everyone should want to own several pieces of real estate and i don't think there should be any conflict at all, if you're not mentioning your, who but being yourself. that will hold you in good stead. and that's why people say, be careful what you say on your personal page and i always do that. i do that. wouldn't want anyone to look back -- i don't want my children to look back for one thing but also if i serve on public company boards and want to continue doing that. i don't want some public company's ceo looking at my facebook saying i've done something that has embarrassed their brand, and if that oneoff your guiding principles -- whatever you put online sent going to embarrass yourself or your future business partners, then i would say -- but i would just offer something --

>> one last suggestion. a number of my friends on capitol hill do is you carve out the real estate differently online. and they will limit facebook only to family and college friends, neighbors, and they don't speak politics on the space. it's family. it's the relationship building side of life. and twitter is maybe more message-sending and linkedin is more of your brand kind of presentation side. your professional brand. so you might think about -- i would encourage you -- think about what each one of these media, each one of this areas is going to be -- who is going to be populating that for you? is it a space where you're going to communicate with everyone or this is a very personal space. and you're only going do be communicating with family and friends and it's only about family and friendships.

that allows you to put the politics aside, and i think there are some people on capitol hill that need some space where there is no politics and they're not talking about it. so think about saving a space just for you. another question? in the back and then come back down to the front. >> i recently graduated from wake forest a month ago. had a quick question. i have got an lot of advice, interning at heritage so we have had advice from former staffer deciding whether you want to be a generalist versus specialist, jennies is someone who goes on the hill to work on everything from ag, defense, health care. i wondered, do you think you have to make a decision on that? so as women who heave been in different careers should you have to decide whether to focus on one area and good for that if you have high aspirations in the

that field or still be well-versed from educational reform to defense? >> i have to confess, i'm a little bit biased. i'm a big learning by doing person because -- getting back to what beth was saying about taking risks -- really depends. if you want to be a brain surgeon you have to go specialize but a lot of careers have been made by being open to new opportunities and learning by doing. i have never started a foundation before so i went around and interviewed people who had and i started a foundation to help low income families, and so you can't let what you don't know stop you from doing something. think in this town, have to say, sometimes it's not as open as it should be. to that sort of ideal. learning by doing. in the business world you look at people like richard branson who is always starting something new 0, sarah blakey who started spanks and has never done that before.

i think that curiosity should be something that you -- even if you decide to be a specialist in one area, even if you are a specialist, five years or ten years and you say i'm tired of this and want to do something new, more power to you. >> i think it always correlates to the jobs, a lot of times. there will be opportunities. when i went to a very small law firm there were two associates. who worked on whatever came in the door you didn't specialize. i had a larger law firm there is i think increasing expectation that you will decide to -- what your portfolio is going to be and develop the expertise, and in the law today things are so granular and so specific and you need to develop that but you should never stop learning, and i went to the university of chicago so goes without saying i'm the biggest nerd in this room. i embrace and it love it and love learning. so when i decided i wasn't learning enough and i wasn't challenging myself enough, i was

living in chicago, i was riding the bus, i was like, i'm going read a biography of a president, and i did. so that's what did in my free time. what i did to challenge myself. you learn things globally, or it could be as simple as i'm going to read whatever newspaper it is cover to cover. i'm going read the science section which i don't normally read, of whatever, but keep your mind open, take your free time to continue educating yourself so that if you do want to change what you're doing, then you still have the skills and you have the basic level of awareness of what is happening in whatever field it might be. there might be also a path where you find what it is you love or that is your calling. i just turned 40 and it took me until 40 to figure out i don't particularly like litigating. i did it for 15 years itch don't love it. the things you're supposed to love about it i don't. that was long journey and not

the expected path. i love national security policy. that gets me out of bed in the morning. so having the opportunity to do that daily, which i now do, but it took me until i was 40 to figure that out and i've done everything under the sun in terms of policy projects, from when first got out of law school to here. >> i think it depends on what your objective is. if your objective is to change policy, if your objective is -- education policy, want to push for school choice, whatever it is, when it comes to policy, i have found that whoever knows the most in a room wins the argument. every time. and if you don't know the most they're going to outnegotiate you and going to crush you, and that is true among ideological allies even. and certainly when you're not among ideological allies. so i think that i've always

tried to -- i want to know the program i'm seeking to reform better than any other hill staffer because who you're really up against are people running that issue in the administration. so know their program as well as they do or know to ask the right questions, and second, opposite you have that policy niche, then there's a procedural and technical savvy. that's transferable. but you can't ever learn all the procedural tricks from drafting a bill, moving a bill, negotiating a bill, moving it through the floor and through conference, implementing the program. you can't get experience if you work first the policy. whose job it was to do all those things through the steps. then once you have done that a few times you get promoted. managers are all generalists. you get promoted, i manage all the policy areas, but because i always start off with that healthcare, i demand to still

meddle in certain areas, i still want to own because i love it and i figured out my passion and i love that stuff. so, once you get into a little bit more juice in the office, you can make demands what issues you want to keep your niche in, but you have to go through the process in order to learn it enough to supervise others, and so i wouldn't worry so much about being a generalist or being a specialist. everyone has to be a specialist in what they're doing today. so, become an expert in what you're doing now. and then that will lead to the next thing, which may be a generalist or another special specialist job. >> that translates well to business as well because what katy was describing was product development. if you're developing a product, and it has so many steps along the way, my idea to completion, so many things along the way that influence that but if you're expert at your piece of that. that will hoped you in -- hold you in goodstead.

>> we have time for one last question. come right down here. >> i'm from the university of south florida. my question caters to all career paths, especially for millenials, trying to get a job because it's not easy. in regard to informational interviewing or just getting a cup of coffee, what is the best way to reach out in order to get the attention of a concern you've need to make it seem like you are worth their time? >> if you have one degree of separation, that's the easiest way to do it. if you don't, then find the connection, whether it's uva alum, really do take the time to craft an e-mail. i can't -- i get the ones that really seem to think i owe them something. i don't. i will meet with anyone. i'll do these panels. i think it's important. the ones respond to are the ones that make it clear from the

e-mail why they came to me. that's part of it. maybe it's just ego or whatever, but did they know someone who knew me? do they have an interest that is aligned with mine? do they have an alumni connection? whatever the connection might be. and then being flexible about you coming to them and you going on their schedule and not being an imposition. people want to do it if they can find the time. but if there's any whiff of entitlement in there, i'm going to roll my eyes, possibly for the most egregious was a guy who asked me if i could just put in a quick e-mail my thoughts on all of the judges that maybe he thought i should be applying to. not only that but i may not even return your e-mail at that point. coffee maybe off the table. so think about it. your expectations and your ask

modest, make clear why you're asking me in particular, and if it works into it, what you heap to gain about the coffee or conversation. i'd like to know a little bit more how you got into national security policy or whatever it might be. and proofread it. >> i would say for me me squeaky wheel gets the grease. so if iing know you the first time it's a test to see if it's actually important. >> depends on if you had a typo. >> if there's a typo, it's over. but if i don't respond right away, and you e-mail me again, e-mail me again, then that will get a response out of me. harass me. get the response. doesn't work with everyone. >> it does irritate some people. >> once you have caught my attention, any interest, the first thing i do is i check all your social media. >> oh, love it. i love it.

i will say the one thing that gets my attention that will get followup is folks who have taken the time to read about me already. i've got a lot of material out there. especially on my -- i publish articles for linkedin but do any blog, pocket mentor.com and also if there's specifics and here's something. if you can develop skill in this area, it will help you so much. a few weeks ago i was on a penal wimbledon entrepreneurs pitching to win a financial prize. the father of one of -- of the person who won the pitch e-mailed me and said i just had coffee. he didn't say anything. so i didn't know why are you linked -- do you want an invest gloriure daughter's company, want to know how i help move companies? i do you know how many questions like this i guess and you're old enough to know better. he is the ceo of his own company.

so i thought, even this far into his career, i haven't even responded to it yet i was like, weeks ago because i'm thinking, this is going to tame time for me to say, are you interested in board -- and all that, whereas if you were to e-mail me and say i saw you did this, i have two questions i would like to ask you. that helped me know how i can help you. don't make me do the work. be specific and help me help you. >> that's terrific. that's a great note to end on. i'd like you al to join me in thanking the panelists. a great afternoon of advice. thank you all. [applause] >> i think we'll have a quick break before the next panel -- the next panel is ready to thanks again.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> what on earth? [laughter] >> i put this on airplane mode and it came out -- literally never had that before. well, this is the point where i put everything -- i'm sorry. never had that happen before. [inaudible conversations] >> hi, everyone. i am megan keenan and i'm a writer and editor for politics.com and if you heart

heard of red alert it's a web site for news and opinion for young conservatives and written by young conservatives. we're a public of the washington examiner, the weekly standard, and we focus all our reporting on next generation issues. we also take articles and editorial contributions from young journalists, college students, activists and young professionals across the country. some of the topics that our contributors frequently submit involve the politically correct campus -- and how often students are reluctant to express their conservative views in the classroom. the rise of trigger warnings. microaggressions and students convening convening convening in safe spaces has led many, even including president obama, to criticize the coddling of college students. another topic we report on every

day is student loan debt. they average college graduate today owes almost $30,000 in student loan debt. the millenial generation, which i the largest living generation, are struggling to pay back the loans and often put off making adult decisions and purchases like buying cars and homes until they are financially independent. these trends are likely to have long-term economic consequences if we're unable to get the situation under control. so with all that said i look forward to hearing from the panelists about how our colleges and universities often fail our younger generation and what steps can be taken to address the situation. i'm going read their buy yesterday. first lindsey burk. she researches and write's federal and state education issues, at the will skillman at the heritage foundation. dote votes time and research into two critical areas of

education policy. reducing federal intervention in education and empowering families with education choice. her commentary research and op-eds have appeared in various newspapers and magazines she has spoken on education reform issues across the country and internationally. she has appeared on numerous radio and television shows and published evaluations of school choice programs and options for public policy foundations, such as the virginia institute for public policy and the freedman foundation for educational choice. she holds a bachelors dein degree and a mast over teaching degree from the university of virginia and studying education policy. and next we have sterling beard. sterling is campus reforms editor in chief. prior to joining campus reform he spent time as an editorial associate for national review online and a staff writer at the hill where the served as the

intercollegiate study institutes fellow. he regularly appears on fox news, fox business, news magazines and other outlets to provide analysis for current events and content. and finally, we have katherine, director of litigation. galt -- had a career as a foreign service officers in budapest, munich and moscow before and after the fall of the berlin wall gave hear deep appreciation of the power of speech. she served on the sixth circuit court of appeals before starting work as an associate at johnson llc. then she joined the appellate group the department of justice. she joined fire as robert h. jackson legal fellow in october 2013 and took over the day-to-day management of what is now the stand up for free speech led gages project. -- litigation project.

she lives outside washington, dc with her husband and son and her daughter recently graduated from school. >> thank you, megan. so, the title of our panel today is "trigger warnings, safe spaces and college debt: how colleges are failing america." pretty big topic. want to start, how did we get to the point where we even have a conversation about safe spaces and universities? i think there are few things at play. you'll hear more about from both sterling and katherine about the climate and how we got to that point and i think how academia at large is responsible but i want to start with two other issues that i think are often perhaps not attributed to the climate we see today. the first is this open spigot of federal subsidies that flow universities today. the second -- this might be a

little comfort and dumb apply to nip is in woman but the fact that maybe college students have too much free time on their hands. on the first point, this idea that we have an open spigot of federal student aid, we spend $238 billion annually. just city federal level. on federal student loans and grants and tax deductions, to finance higher education. $238 billion annually. in federal funding. 33 billion of that is the federal pehl grant program and pehl grants are grants so they don't have to be repaid but are geared toward students from low income families and that $33 billion pehl grant program has to its historically been targeted to low income students put in 2007 changes to the law meant that we have actually seen the number of recipients of pehl

grants double. the federal government also now manages and originates 93% of all student loans in the country. 93% of all student loans. so, for all intents and purposes we do not have a private lending market in the u.s. anymore. what does it mean if the federal government is managing and originating 393% of student loans? when students default on lones, which happens, the taxpayers are on the hook for picking up the costs. and by the way, the federal reserve bank of new york put out a paper a few months ago and they found in their analysis that for every one dollar that subsidized loans increase that the cost of tuition increases 63 cents. so there are real consequences to this continual increase in federal subsidies subsidies andn decision tuition increases -- if you're getting a pehl grant or student loan that benefit is concentrated to the recipient.

but when tuition increases those increases are spread across everyone at the university. even if a student is not a recipient of that aid they feel the increases in tuition. so you see this tremendous increase in federal subsidies. one of our colleagues talks about how the federal government basically just shovels money out of airplanes at colleges and universities. significant spending on higher education from the federal level. so what it the outcome of this? have we seen college price goes down? you know, no. we have not seen college costs reduced whatsoever. since 1980, tuition fees at public and private universities have grown at least twice as fast as the rate of inflation, and as you just heard, average student loan debt now is $30,000 per student, and of course that's the average. you often hear stories how it's

far greater than that for many students. and of course without obtaining a job in a solid economy that actually merits you having gone to college and obtaining that very expensive degree in the first place it can mean not being able to afford to buy a home, buy a car. hey hear about people putting off marriage because of their student loan debt. and when you take all of that together, we now know that college loans make about $1.3 trillion in overall outstanding debt in the country. that's more than credit card debt combined. this is significant debt issue and as i mentioned with the federal government, managing and originating 39% of those loans, a big percent of that $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, when got bees default is picked up by taxpayers across the country. so, there's that issue. costs, subsidies. but i want to go quickly through

what impact of this ever-increasing subsidies race has created. so, first, what we have seen is that really easy access to federal student aid loans and grants has led to some administrative bloat, not some but a good amount of administrative float higher education you'll hear more about that later. just a couple of points on that. there was a study that came out from the goldwater institute, a think tank in arizona that found ben 1993 and 2007 the number of full-time administrators per 100 students in america's universities grew by 39% from '93 to '07 and while the numbers of employees who are actually engaged in teaching and instruction, faculty, grew by 18%. over the same time period. so, significant increases have been nonteaching administrative staff over the time period. notably that same study also found that in 2007, it took 13.1

more employees to educate the same number of students. a lot of that is driven by nonteaching administrative staff increases. the reality is that american universities today are made up of less than half of their employees being faculty teach -- teaching faculty and staff. the second, another impact of the federal subsidies race, is that students are incurring debt in order to finance what i see as a facilities arms race. so beyond just paying for teaching staff, we now see universities have some pretty long-facilities. you hear about lazy rivers at universities all the time. it gets better. one midwest university, we'll leave names out -- but they spent $21 million to build a new gym that, quote, includes an elevated trashing for running, jogging, and a 22-person hot tub. pretty nice.

college rank looks at universities that have the nicest, most plush facilities in the country and found one school in the south, where students can, quote, enjoy some of the best competition pools in the united states, diving while hot tub, sauna, steam pool, sore connection, lazy river and waterful and if they're not enough' excitement at the tiger grotto you can make your pay through the pond, a campus beach club, a perfect place to relax in the sun while listening to music and socializing. federal large jess is -- largest is driving the arms race. and it is financing questionable research. no small thing. you might think that facilities -- i think when you consider some of the questionable research that taxpayer dollars are turning at universities you'll probably hear' a.

built more about this -- itself should get your ire up. a paper came out this year, an academic paper published in a journal, and i think it won the award fomost ridiculous -- really we should say research paper with air quotes, but it was entitled "places center and science: a feminist glaisology fromme walk for global and environmental -- anybody else heard of this? a feminist -- the paper emerges, quote, feminist post colonial science studies and feminist political ecology. the framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and dynamics social ecological systems thereby leading to more human interactions. it's not satire. this is -- sounds like it would

be satire but you expect research to look like at some universities but this is a paper published this year. not on that it was published with taxpayer dollars through a grant from the national signs foundation. so facilities arms race, questionable research, and the last thing i point out, this ever-increasing flow of federal subsidies to universities has, i would argue, also kind of disincentivized students from working are parttime. so, that's current system is not working. i argue neither are a lot of college students working. if you look at data that just came out from the bureau of labor statistics we know from something called the american century say how college students spend every hour of their day. ...

for your average full-time college student. and, of course, there are going to be students, elite institutions and students all over the country that work more than that. full-time college students actually spend less time engaged in educational activity, class and studying than high school students do. so i think one can make the argument that there's probably opportunity for college students to do more work. couple points, our higher education system is not working well for students. it's expensive and significant costs to taxpayers. the six-year garage ways -- graduation rate is 60%. the four-year graduation rate

stands at 40%. that's abysmally low figure, yet all universities that receive federal funds which 99.9% of the universities do are accredited. he found 514 red flag universities across the country where students have a greater chance of defaulting of their student loans than graduating. all 514 of those schools are accredited by the national student committee. essentially an arm of the federal government. they have all the federal as institutions of quality. if you go there you're more to default in student loan debt than to actually graduating from school. what's the answer to this?

a few quickly, it's actually limiting federal subsidies, not continually them year after year , come back into the market. by the way, a robust market of private lenders will be a far better arbitrator. all of those things can actually getting you a better interest rates than a uniform rate from the federal government can. so allow a private lending market to come back into play and maybe even have college students do a little part time work from time to time to pay for their undergraduate careers. so i will stop there and turn it over. >> all right. as i was introduced, editor and chief of campusreform.org which is a project of the leadership institute which is the oldest

conservative grass-roots training in the country. founded in 1979, still around today and trained over one hundred thousand activists, conservative and libertarians. i'm willing to bet that the vast majority of you, i see this young lady over here smiling, you have probably some form of experience in liberal bias, whether textbooks or your peers' attitudes. to give you some example, this is what we see literally every single day at campusreform.org. a young lady by the name of ivonne bailey, wrote stories for us, wrote news that became viral very quickly about theater

board, i believe it was canceling the production of vaginaa monolgues. also ferguson protest where white students were encouraged of not participating, did a great job for us, created national news, the amount of hatred she got from the woman was disgusting. i'm sure many of you heard yick-yack. they did everything from calling her racist, homophobic, every

single liberal insult that you can imagine they threw out at her. they took shots at her personal appearance. as a matter of fact one student even tried to bring her on the alleged honor code violation which only went away, thankfully after intervention from fire, so happens i believe you sent a legal demand letter demanding that they drop the charge against her and thankfully they did. her story does have a happy ending. she end up transferring to the university of new hampshire but she's a legislative representative in new hampshire's house of representatives at the age of 19. so she's done quite well for herself. but, you know, she's far from the only one. another student out on the other side of the country a student by the name of jacob out of the university of southern california, which to your surprise is actually a private university despite its name.

he had to deal with em -- impeachment effort and students did not like the fact that he was talking campus reform. they didn't like the fact that he was letting us know about things that was going on in his campus so they attempted to impeach him. it got so bad out there, as a matter of fact, that a student wrote an editorial in the paper asking other -- asking senators not to impeach ellenhorn, campus being unwholly liberal and incredibly bias. but that's the sort of thing that we deal with every single day. and that's not the only thing, we have dealt with stories about textbooks, president ronald reagan was a sexist to saw women's fear being domestic and never appointed women to position of authority.

we see stories like this all over the country. i mean, if you name a university, there's a pretty good chance we have done story about them. some are pretty bad offenders. even at the university of new hampshire where she ended up going, they for a brief time had a bias-free language guide on the university website and after we reported on it, it was not policy but warning against using terms like american because using the term american to describe something was offensive because apparently ignored the realities that there's north and south america and central america and this was an act of people's of canada or everywhere else. but that's the sort of thing we see every day and it's kind of sick situation that you have because so many colleges put emphasis on social justice and

advancing progressive and liberal priorities that they're not teaching to learn anymore. so that's the problem that we see just every single day. and i guess that kind of wraps it up for my presentation. i will hand it over to you, ma'am. >> thank you so much. my name is katherine, i i work for the foundation otherwise known as fire. we work to protect free speech right in campus campuses as well as due process as well. i have worked with some of you in helping get your schoolses back on track, should we say. one of the things that fire is most concerned about are speech codes.

obviously university do not have a place in their student handbook that says this is the censorship part. here we are going to list everything that you can't do. instead they have rules that appear to be neutral but, in fact, really have a negative effect on your right to express yourself. the most notorious is the free speech zone. it has nothing to do with free speech. these are tiny areas of campus where students are qurarantine so say whatever it is that you're passionate about. the most notorious case we had was of modesto junior college in

california, what he wanted to do is hand out copies of the constitution on constitution day. he lasted about ten minutes before a security guard came up to him and told him that he could not do this because he was not in the free speech zone. and he needed to go sign up for that. so somebody with literally the first amendment in his hands sort of saying, but it says here that i can speak freely in this open area and the security says that's just the constitution but what i have backing me up are school rules, so get with the program. he came to us and we actually filed, well, supported him in filing a lawsuit and not surprisingly the school backed

down, changed the policy and got to pay attorneys' fees and damages as well so that was very satisfying. [laughter] >> but the problem with the administrative float is that administrators have to do something all day and what they do is write these rules and not only does that affect your ability to express yourself and to tell other people what you're passionate about, but it also sends a message to the entire campus that censorship is okay and that dealing with difficult ideas, dealing with things you don't want to hear that an acceptable way to get around that is to insist that the person with a different point of

view be quiet and i think there is a strong connection between that and the other phenomena that we are seeing, so, for instance, the idea of a safe space. now, safe spaces make perfect sense. i think new is probably a safe space for you when you're a minority as a conservative woman on a college campus, it probably is very empowering to get together with fellow conservatives and discuss, you know, policy and your life on campus. that's freedom of the association, that is something that is very important to society. the problem is when groups of students try and impose the rules and more their safe space on everybody else and so we at

fire that a safe space is an important shield. college can be overwhelming particularly the first couple of years, you want to find your peace and a safe space, if you want to call it that, is a great way of doing that. but it cannot be a sword, you cannot take your views of the world and try and enforce them on other people and announce that the people that disagree with you are somehow dangerous or making you feel insecure and therefore they should be silenced. trigger warnings also sort of can go both ways. a trigger warning that is offered by a professor for

reasons make perfect sense. there is some material out there that students should be able to prepare themselves to see. i remember many years ago watching the film about growing up in post war germany and in that film they had raw footing of the liberation of schmitz. would it have been nice to be have be warned? yes. maybe that's what the teacher was after. but that was her decision. when trigger warnings become a problem is when students come and say i don't want to confront

-- so i don't want to confront sexism, i don't want to confront racism, so tell me when it's coming so that i know when to skip class or i know to ask for an alternative assignment, and that frankly guts the purpose of the university. the purpose of a university is to go and be challenged, to confront ideas that you haven't heard before, that you might think are disturbing, but to do it, if i may, in a safe space of the classroom with your peers and with a professor who knows the material and has training on how to teach it. so -- and the other problem with mandatory trigger warning is that it has a terrible effect on academic freedom because then it is telling a professor, this is

the way you have to teach the material, not the way you think would be most effective from a petegojical point of view but we as administrators or we as students think it's best for you to do it. and so that, i think, is also deeply disturbing, so trigger warnings at the discretion of the professor, sure, why not? trigger warnings as some sort of mandatory, no. is many of you come across it, as far as i know no university has adopted a trigger warning policy, but, please if you ever hear about it, if it happens at your school, we are at www.thefire.org and we would love to hear about that or any

other time that your voice is stifled. we are nonpartisan. what your passionate about is for you to decide and we are here to make sure that your voice is heard loud and clear. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much to all of our panelists and now i just want to open it up for any questions from you guys, so if anybody has questions, please raise your hand and we have a microphone coming around here. >> hi, i i'm emily hall and a member of new chapter at harvard, i wonder if any of you have any advice for people who are not conservative but profree speech to getting involved with

new. >> you don't pitch it in ideological terms. here is the idea, you know, free speech -- you said, harvard, correct? okay, you pitch it to them, harvard has produced supreme court justices, its produced members of congress, it has produced presidents, and here is the cause free speech is dying and then you hook them up with say free speech because free speech ideally should be be nonpartisan issue. if you can find somebody that's intellectually open enough to say, yeah, you know what, i really like the idea of free speech, disagreeing with what you have to say but defending to death the right to say it, then i would say you would start to

bring them into, well, here is more of a conservative world view, here is what conservatives believe about x, y and z and maybe your group has -- is there anyone from yale in the audience today? >> i don't know if i qualify. [laughter] >> i was going to say let's beat up on yale. to give you an example yale a while back, i believe it was last fall, i believe who did it, but went to yale and had a petition, they would go around and on hidden camera ask students to sign this petition to repeal the first amendment, which, you know, this is yale, it has produced, again, presidents, supreme court justices, members of congress, fine attorneys who actually understand the first amendment, but they were actually petitioning away their right to petition. so that's the kind of danger that a lot of the students have right now.

if you can hook a lot of students in on a nonpartisan position being free speech or something else, get them in the door and then make more the conservative pitch after ward. >> the truly bipartisan issue to sensor people. we see that on college campuses all of the time. we have worked with students, a young woman in texas who was -- texas of all places was told she needed special permission to talk about guns and that she probably couldn't get it. this was when there was legislation on concealed carry pending on the texas legislature. we also do battle on several campuses with schools that do not want to let the national organization for the reform of marijuana laws have a pot lease

on their t-shirts, apparently civilization as we know it if normal is allowed to use that in order to indicate that they believe passionately in the legalization of marijuana. so that i think when you're reaching out to other groups, the chances are that they have bumped into the same kind of bureaucratic walls that you have and so there's a a rapport right there. and so getting together and sponsoring some kind of discussion, you know, with college democrats or whoever it happens to be, can really, you know, do wonders for opening up a dialogue because part of the

problem is that everybody is in their safe space trying to make everybody else's safe space and not talking to each other. >> hi, i'm nicole from washington university which is a really small, very, very conservative school in virginia, and i was wondering how you think about allowing freedom of speech even within a conservative campus that shuts it down? >> so washington and lee administrators -- can you give me an example? >> at washington and lee we recently had stir going on and a lot of times the administration would shut down any dialogue either conservative or liberal because they're afraid of starting some thing and over

half of the campus, about 87% identify as republican and they're afraid of our school being labeled as a conservative school even though the administration has put out a washington and lee is republican campaign. [laughter] >> so they're sort of going against their own campaign there. my question is how do you allow for the freedom of speech even within the conservative movement that may be trying to limit it? >> i'm guessing that what the administrators are doing is they are concerned about their tax exempt status and they're worried that partisan political discourse will somehow jeopardize that. that is nonsense and we see this all of the time particularly in election years where administrators want to keep

things quiet on campus so they're like we love to let you table for bernie sanders, we love to let you hand out flyers for donald trump, but we just can't. nobody and more importantly no one at the irs thinks that students speak for the university. so student political speech is, you know, it is the fundamental first amendment right when you're on a public college campus so that if they're shutting down that kind of speech, i would contact fire and we on our website have a guide to speech in a political campaign year. you can download that and hand

it to them, now i'm off to table for whoever it is you want to table and if you still have problems, we will support you in your effort to get them to see the light because, i mean, as i said particularly in an election year there is i can barely think of anything that's closer to the core of the first amendment than expressing your political believes of who should be president. >> if i could just piggyback off of that real quick, there are quite a few schools out there that have secondary conservative papers that kind of challenge the prevailing narrative. usually you wouldn't see them in a place like w&l because the university is overwhelmingly conservative already but object to high student fees or, you know, even nonideological abuses

by the administration. and if you really we wanted to get the people out there, maybe you start the paper, you call up the general lee and put the car with the dukes of hazard on it just to see how many administrators' heads you make explode. [laughter] >> the last thing that they want to do is get the press in a buzz about them attempt to go shut down freedom of the press. the press in my opinion tends to try to care of its own very strongly. you might want to look into doing something like that as well. >> hi, my name is amanda and i'm with accuracy and median, you've been speaking with a lot of issues that many college students can relate to and many in this audience might be ready

to vote for what might be their first election. which of the candidates are most qualified to meet the needs of college students specially among us today? [laughter] >> 5013 status. >> same here, we are nonpartisan. >> same with us. i will talk about policy for a second. so any promises that are made, i think, in terms you'll hear -- and it is not unique to this year, we hear it year after year, we hear it from many folks that having either free community college or, you know, eliminating student debt, these are issues that we hear year of year and recurring themes. i mention that because i think it's something to keep in mind because we do hear it across the board, unfortunately, which is pretty incredible that we can

forget student loan debt and any time that happens it is creating an environment in which we are far more likely to continue to inflate college costs. not only that, if you think about proposals for a free community college which i think is a good example of the things we are hearing, i think about it in terms of really expanding our system. we remove a lot of the impetus from the high schools to actually prepare students sometimes when they know there's free community college ahead, two additional years of high school that are out there for students. i think issues like free community college, issues like forgiving student loan debt which, again, we hear all of the time are only going to continue to exacerbate the costs and when you hear student loan debt, t not free, that comes from the backs of someone and that someone ends up being the three quarters of american taxpayers who don't college degrees

themselves. so it's a terribly inequitable way. i know that didn't answer your question at all but i would just take an opportunity to throw extra policy of student lending out there because it's a big issue and we do hear a lot about it. >> so when i was a student, i graduated last year, i found that specially when you're in international affairs, foreign policy and that is your major, you write things that you know are not going to upset your professor because at the end of the semester he or she are going to grade you. you don't want to hit a subject where you know for a fact that you're not going to see eye to eye and you don't want to get into a conversation, for example, why do you guys -- what's your stake on this? i believe it has a huge impact

where academia is going to the future and it's very biased. >> sure, it's one of those situations, obviously, where -- you know, i have an entire website that i work at that does nothing but cover that kind of thing and i guaranty you we don't catch 5% of it because often times it's self-censorship, as you said, you find yourself writing things that you disagree or you know aren't really true so you can get out of the class, get your a and hopefully move one step closer to your degree. it's an unfortunate time of that we have that kind of environment in some of the classrooms. we had a story out of campus reform where we caught professors on tape on video in their classrooms absolutely

berating the class. a creative writing class, mind you, in the middle of class started ranting about the upcoming lectses that fall. you know, if republicans win this fall, we are going to live in a very different country because they fear people with knowledge and you young people are going to have knowledge so we are going to start seeing universities being closed down because the republicans would have gained power and this went on for like five minutes. we ran the story, i believe it ended up at fox news that night. within 24 hours the -- this was at eastern connecticut state university. the head of the republican party in connecticut stood up during a legislative session, used a point of order that allowed members to respond to personal attacks, called out the professor and got innovation from the fellow legislators

including democrats and if a few hours after that the university said, well, you know, he can run his class how he want but we disenvow his words and the professor came say i let the politics get the better of me and i shouldn't have said these things. we have multiple stories like that. there was a professor who forbade students from thanking god because it didn't want it to become a religious rerival meeting. eastern carolina, oh, no, they are going to think for or any other they want to. send us an e-mail any time you run into that sort of thing. as for a solution writing things that your professor would not like, you can choose to bite the bullet and do that and you may end up with a story specially if the professor retaliates, in order to correct that kind of environment i think it's going

to take a lot more than regrettably a single story would be able to do. i think that's something that systemic with american higher education. >> i agree. i think willing able to push back and if for some reason you get a bad grade that was clearly not merited, i think being willing to go back to the professor, you know, can we walk-through this and show me what it was that i did wrong and trying to figure out if there's actually there that merited a lower grade or cause to push back on it. i know it's a huge bold step to take -- >> and you never know. i had provessors that i disagreed with. you may be surprised. >> hi, my name is tonie and

recent graduate of cedar hill university, a small private school. i just want to know your thoughts about private school should handle free speech. should students be able to keep first amendment rights on those campuses? >> it depends upon what the college says. basically private colleges, they're not bound by the first amendment but they also can't do abait and switch and most of the private colleges have the gorgeous websites with pictures of, you know, leafy trees and happy students sitting under them reading books and talk about how come to our college, explore new ideas, you know, new vistas will open up to you in

terms of field of study and if they have that kind of language, if they make the promise of free speech and free expression, then they've got to stick to it. there are some states under -- under state law it is considered contractual obligation because they offer you free speech and by enrolling you accept that offer. not all states add here to that, but there's certainly a morale obligation for a school particularly a school that's taking a lot of your money to honor its promises. now, because of freedom of association, because it's a private institution, it has the right to set its own rules, so if you go to liberty university and they tell you you can't have a pro-choice rally, then you're

out of luck because they make it very clear that they have other values. so the morale of the story is, you know, read that website very carefully, know what's in it and then hold the school, the administrators accountable for what they promised. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> hi, my name is rebecca malone and i go to america university and one big theme that's resinated in our campus this past year is that students feel entitled to trigger warnings and safe spaces and that microaggressions perpetuate white supremacy has basically been the theme.

so what would you say to these people who kind of self-identify as social justice warriors and what -- how would you suggest that we counter this rhetoric and promote more freedom of speech on our campus? >> i would say the best way to kind of counter or create alternative narrative is counter that directly. i think it sounds like au is in need of one of those. here is the thing, you have to call it for what it is. taking what used to be called social fopase and implying racial or sexual to people misspeaking. they want to create alternative

reality which they can do if they just believe hard enough that, you know, they can do something -- they can create a space where nothing bad is said, nothing mean is said. these are people who are using their own emotions to try to silence other's freedom of speech and the only way you can combat that is by calling it out for the censorship of what it is . [laughter] >> but that's all you can really do is actually go out and say this is nonsense, this is foolishness. this is not how the real world works. >> yeah, i mean, microaggressions are a little trickier. i think they are in some ways a real thing, i know my father was stateless, he was born morsal, came to the country after the war. this was the first country that

offered him citizenship. this is the first place that said, okay, we'll take you, you belong. for the rest of his life people came up to him and asked him where are you from, and they were trying to be friendly, he spoke with an accent, he was obviously not born in buffalo, new york and what he heard was you don't belong, and to his dying day, he -- people would ask him that question when he in his final illness the hospice nurse came and asked him that question and i will never forget the look in his eyes of devastation because he was never going to belong. so when somebody starts talking

about micro aggressions i think ask them what they mean, ask them why they think where are you from is a micro aggression, why is america a melting pot, a micro aggression, if you probe a little more deeply into what they're trying to say, you may have a very meaningful discussion because this is a problem of what they say and what you hear. it's worth a try, would be my advice, but at the end of the day, obviously you have a right -- i mean, a university is there for the exchange of ideas and that person's ideas are no more valid than yours.

>> okay, i think that's about all we have time for today, but thank you guys so much for your questions and thank you to all of our panelists for having this discussion. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> so katie joins fox news channel in 2013 and currently serves as rotating panelist as in and out numbered providing political analysts and commentary across fox daytime. in addition to role at fox news she's news editorial for town hall.com and to town hall magazine and the award-winning author of "the new york times" best seller fast and furious. as a shorter she discovered a range of topics including white house scandal, the 2012 presidential election, the second amendment and border issues. she graduated with a ba in broadcast journalism from the university of arizona and is a national review washington

fellow. [applause] >> i would like to say a special thank you to katie pavlet who has been part of the organization for a few years now. she came to the conference seven years ago now as a student so was in the same position as all of you. she came to the conference eager to learn more, she was interning at the time at town hall and ending up writing a story about the conference. as we have heard from our panelists today she took the time to work really hard, write allot of articles, she interned in washington, d.c. and really worked hard and worked her way up to as we heard from emma in her introduction, she's now fox news contributor and great writer and we are thrilled to have her here. i'm pleased to bring here katie,

a friend to the organization of new, thank you, katie. plaus plus. >> hello, everybody. i hope you brought your questions or else i will call on you like professors in class and we don't want that. i want to start today by talking about my experience with new. so she's back. she was here last year and i want to give karen a bunch of praise for her to grow the organization that she started as a book club in 2004 into what it is now, truly is an accomplishment. there are a lot of organizations in washington, d.c. and a lot of women organizations that get built up and don't necessarily grow up to what kara has given to you all today. on that note, new wouldn't be without all of the young activists and the women and not

only to start a chapter but being able to standing up to the status quo of campuses and show people and peers that they have an opinion, it matters and that they're not alone in their opinion, new offers a safe space for young women on campus that happen to be conservative and reject pro-choice and hookup culture. that's what new is all about. it's about intellectual engagement and even talking about differences and opinions that we might have on the conservative side. of course, there's been differences between libertarian conservatives and we welcome everybody to that conversation. i was here seven years ago at one of the first -- if it wasn't the first conference and we were downstairs in a tiny little room with just a conference cable. we had speakers come in and talk to us and look at what we had today.

you're here, this is has been a successful conference since we started and the retreat as i here which i hear is happening in july has double the attendance that it did last year so we are just growing and we appreciate all of the students on campus that are doing what they can to be more inclusive and more diverse and offer different avenues and things like that. so i came to washington, d.c. since 2010. it's been a very busy time. i always talk about working in dc is like working in dog years. one feels like seven. you know, i have some experience working professional at this point, not a whole lot but i often get questions and visit college campuses about women like you, how do i do an internship, how do i gain mentor, what should i be doing

with my spare time, that's why i wanted to come here today and answer one of the questions you have about coming to the big city, which is, of course, most important powerful cities not only in the country but in the world, so i will start taking your question if you have a few. in the front here. right here. >> hi, thank you so much for being here today. my name is ella and my question is, as a successful woman in journalism and the public eye, how did you gain the confidence and expertise to effectively speak on controversial issues? >> well, i think i certainly gained the confidence through my mother. [laughter] >> she definitely, you know, did not raise me in a way that was meek. i have a lot of strong women in my family and owe it to her for the example. also really understanding being

confident in my own ideas and beliefs really gave me the courage to speak out. i started my activism on my college campus. i actually did a radio show every single, local radio show and we talked about for an hour all of the things that were going on around campus. so that also gave me confidence because there were people outside of campus who weren't students that were willing to give me a chance to share what i disagreed with in terms of what was happening. in terms of being a professional women, you have to do your job and prepared for what you're dealing with. and in terms of being an expert, you know, i'm in the media so i would say that there's a lot of people including myself probably sometimes that think they are experts of some things that they are not but i think always being prepared and doing your research and understanding the argument, not just from your side but the other side is a good way to be confident in what you're presenting but also to be solid

in terms of the facts that line up with your beliefs and what you need to make stronger argument about in the future. in the back or in the middle, i guess. >> hi, thank you for being here, my name is nicole. i know a lot of us here intern, so how do you transition from being seen as an intern in an office to being seen and taken more seriously specially as a young professional woman? >> i would take the as young professional woman piece of it out, i don't think that you should portray yourself necessarily as a young professional woman, you should probably portray yourself as a young professional who happens to be working in office-type environment or whatever other environment that you may be working in and in terms of getting yourself taken seriously, i always recommend that you do multiple internships because when i hire interns i'm

looking for job experience and what they can bring to the table to be an asset to our news room rather than maybe looking at someone who i need to teach more to, for example, of course, internships are all about learning so i don't expect a whole lot of experience but if you can bring a certain skill set to your first job after a variety of internships, you're more likely to get hire. in terms of getting taken seriously, always work on time, not having to be told twice how to do things specially when it comes to administrative things like, for example, if you're at a paid internship don't forget to stamp your time card, for example. doing things like that, making sure that the details are something that your supervisor is having to remind you about. your supervisor wants to be able to help you grow and take advantage of an opportunity and be able to give you more of a responsibility rather than -- [laughter] >> at that timer than -- they

want to give you more responsibility. so if you can prove that to them that they can trust you with a certain project, then that's how you're going to be taken more seriously. given the jobs that you are given, doing do them well, ask them for more work, what i find helpful if you find yourself at a particular internship that maybe end in the end of the summer and you want to work there and you belong there, i would ask if you could maybe do internship that's remote, for example, when i was in college i did an internship for town hall where i work now and between my junior and senior years i continued my summer internship and was writing from tucson, arizona which is where i went to school. i was on the radar because i wanted to work there. at the end of the year once i graduated, they were willing to make it -- a space for me to come back and be brought on full-time. so being willing to work and

expand internship is a possibility to get your foot on the door. questions, anyone? over here. >> my name is katie, excuse me while i read off my phone because i wrote it on my phone because it was a pleks question. >> millennials. the generation below us. [laughter] >> something myself and the other girls as well as in my new group have talked about is why we don't speak out about things. a lot of conservatives girls don't voice their opinion because they feel they don't know everything on the topic, how do you personally get to the conclusion that your verse enough in the topic to publicly speak about it, what tactics do you use when the other person turns away from facts, how do you bring them back to the facts? >> i wouldn't be afraid -- i

think the issue is being more afraid to speak out rather than not having the information that you need. you had done the research, you have an argument to make, you have the facts on your side, so to me it seems like you need a little bit of a push to make the argument. if you don't have all the answers which nobody does, by the way, the best response to that is to say, look, i don't necessarily know everything about that topic but i'm glad that we are debating it and i'm happy to do more research about it but this is what i do know and then go back to what you do know. in terms of being called names and emotions being used, i'm not sure that you can every bring certain sectors to the left back to the facts. this week in the wake of the orlando terrorist attacks is a very good cample how far away we have gone from the facts to push an agenda. so in terms of bringing people that are calling you names and

getting emotional, to understand your argument, at some point you need to make your case and walk away, but those aren't the people who you're trying to influence, right? you're trying to influence the young woman in your class who maybe has disagreements or maybe doesn't know what side of the political aisle she's on but she's willing to check you out because she heard you stand up for something that you believe in. those are the kind of people you want to reach out. you have the battle the left and some are lost cause. and talk to them about the facts that you're discussing. so those are the types of people who you cannot only bring in and feel welcome but also maybe change their mind. i will get back to you.

>> hi, katie, my name is crista and i'm american university and one of the questions that i had is when you're doing an interview on tv or even for a newspaper magazine and they are clearly trying to push you to answer a certain way, what tips do you have for us to -- so that we can stay on message and not let this kind of rhetoric distract us or not get blown up in the media? >> i got invited to the university of delaware by the students of the second amendment to give a speech on the second amendment and the same week that i was going up there to give this talk i made an appearance on the kelly file and i wrote a piece of the black lives matter movement and i criticized them advocating for the killing of police officers because they

were wearing t-shirts that said taught me, convicted killer that escaped prison in early 1980's, fled to cuba and she's still living there today. i also pointed out in the piece that they were chanting things like pigs in a blanket which is a direct reference to police in dead body bags. i wrote a piece and, of course, with social media, the movement found out about it and they found out that i was going to be speaking at the university of delaware, so long story short, there's a protest outside, there was a protest inside but it was quiet and peaceful and then after the event, even though i was there to speak about the second amendment, i didn't mention black lives matter in the speech and didn't address the, quote, controversy, i had

caused, i did interviews backstage with the local media and with the student newspaper and every single question i received wasn't about what i said about the second amendment, it wasn't about asking about the group that had brought me there and all the work that the students from the second amendment had done to get me on campus, all the questions were about being protested by the black lives matter group and why i was -- why -- how i felt about saying things that had offended them. so i didn't even answer the question, what i said was, look, i'm here specifically for the students and the second amendment, that's why i was here tonight and these are the things that i talked about. i didn't even answer the question. so i think i -- kind of taking the question and centering back to the topic that you were there

for or centering it back to an issue that maybe the media is trying to -- trying to do the opposite and pushing you in a different direction. so really centering because a lot of times is a distraction from what the real issue is. yellow, good color. i know you. >> hi. [inaudible] >> my name is taylor and the question i have and i'm sure you have a lot to say about it as a fellow second amendment fighter, i would like to know your comments on the federal appeal court in san francisco saying that there's no constitutional about right to carry arms, i would love to hear your thought on that. ..

>> i know it is not a state, but a section of the country even worse than chicago, they have had to reassess rules on open carry and carry because you cannot ban both. if the appeals court doesn't want con seal carry maybe we can make it open carry. what i know about what has been upheld about the right to keep and bear arms i doubt it will stand and i think we will see it go to the supreme court. i will add they are putting people at risk by that kind of

thinking. yes? >> my question was how did you start your passion and interest in college like to advocate for your opinions and political ideas? >> well, i was one of those college students woo went to college because you are supposed to go to college in america. i didn't know what i wanted to do the first two years. i was a business major which was a disaster because i cannot do math well. at one point i could but it changed in my holoand the math side of business did me in. then i switched over to political science. i wasn't sure what i wanted to do. i think i had a quarter life, well almost a fifth life process so to speak. then i finally, i guess rediscovered i have always been

interested in politics. when i was six years old i wrote a letter to bill clinton talking about how unfair his tax system was and it was unfair for him to take our money when we cannot spend his money. i had a light bulb moment and went to the young america's conference and did an internship with senator john kyle who is retired. i went into journalist thinking i would be a sports writer. but i realized i like sports but i was passionate about politics. it took a while but i wasn't looking into right place i think for what i wanted to do. right here. >> hi, my name is amanda, i am with accuracy and media. as a media professional you

worked your way up to this level right now. what advice would you give to other young media professionals? and second part, who or what has kept you the most grounded? >> oh, boy. for the first question, when you are -- when i go speak to young women like yourselves or other campus student groups, i always tell them if you want a job in politics you should move to washington, d.c. right after college. it can be scary, it is a big discussion especially if you are coming all the way across the country but you are taking a risk that will ultimately pay off for you. to get where you are going you have to get somewhere. washington, d.c. has a ton of opportunity, both in internships and entry level positions whether it is capitol hill or any number of media outlets in the city, they are all here. when you are here you have so

much opportunity to go and take advantage of everything going on. my first book, the fast and furious scandal, hat came about because i saw an issue and grabbed on to it and was on capitol hill covering the hearings and writing about it and that got attention from a publisher and got my fingers into these other media organizations online and tv radio. i think coming here when you are young, understanding your job when you get out of cleenl is to work as hard as you can, to say yes a lot and pay your dues and once you do that for a couple years you have choices about what you want to do and spend your time on. what was the second question? oh, okay. i always joke about how you better humble yourself because if you don't god will. just this week, for example, we have a new office so we are not quite used to it yet.

but all of the windows to the offices are glass. i was speaking to my boss in the conference room like this and about to go into his office for a meeting and i ran right into the glass because i thought it was the door that was open and all of the interns saw it and laughed. you know, i said, no one saw it but everyone saw it. so i think being able to laugh at yourself is really what keeps you grounded. and i think just really appreciating the small things in life. when you come to a big city like washington, d.c. it is easy to get copt in and what party am i getting invited to and who am i working for and who did i know. but it is the small things like seeing someone walk done the street who is less fortunate thank you are and remembering you have it pretty good and

should appreciate that every day. >> hi, my name is jacqueline thomas. i am from arizona and i am interning with the daily caller. my question is what general advice can you give to young individuals going into the field of journalism? i just arrived in washington, d.c. three weeks ago -- >> welcome. >> i was very surprised to what really goes on. i feel like if i had been warned or prepared more it might be a smoother transition. >> what specifically do you wish you had a warning for? how cut-throat it is? >> and the culture of newsroom particularly. >> the first piece of advice i would give is it is a cut-throat place and that is why not everyone survives. a lot of people come here for a couple years and leave. that is totally fine. but the first piece of advice is

not to take anything personally. you are not there for personal reasons. if you can learn from the rejection and short temperament and learn how to, you know, do your work and understand that you are going to be told no a lot more times than you are going to be told yes. in terms of being successful in your internship, as i explained, there is so much you can do on capitol hill. there is a hearing every week of course except for when congress isn't in session that you can be covering. even if it is a boring one that no one attends it is an opportunity to go. even if it doesn't get published you practice, you are there getting the experience. i remember in college, i had a little laptop i would write

stuff on and it didn't get published but it was practice for me to get better at what i'm doing. understand even if your stuff doesn't make the front page or to the website or the newspaper doesn't mean doing it was a waste of time. try to understand the things you are learning every single day and just get better. brook? >> hi -- >> you have to get the microphone. >> thank you. i am brook. i go to viola university. you say every year something is new and different. for you, what has been the thing you learned the most this year? >> this year? >> this past year, yeah. >> uh, well, in terms of the conservative movement it has been a very interesting year to say the least. so i would say, i have learned

probably that some of the people i looked up to, i don't know if i necessarily do anymore based on the things that have happened over the past year and that is a sad thing to say but it is true. but i have also learned this is a huge moment in history and it has been interesting to watch and be part of the political process especially the gop primary. i have learned that when you make a decision to take a stand that you should be proud that you did and if you have any doubts about doing it than you shouldn't. i have taken some controversial positions i would say over the past six months against a certain candidate/presumptive nominee and i get asked all of the time whether i regret some of the things i have said and i don't. i think it is standing up for what you believe in when under

intense scrutiny is what i have learned so far. we have six months to go, though, so we will see. >> thank you. >> yes? >> hi, katie. i am emily. my question is how you got involved with or decided to pursue your longer term projects like your books. >> so as i briefly mentioned, by first book was a matter of i was covering fast and furious for probably nine months and i got a call from a publisher asking me if i ever thought about writing a book. that was a good, i guess, accident that that happened. i didn't pitch to a publisher and i was lucky they were interested in doing the book. because i was from arkansas i understood the issue. had first was a matter of being here, working hard and thank god

my work was noticed. my second book came about because i was sitting at the 2012 dnc convention covering speech after speech and how the republicans hate women and democrats and liberals are the best place for women to be and during that convention they played, not only did sandra flux speak before bill clinton, but they played a seven long tribute video to ted kennedy and stamped the words women's right champion on the screen and they happened to leave out as a tribute to his wife the most controversial part which is when he left a woman to die and drown in his own vehicle because he needed to save his party. that was hard to take that the republicans and mitt romney was

being accused of a war on woman when they were promoting someone who didn't have a nice history with one particularly woman and a whole >> hos host of other stories you can read about. i didn't feel like there was enough pushback on the narrative of republicans and conservatives being falsely accused of this type of behavior when the left was getting away with all of these egregious things while being hypocritical and lying about where we stand. that is where the second one came from. >> hi, katie. i am alexia. >> i know who you are. she has a great instagram account. >> as someone interested in journalism and wants to get

involved in political journalism what kind of stories should young people write about if they don't have access? >> you can cover the ones in washington, d.c. because a lot of them are live stream. on your college campuses there are a number of stories happening every year you can go out and cover whether it is what the woman's groups on campus are doing, what the woman's studies department is doing, what the administration is spending money on, what kind of stance is the administration taking, what does the free speech code look on like your campus, what are some of the policies in these policy handbooks for students, what speakers are coming to campus, what are their backgrounds? just to give you a couple examples from my days in college, you know, at one point they built a border wall across campus to prevent students from

getting to class to make some kind of point about the plight of illegal immigrants. another example was in one of my journalism courses we were told we could get extra credit if we went to see a speaker who was a representative for tear which has ties to hamas and other terrorist organizations. i would start local and then you can kind of build out our resume that way. right here. >> hi, my name is kaitlyn and i am from the network of united woman. i have a question. what books would you say inspired you most in your professional life? >> real, true radicals was a good one. it gives you an understanding of what you are dealing with and i

would recommend many people read that book. i think fahrenheit 911 was a good one -- that is a classic. this is like a sarah palin question. let me think. thomas sole, of course, many of his books are ones i have been influenced by. i would have to give you a list. i am sure there is a bunch. i haven't read a book in a long time because it is busy covering politics. william buckley's book influenced be during my college days and inspired me to get involved and understanding representing college or not this isn't something just happening today but has been happening for a very long time. there is a handout i read as research for my second book that

was put out by the weather underground that has a lot of interesting information and gives you the inspiration to fight back against some of the policies that have been promoted by people like bill arz for decades and not just by him but people who made their way into different policy positions and different programs that we actually have in our schools and throughout the federal government. let's see, what else? i am going to stick with that for now. in the back. >> hi, i am diana. i know that you were part of the contributing group to the never trump issue for national review. so i wanted to hear some of your thoughts on how that movement has unfolded more recently and where you think it is going in the future. >> i think there has been some miscommunication and misunderstanding about the different between the national review against trump issue and the newer never trump movement.

the against trump issue has a lot of writers who are part of it who are now saying i don't like donald trump but i am willing to vote for him over hillary clinton. there are a number of people on the list who have openly said they will be voting for donald trump. i have never discussed who i will be voting for and i don't plan on ever doing that. i don't think at this point the never trump movement unfortunately has much leverage. i find it very interesting over the past probably two or three weeks we have seen a lot of push back on some of the rhetoric that has been used, some panicking among conservatives and republicans about how we are going to move forward with trump as the nominee. you have paul ryan saying he will back donald trump but he wants everyone us to vote with

their conscious which isn't a raving endorsement. but i think it is too late to change the situation now and that doesn't mean that people should jump on the trump train. i think people standing in principle deserve credit and i can understand why people on the other side are saying this is the choice we have. so to answer your question i don't think that never trump is necessarily going anywhere. i think the people who are panicking now should have been panicking six months ago. anyone else? >> katie, we are so grateful to have you speaking at the network of enlightened women to a room full of young, conservative women. i have heard you speak about your experience attending another national woman's conference and i wonder if you could talk about that? >> oh, yes, are you speaking about the now conference? >> i am vme.

>> a couple years ago, i wrote about this into book, i wanted to go to the national organization for women's conference in chicago for a couple reasons. i was doing research and writing a book and wanted firsthand experience with some of the people i was writing a book about. and second i was going to be in chicago which is ground zero for leftist actii -- activism. so i applied for press cred credentials and three days before the conference i get a letter saying thank you for

submitting your credentials but it has been denied. and i wrote back saying as a female credential of the press i am curious as to why you would deny my press credentials. no response. i have my hotel and plane ticket and was going to show up. sh so i did and i was going to go undercover. i showed up and i think i stood out a little bit and everyone was very nice but it was not a lot of energy in the room. they certainly were not doing the same things you do on campus. it seems like they are holding on to this third wave femimnism.

most women are pro-life in terms of late-term abortion and we are seeing women trend more in a pro-life direction and the majority of women believe we should have some restrictions on abortion and there is debate about when and that kind of thing. but these women were handing out abortion on demand stickers and, you know, really promoting that kind of lifestyle and philosophy that i think was left behind a very long time ago. but the most interesting thing i found there was, you know, i expected the abortion stuff, i expected the, you know, pro-women stuff obviously which i think they have a different perspective on what it means to be pro-women than we do, but what i found most interesting was what they were selling at the conference and the things i purchased there. they were selling carl marx's

communist manifesto. purchased that there. they were selling rules for socialism and teaching for socialist books that i purchased. they were selling a variety of other books by authors who were, you know, dedicating their entire lives to carl marx's teaching and reiterating them through their own remarks and books. so when i read through all of that i found they have had a long-term ballgame in term of how they hijacked the woman's movement. and how we see with the life of julia which is about the government taking care of women from birth to death. a lot of that is promoted in this material that was published in the '70s and '80s.

that was the most interesting thing i found at that conference. other questions? >> how do you think that we as individuals can fight the left narrative of women being victims? >> i think using their own arguments against them is a really good way to fight their idea of victimhood for women. for example, if you are a proponent, and this is one example of many, an advocate for the second amendment and women defending themselves third wave feminists would argue you should be anti-gun but your response is doesn't feminism argue women should take care of themselves as an individual? isn't it about being an

individual and taking care of myself whether it is economic, choice of safety? i would throw that question back at them. any time they advocate for you to be dependent on something is easy argument is about feminism is about being independent. why are we advocating for dependency especially within the government? in the back? >> what are your suggestions for us to motivate students who are politically apathetic especially with this election cycle that has been so divisive and visceral? >> i would make the sure very personal. so for example, if you know know bernie sanders' supporters hipsters who like to make craft beer, which i do, you should point out the fact that the government wants to regulate craft beer to the point that it will make craft brewing as an

individual illegal. just planting these little seeds. you don't have to make a big argument to them. just planting these seeds where they start questioning why they are advocating for something and how it affects them will change their mind. they will go research that issue and then research other issues that affect them. another good example is on campus we are seeing this horrible bds movement with the boycott of israel goods and when you have students who are apathetic, not out there protesting but neither condoning the protest, you can say isn't it funny they are protesting israeli goods when they are on an iphone? half the phones were made in israel. so just planting seeds of how they will affect them is a good way of getting apathetic people involved.

anyone else? that is it? >> hi, was there ever a time you questioned your ideology and has it strengthened your views? >> i don't know if i have ever questioned by ideology -- i think to use a term that barack obama has used, i have evolved in other issues. more much more pro-life than when i was 18. i used to think abortion was just kind of a thing that, you know, it isn't really a big deal. once i learned more about it, i clearly understood what it was, and have much stronger viewpoints on it now. i think i evolved on the issue of gay marriage and i think everyone's stance on that comes from personal experience whether it is religious or people you

know who are gay. i think i evolved on that. but that is politics and political philosophy. your views change based on your own personal experiences. i have been a strong advocate for the second amendment and i think my views ont it will never change. -- on that -- i think i changed a little bit but never questioned if i was a conservative or liberal by any means. i have always been a conservative. >> hello, thank you for being here with us this afternoon. my name is victoria and i am from the university of kansas. we talked about networking, mentorship and professional development. is there a moment in your career that you think of as defining? >> there are two moments -- well, there are a lot of moments but i will start with the one

that launched me into getting started initially because that is where all of you are today. in college, you know, my parents were always advocates of academic camps. i went to sat camp and i completely wasted their money because i still failed the sat. but in college, i was going to graduate, getting ready to move across the country and not sure if i would live in washington, d.c. or new york so i took a trip with my mom to check it out. in washington, d.c. there was a national association of scholars conference at the same time and we decided to go to this conference. this was a conference for professors and professionals. this isn't a conference for a junior in college to come to necessarily but i went anyway. there was one professor, and i cannot remember this title, but long story short he was on a panel, he made a statement and i

went up to ask a question and we got into a back and forth debate about an issue and it had to do with what journalism professors were advocating their students read in classes. he was advocating "the new york times" and i said the washington times should be added to get balance in what they are learning. that led to a nice young man named jp frier running me down in the hallway with my mother and saying let me know if you want to go back to washington, d.c. for an internship. i e-mailed him five times until he got back and he put me in touch with someone at town hall and i applied for an internship and depot it. the second thing is people me how i got on television. my first appearance on fox news

was red eye. i came in college but i had not been here working. so i had a ticket to this vip reception. it was like sardines like everything reception at c-pack. i see greg fields and andy lee booker walk into the door and i say i have to go talk to them. i am pushing people out of the way to get over there. and i hear them from a distance saying they will leave. greg is complaining because they are going to leave because the lines for beer are too long. i hear them and say don't worry, i will get you a beer, what do you want? so i went up to the front of the bar, i was tall like i am, i cut everyone and got them beers. and the next thing you know they invited me to come on the show. i took the bus up to new york and i slept in my brother's dorm room on the floor which was like a 400 square foot apartment with