now, as far as suggesting that the mapi universities so much in the way of federal funds, to constitutional and our constrains imam inclined to say probably know. even if -- well, and the districts in massachusetts the basically they would send their students to the school and the private schools, so basically it's

made like 90 percent or 95 percent of its money by giving students a public education that they were entitled to them except that is private,private, and the government is paying. they are nonstate actors and are not subject constitutional constraints even if hypothetically he made all of your money by government contracts, imagine a subway sandwich store,, 100 percent of the money was by catering legislative events. i think probably merely taking funds the matter how many or how big percentages of the budget would not make you subject, but much depends on to what extent does the government try to micromanage. the private university was

adopting some kind of speech code under the very strong strong-arming of the department of education or whatever, you know, maybe there could be some leeway within the state action doctrine, but i think that's probably not the case. also, my gut instinct is probably shaming is the best way. >> just one more comment, the availability of funds for universities and robust first amendment policies. then perhaps the federal government could at least not fund universities that don't offer those types of policies. the federal office of civil rights may be responsible for some of the more restrictive speech codes of the universities have implemented but i think it

was the amendment involving access to military recruiting on campus where schools were essentially, private schools that receive lots of federal money they had to let those recruiters on campus. and one thing i wanted to mention fact made my point about liberals on the left and right supporting free-speech, the federalist society has conservatives and libertarians in many areas where there is a wide diversity of opinion, but probably one thing you could say with high certainty, federal society affiliated people will be a probably not obama voters. but credit where credit is due. president obama has taken a position on a couple of occasions in favor of robust

free-speech on campus. it is good know at least one person in the administration is taking a good view on that. >> from what i understand. >> z just don't buy the connection?

so again, we just don't buy it at all for the situations do not -- >> i think that may involve something you just said earlier. the problem in this area in general is that you have certainly recognize exceptions to freedom of speech such as obscenity in the fighting words doctrine. i may have misread this, but the shouting fire in a crowded theater might have been a opinion. >> only falsely. truthfully is probably praiseworthy. >> the problem is that the fighting words doctrine is in reality a narrow exception. something that somebody else's makes the listener

upset. that is not what it means. >> i think what is important , i do not think anything we are saying involves and nine sexism or racism in the speech can be aa part of that. what if they were speakers on campus that take the position in highly publicized talks at the place of women is in the home and women ought to be having babies and should not be working in positions of responsibility and moreover hillary clinton should not be elected president because it is an appropriate. that is one possibility, and i think that the existence

is probably part of institutional sexism man that kind of talk encourages institutional sexism and so that might entrench institutional sexism. similarly, if you have people who argue that black people are either genetically inferior or that other sorts of biological differences, that goes to gender. if you argue against affirmative action more in favor of segregation, i think that the existence of those views would be part of institutionalized racism.

in the same if you want to argue against gay marriage or homosexuality for the idea that a trans woman is not really a woman, and you can say that that encourages views toward gay people a trans people that are contrary to the full acceptance. so i think that nothing that we say involves denying that those things exist. i just assert that all of those are absolutely protected, that there can be absolutely no -- government is completely prohibited from taking action against them and moreover universities like emery which adopt first amendment values and their open expression policies, i

think, are required to allow this to happen and not to do anything -- not to do anything to discourage them and because of the need to have open expression, open debate, content and viewpoint neutrality regardless of the effects. >> i am curious as to redress when we find a situation where people have been restricted to free-speech zones on campuses. it seems to me that in an undergraduate university when i was involved in young americans for liberty they felt as if we were targeted and told to be restricted to free-speech zone for a advertising for an event we had upcoming and other organizations had not been restricted for events of theirs and advertising for theirs, and during this we

were also fined for putting up signs and treated in an unfair manner because some of the signs posted at fallen down and left of the weekend commander turned out that the young americans for liberty was the only organization we knew of that had been fined for leaving signs up for the weekend. and the 1st thing that everyone seems like they want to do, that is the chairman of the organization. we have to do what he says. we have to advertise our event maybe off-campus or something like that. and luckily i was there and was the voice of reason to say hell yes. they are being infringed upon.

worked to have mishandled and more of the due process like manner before we actually had a fine imposed upon us and had been restricted. so my question is, how do we turn this tied of constricting of the free-speech rights and limiting of any kind of due process when those rights are infringed upon, had a return that tied moving forward? >> a public or private university? >> a public university. >> my understanding is that has had good success in challenging the idea of free-speech zones at public universities, and that they have been successful in having that type of restriction struck down. of course most of these decisions are from individual us district courts.

i know the us district court for the jurisdiction of ann arbor at the university of michigan case and at the same time the us supreme court has never really taken on the question yet of campus free-speech rights, but to my understanding, most federal district judges from these cases of come with regard to public universities of found restricting free speech on a public university is unconstitutional. even in one case involving campus preacher, he went on to google maps and took a look at where the location was compared to everything else because the attorneys have done a horrible job of making a good record, and he loves his own internet research. that is a topic for another conversation. >> i think the supreme court has some precedent that is

more or less on point. the rosenberger case that universities cannot discriminate against religious groups in terms of having newspapers and things like that, but i think most of the cases involving specifically speech codes and just in that area have been mostly at the district court level ten am not 100 percent sure. as to the broader question of faith meant this thing from happening, lawsuits and shame, lawsuits and shame. >> yes. >> as a follow-up question, if your speech is restricted how do you get out there and get that shame out as you say to the community and let everyone know, this is not our small organizations problem, but this is a societal issue, fundamental rights issue.

>> fortunately we have blogs now. three things. >> the ability to get a message out to the public exists an unrestricted way that was never available to people many years ago. that does not mean everything you post online will be ever seen by anyone. but at the same time when people are too worried are not worried enough i agree that by contacting the organization and speaking out in ways that are not necessarily limited to the physical campus are possible ways. there are cases coming up through the system including one of the fifth circuit where college student had a rap music song previews critical of the gym teacher for sexually harassing

female students in the m banks that he was properly disciplined a very strong dissents. >> on the other hand, secondary school has a lower constitution. >> absolutely. that case is now up on a petition to the us supreme court. noteworthy among other reasons because some music artists had filed amicus briefs and apparently don't weigh in on too many us supreme court cases. but back when we were in school we barely even had computers. i did not have e-mail -- email did not make it bake big until the year after i graduated. it was harder to get shamed for one university nationwide. >> any other questions?

all right. well, do you have any concluding comments? >> thank you for coming out for the talk and appreciate the good questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> my pleasure. thank you. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> massachusetts governor charlie bateman -- charlie baker delivered the commencement address. he told the students to step outside their comfort zones after graduating and that the importance of failing. >> so, one of the things

that was most interesting to me about this chance to be here today, i did not know that my friend of the telling you how much was thought of me, but i can tell you, you did not get what she thinks of me because i have heard that before. i am pleased she stuck to the script. but here it talks about the fact that it was founded in 1815. that is a really long time ago. it was so i ago that james madison was president of the united states. james madison was one of the founders of this nation, true constitutional scholar, but most importantly of all one of the founders, believe it or not, the democratic republican party. when you think about the world we live in today

consider the 200 years ago we actually had a democratic republican party. you would never know that basin the politics we all live with in today's day and age. at that.in time in 1815 there were 22 states, 22 states. one of the things i want to say to all the folks who are behind me to represent the leadership and all those who came before them, congratulations. 200 years, 200 years the school has found a way to adapt, adjust, change, and stay relevant to the young people and to the families of massachusetts and this nation. that, my friends, is an extraordinary achievement and one that should be honored and recognized every single year.

[applause] [applause] i want to thank you all for the chance to be here today and congratulate all of the graduates. while we honor you today and recognize your accomplishments, i hope you know that the journey, the path you took, wherevertook, wherever it lead you, to get to this point today is what matters. two confessions, i have been to three of my own graduations, high school college, business school. ..

[applause] >> i recognize the bar here is high so i will start with something simple. be constructive, positive and try to focus on what works and not what doesn't. i had a meeting a community act actvi -- activist and he told me all about stuff that wasn't working in the community. i put the pen down and said tell me something that is working in your community. he could not tell me anything. we had an awkward moment of silence and i finally broke the silence by saying you have lived

there for a long time, you must be able to tell me about something that is working. he couldn't do it. to this day, it remain remains strangest meetings i have had. it is easy to let the stuff that doesn't work weigh you down. family, friends, social life, social media, presidential politicsment but sometimes the force disappears through the trees. force yourselves to see beyond them. the fact you are here today means you have to ability when you chose to do so to see the forest. you should never forget that. it is a choice. i am not saying ignorance is bliss or anyone should go

through life blind to the challenges and hardships we endure, but i am saying the choice belongs to you. when i ran for governor the first time in 2010, i lost to the former governor patrick. that hurt. no doubt about it. i got a phone call to reconsider. a young man called me and said he was organizing a boston location of a national robotic competition that would take place a few weeks later at the aryana at boston university. he was calling to see if i would speak to the teams participating that would cake off in the morning. i thought it about it. i said sure. then i said what do you want me to talk about?

i just lost on election. he paused and said i want you to talk about why it is okay to fail. and my first thought was you are so lucky you not standing right in front of me. the more i thought about it i thought it was a -- okay to fail. most of the folks that succeed in anything that matters failed at some point along the way. lincoln lost far more elections than he won. jk rawling to introduced millions to harry potter, the story of good and evil, had more than a few wrong turns on her way to call hero status. but we live in a time where we

tend to over simplify every story and make it fit into a defined narrative, usually 140 characters or less. it a point in time when live is messier. the twist and turns teach us the things we never knew about life, our jobs, our friends, and ourselves give us a chance to grow in one of two directions. you can embrace the change and learn from your mistakes and grow up or miss that chance and grow old usually before your time. my wife, who i kissed good bye at 7 o'clock, who i kissed good bye at 7 o'clock on mother's day.

she is the most positive person i know and lights up every room when she is in. as a result, she helped raise three kids who can see the bright side of anything. i marvel at their optimism and their drive to improve, overcome and succeed. i watched them fight through troubled waters, shake off disappoints and challenge themselves in a way that makes me proud. they are comfortable with being uncomfortable and i cherish that. i would urge you all to take chances, smart chances, and recognize that if you never get outside your comfort zone you will never get to where you truly want to be.

since this is mother's day, i will tell a story about my mom and dad. i never met two kinder people. they would hear us out, but had no time for self pity and raised us to play the cards, whatever the grace. teb years ago my mom was diagnosed with alzheimer's and i had a chance to watch my parents practice what they preach. alzheimer's is a very cruel disease. many people have said when someone gets alzheimer's you see them die twice. once as a result of the illness and what it takes from them and ultimately when they finally pass away. over time, years usually, it

robs you of your memory, awareness, and the capacity to make decisions. the essence of who you are. because it doesn't happen all at once, you fade and out of periods of being lucid. you know what is going on but you are powerless to do anything about it. when my mom faded in, she would never complain and tell us how much she appreciated the special moments and kids, how much she loved her time with her dad, and how embarrassed she was about her inability to do the things she used to do with ease. then she would fade out. the time she was with us got shorter and the time she wasn't expanded. my dad never complained. he always said she took care of

us and now we take care of here and he was glad to do it. eventually she needed round-the-clock care and they moved into a continuing care community where mom lived on the nursing home and my dad in an independent living apartment on the other side. he visits her every day. with their grace, love, dignity and optimism my parents showed me -- i practice this. i thought i would be able to get through it. [applause] >> with their grace, love, dig nity and opti mism they showed me late in life they would play

the hand even when the cards were cruel and unrelenting. remember where i started, be constructive, be positive and focus on what works. there a million cliches that say the same thing. my favorite adversity doesn't build character it reveals it. i am sure many of you have not heard the tennis legend arthur ash. ash was the first african-american selected to play on the us cup team and the only black man to win the title at wimbledon, the u.s. open, and the australian open. three of the big four that make up the grand slam incentives. he was a great man. he suffered a heart attack in

the 1980's and before anybody knew much about hiv he contracted hiv from a blood transfusion. he became a very public spokesman about living with hiv and the importance of cleaning up the blood supply at a point in time when very few people were willing to discuss this issue. he never complained or blamed anyone but he died in 1993, before most of you were born, at the ripe old age of 50. after he died, he received and deserved the presidential medal of freedom. ash had a very simple saying about life. start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can. pretty good words to live by from a man who embodied that graceful, forward looking

purposeful approach to his own life. you start as graduates of a historic institution. make the most of what you have got. be constructive, be positive, and focus on what works. god bless, good luck, go bisons. and do your job. thank you. [applause] >> fbi director delivereded the commencement address to university of richmond law graduates.

>> thank you. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. it is an honor and a thrill to be back here in a community i love at a school that made such a difference in lie life and still feels like home. i am talk to these people over here because i want to offer one reflection and then a piece about public service and i will get out of your way. let me start with the piece of advice. when i think about the successful people i have known, whether it was lawyers, physicians, business leaders, or government leaders, a call in attribute is judgment. judgment is different than intelligence. intelligence is fairly common. judgment is rare. intelligence is the ability to solve a riddle, master an equation and nail a set of facts. lats lots of people can do that.

judgment is the ability to circle that answer and see it through the eyes of others, to move the answer in place and time to try to see how it might be seen a year from congress, five years from now in a newspaper editorial. judgment is the ability to say what something means. when you are graphing something, very intelligent people can master a data set and show you on answer on the graph. judgment says that is what it says let me tell you what it means. where does this ability to orbit a situation and see it through the eyes of others come from? i think mostly from the way you were raised, screwing up and doing things to tick people off and remembering that is how people see and experience that. it is mostly a gift to you and it is nurtured along the way.

now, think about what you just did for the last few years. i know it is early. maybe a little raw right now. think about what you practiced doing for three years. you practiced, with the help of these great people, taking a situation and moving it in your mind. asking yourself and being asked in a very demanding way how would that be different in this place or that place? how would it be different if we change the facts? how different if we change the consumptions? by the way, what are your assumptions? believe it or not you are being drilled in the practice of judgment and take a solution and see it at different perspectives, move it around and experience it through the eyes of another. that is an extroidinarily valuable gift to you. it requires, as your student speaker said, a measure of

humility because it is difficult to escape the traps that are each of us. i can only experience the world through the experience of an awkward 6-8 white person from a metropolitan area. almost no one else experiences the world the same way i do so how do i get in their heads to see it the way they do so i can be a better leader, lawyer, husband. being intentional about fostering my about to ask myself how could it be seen differently. you spent three years practicing that. it will not shock you to know there are people who have gotten out of law school and not demonstrated great judgment in the rest of their lives. you have to stay after it. how do you o you do you do that? i have two slightly weird pieces of advice. the first is sleep. sleep is not a failing. i always knew it was really

important and now i have all kinds of science to support me. when you are sleeping your brain is engaging in a neural ballet and laying down judgments in your head while you sleep. sleep. my second slightly weird piece of advice is you have to keep a life. one thing that nurtures and protects judgment is physical distance from whatever is dominating your life. in most of your cases that will be work. you have to step away from the work. i don't know if that is ki kickboxing or dancing or whatnot but you must keep doing it. it allows you to see it from different perspectives. get away from the work. as you do that you have to love somebody and i hope this world is full of people called loved

ones because you are supposed to love them. there is a danger, especially in the life of a lawyer, and it the idea i have this important matter and i will get back to fill in the blank -- my mother, father, girlfriend, boyfriend, sibling, friend. doesn't matter. i will get back to that while i do this. one of the challenges of my job is i see a lot of bad things every day. there is no getting back. you will turn and not be there. i have five children. i have experienced an extroidinary array of loved ones because they change each other -- extraordinary. they change each year as they get older. there is no experience in the world like feeling and hearing the pounding of a 2-year-old's foot steps as you come in the door at the end of the day. be there for that. there is no getting back to

that. it requires a fight to maintain that sort of health in your life. the get back-itis will be overwhelming. fight for that balance. nurture judgment by sleeping and loving someone and sometimes they go together in appropriate circumstances and that is fine. i believe the fbi director just said something like that so i am going to move on. judgment is the attribute of successful people. iq is a cover charge. that is my piece of advice from my career. now let me make a pitch for government service. i left government service twice and both times it left a hole in my heart. it took me a while to figure out what was going on. it happened when we moved from new york to richmond in 1993. i was a federal prosecutor in new york and i wanted to be a

federal prosecutor in richmond but there was a hiring fee which got in the way of that transition. i went to a great law firm with great people and they gave me matching furniture which i had not had yet. i had drapes that matched the furniture, i had a parking space, they paid me well, interesting issues, colleagues i liked but something was missing and it was my amazing wife who noticed. she said what is wrong with you, something she says in lots of different contrasts. we have a five bed room colonial we made 52,000 for and live in this amazing community and the kids love it it. what is wrong with you? and i said i think i miss getting up in the morning and being a part of trying to do something good, i miss work with

moral content as obnoxius as is sounds. three years later, i took john douglas' job at the u.s. attorneys office. i wasn't as smart, funny or good looking but i had the job and back in public service and i was a very happy person. once you have done service work, doing something about you and money it is addictive. the challenge of being a successful lawyer is things that are prestige and money draw you in a different direction. public service work is hard on the credit card and hard to do for an entire career.

here is what i worry. einstein urged young people try not to be people of success but people of value. you will have missed something. austine said human honor is smoke with no wait. there is a danger when you get to the end of life and realize you accumulated the smoke of success but nothing of value. i will close with this uplifting message. occasionally you need to do something weird and close your eyes and imagine yourself at the end of your life. told you this wouldn't be uplifting. i hope you are old and gray and i so hope i am old and gray at that point. close your eyes, be old and gray, look back and ask this question who do i want to have been been? who do i want to have been? if you ask it that way, the

smoke is cleared, the things that get in the way when you only live live forward, houses, cars, money, human honor, the next big thing, all of that stuff is stripped away. at the end of your life who cares about that stuff. what matters in a real sense will come into view. everybody answer is different. my answer is i want to have been somebody who was a great husband, father and friend. i want to my children, their children and god willing their children. i want to know i took time to do things for people that needed me. i hope you will work hard to take this amazing education where you have been taught judgment, exposed to the world and important issues and the challenges so many people in our communities and country face, i hope you will take the time to answer that question now and let it guide the way you live your life. be people of value.

i hope at the end of this life you are people that look back and say i did something i love. i was part of something that meant a great deal to me. and i hope you remember this education began what i hope will be a remarkable and fulfilling journey. you are very, very lucky. congratulations. >> today marks 30 years of gavel -- >> washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up friday morning, daniel stein, president of the federation for american immigration reform, will be on to discuss u.s. immigration policy and the impact on the community and security. and andy maloney, an opportunity for 9/11 families talks about approving the justice against against terrorism act. countries found to be involved

in terrorist acts committed on u.s. soil would lose their right to sovereign immunity to protect them from lawsuits. and acting chief of u.s. customs and border patrol will discus the role of the border patrol and stopping illegal immigration. be sure to watch washington journal beginning live friday morning at 7 a.m. eastern time. >> today marks 30 years of gavel to gavel coverage. on c-span we are bringing you a special program featuring videos from the first televised show. that is starting now over on c-span.