always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. >> key west is where president harry truman sought refuge from washington. >> president truman regarded the big white house as the great white jail he felt he was constantly under everyone's eye. so by coming to key west, he could come with his closest staff, let down his hair, sometimes some of the staff would let their beards grow for a couple days. they certainly at times used off-color stories and they certainly could have a glass of bourbon and visit back and forth without any scrutiny from the press. a sportswear company sent a case of hawaiian shirts to the president with the that if the president is wearing our shirt we'll sell a lot of shirts so president truman wore those free shirts that first year and organized what they called the

loud shirt contest and that was the official uniform of key west. watch all of our events from key west saturday 59 o'clock p.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span 3 3. the u.s. military took the lead in the u.s. response to the recent yoeb outbreak in west africa. the heritage foundation hosted a discussion about why the military was used. the talk focused on the mostly behind-the-scenes work on four agencies in the department of defense. the discussion is about 1:20. >> it's quiet in here again. good afternoon welcome to the

heritage foundation. we, of course, welcome those who join us on all of these occasions on our heritage.org web site. i would ask everyone here in house if you'll be so kind to make that last courtesy check that your cell phones have been turned off. it's always appreciated. we will host the program on the heritage home page following today's presentation for everyone's future reference. our internet viewers are welcome to send questions or comments, simply e-mailing speaker speaker @heritage dr. organize. we have cully stimson, he's manager of our national security law program and a senior legal felon at the institute for national security and foreign policy. he's a nationally recognized expert on national security homeland security as well as crime control. he writes and lech chushs widely on these issues as well as military detention and

commission commissions, immigration and the war on drugs. before joining us here in 2007 he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs he's also worked as a prosecutor at the local, state and federal levels. he's served for three tours on active duty in the navy judge add cat generalvocate corps as well. join me in welcoming cully stinson. cully? [ applause ] >> thank you very much, john. i want to welcome you to heritage on this second day of the summer, 2015. a couple years ago my colleagues at heritage formed and ebola task force to look at the policy decisions and the actions our federal government took with respect to the ebola outbreak. the task force's mandate was to

identify and make certain findings on how the u.s. could better respond to future crises. they issued a heritage paper. these were scholars in and outside of heritage which was published on the 24th of april this year. three days later, we hosted a panel event entitled "ebola outbreak and response assessment of initial u.s. actions." we heard from dr. daniel kwasniewski from george washington university, peter pham, director of the africa center and our very own dr. john o'shea, senior council for health policy studies. they shared their thoughts on state quarantines federal and state preparedness the world health organization or who preparedness and process to deal with ebola the role of u.s. doctors and the centers for

disease control and other related domestic issues. but that's not the whole story, which brinks us sbrings us to today's panel. i think it's all together fitting that on the day after memorial day we highlight d.o.d.'s critical medical research and development role in fighting the ebola virus. theirs is a story quite frankly, that's not well known and hasn't been well publicized but one which is nevertheless impressive and was critical to stemming the side. we have assembled leaders of four key d.o.d. organizations who are dedicated to protecting our war fighters and our country against injury and disease to include ebola. now, i'm not a doctor, but as a 23-year veteran of the navy i have immense respect for what d.o.d. can bring to the table in

almost every area of national defense. and i've followed the task force's work closely and in civil society i happen to know one of the key leaders in the d.o.d. medical research field who, when speaking with him at a social event we thought that we needed to tell d.o.d.'s story a little better and heritage is delighted to do so today. the format for today's event is quite simple. i'm going to sit down and be quiet and turn the experts and we'll go in the order in which they're sitting. each will make prepared remarks assisted by some p.o.w.ower point slides perhaps. and at the end of their collective talks i'll moderate a q&a. carmen spencer is the joint program executive officer for chemical and biological defense, jpeo cvd.

in that position he provides acquisition management on complex issues related to joint service chemical and biological defense acquisition programs. he plans, directs manages and coordinates the execution of that mission and is responsible for the development acquisition description and deployment of highly specialized and dynamic joint chemical and biological defense devices as well as medical diagnostic systems, drugs, and vaccines. he also voe sides are management oversight for the chemical demilitarization program an acquisition category 1-d program for the assistant secretary of the army and army acquisition executive. he received his bs degree from shamanad university in hawaii. colonel russell e. coleman, ph.d. is the joint program manager of the joint project management office for medical countermeasure systems headquarters in lovely fort detrick, maryland. he leads the d.o.d. organization responsible for the development acquisition and fielding of food

and drug administration approved medical countermeasures to chemical biological, radiological and nuclear threats. he is the author of over 58 peer-reviewed scientific publications and has been the primary investigator on nih world health organization and d.o.d. grants. in 1995, he deployed to zaire as part of a who team responding to an ebola virus outbreak and in 2003 he was deployed for iraq -- operation iraqi freedom as the chief preventative medicine section of the 520th theater army medical laboratory. in 2008, he became deputy commander of the u.s. army medical material development activity. he was selected as the 10th commander of that organization in 2010 and served in this position until 2013. he received his bs in biology from the state university of new

york. you can tell by his accent he's a new yorker. a master's degree in medical et among from the university of tennessee and a doctorate of etymology from the university of massachusetts. colonel steven j. thomas m.d. is the management team lead for ebola at walter reed army institute of research, u.s. army research and materiel command. he serves as the infectious diseases consultant to the surgeon general. his enterprise encompasses 2,000 military civilian foreign national and contract employees and laboratory facilityies all the world. he's also an internationally recognized virologist and vaccinologist and spent more than five years of his early career living and working in thailand and other areas in

southeast asia. he, too, has authored more than 55 articles and seven back chapters and routinely represents army medicine's expertise by speaking at national and international scientific events. he sits on expert scientific committees and boards for the d.o.d., nih, the bill and me melinda gates foundation and companies working on u.s. military development priorities. he took his bachelor's degree with honors in biomedical ethics from brown university and a medical degree from ball alal banny medical college. finally, colonel neil e. woollen is the director of biosecurity at u.s. army medical research institute of infectious diseases. this is one army acronym i do know. did i get that right? a biological defense laboratory part of the u.s. army research

and materiel command. during his first tour of duty he participated in ebola outbreak investigations in zaire and the thai forest of the ivory coast as well as animal outbreak investigations in field studies in the northwest territories of canada and montana for anthrax, plague, and other diseases. in 2010, colonel woollen returned to where he served in his current position while completing senior service college through the distance education program at the army war college. he received his doctorate in veterinary medicine in 1985 and a doctorate in veterinary pathology in 1989, both from kansas state university. he also received a master's degree in strategic studies in 2012 from the u.s. army war college. mr. spencer, the floor is yours. >> thank you.

first off, thanks, cully for giving d.o.d. the opportunity to tell its story. that's kind of rare for ux. when you toll folks your job in life is preparing the armed forces for chemical, biological and radiological events you're not the most popular guy at cocktail parties. most people just run away so we appreciate the opportunity. our mission is pretty simple, actually. and what we do in d.o.d. we develop the medical countermeasures to combat chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. and the threats are real. when we look at the last four years and what we've experienced in global crisis around the globe, we've had three major events. in march 2011, at fukushima when three of six nuclear generators went down creating a global crisis death to was there for the response.

in august of 2013, the use of chemical weapons in the country of syria and the u.s. was called upon as part of a u.n. effort and support of the u.n. effort and we destroyed those syrian chemical weapons, so we had the r, in, and the c. and of course we're here to talk about in april last year of the ebola outbreak, then we had the biological. so three out of the last four years, major global threats d.o.d. has had to respond to. despite numerous smaller-scale outbreaks, we still don't know the origins, the natural vector or the carrier of the ebola virus. it's highly contains you on its own, we know. that it's a path then that poses a risk of deliberate misuse with significant potential for mass casualties or devastating effects. . the d.o.d. has been engaged in research and countermeasure development for many years and during that time we've developed

a number of unique capabilities. this outbreak, though posed new challenges for us. see area what leone liberia and guinea never experienced an epidemic of this kind. moreover, the public health infrastructure presented challenges -- a lack of trained medical professional was a pretty good problem. for example, before the epidemic started, the cia reported that for every doctor in liberia there were 100,000 patients. in the u.s. that ratio is roughly 242 doctors for every 100,000 patients. the affected populations were large, mobile, and urban. local funeral customs included prolonged exposure to the infected deceased personnel. in responding, there's a limited -- very limited incentive for private industry to proactively develop response

tools, whethertherapeutics vaccines or other related equipment. even with therapeutics and vaccines in development largely with support from the u.s. government, the path to fda approval is somewhat unclear. and no mass production capability for these materials is readily available. in the response -- d.o.d. did not lead the response. we were part of a massive whole of government response and in support of a whole of government response. and it really was a great example of the interagency orking and pulling together for a common cause. you know our government is bureaucracy. in time of crisis it's amazing what we can accomplish in short order and this certainly was a time of crisis. even within d.o.d. it was a team approach as you see these gentlemen here. not only was my office that's

responsible for the life cycle development of these products involved but we had medical countermeasures, systems that lead the everyday to develop and require safe, effective and innovative medical solutions. the walter reed army medical institution of research or rare, conducts biomedical research that's responsible to needs and delivers life-saving products that sustain the combat effectiveness of all of our war fighters and the united states army medical research institute for infectious diseases is the leading laboratory for medical biological defense research. let me give you an overview of the response. the response was four-pronged. identifying the causative agent, providing diagnostic tools, treating the infected, and preventing further infection. the diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and quarantine protocol protocols developed by the department of defense provided

the core for this response. usamrid and rare and others within the d.o.d. partnered to respond to the outbreak. mcs under colonel coleman's leadership provided by biosurveillance effort and production efforts. it accelerated the development and production of two experimental drugs that colonel coleman will discuss in his presentation. and lastly, mcs also funded clinical trials for ebola vaccines. the planning and executing of a safe deployment of u.s. forces relied on rare pre-deplace of employment training and global biosurveillance. the results of the training speak for themselves. while deployed, no american service members contracted ebola or for that matter malaria a disease which infected 44 of 150 deployed marines in 2003. usamrid counseled on patient care, transport and dead body

management. they rapidly helped phil public health knowledge gaps in the outbreak arena. in conclusion given the events of the last four years -- fukushima, syria west africa, we know that these threats are not academic and that surprise is becoming routine. preparing a response to unknown threats requires massive flexibility. preparation from biosurveillance to intelligence, research, development, planning and coordination is key to minimizing or containing the next major event. the u.s. department of defense is leading the way in each of these areas. thank you again and thank you to the heritage foundation for hosting this event and i'm really looking forward to the q&a period. thank you very much. >> now i'll introduce colonel neil wallen. >> thank you, sir, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon, to be able to represent the u.s.

army medical research institute of infectious diseases and talk to you about the contributions that that organization has recently made. as had been pointed out i'm a veterinarian, serving as the drek or of biosecurity at, sam rid. and usamrid's job is to provide security to countermeasures to counter a bio threat. the hallmark i believe, from this outbreak response is if you see the bottom line of this slide where it says medical biological defense assurance policy for the nation, this is what our commander wants us to be. everyone that walks into that building daily this is what he wants us to be. the irony of this is that solutions built for bio defense will readily and easily transfer to believe a world outbreak of infectious diseases. that's one of the hallmarks of this current outbreak response. this is our mission-essential

task list at usamrid. it's core cableabilities that the organization must excel at for it to be successful in its contribution to the global effort. and these are what the commander has established for usarid, providing world-class expertise medical biological defense, to identify biological agents, train and educate the force daily and everywhere we go establish biosafety, biosecurity and biosurety capabilities and protocols then develop and test and evaluate medical countermeasures. most importantly, the last one, to prepare for tomorrow's problems, being prepared for elements of uncertainty. usamrid has a legacy research program that has given us a wealth of knowledge and experience in working with the ebola virus.

usamrid has a basic science program as its core fundamental element of contribution to where it works on both discovery and development of medical countermeasures and it has done that with ebola for several years. it leverages this in field activities as well. kikwit outbreak in 1995 was one of my first experiences with ebola and one i'll bring to your attention today as a field experience we had but usamrid's presence in outbreak investigations predates the 1995 kikwit outbreak. and then again in cote d'ivoire this was a very unique field situation because in cote d'ivoire the concern was the virus may be high up in the canopy. it never left a species high up in the canopy and we partnered with ocean nations in this effort to develop cat walks through the canopy and trap and collect blood from species that live high up in the canopy

rather than the forest floor. we brought an element of experience to these and coupled with our interagency and international partners built strong teams, both in kikwit where we worked predominantly and in collaboration with the centers for disease control and the world health organization and then in cote d'ivoire with the world health organization. this is a pretty busy slide. this shows our entire portfolio of areas that we are currently working on. the research development and test and evaluation. but i want to draw your attention to the four be bolded bullets on this satellite. ebola and marburg therapeutic, ebola and marburg vaccines, then the joint biological agent identification and detection system and the ebola virus diagnostics. vaccines and therapeutics u sam rid, there may be only one current candidate that has not passed through you sam rid for some form of testing and evaluation. so usamrid supports this effort

heavily. has a lot invested in looking at these various candidate therapeutics and vaccines. the joint biological agency if i hadication detection system is heavily tested and it was one of those field trial tests that we did when we were talking in the introduction about the times we spent up in northwest territories of canada looking at natural outbreaks. we would take those to the field and try to field test them then most importantly the ebola zaire diagnostic for this outbreak provided by a realtime diagnostic capability on the ground and i want to take just a moment to highlight that because when i was in kikwit in 1995, one of the critical things that was missing was the ability to diagnosis realtime on the ground because every patient after the first patient that was diagnosed as ebola any patient after that that looked like ebola went into the ebola ward. during this outbreak, with realtime diagnostics on the

ground we were able to set up screening capabilities to where patients could be tested and sent to a different treatment facility if they were not positive for ebola so this is critical. this is a say was also approved by the fda emergency use authorization to diagnose samples from u.s. citizens on the ground. we talked about rapid diagnostics already, usamrid is part of the network. they had years of experience to support deployable laboratories and usamrid is part of the biological engagement program and we were actually in -- have been in west africa since 2006 helping nations develop capabilities for lassa fever and other diseases. most efforts got channelled towards ebola in early as march

in see area leone and april in liberia to combat the current outbreak. we put genomic capabilities on the ground in liberia. the intent was to be able to monitor the virus to be able to track genetic changes in the virus because if it would genetically mutate during the outbreak a lot of the vaccines and they are piekds may not work so we want to track that throughout the outbreak. training, education, consultation, a number of standard publications were used as reference materials and core training courses but i want to highlight the other operation. this is where usamrid personnel stood up to the challenge to add additional training that's not part of their core element. they provided by training to over 4,000 deployment personnel on how to don and doff personnel protective equipment invested over 1800 man hours to do that. they also consulted with various agencies on dead body management and patient transport to

minimize the spread of ebola infection throughout the course of an outbreak. and the field iedentification is a standard course but it was hef leveraged by every capability going into every side that assists. this side shows the summary and i won't run through these. you'll see how each of the commanders, mission essential task list or core capabilities were able to be brought to bear on this outbreak usamrid stands to do that in the future with any other agents that we have a mandate to work on and therefore have the training knowledge and expertise to do such. bottom line is usamrid provides -- has provided by and can continue to provide non-standard skill sets and solutions to operational problems that deal with infectious diseases of a high consequence type of organism.

usamrid is uniquely prepared to support high consequence pathogen infectious disease outbreaks and we must be prepared for uncertainty of tomorrow. thank you for listening to my presentation, i'll be followed by the colonel. >> so good afternoon, my name is russ coleman. the colonel and i had an opportunity to deploy to wick it with zaire back in 1995. i can remember clear as day my wife who was seven months pregnant at the time when i was coming home and she heard that, well, the army was going give me a thermometer and that if i got a temperature they were going to throw me in the slammer. that's the isolation word at usamrid where if you came down with something bad, that's where they isolate you. my wife, knowing there were no

diagnostics, they are pudrapeutics or vaccine and concerned with the health of our unborn child said "the heck with that, throw him in the slammer right now." [ laughter ] you flash forward '95 to now, just about 30 years and you look at where we are. and there were complaints, and we've all heard them, that where are the drugs where are the vaccines? but the story we're telling is we've come a long way and i'm going to highlight those issues. i'm an advanced developer. what does that mean? you've heard from colonel woollen about usamrid and the science stuff that happens there. they investigate things like ebola virus, they look at what are potential ways to block the virus from developing in a person? but that's basic science and that doesn't get you a fielded drug or vaccine or therapeutic and that's where my

organization, the joint project management office for medical countermeasure systems comes into play. there's a handoff which occurs. so they have this science going on and ah-ha, it appears they've got a potential therapeutic product for ebola. and it transitions to my group and we bring an entirely different set of skills to bear because my job is to take that science and work with a commercial company and somehow spit out a fielded product at the end that's approved by the fda that we know is safe, effective, and it's manufactured consistently. so it's a different skill set that exists in my group from what existed in colonel woollen's group or thomas' group in the walter reed army institute of research. so what i'm going to talk to you about now is some of the areas that we've been involved and as mr. spencer said, nothing that we do takes place in a vacuum. so i may talk about what occurs in my organization, but we

partner with rare, we partner with usamrid, we partner with the centers for disease control we partner with the nih. it's a true collaborative effort at so many different levels. i'm going to highlight a little bit about our history how we got involved in the outbreak. i'll talk as i just mentioned about the whole of government approach that it took and, for example, we work with rare. how safe is that ebola vaccine. it's about different screening and assays. what you're hearing, the story we're telling here is throughout this whole ebola outbreak we remained agile and flexible and responsive so as mr. spencer mentioned our mission in the joint program executive office is chemical and biological

threats. nefarious use of a agent for some evil purpose. but the reality is the compounds that have been weaponized occur naturally so we have the capability to provide, to respond when these natural outbreaks occur. so in this chart, and i don't know how clear -- well i would gather you can't see that at all from where you sit. but this really highlights the key areas that our organization actively was involved in and it ranges up top, it's detection of the virus we get into the treatment of the virus and it's vaccine development. i won't belabor this here but this was a timeline that shows how and when and where we were involved. i have more detailed slides that i'll use to highlight some of these points. so when it comes to ebola virus detection, our team with our partners at usamrid, we identify the first cases in west africa

in this outbreak. our assays on the ground there were used to detect the first cases. you've heard a lot about the cases here in the u.s., the number of personnel came back and were infected and the testing that took place that was conducted by the cdc. the story that's not told that all of those assays were d.o.d. developed assays that with existing memorandums of agreement between the department of defense and the department of health and human services allowed us to provide our d.o.d. assays to cdc because there was a gap there and we were able to support them and their mission. and so you may have heard about the ebola easy 1 assay. what i'm talk about and what you'll hear from me is the challenges of developing these medical countermeasures. and when i say that what i mean is we're developing products that we hope will never be used

and that's a fundamental fact. we're developing products for threats that we don't know what where, or when will occur. we just know something will happen. as mr. spencer highlighted, over the past three years we've seen a bio outbreak we've seen use of chemical weapons and we've seen nuclear. we weren't able to predict any of those. for example, when it came to bio it could have been ebola, it could have been something else and we have to be prepared for all of it. the challenges that my group faces, though, is when it comes to developing these countermeasures, we do this in partnership with commercial companies and these are companies that are driven by return on investments. they've got to make money. so the business model that exists is tremendously challenging. hey, we want you to work with us and make these countermeasures but you probably won't make money doing it. that's the reality of the business we're in. so it's extremely difficult. and so when you hear an outcry from the folks, let's say in

west africa, hey, where were the drugs and vaccines they should have been here. we absolutely agree that. however it's incredibly challenging and the fact is that over the number of years it's the u.s. government department of health and human services with nih and barda and the d.o.d. with our laboratories and our advanced developments who are conducting the research that goes into the development of these products. that's a fundamental point that's important to understand. i'll get back to at the end my comments about the challenge of getting these countermeasures commercialized and available. back to virus detection, we have a couple of assays here. with diagnostics, we're trying to be prepared to respond to upwards of 20 or 30 different threats out there. it would be cost prohibitive to develop fda approved assays for everything in the near term and we haven't been able to do everything we want but what we had is we had assays that were

pre-positioned with the food and drug administration that had data that showed that they were safe and effective and when this ebola outbreak hit in less than 30 days we were able to get fda approval under an emergency use authorization to use these assays. and that was a tremendous accomplishment and that allowed us to move our assays forward throughout the u.s., working with the cdc where they were available to detect ebola in those patients. when it comes to ebola treatments obviously there are no currently fda approved therapeutics. that's a widely known story. they just don't exist and it's a hard business when you take a virus like ebola, which is highly lethal it's -- is it 50% lethal? is it 90% lethal? it's difficult to say but we know it's highly lethal. so this seeking out -- and this is where usamrid comes into play. they've been working on ebola for many many years.

trying to find therapeutic products and we have great candidates but the challenge comes as i said how do you get those approved by the fda with a commercial partner on board. and the story that's frequently lost is the lieutenant colonel is sitting here with his team, they funded the development of a number of promising candidates they had commercial partners, they had some data that showed products were effective and safe but not enough to get full fda approval so by working with the fda we were able to take these compounds and they were put into patients here in the u.s. on an emergency use basis and with the full support of our fda. so two compounds listed here on the colonel's portfolio, fav peer vir which is a compound developed by the japanese for influenza but it's effective against a wide range of viruses, so our team have been working on getting the data to show this

works against influenza but also against ebola. so we were able to work with the fda. this went into i believe a total of 13 patient ss in the u.s. . so what this means is you have a platform camable of spitting out a product on short notice so you could have a platform established and if something pops up like ebola in short order you're able to it phi -- identify the threat, sequence the genome and produce a compound to treat it. in this case we had a product we were developing that was really for ebola zaire that was found in kikwit and it turns out that

that strain of virus is different from the one circulating in west africa. so working with our commercial partner in a span of toint say two to three month that we're able to identify the tse kriens and develop a candidate product that was specific for the virus in west africa. there are ongoing tests of this compound in west africa not done with us but done with the european consortia and this highlights once again the fact that the relationships that are needed to keep these products under development, keep them moving forward is just not d.o.d., it's not even just u.s. government. in many ways they're international efforts. the last tier of our three areas is vaccine work and prevention. we began working on ebola vaccines back in 2010. and so that's our group in advanced development but in the tech-based development they've

been working on it further than that. at the time of the outbreak, we had what's call an effort ungoing. that was a vaccine intended to treat not just ebola zaire but sedan and marburg virus as well. and when it became clear, hey, we're dealing with ebola cieer, working with the d.o.d. and health and human services there were efforts to identify is there a vaccine candidate that could treat the disease circulating in west africa? and you've heard about what's called the vsv delta g vaccine candidate. and the testing has gone on our group was involved rid was involved nih was involved so you hear more -- i think colonel thomas you'll touch about that in your talk. so when we talk about countermeasures, it's much more than the science that has to take place.

it's a business model that exists. i don't know if any of you are familiar with the fda priority voucher program. a number of years ago it was recognized that we were not delivering medical countermeasures for some of those threats that occur in the let this developed parts of the world where diseases occur but there's just not a commercial market. and so the u.s. congress established an fda priority voucher system that would incentivize industry to work on diseases, these neglected diseases that were seen as of minimal importance. but what you would like to highlight is we face the same situation when it occurs to chemical biological and nuclear threats. we recognize they're important but we have such a difficult time getting commercial partners to work with us because of a lack of incentives. that makes this business incredibly challenging. at that point, key points here, you heard about how our organization has a long history working with other partners. you've heard about and will continue to hear more about

working with the other government agencies and our ability to deal directly with this outbreak and my final point here is the need to really be proactive about looking at medical countermeasure development, whether it's for ebola or other threats that face our nation. with that i will turn it over to colonel steven thomas. >> good afternoon. i'm glad to be here. thank you very much. i'll talk to you about the walter reed army institute of research. i'll tell you who we are, what we do and how both of those were leveraged to participate in the ebola response. so this is a picture of the rare. it's located in silver spring, maryland, just inside of the beltway. we were established in 18393 so just over 120 years. that's a very long time. we are the d.o.d.'s largest biomedical research facility. as you've heard before, we have around 2,100 u.s. government military foreign service

national and contract employees working not only in silver spring but in a number of locations around the world and we work in two main areas. the first main area would be behavioral health and brain health. we work on issues like traumatic brain injury post-traumatic stress disorder, we work on sleep and the interface between sleep and performance then we work in areas of infectious diseases and that's what i'll highlight for you today. so as long as we have had an army and as long as we have had a nation, infectious diseases have posed a threat not only to the u.s. service member but also to the citizen. and that occurs in peacetime and at war and here locally as well as overseas. it's been the organization that i work for, our charge to try to develop countermeasures to mitigate or eliminate that threat to the service member and the nation and we have done that successfully for a number of years and i list a couple of

examples of just the vaccines that we have developed. these make a difference not only in military recruits but those people that deploy overseas into harm's way. we have done that successfully in the past figuring out solutions to past problems but we're looking at current threats and what the future threats may be and you see a couple of examples there things like hiv dengue malaria and, of course ebola falls into that category as well. and we do that because we are an institution of competences and capacities and research platforms. we have people that are not only experts in infectious diseases but they know how to do research and development and to combine those two things is important and strategic. and in addition to the expertise that we have and the domestic platforms that we have we also have a large network of overseas research capabilities. we have a behavioral health unit

in germany which is currently in the process of transitioning to washington state. we have a relatively new unit in the caucuses just outside of tblisi, georgia, and then we have a long-standing presence in africa and southeast asia. and these are very deep and enduring partnerships with host nations where we identified common threats and common interests and work together at the government level at the civil society and at the community level to try to come up with countermeasures that serve both of our needs. as you'll hear these platforms are incredibly important for the u.s. military and our countermeasure development activities. so that's who we are and this's where we are and that's what we do. how is this leveraged for the ebola response? the first you've already heard was the testing of vaccines. so when these vaccines complete their early development testing at places like usamrid, they

need to be tested in humans and that's a core competency that we have and we do that domestically as well as overseas so when the defense threat reduction agency came and asked if we wanted to participate and we were able to do the first human trial of this ebola vaccine candidate, we were very pleased to be a part of that. and we did that we did it very quickly and we were able to do that because we can -- we're agile and we're able to redirect personnel and other resources to acute needs that arise. so in a very short period of time and in a small number of volunteers we're able to demonstrate the vaccine was safe and produced the immune response that we wanted it to. but we didn't do that in isolation. we worked with dr. fauci and dr. lane's team at the nih to help them with a parallel study that they were doing at the same time with the same vaccine candidate. a and we jointly published those results in the last couple of months. but it didn't stop at the u.s.

government. we were working with the world health organization because there were other groups also doing these small safety trials. and together we were able to take the blood samples send them to usam. rid and then usamrid were able to make the data to make informed decisions about what vook seen vaccine dose needed to be used in west africa and you've probably seen that those trials are ongoing. so as colonel coleman mentioned, it's not just d.o.d. or whole of u.s. government, it's an international effort. in our vaccine trials that we were doing here in the u.s., they were also being done overseas and in fact the vaccine trial we did at the rare this past year, it wasn't the first time we had done an ebola vaccine trial. building on the military hiv research program that had a presence in uganda for many years and collaborations in uh-uh ban da for many years we did the first human vaccine trial on the continent of africa

starting back in 2008. those results were just published as well. they just finished enrolling in a second ebola vaccine trial in uganda and we are scheduled to start an ebola vaccine trial in nigeria. so i think this is a prime example and an exam particular of how the d.o.d. is very good at expeditionary medicine but more than, that expeditionary research and development and i think that's a unique characteristic of our organization. so that was the vaccine testing story. but we responded in other ways as well to support operation united assistance and support i do domestic ebola preparedness. this was a different operation than what other operational groups had been involved in before so it was important to provide them pre-deployment training so they understood what the threats and risks were. and in my mind ebola was not the number-one infectious diseases threat to the deploying force

it was malaria, the most severe form of malaria. so we conducted a lot of pre-deployment infectious diseases threat briefings with the southern regional medical command and brook army medical center to all the deploying troops. you remember me telling you about the behavior health side of our institution. we also sent behavioral health teams to deploying troops to gain their understanding and perspectives about the operation that they were about to undertake and to understand what this specific mental health stressor may have been on that group. we also looked at controlled monitoring for that group and that data is coming in and we're analyzing it now. then if you remember back to that map, that large presence we have in africa and the large presence we have in southeast area, those nations had travelers returning from west africa that they needed to test and they needed to understand if ebola was being imported into their borders.

we've had 50 or 660 years of collaborating with these nations so we provide technical assistance to them. now, what you've heard is activities at the lab level and maybe at the program level but i can tell you this was being tracked at the highest levels of the government. so the d.o.d. ebola working group, which was occurring in assistant secretary of defense lumpkin's shop osc policy, they were responsible for coordinating the d.o.d. response in west africa and so they coordinated death to activities in support of the primary responder, they got all the different stakeholders together in d.o.d. and we ran through on a weekly basis all the issues that were confronted d.o.d. and confronted the interagency. they represented the d.o.d. with the joint staff at white

house-led meetings and they worked with congress to make sure people were remaining informed with what we were doing and why we were doing it. the point here, though, is that they were tracking very, very closely on a weekly basis all of this work that we were just telling you about. they wanted to know what were the vaccine trials, what were the results, what were the drug trials, where are pc1they, when can they be d- and all this information was going up to the president. so that's a summary of what the walter reed army research what their contributions were to supporting domestic ebola preparedness and i think taken with all the other talks that you've heard it gives and you pretty good idea of what the department of defense was doing. so i thank you for your time and i'll turn it over to our host now. >> well, thank you very much.

first i want to commend you on not devolving into military acronyms which i know is easy for folks to do. a few questions and then i want to open it up to the entire room. and this term may not be a term you have in the army, but in the navy we have a term -- you may know this because you served in the navy -- hot wash. hot wash is when after you do something, after you have an evolution, after you do a deployment, etc., you get all the stakeholders together, and you sit around a table or a room or a conference, and you figure out what worked, what didn't work, what went wrong, how to sort it out, how to figure it out and the best way forward. i assume you had some version or multiple versions of hot wash not only within your various components, but across dod.

and i was surprised to learn that solwick really played the role they did. i think that's interesting. i would think it would be health affairs, but it makes sense. and i'd like, i'd just like to go down the row here and ask you what are the one, two at most three top lessons learned from your perspective through the ebola response crisis management way forward? colonel, i'll start with you. >> i think the biggest lesson for us as dod was no one agency within the federal government has all the answers. it is a whole-of-government response to any type of global crisis, and when it comes to something like a biological incident like ebola, there are no borders.

and it's not a dod issue, it's a and dod has resources and assist, but we don't have all the answers, and we must work as part of the whole-of-government team to provide capabilities that we can provide. >> colonel woolen? >> one of the phrases you hear almost to a point where you get tired of hearing it when you're a student at the u.s. army war college is the term jiim, joint interagency intergovernmental multi-national, is what it talks about. and students there are encouraged to start thinking in that area if they haven't already before they come in. this outbreak rolled all that together. this has to be a joint interagency, intergovernmental, multi-national type of solution. there can be no single agency that can respond to this type of an outbreak and bring to bear @wwc[-j[

the resources that are needed to really be able to render a positive solution rapidly. the other thing that i -- and i talked a little bit about this in my presentation -- is that we cannot be stovepiped in our thinking. you know, as we develop solutions in the name of biodefense, we have to be thinking about how else can those be used and how else should those be used. and an infectious disease outbreak is a classic example of how something that is being developed for a relatively specific intent and purpose has tremendous ability to be cross-leveraged for other purposes as well. >> good point. >> colonel coleman? >> on a similar thread, by training, i'm a preventive medicine officer, and i think most people know it works, but it's also unappreciated and sometimes, you know, physicians, for example, more time is spent on treating rather than preventing.

but we know that prevention works, and in this case i think we saw the value of the investments that have been made over a many year period where we're trying to be prepared for any contingency that might occur whether it's naturally occurring infectious diseases or a bioterrorrism event. and we saw the benefits of that investment, that prevention that people had the foresight for and that we really were well positioned to provide support to this outbreak when it came to the r&d investments that resulted in whether it was diagnostics, vaccines or therapeutics. >> i guess the lesson learned for me is that once again it's been proven that the world is a really small place. and when you can get anywhere from one location to another in less than 24 hours, it is very possible for what is a west

africa issue to become a global issue. and that can have incredible, certainly morbidity and mortality ramifications and financial ramifications and political ramifications. so to me, i think the requirement to enhance our biosurveillance networks globally are of incredible importance. and it is not just the ability to identify and detect and characterize the pathogen, but when you build biosurveillance, you are building public health infrastructure. it's dual purpose. which i think, of course, the west african nations had not been so challenged in those areas, there may have been a different, a different outcome. so that's the main lesson that i've gotten from it. >> uh-huh. so before i open it up, the last question i have is so let's assume for the sake of the question that there is a verifiable outbreak in a west african country of what people

highly suspect because of biosurveillance is ebola. it happened this morning. this is a hypothetical, of course. but not beyond the realm of possibilities. walk us through, to the extent you can share, what each of your organizations does day one. what happens? dod in your lane -- >> in my lane the first thing that would happen is russ and i would be on the phone together -- [laughter] -- for a nice long phone call and getting the best and the brightest minds that we have together and basically war gaming it. what do we know, what don't we know, what are the capability gaps, what do we have on shelf, where do we need to put investment in the short term to get the biggest bang for the buck.

and strategizing what's going to happen over the next few weeks and how are we going to be prepared and ready to meet that challenge. and colonel right here would be one of those guys, because he's the guy that's making it happen. and that's what my organization would be doing. >> but i assume that in addition to phone calls, whatnot, there's going to be personnel eventually put in that area, american military personnel or doctors or civilians or somebody. because i think the public, especially people who aren't experts like you guys, assume -- and they could be wrong -- that we're going to have people on the ground there pretty quickly to figure out what it really is, how important, how widespread it is, etc. so -- >> and -- >> is that wrong?

>> no, that's not wrong. at that level that's going to emanate within the office of the secretary of defense, within the office of the joint chiefs of staff, and we will react to the warning orders that they produce. so -- and they're going to be asking us a lot of questions. and so that's why we get the best minds available to respond to their questions to include what would it take to provide a response. and in the case of ebola, one of the first things we're going to want to know and why we're going to want smart people on the ground as soon as possible is, as has been mentioned twice already, is to get a dna sample to determine what strain we're dealing with. it will come back and it will morph and it will be different each time we see it and we need to determine exactly what that is to determine the most efficacious therapy we can provide. >> i've been through this three

times now with ebola, and it's basically been the same each time. and that is until we get a request for assistance, we are not doing anything. the current people operate with a little bit different. i say we not doing anything meaning we are not pushing people out of the door. what we are doing is having meetings, discussing that task that i talked about, what capabilities we possess that could be brought to bear on the problem is asked to assist. that's a standard whenever the person -- the news of an outbreak hits, our commander starts convening those meetings, and it doesn't even sometimes take a commander to initiate that. people that have a vested interest work in that daily, start thinking about what we have available that could be brought to bear if asked to do that. but it all hinges on the request

for assistance before we can engage. this one was different because we had a presence in west africa. we had people on the ground as part of a cooperative biological engagement program to build host nation capability and capacity for these types of diagnostics. we were already there doing there. when ebola hit they rapidly transition specifically to ebola diagnostic both in sierra leone and then in liberia. >> i think i will build upon colonel woollen's comment. our mission really is for dod operation. if an epidmeic like this occurs in west africa that's not a traditional dod mission that's how it initially evolved before became operational assistance.

i've got to look at what my capabilities are and what can be brought to bear as colonel woollen said but i've got to figure out a way to publicly provide that support. we have to look at who our partners were another would be operating. so, for example, cdc responsible for homeland defense the many ways, diagnostics. we have the mechanisms in place that allow us to provide cdc with things that we've been working on. my advisor came to the u.s. come how we provide our therapeutics that are u.s. government owned respond. look at those mechanisms and figure out how can we provide the support. those are conversations that took place with ms. spencer and levels higher. >> you've heard a couple times it's not just the desire to go but it is the ask. that ask us to come through usually diplomatic channels into the department of defense. if the ask is coming from africom or africa command, in my particular organization, what we can do again because we did expeditionary research and development, we can take the

drug candidates or the vaccine candidates and we can relatively quickly deploy, if you will, to start doing trials to demonstrate in the population of interest safety and potential for clinical benefit. my organization is a research organization. that's one of the things we could bring to bear. and again in the process of doing that you are setting a public health infrastructure, setting up surveillance systems. you are educating the local communities or them force multiplier if you will, in helping you achieve your mission mission. >> anything anyone else wants to add on the panel or to add anything any of the other panelists have said? negative response, all right. do you have a question? simply raise your hand and what my colleagues with a microphone will come to you and please identify yourself by name and

organization and ask your question. the lady in front, please. >> victoria from the commerce department. thank you so much for your work. i feel a lot safer. thank you very much. my question is going to be more on the r&d and commercialization that you're working on. i would assume that, you to come in addition to the voucher and a fast-track system where you are probably going to get fast review and extension of patents, are there considerations on agency which are advanced market commitments guaranteeing these companies like a certainty for contract with the commercialization?

and also once these products are finished, are they subjected to licensing under the trips agreement? and bonus question, patient concept during crises. a lot of these diagnostics and a lot of the drugs you use probably are not approved in west africa. during crises do you get a blanket consent to use on west african population? >> it's like probably between the two of us we can handle that one. yes we talk to commercial companies about their ability to provide us long-term with the products. it's important to understand the dod requirements are relatively tiny. so, for example, when we're developing vaccines we may

require 400,000 doses, and depending on the shelf life we may only need that every couple of years. very small number. when you talk about the cost and investment that companies that may come as i said there's a lot of reluctance to say this is something we are going to take our resources. so even the small licensing commitment is in many cases not enough. so i'm glad you mentioned they have to have your doctors, patent extension of that sort of thing. those are the discussions i believe we need to get into because if you truly believe that this is a strategic and national priority, our ability to respond to these outbreaks, whether they are naturally occurred or a chemical or biological weapons event, we've got somebody going to crack the code on it. right now most difficult aspect of this whole process, we have great scientists doing great things coming up with potential technologies. it's getting them across the finish line.

the second part of the question was related to what is our desired end state? we want fda approved products. that is the gold standard and that is what we strive for. in this case we did not have fda approved products. however the fda has mechanisms that allow not cross the finish line products to be used, like emergency use authorization, like expenditures protocols and so during this outbreak we took full advantage of those. eua was used with the diagnostic products. emergency ere used for taking some these experimental compounds and treating individual patients here in the u.s. those did involve informed consent. there's a whole spectrum of tools potentially available that we've got to adhere to those requirements established by the fda to ensure patient safety first and foremost.

now i will turn over to the physician. >> in terms of u.s.-based trials, we were able to move faster than usual but it was not because we skip any regulatory steps for any ethical steps. we just focused a lot of resource and were able to do things in parallel versus sequentially which is how that normally works. my organization is not involved in the vaccine trials that are ongoing in west africa now. i cannot comment from a first person view, but what i can say from the experience we have had with field trials in other parts of the world, informed consent is always a component of that. actually children are able to understand basic concepts are, if that is a population that's involved, that is also always a component of what we do. so my assumption is, and i would be very surprised if it was not the case, that that is ongoing in west africa now.

and these countries have their own ethical review committees and own regulatory frameworks as well so these are not being done in a vacuum. >> your question in multiple parts, did we touch upon all the parts? >> did we get the bonus? >> one thing i will add to what my colleagues just commented on is what we are talking about is a low-frequency but high impact disease. you kind of hit on the subject already about how do you commercialize? so one of the things that has been looked at by several other scientists are working on a therapeutics, not so much of the vaccine site because it's more difficult to do, on the therapeutic side is repurposing drugs that have another intended purpose and has significant potential merit to also treating ebola virus. you also get a leapfrog type of start with reproducing other types of drugs that are also being researched for another type of disease because you can

leverage those early clinical trial data on the safety testing that can help propel that forward towards a solution. that's another area that a lot of scientists are looking at. >> i thought it was great that ebola was added to that list, but it's occurred in the middle of an outbreak. when you look at drug or vaccine development cycles, which are many, many year, in order to be prepared, you have to be doing that thinking far in advance. so this is great were able to respond actually and fairly flexibly but we could've been better positioned if we have some of the tools in place in advance. those are the incentives. like the fda priority vouchers. >> that's what we're looking at

now, the preparedness piece. when a crisis hits that's the worst time to exchange business cards. we've got to be prepared, rehearsed and ready for any eventuality anytime anywhere on the planet. that's where we're going to concentrate our efforts on now. >> i do think this speaks to why the department of defense needs to be involved in infectious diseases r&d, countermeasure development. because a lot of the problems that would work on do not necessarily have a large market share. it's not necessarily going to be the case that there is a corporate entity or pharmaceutical entity that will be willing to take it on. but the u.s. servicemember still needs a countermeasure. still need that drug or the vaccine to protect them when they deploy so the department of defense in some cases has to be the one taking the initiative to develop it. and in all cases needs to have a seat at the table to ensure the military gets what it needs. >> other questions? the gentleman in the middle.

>> thank you. thanks to the panel by the way. this is a great session i think i'd like to build on the question, comment that colonel thomas made. given you can get from monrovia to uganda to calcutta in 24 hours, the host workers in this country, given that the world health organization and other institutions fail to respond in a timely manner on interesting views about the about the need for global team occasions of warning systems, the civilian or the military. >> i will talk about biosurveillance. a number of the panel numbers have stressed the importance of biosurveillance. that's a global capability because it is a public health issue. and we are doing a number of things around the planet now to increase our biosurveillance capabilities because that is the early warning and the indicators.

we can say anything we want but the human is going to be the early warning signal. and then it's a question of time. so our biodefense efforts right now and dod is leading the way, is going to be the cornerstone of that early warning system, and we are expanding it as we rapidly as we can. you can learn more about it. it's called the global bio surveillance system. >> so the department of defense has the global emerging section surveillance and response system led by colonel jim cummings is also an infectious disease physician. they are in approximately 70 countries and that's both dod academic and host nation government facilities. but it's not enough. the network in west africa is not as robust as it should be or needs to be. and so that's an issue for the

people who allocate resources and who prioritize programs, but i am a staunch believer that that network needs to be larger. and again because of the secondary and tertiary effects of building biosurveillance networks. >> i personally believe, just the notion an example. there are literally hundreds of outbreaks occurring on a daily basis. most of them are well within the needs of the local population to respond to. the concern is what if the outbreak is larger when the local entity government, whether district, whether it's a nation, can respond effectively or what it's got true pandemic potential. and how you separate that out, the one that is the 990 that they can take of versus the big

one. so the networks that have been described are truly fundamental to allowing us to get that information. i think was a long way to go but there's been tremendous progress made in recent years. >> the only comment i will add to that because this is not my area speaks specifically on -- but the point has been raised we don't know what the reservoir is for these. we don't know what the risk factors are for people to contact with i we don't know whether it can pop back up again. it reemphasizes the point you're making and my colleagues have talked about, about the urgency of the need for something like a mobile surveillance system. thank you. >> this the gentleman in the middle, please. >> robert malone, a physician scientist and i specialize in facilitating the interface between industry and government, particularly dod and hhs. and i was trying to solve some problems with, call it the -- vsv delta g product. personally i think you guys are being way too modest.

i saw in mr. spencer's shop and colonel coleman's shop risk-taking, advanced risk-taking to expedite product development. and i saw flexibility in contracting that i have never seen before. and i think the fact that we have millions of doses of potentially potent vaccine available in the fall, reflected that risk-taking and that forward thinking. the question i have, and this surprised me as someone who specializes in this, is what happened to the phemc, the whole logic of that entity was to address this kind of problem and the intergovernmental interface issues were quite abundant. i have not had anybody explain to me where that broke down. i would love to understand that.

>> your question, what happened to the phemc? your voice kind of dropped. that's the question on the table. want to try and tackle that or you want me to take a stab at? >> go ahead and i'll pile on. >> it's been around for a while and it's -- >> explain to the audience -- >> is everyone familiar? public health emergency medical countermeasure here it's intended to ensure that u.s. government as a whole is working collaboratively with each other and not competitively to make best use of limited resources that we have. probably fairly accurate. so there are various bodies intended to facilitate this. and so although your position

where was the phemc, i would say there were discussions occurring at the phemc level look at the candidates that were unavailable, accelerated to be able to respond and they were decisions made with phemc but if killers take it to a higher level i will. so decisions such as the zmap which is probably the most bio therapeutic what agent most advanced and resources there, that the vaccine was the one that had been a true that could be explored most rapidly. so some of those decisions were made. additionally, i don't know whether it originated at phemc that heyn we understand how to develop is a risky activity. even though we may prioritize the zmap or of the vaccine can look at the other things in your portfolio and consider how you can accelerate those. so those sorts of discussions were taking place and discussions were sent back to phemc for their awareness.

>> i'm a member of the phemc. we did have discussions but in the early phases it was what can each in agency partner bring to the table, if you will. i don't think it broke down. i don't think was defective come as effective as it could then and i would acknowledge that. but it was because we are working in crisis mode and we attend a lot of meetings but it was about doing and not about meeting. so we from a dod perspective were trying to pour everything we could into the fight and get there as quick as we could. and we may have left some people behind in the process, and that maybe one of our lessons learned that come out of this. but the phemc has been a very good tool for me to ensure that i'm not duplicating what barda is doing, what department of homeland security is doing, what the cdc is doing.

it deconflicts so we are not all that spending money on the same problem. >> what is barda? >> the acronym escapes me. biologic advanced research development agency. >> department of health and human services. medical countermeasures. >> thank you. we get a lot of money from you, from the taxpayers to do this business. and i want to spend where can get the biggest bang for the buck. i want to leverage what they're doing to take it to the next level if i need it. i want them to know what i'm spending money on so they can leverage the great research that's been done, and they can expand on that. we get the biggest bang for the buck, it is very good. >> i'll give an example. it's easy to say this fell apart but things that were in place,

many people don't know, phemc, a lot of activities going on. animal nonclinical working group and this is really for a number of years has harmonized efforts amongst not just dod and not other just hhs but i like this as well, standardizing. what type of pathogen will use? that's provided tremendous value to all the organizations and in many ways best positioned as to be able to respond as effectively as we did. >>. [ inaudible ] >> hold on. rephrase your questions or internet and c-span and other audience can do. please speak louder. >> i had understood that phemc by directive, by their charter were to play a key leadership role in a situation like this.

hence my question. in an operational sense, tactical and operational sense. balance of the gap i was referring to. >> understand. other questions for the panelists? well, please join me in thanking this excellent group of experts, and thank them for keeping us all safe. [applause] here are some of our featured program this is weekend. on c-span saturday night at 8:00 supreme court justice ruth

bader ginsburg on national issues like gay rights race relations in america and the production of a new you've have i about her life and career. and sunday night at 6:35, a profile interview with ted cruz.have i about her life and career. and sunday night at 6:35, a profile interview with ted cruz. on book tv, saturday morning at 10:00 eastern we're live for the am roosevelt reading festival at the fdr presidential library museum. authors include sheila collins, and how books help the morale of our military. on sunday night at 9:00, on afterwards, the needs of a sexual rev revolution in the middle east. saturday morning beginning at 8:30 eastern, university of

california los angeles history professor joan wa on general grant. and at 11:00 aberaham lincoln and the press. and sunday morning, city college of new york history professor gregory downes. and later, a drugs about treason and loyalty with william blair. at the time our complete schedule at c-span.org. the u.s. commission on civil rights looked at access to higher education for minority students. panel lists included representative from the department of education, chancellors from various universities and nonprofit organizations. this is an hour and a half. >> it's now 9:00. are you there? we'll get started.

calling this briefing back into order. this is day two of the civil rights commission briefing on the effect of college access persistence and completion rate tons socioeconomic ability on minorities. i'm marty castro, chair of the u.s. commission of civil rights. today is may 29th. we call this briefing to order at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. present with me today in the headquarters of the civil rights commission is vice chair, patricia timmons-goodson, and commissioners, narasaki heirot, achtenberg. yesterday's panel which we held for a bulk of the day talking about these issues of persistence and completion and the impact it may have on minorities' mobility.

today's session is 17 distinctive speakers, all of whom provide us with an array of viewpoints on the topics. we have four panels today. the first panel is federal government officials discussing pertinent programs. panel two will consist of the university system heads. we will share their experience and perspectives and the last two panels give us viewpoints of various scholars. before we proceed with the housekeeping of how we're going to run the panels, and in due time and to the speakers, we want to give our commissioner roberta achtenberg an opportunity to share a few words. it was her concept paper and efforts that resulted in yesterday and today's briefing. so commissioner achtenberg. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the courtesy. the premise of today's exploration and yesterday's, as well, is as follows. access to and attainment of the baccalaureate degree is the key to upward social mobility and economic mobility in today's national economy.

attainment has significant measurable lifelong benefits for workers, for their families, their communities, the national economy, and our international competitiveness. it is a social, political and economic good. and yet, there are racial disparities, gaps in enrollment, gaps in persistence, gaps in at takenment of the baccalaureate degree on the basis of race that need to be examined and are being examined by this commission. there are various federal funding streams that are provided to post-secondary

institutions for the benefit of the education of low income people and particular racial minorities. and yet, sometimes the operation of those programs end up having a different effect than perhaps was intended. in particular, many of the campus-based aid programs, at least seem to contribute to the racial disparities that they were designed to address positively and end up addressing them at least in some negative ways or at least the evidence appears to be the case and that's part of what we are exploring as the united states civil rights commission. on the other hand, there are many successful programs that federal dollars also support that help address the gaps in

achievement, including such programs as gear up and trio and other campus specific programs which chancellors and presidents will be testifying to the efficacy of. perhaps additional investment in those programs might be an important way to address some of the racial disparities that are obvious by virtue of examining the statistics. as a nation, we are underperforming in terms of achieving the baccalaureate degree for the jobs that are currently available. that will be available for the workforce in the next ten years and in the ten years after that. so we're underperforming in the aggregate right now, and we're underperforming with regard to particular demographic groups, including certain racial

minorities. it is possible, at least it's my contention that it might be possible through the redeployment of federal investment. even utilizing the resources currently deployed, let alone seeking the deployment of additional resources. but even if we were not to do that, but to encourage the congress to consider redeploying existing resources, and deploying them more strategically for the benefit of low-income students in particular, and the racial groups that are lagging behind, it could indeed be the case that we could begin to address the persistent racial gaps. i believe that could be possible.

and it will be the job of the commission to determine whether or not those theories hold water. this is a pressing issue of our time, and i am delighted that my colleagues on this commission have seem fit to allow the commission to address this important issue. so i thank you for the courtesy, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i also want to thank the commission and staff for putting together the briefing today and yesterday.yor it's not often we have a two-day briefing.óñ and as i mentioned yesterday in preparing for the hearing in the course of today's testimony, what we're doing here really hits close to home for a lot of us on this panel, and many of those who testified yesterday in terms of many of us being first generation college students. many of us being the first in the family to graduate from high school, such as myself. i'm the product of head start. i'm the product of affirmative action and higher education.

these are not just constitutional theory or political hay for me. these are the programs that resulted in me sitting here as the first latino chairman of the u.s. commission of civil rights. there are many points in my educational trajectory as in the trajectory of the students that have been highlighted by the testimony that i could have fallen between the cracks or been pushed between the cracks. despite that i was an honor student in the high school, my high school guidance counselor who was not a person of color encouraged me not to apply to college, that i shouldn't go. that i should go work in the steel mills where my folks worked. and i insisted on going to college. she didn't help me fill out the applications. i did it myself. my parents didn't know what fafsa was or any of that, but

through leaps of faiths i managed to get here. i wonder how many of my fellow high school students listened to that counselor. i've shared the story with others here in washington and elsewhere, groups of large latino community members, and that's a common experience for many of us. and it's shared by other communities of color. one of our panelists yesterday, the same thing happened to him in his high school experience. these impact the future of individuals and communities in the country. so we thank you for being here and for all the efforts putting in on this issue. our panelists today as the panelists yesterday will each have seven minutes to present to us based on prior written submissions, and there's a system of warning lights here. just like a traffic light. yellow, that means getting ready to stop. you'll have two minutes when you see that. and red, of course, stop.

we will then as commissioners ask you questions. there will be a chance to elaborate on things you were in mid sentence on. but we really want as much information as possible. we want to let folks know the record of this briefing will be open for the next 30 days. so any of you as panelists and anyone watching today or listening has the opportunity to present your own comments so we can review those and take those into account as we prepare our report to the president and congress. so you can submit those to us here at the u.s. commission on civil rights by either mailing them to the commission office of federal civil rights evaluation, 1331 pennsylvania avenue. that's 1331 pennsylvania avenue northwest suite 1150, washington 20425 or via e-mail at public comments@usccr.gov.

with that out of the way, i would like to introduce and then swear our panelists in. so the first panelist is professor suarez. the second panelist is dr. peggy carr from the u.s. department of education. the third panelist is james t. minor with the department of u.s. education. will you raise your right hand and ask you swear or affirm the information you're about to provide is true and accurate to the best of your belief. is that correct? great, thank you. professor flores, please proceed. >> thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to speak on the civil rights of college access and completion for underrepresented minority students in the united states. i will draw on evidence based examples from the most rigorous studies on these topics over the last two decades, including work my colleagues and i have conducted in texas where we

utilized national as well as kindergarten through 20 student level administrative database. that's k through 20. strong data is critical to civil rights as well as the solutions we construct to improve educational equity in the u.s. for students. i argue college completion is a function of more than the postsecondary experience. and other factors such as financial aid opportunity and academic preparation also play a role in predicting the odds of college success. in our work we find nearly 61% of the racial gap in college completion can be explained by pre-college characteristics. that's before a student enters college. another 35% of the gap in racial college completion is explained by postsecondary characteristics. every stage of schooling that does not give all students an equal opportunity to prepare for college has civil rights implications. therefore, being given equal

opportunity to prepare for and succeed in postsecondary study is the education civil rights battle of our time. moreover, as stated by the commissioner, the consequences of not being appropriately prepared to succeed in college are costly. not only to individuals deprived of the opportunity. but to local and state economies and ultimately the nation. i'm going to focus on five key areas related to college completion. and they include demographic changes in our school, continued segregation levels, academic preparation, and the factors that predict the college completion gap and end with a role -- with discussion on the role of data and understanding where the the odds of college completion are most challenged. it's not on, actually. the timer is not on. >> thanks for noticing that.

>> we cannot effect that we are in an era of unprecedented change. the majority of all u.s. births and the majority of k-12 public school students are now non-white. the cost of failing to prepare this population to earn a postsecondary credential has become a matter of state and national economic welfare. five states have majority-minority populations. and at least four states have majority-minority populations among children under the age of five. latinos are now the largest minority group in the nation's two and four-year colleges. let me be clear on what this trend does and does not represent. demographic growth means there's more latino students, not that we have been more successful in enrolling the eligible high school graduate population of latinos. the real question is whether programs and policies have been more effective or if demographic growth is masking the underperformance of our nation's schools. our work in texas finds latino

high school graduates are more likely to enter the workforce than they are to begin at a community college. this is regardless of academic preparation. next point, poverty remains a salient characteristic associated with race among students at four-year colleges. in our analyses we find 48% of hispanic students and 31% are economically disadvantaged compared to 5% of white students at four-year institutions. racial segregation has harmful effects on outcomes. racial segregation in elementary schools is a key factor in the achievement gap as measured by differences in test scores. our research further suggests negative effects on college completion itself. students have different rates of participation in high school college preparation college courses by race and ethnic background, associated with the odds of college completion.

let me be clear here. academic preparation remains the most important factor in predicting the odds of college access as well as college completion. however, students of all racial groups do not receive the same preparation, particularly in math, the gateway course, or trigonometry. that rate is 70% for white students. 61% for hispanic students and 47% for black students. similar gaps remain for dual enrollment programs. college costs perceived or real and financial aid continue to matter as gatekeepers to enrollment and completion and they also may matter by race and income. more than 30 years of research indicates financial aid in the form of grants and tuition, discounts and scholarships positively affects enrollment. nonetheless, it remains a contested issue across the

states and individual institutions in the form of preferences to fund students less likely to exhibit need. we've seen a trend in an increase in merit aid and decrease in need-based state. location of college is important, especially for minority students. in terms of where black students are increasingly going to college that is the community college. whereas before we saw trends of black students surpassing latino students attending four-year colleges, they're now more likely to attend two-year colleges. for latinos, no other institution represents their attendance in the hispanic serving institution, yet we have only minimal evaluation evidence on how well the hsis are doing. yet that is the place where latinos are more likely to go to college.

there's substantial college completion gaps. the racial college completion gap, at least in texas, between white and hispanic student is 14 points. between white and black students is 21 points. what drives this gap differs for the group. for the hispanic white group the two key factors that drive the the achievement gap is attending a high minority high school and/or economic disadvantage. for black students, while attending a high minority high school explains a large portion of the gap, the most critical factor remains academic preparation. commissioners, improving the civil rights outcome of all students requires a collection of strong evidence through the form of reliable individual level data sources to produce the most successful and sustainable interventions students deserve. dismantling efforts for the collection of such data is likely to lead to underresearched and ineffective policy decisions with implications not only for disadvantaged students but also all students in the nation.

we cannot afford to formulate responsible education policy without strong data systems and research designs. finally, i'll end with the demographic changes highlighted here bring to light issues as they relate to immigrant and english language learners. understanding the educational civil rights implications for these students are particularly critical for large districts in the southwest and increasingly the southeast. where schools have seen an influx of immigrant tudents with no teachers prepared to teach these populations. thank you for the opportunity to offer this testimony. i'm happy to answer questions. >> mr. minor. >> good morning. i would like to begin with a brief description of what we do

at the national center for educational statistics or nces. i say this because i think it has implications for your work here on the commission, and for the work of all who is concerned with civil rights issues. the first federal department of education was established in 1867, and i quote, for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition of education in several states and territories, unquote. congress has legislated several mandates for nces. one that might be a particular interest to you, we are to conduct objective statistical data that's impartial, clear and complete. in addition, congress has required us to play a critical role in parer inning with other

agencies and department in the federal government to strengthen and to improve data quality and access. of particular note is our role in gathering the data from my brother's keeper. also more recently, we are now administering the data collection for the office of civil rights within the department of education. many of the demographics that you see here are interrelated. poverty. educational. attainment and other factors are linked to system inadequacy, as you well know. it's important to note that unless i otherwise state, however, that the outcomes and measures that i'm going to talk about briefly today do not account or control for interrelated factors. data from a number of ncss reports and surveys and assessments support the conceptual model shown here. they include access enrollment statistics and completion. so let's start with achievement

gaps as one of the first access indicators here. achievement gaps for minorities and low students start early and their persist. achievement gaps start -- >> dr. carr, your microphone just went off. >> thank you. let's begin with a look at the key trends in academic achievement gaps. historically black, hispanic and american indian and alaskan native students have lower assessment scores in reading and mathematics than white and asian peers. there are two pieces of good news in the data seen here. these data depicts performance

over time for black and white students, eighth grade students and you see the performance is improving for both groups. and the distance between the performance is also known as the gap narrowing. that is good news. while the sharp displays, the black white gap, this is also true for whites and hispanics, and less true but also true of native americans and whites, and there has been a truly significant increase for asian students. i'm going to skip this next graph in the interest of time. now we're looking at curriculum levels related to mathematic achievements. within each group graduate students earn higher scores as the national process than graduates completing lower

curriculum. so a rigorous curriculum includes four years of english, three years of foreign language, three years of social studies, four years of mathematics and three years of science, including biology, chemistry and physics. however the completion of a rigorous curriculum did not eliminate racial ethnic gaps in performance, as you can see here. the average scores for black and hispanic students were lower than the average score for white and asian students. this was not due to race or many other confounding factors, such as the representation of ses or social economic status among minority students and the true rigor of the courses they are taking, not just the title of the courses. this slide depicts gap in

advanced science course taking by the level of density within a school. the term advance science courses refers to courses beyond introductory biology, chemistry and physics, as well as ap and ib science courses. density refers to the percentage of minority students within a school. the gaps you see here are larger for schools with higher density. as you can see here, there are differences in education and the percent of 12th grade students at or above proficient in reading. proficient refers to solid mastery over challenging subject matter on average for 12th graders in mathematics. 26% of the students in this country are at or above proficient. 7% for blacks and 12% for hispanics. here you can see that the rates

are different for students that are being placed in juvenile or residential facilities. this is particularly true of males and particularly true of minority males. in general, disparities exist in particularly complex. and this next slide here, you're seeing that trends in college enrollment have increased for all races and ethnicities, and this is particularly true of hispanic students. persistence is important. as you can' here, there are a number of factors that relate to persistence. for example, whether the student has taken credits, courses, and not gone back and they're not going to get credit for them, incurring additional costs and so forth. and finally, attainment patterns resemble some of the patterns already discussed. we'll show this last slide here. overall, lower percentage

minority and low sec students obtain a bachelor's or higher. however, even among higher ses students differences in attainment among various racial ethnic groups. so in sum, progress has been made across the metrics that i have discussed here today, but clearly there are many challenges here. we need to improve our measures. for example, the eligibility of free and reduced price lunch has long been use as a proxy for family income, but there had been new provisions and allocations of eligibility, and that has put a bit of a wrinkle in the use of free and reduced price lunches, a proxy for student ses status. digital data collection is also a challenge and an opportunity. i will stop there. if there are additional questions, i would be happy to answer them. >> very interesting stats.

we'll definitely be delving into that. mr. minor? >> good morning, mr. chairman and members of the commission. i want to thank you for the invitation to speak this morning. i'm happy to be here on behalf of the u.s. department of education's office, post secondary education, which administers higher education programs, designed to promote innovation and improvement in post secondary education, expand access and opportunity to students from low-income families, and increase college completion, which as you know, has significant consequences for our nation. under the authorization of the higher education act of 1965, as amended, the office of post secondary education awards more than 4,000 new and continuation awards each year, totalling over $2 billion annually. presently the higher education program office has approximately $7.5 billion obligated in grants, intended to improve

college access and to strengthen the capacity of institutions to serve students more effectively. no other institution or agency said in the private or nonprofit sector comes close to making that kind of investment in college access, or institutional capacity building annually. the the office administers enumerative executive grants designed to support minority serving institutions, including black colleges and universities. hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, native american serving non tribal institutions, alaskan native, asian american, and native american and pacific islander serving institutions as well as historically black graduate institutions. these programs support improvement in educational quality, management, fiscal stability, and are intended to strengthen institutions that

serve large numbers of minority students, while maintaining low per student expenditures. these programs represent a mix of competitive and formula based grants and are funded by congress through an annual appropriations bill. 2015. more than $775 million was appropriated for institutional development programs. minorities serve institutions that these programs support have traditionally been underfunded and rely on these programs for activities such as faculty development student services. construction of facilities, purpose of education materials and endowment building. as of 2012, minorities serving institutions enroll 3.6 million undergraduates. each year 20% of all undergraduates, hispanic serving institutions enroll 50% of latino students, despite only being 4% of all colleges. more than 50% of students at minority serving institutions receive pell grants.

that's compared to 31% of all students and nearly half of all students at minority serving institutions are first generation college students, versus 35% of those at majority institutions. as you know, community colleges have a particularly important role to play in providing educational and degree opportunities for minority students. approximately half of all hispanic students enrolled in post secondary education attend two-year institutions. as do a third of african-american students. affordability and open enrollment policies are often cited as key reasons why a community college is likely to be more appealing to students for low-income backgrounds or those who may be less prepared academically for higher education. the office of post secondary education also administers federal trio programs that serve low-income students at various points in the educational pipeline for middle school all the way through graduate school.

you may be familiar with some of these programs, such as talent search, upward bound, student support services, educational opportunity centers. while these programs do not explicitly target minority students, many participants in the programs underrepresented groups. based on data from 2012 and 2013, the percentage of participants who were african-american ranged anywhere from 29% of student support services to 38% in student upward bound services. for the same reporting year, the percentage of participants who were hispanic ranged from 12% to 30%. and in addition to serving minority students, many trio programs are hosted at minority serving students, including historically black colleges and universities, predominantly black zempbing and in tribal agencies.

congress has appropriated close to $850 million for trio programs in 2015. also in the office of post secondary education portfolio is gaining early awareness and readiness for undergraduate programs. also known as gear up which provides funding to states and partnerships to serve cohorts of students at high poverty high schools and middle schools. gear projects provide services such as tutoring, fostering family involvement and raising awareness of college admission and financial aid services. like trio, gear up is not specifically targeted to minority students but serves many as a result of focus on low-income students. in 2015, congress appropriated $215 million for gear up. the department believes these programs are critical for improving and increasing the

number of american who is not only enter college but also complete. as recent as 1990, as you may have heard america was number one of the world in terms of the proportion of citizens who had a college degree of post secondary credentials. we're now 11th. the president has been clear about the goal to once again lead the world in having the highest proportion of citizens with a post secondary degree or credential. nords -- in order to achieve this we need to produce 10 million additional degrees over and beyond the expected projections. this will require three and a half million more high school graduates and 6.3 million adult learners to become college graduates. if the nation will make significant progress, two things are clear. first we must create new and innovative teaching and learning opportunities that provide diverse pathways for earning

post secondary credential. we must pay particular attention to the students who struggle most. increasing college completion rates will bear particularly relevant for minority students. i want to conclude by mentioning the department's programs are paying very close attention to the types of interventions that particular grantees are proposing to use and whether the interventions are actually successful. and increased emphasis on evidence has ruled in more rigorous standards for applicants seeking to obtain federal funds as well as the the evaluations produced once the program has been implemented. we believe the requirements will enhance the project's success and provide important information that can be used. in closing, i want to thank you for allowing me to speak today in scheduling this briefing on a critically important topic. thank you.

>> thank you, dr. minor. would you like to open the questioning, commissioner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is for professor flores and dr. minor. professor flores, you said that precollege characteristics, levels of poverty, segregation, course selection, cost of education, location, of the college campus, all of these factors weigh extremely heavily on whether we can predict access, success and completion.