cspan, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, cspan was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to today by your cable or satellite provider. later today on c-span2, a look at the constitutional powers of congress and the executive branch. the federalist society host a panel with former congressman nikki edwards. also andrew mccarthy. it starts at 12:15 p.m. eastern on c-span2 up next, a conversation on race, ethnicity and religion and how they affect policy such as affirmative action and immigration. from the new york public library this is about one hour.

>> good evening everybody and welcome. my name is simon, i'm the executive director or of the ethics center. along with our partners advance which is a network of australians around the world, the globalization program and the council of ethics and international fair, i'd like to welcome you all to the session within our program shades of red and blue. the reason why we've convened this session is because we think it's essential to bring together for the first time people who are distributed across the political system in which in my country and i suspect also here there is very little by way of conversation and a lot of shouting at people. we are all facing issues of

profound importance which we think they're better addressed by allowing for principal disagreement where people of conviction in different perspective might come together and engage. the topics that we will be talking about during the course of this day, one of the most is going to be addressed this afternoon. before i go to the panel, just some housekeeping, if you are a person who treats, feel encouraged to do that. we've managed to come up with the world's longest #. it's # shades of red and blue. you'll notice there are two empty chairs. about half an hour into the process, that chair will open so if you are in the audience

and you feel would like to take a seat at the table, it will be a temporary seat and you're most welcome to do so to ask a question or make a comment. don't linger please not because you're not welcome but merely because there will be other people quite like you who would like to take the same opportunity and they won't be able to do that unless they can come tap you on the shoulder know that you will give way. you will be joining a really extraordinary group of people who have wisdom and insight for them not to go through their bagger fee. some of them you'll know already by reputation, others you'll be meeting for the first time, but this is our panel. it will be chaired by a fellow australian. would you please welcome them all and all handed over to

josh. [applause] >> thank you everyone. thank you for joining and thank you for the panels which will hopefully be very open, frank, fair debate on very difficult issues. the first issue today we are going to discuss is that of race. race and racial categories have been long debated and evolved over time and changed. race is based on religion and geography, it's been based on physical attributes such as color and language. the oxford english dictionary talks about race being around physical attributes but it also talks about it being so associated with cultural identity. personally, i think i'm australian by the accent. identify as australian culturally but my parents are

of sure lincoln center and i was born in africa. when i encounter race, race in america is a very different construct to race in australia and other countries so i'm called brown, black, sure lincoln, and other things. for me to identify by my races difficult and something i choose not to do. i think in this topic as we discussed race and race related issues, i think it's first important to understand the context in which we are discussing it. to define what is race, who are the racial groups were talking about and then there are talk about how we address the issues in the group. given your background, can you help define race. >> i intend in my five minutes

to not only define race but resolve all racial conflicts. [laughter] if you can start the timer now, prepare to be amazed. to the idea of race and the nuances that you just gave, it is inherently and implicitly contrary to the american understanding. to approach it with the nuance that you just afforded it because it is intended to be an instrument. it was created for the purpose of inscribing and reinforcing social hierarchy. so, talking about your ancestry and talking about how people categorize you and how people group you, my response to this, two weeks ago in olathe kansas, a gentleman shouted in a bar, get out of my country, shot two individuals whom he, in his

mind categorized as uranian, they were actually of indian descent. this is a distinction without a difference to him and his thinking. at the same time, if we were to say this is a horrific incident, we can look back in wisconsin and say the individual who killed x people in the temple believing them to be muslim, again for him a distinction without much of a difference. we can go through these entire catalogs and also in kansas when there would be an attack on the jewish cultural center, they shot three people all of whom were christian who happen to be attending an event at the jewish cultural center. if we don't understand how race operates in america, we would think these were contrary actions and behaviors, but the entire point of it is to not have to

deal with nuance, to simply say that in the united states there are category of people who are superior and a group that can be excluded from the benefit of democracy. when we talk about how retractable this idea is it does not have any biological, it's intangible and self-contradictory, but it has the durability that can only be explained by the fact that it's still useful, it still serves the purpose it was intended to serve and as long as that purpose exists, as long as it's profitable to divide people in this way and as long as their social hierarchy and were looking for reasons to justify them, we will still have this irrational but nonetheless present and powerful force called race in american society. [applause]

>> he brings up a lot of good points. i think the thing with race in america today is that we are starting to finally move past this white black binary that had us characterized the country for 200 years. i think it's really good were getting past that binary to see how race affects more than just blacks and more than just whites. i think the nuance he speaks of is needed. i think the reason we don't speak with nuance when it comes to race because there's too many political agendas that are going to be endangered if we speak with that nuance. i think the way the political conversation has gone is that it's easier to put people in categories where there is no flexibility, simply for advocating a particular message on a number of different messages. if we are going to transcend that, this is a good start to embrace nuance and say that

sometimes political agendas, at the expense of the individual and groups of people are really worth it. we have to move past that. i agree with parts of what you said but there's just too much at stake. >> who defines it? >> it depends. with respect to black americans, they have defined themselves internally to counter how they been defined externally. that's another tension that exists so it's at both ends. >> if i could add one thing to that, i have a white great-grandmother which accounts for exactly nothing in my relationship to race in this country. i jokingly say to someone that i could be pulled over by the police officer and say oh, this is embarrassing, i'm sorry you think i'm black. i have a white great-grandmother actually but

that's what i mean about the bluntness. it's not meant to actually make sense in a particular way. i would just say as we move beyond the binary of black-and-white and we start incorporating latinos, in my case identify as latina which is not a race, but in the united states gets considered a race. it's complicated nonetheless, but when we start moving into the spaces where we are in a lot of gray and there's a lot of lack of understanding, what needs to happen now is that we need to start to have what i like to call bearing discussions around these very

great issues in which people can ask questions, be uncertain, make mistakes and how you're identifying and what you're saying in order to continue to heal this major racial divide that has only been exasperated by the president of the united states and we have seen once again how race has reared its head, specifically on novembe november 8, on the back of brown people and muslims, and so we are seeing the history of the united states play out once again before i spread the question then becomes for each individual, how do we interact with this cycle. do we do what's been done befor before, what can we do individually and what we do in community. that's where i am with regards to questions around race, and

particularly where we are today around race. >> a number of points, a lot of points have been made. this is an incredibly complex issue so one wants to say right at the outset, there's nothing easy about the question you raise. let me just take one angle of vision on this. >> since brown versus board of education in 1954, the country has been committed to trying to overcome a couple hundred years of very severe racism, discrimination and hispanic and native americans. of course this was the focus of brown versus board of

education. that has been a commitment that has originated through the decades but especially in that 19th 50s, 60s and 70s. but it is a complicated issue but every university has committed itself to that, to this day. the so there is a sense within the higher education community that there is meaning behind the term race and ethnicity.

and it continues to follow a practice that i think, a result that i think is not really that confusing in the real world. that is, when you talk about admissions and race and ethnicity, it doesn't get confused in the way that you begin the question. okay. that is where the constitutional law is. that is where the practice of a major institution in society, colleges, universities are. at the same time there is a desire to recognize that the population of people is a lot more complicated than that. so you have constitutional law. you have policies at that level, and that can be spread out over every single institution in this society. layered on that is a desire to see the world in much more

complex way. those two things are happening simultaneously. in a sense i think that is good because both are struggling with the kind of reality, a past, present, what jelani said, but there is another real fact of life the way you presented yourself, much more complex individual. and that has a lot of social meaning too. we need to see the world as was suggested, a much more complex way. so i'm just pointing out, what i see as a very deep tension in the ways in which we are struggling with this simultaneous reality. it is not one realities, it is two realities. >> taking something you just mentioned about education, you've got very significant experience given your time at university of michigan regarding affirmative action, does

affirmative action work? at what point does affirmative action stop being required? at what point does it start becoming do you think discriminatory and do you think that sometimes affirmative action may work to the detriment of people who are not influenced by that? by that i mean, if you're an asian-american who goes to a university and there is an affirmative action towards encouraging asian-americans entering there, everyone is painted with the same, same brush. they receiveed a better, much easier route, unfairly so. and do you think that breeds resentment as well? >> so there are a lot of things in what you just said. a lot of issues, again this is a very, very complicated thing which i have devote ad good part of my life to advocating and being part of. you mentioned that the case i

was in that a arose out of the lawsuit against the university of michigan and me personally, along with a number of other people. the supreme court, upheld, now has upheld past 15 years, public universities, complicated, that applies to private universities, it is constitutional to take into account race and ethnicity for purposes of developing a diverse student body for better education for all of those students. i happen to believe that it has been a mistake to, which started with the bachky case in the 1980s, i don't want to give a legal lecture here, but we have separated out diversity as having an educational purpose and as having remedying purpose of past discrimination. that, the latter is not permitted as an argument. i think that has been a mistake. i think it takes it out of

historical context. i think you can only understand this in historical context. okay, that is the first point. but you asked me the question was, the main question, was has it worked? i believe deeply it has worked. i mean i think it has brought enatintegration in the judiciary of the united states. i think it brought it into countless parts of society. to me it is unimaginable we would have young people educated in a environment not racially or ethically diverse or internationally diverse or geographically diverse or any other number of ways which we try to achieve diversity as reflective of the world. and i think it works in large part because there are different life experiences that people bring to any institution. in this case higher education institution. so i think it definitely works,

has worked. been a major advance in american society. have there been costs to doing this? well, i mean i think the answer has to be yes. the strongest argument against affirmative action i ever heard the argument that we have spent send -- centuries trying to arrive at a point where public decision making and private decision making but mainly public would not take race into account. that would be regarded as a wrong thing to do. it is wrong to segregate children according to race in public education. okay. we did that. here you're asking for an exception because it is for a good purpose. it is to bypass discrimination, educate people in a diverse environment. if you have an exception that will make it more difficult to have a very firm rule in the society we should not take race into account, that is a strong argument.

there is another argument which you raised that it makes people resentful or makes people feel badly, et cetera, who are the beneficiaries of affirmative action. i mean, almost everybody is the beneficiary of affirmative action in some form. i was beneficiary of affirmative action, because i came from oregon, rural place from oregon. i'm sure i got geographic diversity when i was admitted to columbia law school. i love the statement of secretary powell when this issue came up in affirmative action cases i was part of. look, i feel badly because i got a benefit getting into college. i will take the extra money i earned as a result of better college and i will hire a psych trim to help me with that problem -- psychiatrist. there are lots of things to say about this. very complex. >> this personal note with regard to the question if affirmative action works i am

the direct product of affirmative action. i came to this country when i was three years old to be reunited with my brother and my father and came with my mother and my brother. very soon after we arrived, my father abandoned us. he told my mother he would get a job, and never came back. left my mom two kids, no language, no family here. $200 in our pocket. we grew up, i grew up on section 8 welfare, and housing. my mom worked 70 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant, somehow, some way, did what so many immigrants before did, she worked and hardly ever saw her children. but she got both my brother and i into college. first to community college, in california. i will never forget my first day at ucla, i was nervous as all hell because i was, i don't know, 20 when i transferred into ucla. as a transfer student i had to

take a freshman class, just general ed i had to catch up on. i remember, it was a small class. like 20 people. and there was a white guy, who answered a question that the teacher had asked, and he spoke in such a way that i honestly didn't know what he was saying. it is funny now but then, i was thinking, i should clarify, i didn't understand what he was saying because of his vocabulary. and at that moment i thought to myself, oh, my god, i'm going to fail ucla. i'm going to fail my mother. i can't do this. and that is the experience of many, many students of color, particularly if you're transferring into a university. so i, i even at the top of my class in high school and in my community college, i at the top of my class had so much catching up to do with my peers at ucla. and that is why affirmative action for me personally worked.

it allowed me to go into that space. it allowed to be with person, for x, y, z reasons were smarter than me but all on equal playing field. out of my own desire and out of my own extra study, out of my own pursuit i was able to graduate, get my master's, et cetera, et cetera. that is small personal example of why affirmative action for me was crucial to being able to sit at this table with these gentlemen and with you all in this room. >> you -- >> keep it succinct. >> very briefly, i do want to say that when we talk about affirmative action we tend to talk about it flowing in one direction and in order for the resentment that the program sometimes generated, in order for the resentment to exist, and believe people of color are given something you have to cook the books and not look what

people of color are having taken away from them. if you are a person, who arrives at a university, and through some formula, race winds up being a benefit to you, you also say at the outset this person pn was more likely to died as a result of infant mortality. this person was more likely attend ad substandard school correlated with race. more likely to have been arrested at any point in their life, more likely, if they are arrested to have charges brought against them. if they have charges brought against them, more likely to have been convicted, if convicted the same thing a white person might be guilty of likely to receive a lengthy sentence. all these things. this person, statistically, sociologists looked at this found if that person has no criminal record, they are less likely to be hired in a job application situation than a

white person who does have a criminal record. we know that to be the case. and so, we cook the books, we could go on about this. if we cook the books and remove all of these obstacles, then just looks like a giveaway. on the other side of it, we ignore the benefits, the kind of social, momentum that has come from what colleague at columbia ira nelson, a book what affirmative action was like, generations and decades of set-asides essentially for white people. my father had a third grade education, very quickly, my father had a third grade education. he grew up in segregated town in georgia. and, if we were to look at university of georgia, my father was smartest man i ever knew. if we look for university of georgia, the year my father turned 18 or year my father

turned 28, or year my father turned 38, all graduates of that institution would have been white. no one would say young men graduated from the institution never had to compete against my father. that was a form of set aside. so when we're looking at the attempts to counterbalance what is historical force with a great deal of momentum, we have to look at the entirety of the situation if we want to actually have honest assessment of it. >> i have a number of issues with affirmative action, the way affirmative action played out currently. i think that if we're trying to, to paola's point, i would like to see in my lifetime affirmative action is irrelevant. not to be trying to make for historical discrimination or covering for the fact that blacks are continuously served substandard education in underperforming schools, get to the essence of black academic development.

one of the things affirmative action doesn't address black active development in primary and secondary stages. trying to make up the black children, particularly in poor communities lack for 12 years of education. it is impossible to do that. that is one of the reasons why i disagree with the way affirmative action is carried out, it doesn't address root cause why we need in this particular situation why we need affirmative action. it does nothing for black development. another reason i think it is a issue, it's a false safety net because now that if we know that blacks are going to be admitted into these institutions, particularly colleges and universities, we won't even get into employment yet, but if they know they will get in, get special points for being black, they will not try as hard. what that does is undermined their ability to compete with multi-ethnic peers. if they have a false safety net, know they get points simply being black, they will not take

risk and sacrifice we see many asian students do on daily basis, rather than hanging out with friends or playing video games, we see a lot of asian students going to the library, particularly one english as second language. they master english an graduate with three or 5.0s. that is not in black culture. i think false safety net prevents blacks from challenging ourselves and being able to compete on the level of a white and asian peers. so these are the types of things. i'm not saying it will happen in a generation but at the same time, when are we going to address the lack, at very beginning to give people the resources to be successful outside of a set aside? just my last point, is that i disagree with it because it stigmatizes black accomplishment, even black accomplishment, by those who weren't beneficiary of affirmative action. how many of you here pick a doctor to great on a loved one

knowing that person was beneficiary of affirmative action? now the ones who said they would, would you still have that person operate on yourself? knowing that that person was a product of affirmative action? it just has a very negative way of stigmatizing black achievement and black accomplishment. that stigma is carried around for the durations of their academic and economic lives. so if we want to talk about policies that have historical redress, we can talk about that. i just think that affirmative action again the way it is carried out doesn't do that. i think it actually creates more problems than it intends to solve. >> 10 second response. >> 10. >> arthur ashe complete equality in america when the black person can be completely mediocre still be astounding success. now the second part of this is that what does that doctor were white, why do we presume that we see the black person that they're a beneficiary of

affirmative action they're also of other things? we never ask that question about whether or not -- >> that is not what we're talking about. >> that is the whole point. why is the white person not stigmatized. we're saying same thing. talking about achievement of asian-american students, use this language ever pathology around black academic achievement. we don't use the language of pathology asian-american students generally outperform white american students. >> fair enough. >> why are white american students underachieving. are they watching tv. where are their fathers. we don't talk about white people in same language. >> even if we did, talking about it in the same language would address the problems that black continue to suffer disproportionately. we can relativize it. we still don't address it. >> these are important points that you're raising. the, but the second one, i think look at it this way. because i think this is what

jelani is trying to say. many people in the admissions process come into college, many, many, people, receive some kind of special consideration because of where they come, they come from arizona or they come from you know, bell -- belgium or africa. the administrations process takes into account a lot of different things. race and ethnicity two among many. legacies. children of alumni have some special consideration at every college and of the, including mine. the question then, and the differences by the way are not that significant. i mean the qualifications of the students, african-americans, and others coming in are unbelievable. i mean they're in the very top, top category of young people given what we have -- >> [inaudible].

>> so the point is, the stigma is the result of racism. that is the result of a society that views this in a racist kind of way, which is the problem that leads to the policy being justified. so it is not the result, i mean, just very important -- >> real quick. >> we have two more subjects. >> panel on affirmative action, isn't it? >> what you said is core what i'm saying it seems to be addressing the reclamation of moral authority, than getting to the essence of black development. >> i have to move on. get to the other points. >> work on it in the green room. >> fair enough. >> let's move on to the question of religion. religion is obviously very tense subject i guess because it is

never just being about muslims versus christians, even among christian groups you find in the 1800s, catholics versus protestants. irish catholics versus polish catholics versus italian catholics. some of the discussion i think from the 1800s maybe even long are up until the time of jfk was around concern of protestants that catholics believed in the church and by extension of that the pope before the country and the government. it wasn't until jfk came into power and talked about separation state and. do you think in today's terms, irrespective of religion, do we

need to again insure that people are committed to their country, and their government and the culture and identity of the country before religion? i speak specifically two examples say in france where we have burka ban, burka ban and discussion around that, french ideals versus, versus the islamic, arabic ones and their culture? is that something that needs to be reinforced in today's terms? do you think that acts like the religious freedom acts, religious freedom restoration act, takes that a step back to dedication for religion before country? >> i think it is very hard to ask people to put their country first when their country actually is not putting them first. when their country is attacking them, using them as scapegoats,

demonizing them, and many in cases murdering them. i think that is a very complicated and unfair question in many respects. yeah, just leave it at that. >> here is what i find troubling. i think that there is kind of litmus that we are asking of muslim community, which are based in a kind of idea of collective guilt, and so we rarely hear this applied, this kind of idea of collective guilt applied to people who are not marginal in society. and one of the most interesting instances of this was in the boston marathon bombing, 2013 i think this was, when the uncle of the tsarnaevs was on the, you know, on television talking about his nephews and he said they were losers.

he kind of denounced them. but he said something in the way that we would not be accustomed to hearing most groups in the united states think, but in a way very familiar to african-americans, to latinos, to muslims. he said that his nephews actions had caused consequences for chechens. he made chechens look bad. it was kind of thing that was immediately legible to people who understand saying, oh, well, if black bern commit as crime, i'm going to be held some way guilty for that. for a society committed to the idea of individual rights this is obviously a contradiction. and so, i reject the idea that we should primarily ask muslims to show their loyalty because it is based upon a presumption that they're not loyal or they're less loyal than other groups in society. or that there is some sort of connections between a person who is muslim, who commits a horrendous, heinous act of

terrorism, and someone else who happens to share their faith as opposed to for instance, in the shooting in pulse nightclub, where you know donald trump made this assessment of him having done this as a result of him being muslim, but he was also from queens. as is donald trump. as am i. and so, i think it is kind of lines that we're accustomed to saying in terms how we assign blame. >> i'll allow you to go last, because you got a lot to say given theological background. how about yourself, lee? >> i mean this is a, this is a terrible thing to think that muslims have to meet some kind of test of loyalty, which is really i think what is this is. and there is, just a long, shameful tradition in this country, and other countries, where groups who are at

particular moment, viewed with fear or because people like to look down on some group. are made to have to express their loyalty in some kind of a form. it is a sad history. if you look at immigration policies of the united states over past 100 years, this has been the sort of sad, enduring theme. every time the country gets frightened about something, feels threatened, immediately you go after dissenters, i mean, my whole field of freedom of speech is built around laws trying to censor and stop people who have minority views, that people don't like. but, coupled with that, is

always an antagonism towards immigrant groups. so it is the alien and sedition act of 1798. it is the chinese exclusion act of the 1860s. it is the aliens red scare period of the post-world war i era. so it is a, it is a very, very bad and discouraging part of american history. >> for most people religion transcends a sense of nationalism, and so christians, muslims, jews, we all hold intention our adherence to our religious beliefs and obedience to the laws of the country which we live. i'm not saying we should have people prioritize nationalism over their religion because a lot of the religious people would find that idolatry.

what i am saying if we're going to have people regardless of their religious background, regardless of their religious beliefs into the country to take advantage of warts and all, american society, we have to hold better tension our religious beliefs and laws of the country which we seek to prosper. so i think that, i'm not asking them to violate anything, any heart-felt religious belief, but i think we need to have some sort of open and honest dialogue about some religions have more difficult problem doing that than others. not demonize that entire religion by any stretch, but i think there is certain problems. we can address that not to say christians don't have issues as well, but if we have this type of freedom in terms of allowing people to participate in their religious believes, sincere religious beliefs. we have to give them to do that

in bounds of the law. shouldn't be in violation of other people's safe spaces or their physical safety. >> something you said in a second, but we would like to open up the floor to anyone who wants to ask questions. so if you come down to the corner and participate, you are welcome to do so. talking about immigration, and integration, i guess there is a fear of commonly-hello beliefs, anti-immigration proponent is this fear of integration into society. obviously not necessarily justifiable in many respects but there is that fear. you how can we address that? what is -- do we have, willing to accept all cultures and immigrants regardless of background? >> we have a habit of doing that. there is not a problem doing that. what i would like to see when we're going to allow people to come in, regardless where

they're from, we need to take seriously the problems that some of the cultures, or some of the, cultures represented by people coming in have resistance to integration. i don't want to get to the report where we have balkanized centers of people resistant to emigrating to american society and american society saying that is okay. i think it is, i don't think we emphasize integration enough in this country. so what i'm saying is, i don't want to get to situations reflected in europe where you have pockets of people who are angry, so isolated they feel marginalized because they haven't finished process of integrating into that culture. not so say that they have to completely eliminate everything from the culture they brought in, they have to immigrate into the society to reduce feelings of marginalization and anger they feel. >> marginalization is as a

result of their feelings or objective ideas or reality in the lives of people? >> could be both. >> so to your point, if we were to look at the no-nothing party of 1850s, look at anti-catholic hysteria, people believed that catholics were inherently monarch call because of the pope and believed in structure antithetical to american democracy. that these people could not be integrated into american society. look at theodore roosevelt in the beginning of 20th century, all of these people, white people, who were coming into the united states were not fit for democracy because democracy was generally, we all know prerogative of white anglo-saxons and tutans, germans and brits could do it, but had no idea whether italians or irish who were not white would capable of functioning in

democracy. we're looking at an tyke prejudice, despite evidence to the contrary, irrationally maintain ad grip in american society, continually being useful for further marginalization of people. not the actual saying, why are people maintaining ideas that keep them marginalized. it is why are we looking at people and finding it valuable to keep them on the margins in the first place. >> i have to pause. i know this will come up in some of the questions we're about to, so, welcome. if you can announce yourself and ask the questions. >> i just wanted to be close this it discussion. hi, my name is eileen. and, i have been here all day, and wonderful, but i, i don't know if it is blood sugar or just power of this particular discussion that's has its own particularizing of an emotional response.

what comes to mind for me in i guess across the board, whether race, religion, our country, is, i don't, i don't know what i really think or know but my sense is not this religion, it is not that religion. for me i, my, i'm challenged by a fundamentalism in whatever group there is. and that, that's principle based. separation of church and state, right? my, my spirit feels encroached upon by, i mean to say a lack of generosity is not really accurate, but, among discrete

groups, you know, who don't, we, i'll say we, you know, i feel like this today, we don't, it seems difficult to find a unifying principle of common ground that then can be applied. golden rule kind of stuff in a way. and that is true, it seems both for religion, and both, why don't religious principles, golden rule principles, why don't also extend to an understanding of the dynamics of race and purposes of the three things in this discussion of immigration as well? >> thank you for that comment. what i might do, ask your question as well. then i will throw it to the panel. >> sure. my name is sanjay. what we were talking about in

terms of letting in groups. contrast between how europe and just specifically france versus the u.s. i wonder if there is sort of a risk of almost, you know, in sense throwing the baby out with the bath water? you see in france where, you know almost have like due to nature of that country, hype are energized version of separate of church and state, of muslim state, forcing second and third generation immigrants almost are to choose, are we french, are we muslim? the things the u.s. has done are a lot better. multitude of same number of americans joining that. also number of europeans and things like that. i wonder if there is like a danger in sort of going too far almost -- obviously national security is important but danger of is losing what makes us great.

>> thank you, too. >> would you like to answer first? >>. i think that is very good point, when we moved into any sort of extreme or finance funnist point of view there is danger in that -- fundamentalist point of view. there is details of our democracy as well as culture get flatenned out. i think that we are constantly, i am constantly fighting as a woman of color, not just to be noticed but to be noticed in equal standing point. when we were at the women's march, i was director of women's march and codirector of partnership for the women's march. when we were putting together our policy platform which we called points of unity document, there was a lot pushback and a

lot of misguided questions around why our points of unity document was talking about race? why our points ever unit document was talking about immigration? why it was talking about poverty? why it was talking about criminal justice reform because everyone was saying this is woman's march? why are these issues being discussed here? we should talk about reproductive rights. we should talk about reproductive justice, not immigration, and the push back was very severe because people wanted women, in this moment in time, just to fit into a box. what we were saying was that actually, no, all of these, all of these issues are women's issues. you can't make me choose between being a woman or being immigrant, or being a woman, and being muslim. i am one of the same. that is me. i will not choose, and so i

think that is, for me, one of the reasons why the women's march was so successful in that we were able to educate on a mass level around this idea that it is not a new idea around init section alty but -- intersection alty, most people never understood the concept or come into terms with that concept. so i think our innate nature, our innate nature of human beings is to not fit in a box. when government or someone is trying to push us in there, we will fight. styles that fight will lead to unfortunate places. obviously i'm not condoning that but i'm saying that we can force people to choose between who they innately are. >> would you like to add? no very quickly. the only thing i would say

because i have a lot of issues again, again, i think it is extremely important to realize that being tolerant, that you know, choosing free speech, of choosing plural listtic societies, of choosing to live in -- it is very hard to do those things. it is just not the natural human impulse. it is, that is why you have laws. that is why you have constitutional principles. that is why we expect leaders not to fan, antagonisms between groups. and to ignite the natural tendencies of people to be intolerant. i mean you can not look at history of this country or any country and not come to the conclusion that it is really hard work to live and to benefit from a plural -- pluralistic

environment. it is deep principle of the united states that we will be better because of that. >> thank you. if i could ask you? >> sure. >> hi, i'm liz. class of 2002 from columbia. if i could say hi. i'm a new republican african-american descendant. i became republican last year. i quite frankly felt totally not welcome, no offense at your women's march. i for some reason, a, was really excited to see president bollinger here, i was looking forward to coming to this discussion but i just want to say i feel very disappointed because it feels like, even when derek was talking about that daring conversation about speaking about reality we're all facing you hearder.

jeers in the audience. i never full marginalized until i had a trump sticker on my car. i lost a best friend over this election because i have broken out of that mold, box, people still think i have to be in. i never felt freer than as a black republican, coming back to the republican party because those are the conversations that i have thought through and i chosen to fight through. so my question is, is there space for actual discourse or, do you have to still remain in the in crowd in order to feel black enough? you know people question my blackness now because i'm a republican. well, i went to howard law, you can't take that away from me. i'm just saying that i really hope, you know, in 2017, i'm also a child of, of september 11th.

so unfortunately i can not get away from the fact that i still can't go downtown far enough because of what actually happened based on religious reasons. we have to be holistic and i would implore us to have really, is it, if we can't have these conversations here in new york, in the united states, in an open environment then, i don't know where we can have them. >> thank you. [applause] give you, allow you to answer. go to this gentleman? >> i would actually say we are having this discussion, right? so i think that this is the face that we are talking with someone from quote, unquote, the other side. i agree with you -- >> who is from the other side, trying to figure out? >> you right here. i'm saying here at this moment we are having discussion based you were able to discussion come to the table, state your opinion, have this discussion with my. i agree with you, that the, one of our biggest problems in this

country at this moment in time we can not discuss. that we can not have civil conversations around issues that we disagree upon. that families are being broken up. that relationships are being lost. i know several friend that are on the same case, on same issue where they're not speaking to family members who voted for trump. they think it is unfortunate reality of how divided we are and the leaders that are fanning that divide. and so, i, i challenge you to continue to have those daring discussions because it is the only way that on a person-to-person level we will be able to heal. and this country needs to heal, in order to be able to move forward. because the way which we're moving towards right now is, i see as only disasterous. and i do want to correct just one thing. because i think it is important. i also moved to new york two days before 9/11.

to go to grad school. and i don't believe that 9/11 was religious based. i believe 9/11 was based around, but might have been religious fundamentalism. in my eyes it is around towards our international policies towards the middle east. >> thank you both. i will give you the floor. only have a few minutes. >> like to ask this gentleman. >> i think my question is a bit more policy based, but, the argument came up that affirmative action at university level is sort of too late of intervention to make up for 12 years or more of inequality in education systems. but that argument also came up that the problem with affirmative action is stigmatizing. so i think the alternative to university level affirmative

action is obvious. alternative would be early intervention like preschool, primary level. i don't know if that exists. that is part of my question, does that exist. and why do we wait until folks are 118 to make up for that level? -- 18. if that was affirmative action was race-based would that be stigmatizing. >> you and der being are both right. >> we'll leave this at this point of a live coverage about the constitutional war powers of congress and the president. it is hosted by federalist society. >> today's luncheon is one of many events the federalist society is planning on capitol hill and across the country. on behalf of the initiative i want to thank you all for joining us.