o ch eof is actually benefiting more white students than any students of color. and while the university has a lot community of outreach, we have marshall brown who was a community activist heading some of these kind of these outreach moments. i think the university needs to encourage students who would be the first people in their families to go to college even the high school graduation nature newark is very, very low rather than necessarily just relying on remedial programs for students that can already get in. and i think there's a real class issue that we need to think about. these students need a lot of support, a lot of people are not going qualify for loans and other things to attend rutgers and to pay the tuition that rut g rutgers requires especially when we consider how our world is becoming more global and a lot of students now are international students.

who are by default paying full tuition. so i think we need to keep all these things in mind. and while i'm certainly being critical, i think it's just asking that we don't forget, that we don't just wear this crown of diversity saying we're the most in the nation without remembering that there is still a lot of work to be done about. >> we have time for one more question.. >> we have time for one more question. >> my question is no rosalie. i was struck by one of the slides that you showed that said rutgers white oasis. and it made me think of public space. and i wonder what role did the community play, similar to the last one, but what role did the community play and were there tensions because of the amount of public space that the university held in the neighborhood? >> absolutely. that's a great question and i think we see these things with

columbia university and pretty much anytime an urban campus is built because in order to create that space, they're essentially knocking down a lot of public housing and homes of people that have been in the community for a long time. because otherwise you can't really create these sprawling grounds of buildings and residence halls. this is kind of something that's remarkable that i'm sorry i didn't have a chance to talk about in my short presentation. the students were really being mentored by the community activists in newark at the time and these were the same act activists that were boycotting umdnj at the time they had a proposal for 25,000 acres and were talking about the bull dozing of people's homes through urban renewal. these are the same activists boycottth cotting highway conversation. and what we know about highway construction in urban space is that it would tenicly be created through the downtown heart of the city. and these students were being mentored by a lot of the black

panthers community, organizers community, activists. and really these people in the community gave the students the tools that they need to press upon the demands upon what was called the white empire. somebody mentioned vietnam earlier. when i interviewed a lot of these activists, they talked about feeling that this was urban colonialism and they really identified with the third world people's movement. >> i want to thank all of our presenters and all of you in the audience for joining us today and for this wonderful discussion. thank you so much. smchlt applause ] coming up next, a panel sduks on former president george h.w. bush's legislative accomplishments. it's part of the miller center of public affairs on the 41st president and marks the relieves transcripts from oral interviews

conducted with bush administration officials. thank you, professor jones. it is an honor to be here on this panel with my two favorite professors from my graduate work here at the university of virginia and two professors i'm proud to be able to say are mentors to me. and also it's an honor to be serving on this panel with members of the bush administration and thank to you all of you in the assembly here today and those of you who may be watching in a remote situation. we thank you for your service to our country and we thank you for your participation in this oral history project. so i want to begin with a paper that henry and i have produced for this conference with a reference to governor sununu, the chief of staff for bush 41. he tell us an anecdote in his oral history about when he was governor of new hampshire and that he had appointed at the same time three members of the

new hampshire judiciary, including the chief justice of the new hampshire supreme court. and governor sununu went into this grand room where they were going to swear in these judges and their peoples were there and other people with fr the benfro the bar. and he said i looked out over the crowded and i realized that all of the three judges i had appointed were rather short of stature, not in reputation, but simply in height. and so governor sununu looked out at the crowd and he said and of course you've probably noticed that you cannot be aller than the governor and be a judge in this say the. so he went back to his office and his staff said did you see what happened when you said that. and the governor said, well, yes. everyone was very nice and they laughed at my joke. and the staff said, no, governor, every lawyer in the room ducked down when you said that. and so the governor ended this anecdote in the oral history by saying the point is when you appoint people, of course they fit what you're looking for in

terms of discussions and interviews and what they said, but he ended with this tout. it's so hard to get what you think you're getting. so henry and i are using that anecdote and that line as the theme of our paper today when we talk about the appointment of david sutter in 199 on and clarence thomas in 1991. these two vacancies occurred of course because of0 on and clarence thomas in 1991. these two vacancies occurred of course because ofon and clarence thomas in 1991. these two vacancies occurred of course because ofn and clarence thomas in 1991. these two vacancies occurred of course because of and clarence thomas in 1991. these two vacancies occurred of course because of retirement from the bench of justin william j. brennan jr. who had been there since 1956. he suddenly announced his retirement though he was elderly and frail at the time, but he had a slight stroke and his doctors encouraged him to step down. a year later in june of '91, an aging and frail justice thur god marshall retireme retirement. obviously they saw marshall as the black seat and the long tradition of seats researched for catholics, jews and geographic constituencies.

in fact this so-called representative criterion is only one of the quartet of factors presidents have used to place 112 justices on the u.s. supreme court. the other three which henry has developed in his seminal book justices, presidents and senator, the other three factors he has cited are objective merit, ideological combat ability and in some instances personal friendship. so now i will turn to the appointment of david sutter, henry will cover the thomas appointment. thought to be a moderate conservative, and road scholar at obs forward, sutter received bush's nomination to the u.s. first circuit court of appeals and began serving there in may have 1990. when the brennan seat opened up, sutter's dear friend and mentor

from new hampshire lobbied hard for judge sutter to fill the brennan seat. we can't go into all the details about the discussions behind the scenes, but eventually the list of potential nominees for the brennan seat included kenneth starr and clarence thomas. but eventually that list was win knowed down to david sutter and edith jones. governor sununu's comments in the oral history reveal his nuanced approach to the selection criteria that he considered, including future nominations and a desire on his part to avoid reserving seats for various groups on the high bench. he was of the thought that perhaps justice o'connor would leave soon and he didn't want edith jones to go into that seat for fear of this concept of the women's seat would be developing. he also reports that sutter's lack of a paper trail on federal judicial issues constituted a did it is continuing point in his favor among some members of the president's team as sununu observed we know that work was rejected. that was the environment in which the next supreme court

appointment came up for george bush and the president obviously wanted to make a positive impact on the court and yet at the time really did not want to go through a contentious hearing process on his first supreme court nomination. bush eventually met with sutter who came to the white to see him and sununu said sutter came in and as usual sutter in his own new hampshire dry charm made the president feel very comfortable. the nomination then went up to the senate and it sailed through as sununu explained. our fellow panelist today also helped to smooth the way on capitol hill. fred has commented in his oral history that one of the things that he did with sutter was he went to all the guys who had been attorneys general of their states when sutter was attorney general in new hampshire to build a body of support among those individuals. fred said that gets you the joseph liebermans of the world or people who had been prosecutors like patrick leahy

or people who have had similar career experiences. and then fred added in his oral history, david's a very smart guy and my biggest concern about his confirmation other than the personal side and how they were going portray him, because sutter was a life long bachelor, there were stories that circumstan circulated about that, but his biggest job was to keep david sutter from getting in to intellectual discussion that he shouldn't be getting in to with members of the senate. that was a big challenge with him fred said, but he was smart enough to listen to us and so it all worked out in that regard. indeed it did. despite its democratic majority, the senate judiciary committee then chaired by joe biden voted 13-1 to send the sutter nomination to the floor and david sutter garnered 90 votes to replace brennan and he took his seat on the court for its 1990 term. so with that, i'm going to turn to henry now who is going to talk about the thomas nomination.

>> thank you very much. chuck, old friend, great to be on the panel with you. and as for barbara, she's too generous. p that's all i have to say. and i have seven minutes. very generous. in 1990, president bush had appointed clarence thomas, a prominent conservative african-american lawyer in the reagan administration, to the united states court of appeals for the washington, d.c. circuit, a well-known professional stepping stone to the supreme court. a graduate of the college of the holy cross and yale law school, thomas had a compelling up from poverty personal story. he had served as assistant secretary for civil rights in the united states department of education and then as chairman of the united states equal employment opportunity commission. for obvious reasons, thomas secured the top position on the short list on on replace justice

marshall. ironically, his race almost cost him the nomination. the president did not want to look at it again like it was a woman's seat on the court or a black seat on the court or a northeast seat on the court reports governor sununu. the president's election team suggested looking at it as a possibility of a hispanic nominee. president bush who was at his summer home responded favorably, "well, look at the hispanic candidates and interview some of them." the chief executive ordered united states fifth circuit court of appeals amelia garza to fly to the district of crumb bee a for an interview, but he seemed even less seasoned tan thomas according to attorney gone thornburg. the election team quickly informed the president that judge thom usas was the best

choice. sununu, thomas and his wife, virginia, headed to the bush compound at walker's point. the president told thomas at 2:00 i will announce that i will appoint you to the supreme court. now let's go and have some lunch. in proclaiming his choice to replace thurgood marshall, bush argued that the fact that thomas is black has nothing to do with the sense that he is the best qualified at this time. "even i had high doubts if i so extravagantly acclaimed thomas recorded years later. and thornburg remembered that i kind did have a double take. i think what the president meant, sort of with a wing in the eye, was that this was the best qualified african-american candidate we could find and i think he's right. fred mcclure recalls that unlike sutter, thomas hasn't been

immersed in the intricacy cities of the law and you have to work with him on that because he hasn't spent a whole lot of time how the court had dealt with baker or madison or all those because that has hot been his life.nt been his life. thomas attempted to use the evasion technique that had served justice sutter and other prior nominees so well, also called the ginsburg routine. the senate judiciary committee vote the 7-2 in his vote on the nominee and his name headed to the full at some without the committee's endorsement.

before the senate could vote, anita hillside show had to be played out.before the senate co anita hillside show had to be played out.committee's endorsem. before the senate could vote, anita hillside show had to be played out. thomas vehemently denied any wrongdoing and questioned the good faith of senators for putting him through such an ordeal, called the proceedings "a high tech lynching of an uppity black man." fred mcclure explains his view of thomas' response, and i quote, clarence is a very religious guy and i think he reached the point when our conversations then and afterwards he kind of shifteded to somebody else's hands and responsibility. somebody much hire than either of us. and it was kind of now that i have the chance, i need to say this. and i need to say this because it's the right thing to do and if i don't do what i believe is the rigght thing to do now when they're attacking my character,

which is an unfounded attack on my character, then i'm not living up to those things that i believe in. and if that costs me being on the supreme court, which i didn't ask for in the first place, then okay. end quote. indeed 11 democrats, 7 from the deep south, joined republicans to confirm the battered candidate 52-48. probably the closest vote in the history of the appointment process. it was certainly the closest vote in the 20th century for a successful candidate. when his wife reported to thomas that he had been confirmed, he replied whoopt-dee. in reflecting, former attorney general thornburg concluded some of the people who went to such

lengths to discredit clarence thomas turned out to be the same people who assumed bill clinton over much more egregious conduct, so you tell me who is kidding whoom hem here. this is all partisan. end quote. and that is my conclusion. >> henry is going to speak a little bit about about now the record of these two judges and particularly tie to our domestic theme for this panel. >> all right. i always do what i'm told. >> i should add henry flew in last night from italy especially to do this panel, so he said to let you know he's just a tad jet logg lagged. >> getting up at a quarter to 4:00, 18 hours with a major event involving two missing p s passports on the plane, which was a wonderful time. well, david sutter served ably

for 19 years on the a nation's highest tribunal. his opinions in clear elegant language. justice sutter produced only eight majority pins, none of which were of major significance. his votes aligned him with the court's conservative block, but he had the highest revel of agreement 89% with justice sandra day o'connor. they were good friends. in criminal justice cases, he continued his tense dips cichb side with the government. conservatives always hailed sutd are's decisive vote which upheld the constitutionality of regulations fpreventing clinics there discussing absorption with

clients. planned parenthood to uphoeld roe v wade was recommend nany o sent of the past. members of the pro-life humidity were devastated that sutter had not provided the fifth vote to overturn roe v wade. he did not nominee from an he will came laescalated war of wo. a first attempted establishment claw cases, sutter began to take the lead on the separation 1u67 as this board of education and university of virginia. in contrast, clarence thomas' two decades have been have been relied on the tribunal on

the block. the closest ally being joseph scalia. his votes and opinions have originally been postured to firm commitments to a government role. such as gonzalez and the strict statutory construction and the opposition to racial preference policies in the affirmative action. and the resolute embrace of federal principles, the interesting case of the united states term limits with the opinion. in 2007, he boasted to the federalist society. one thing i have demonstrated in 16 years on the supreme court is you can do the job without asking a single question.

ev end quote. >> with that, i'll draw this to a close. justice sutter's record was summed up. i think sutter was more liberal than those involved in the selection process anticipated. to this day, anytime i go to a conservative meeting, 15 people come up to me and hit me with a sutter two by four across the forehead about bush's second nominee. i think clarence is a solid vote. the supreme court appointments once on the bench occupied closer to the left and right of the spectrum than did their appointing president. sutter's nomination was the direct result of the lessons. namely, don't appoint a scholar jurist who boasts opinions to his name.

especially to the court swing seat. with his credentials and few decisions on hot-button issues on federal litigation, sutter had the stealth nominee. his state court record illustrates the hazards who possesses federal judicial questions. clarence thomas' ideology was conservative. more so than president bush whose republicanism was more lean right. thomas reflects the long american tradition of representing constituencies on the highest court. both to bolster the legitimacy and religious and racial gender groups. the governor has remarked, this is the greatest nightmare or governor has.

the politics of names u.s. supreme court justices can derail presidential dreams of finding ideological soul mates on capitol hill. >> so meticulous has been the planning for this symposium that is the directors and planners insisted that at least one panel in honor of the first lady have a majority of barbaras. [ laughter ] >> they checked and neither henry nor fred was willing to change his name. therefore, they sought out three of the most capable barbaras in

the western world. the next barbara, i know very well and have known for a long time. she studied with the master in congressional research. richard fennel at the university of rochester. she has carried on in his tradition by actually going to capitol hill and finding out how it works. she understands the difference between reform and change and has not only documented, but interpreted correctly, in my judgment, all of the changes that occurred and whether or not they are related to reforms that have been put in place. she is the now amerita professor. she held a very cushy chair at

the university of los angeles. her books are many and you can actually learn something from them. they are readable. they do not trash congress as very common in literature. and they are not impenetrable. professor barbara sinclair. >> thank you. i would like to thank the miller center and katrina, who has been just wonderful. i don't think the center could survive without her and everyone else who has made this such a, i think, at least to this point, such a successful conference. the topic on which i was asked to talk and write and half of my

title is george h.w. bush, congress and domestic policy making. fred mcclure's transcript is useful. it is based on other primary and secondary resources, including my own interviews with members of congress, congressional staffers and other knowledgeable folks i interviewed in the bush administration. if the spirit of full disclosure, i'm a congressional scholar so my paper probably does have a kind of congressional skew of perspective. now, i argue here and elsewhere that presidential legislative success, while certainly in part

a function of the president's and his administration's political skill is much by the context in which he operating. in other words, how the president plays his cards does make a difference, but the hand he is dealt is more important. what was bush's hand? i'm arguing it was not really a hand conducive of policy making on a heroic scale. what specifically? well, he won election with a very respectable 54% of the vote. but his party lost seats in congress. so he faced an opposition-controlled house and senate. it was controlled by democrats

in substantial margins. there was no perception that he had a mandate coming out of this election. certainly not among congressional democrats. that was a function of a number of things, partly a function of the campaign itself. that was partly a function of the fact that running after two terms by a president of your own party presents a whole variety of problems. now, in terms of the problems bush confronted, i think less appreciated as an important factor is that he faced a considerably more formidable congress and democratic party than his immediate republican predecessors had. this was a democratic party that was more ideologically cohesive with a stronger caucus and party leadership. the committee chairs were much

less independent operators than they had been when bush himself served in congress. there were a lot fewer conservatives. and, of course, the republican party itself had changed. it was much more -- there were many more hard-edged conservatives. what i'm saying is that the congress at this point was on its way, though it certainly wasn't there yet, to becoming the polarized congress of today. then, of course, there was the deficit problem. there were mitigating factors. one was that congressional democrats were so glad that reagan wasn't president anymore. they really were inclined to see bush as someone they can deal