please. and they can freely pretend that congress hides elephants in mouse holes and justice scalia's words when congress directs them to act, finally, without the separation of powers, the judicial power is unrecognizable. . as the political branches is a grandized power, so too do the courts. today, it is the view of many that the supreme court is the giver of liberties. what an odd conception that we the people are dependent upon the third branch of government to grand us our freedom. it is this last point for which we remember justice scalia so well. the court at times seems incapable of admitting that some

matters, any matters are none of itself business. and from his decent, and i quote, today's decision says that my ruler and the ruler of 320 million americans coast to coast is a majority of the nine lawyers on the supreme court. the opinion in these cases is the furthest extension and fact and the furthest extension one can even imagine of the courts claimed power to create liberties that the constitution and it's amendments if he dplekt to mention. this practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine always akbaened as it is today by extravagant praise of liberty robs the people of the most important liberty they asserted in the declaration of

independence and won in the revolution of 1776. the freenld to govern themselves ls. with such unchecked judicial power. we americans leave it to the least accountable brand to decide how existing rights should expand our contract. should expand our contract a decision that so often hinges upon which particular rights are jew diblly favored at the time and which are not. we leave it with the fwroonch decide when fundamental rights should be appended to our constitution. of course, as justice scalia remarked in missouri department of health, these newly discovered fundamental rights are neither set forth in the

constitution nor known to the nine justices of our court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the kansas city telephone directly. and i add, i'd rather bet on the folks in kansas city -- [ applause ] or perhaps nine truckers at a flying-j truck stop with such unchecked judicial power, the court day-bay-day, case-by-case is busy designing a constitution as justice scalia once quipped instead of interpreting it. in any ordinary year, justice scalia would have spent the summer teaching these lessons about the separation of powers to a group of students studying

abroad. and by this time, he would be back hard at work on abiding but always insightful and entertaining opinion, imploring the branches of government to respect their constitutional roles and their limits. but alas, this has been no ordinary year. this summer, i had the distinct, but sad pleasure of filling in for my dear friend and in a separation of powers course in nice, france. and my colleagues and i very sadly have begun this term without him. when i joined in 1991, nino scalia and i would have seemed an unusual pair, an odd couple, he raised in queens and the son of italian immigrant and a first generation american.

one a professor of romance languages and the other a schoolteacher. and i, raised a decade harlt by my barely literal grandparents in savannah, georgia, but together, we soon became our own band of brothers. by 1991, skbrus distance scalia's role on the court was well established. i merely joined the fray. or more accurately was thrown into it. it was my great honor we spent almost 25 years together in pursuit of this common goal, preserve the structure of government crafted by our framers. what i will treasure most though is much simpler. the chance to spend so many years down the hall from my friend nino. whether he was with me or against me in a particular case

we did what we thought the constitution obliged us to do. we honored our oaths and we trysted each other. tonight, i charge each of you to join this band of brothers as shakespeares king henry implored, preparing his own troops for a seemingly hopeless battle against the french. the good man shall teach his son the story of our fight. and in it shall be remembered, we happy few, we band of brothers for he today sbhal my brother. and gentlemen in english a course they were not here. and hold their manhoods cheap. while he speaks and spot with us. each of us here, men and women

need not think ourselves first. for our lies before us. rather we in this room tonight ultimately win or lose the effort to reclaim the forms of government that the framers intended, it is our duty to stand firm in the defense of the constitution principles and structure that secure our liberty. like justice scalia we must do what the constitution obliges us today. it is now for us the living to the unfinished business. gave his last full measure of devotion. thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you. thank you justice thomas. i have two things, first, let me apologize for the silverware. i will find a better implement to quiet the crowd. but second and more important. we as the federal society wanted -- there's not much we can give the justice at the supreme court, but we wanted to give you a small tokyoen of how much we appreciate you and how much we will honor your call tonight to once more enter the reach. it's a photo of you and justice

scalia. [ applause ] >> we have a web page of c-span.org to help you follow the stream court. go up to c-span.org and select near the right hand top of the page once on our supreme court page. you'll see four of the most recent oral arguments heard by the court this term and click on the view all link to see all the arguments covered by crashesspan. in addition you can find appearances by many of the supreme court justices or watch them in their own words. in the past few months with justices kagan, thomas, and ginsburg. there is also a calendar for this term. a list of all current justices with links to quickly see all their appearances on crashesspan as well as many other supreme court videos available on

demand. follow the supreme court at c-span.org. on values that are on entitle reform and prosperity. >> good afternoon. good afternoon. to welcome everyone to the memorial lecture. i am the president of the society. and this lecture series started as many of you shortly after

9/11 with ted olson's inaugural lecture which reminds us of what it means to be an american and how our legal tradition is part of the identity. ted was here today and barbara understood this connection. we want the lecture series to remind lawyers of it so they foster legal principles that advance individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the rule of law. other lecturers will include the man of whom this convention is honoring justice scalia, chief justice roberts, vice president chaney, ray randolph, douglas ginsburg, john allison, and senator tom cotton. that brings us to today's lecture. this is my honor to introduce senator ben sass.

after earning a history ph.d. at yale, he worked for mckenzie and company and private equity terms before becoming the president of the midland kbrufrt which he pulled out of some very difficult financial straits. then the fifth generation ran for rt senate. he also since he's been elected, senator, he has not only done a couple things that i mentioned quickly. he's also moonlighted. and my understanding is that he has a five star rating. [ laughter ] [ applause ] but in addition to his bio and uber driving, i would add that senator pass is despite his youth exemplifies as few in the

senate do the idea our founders had for the senate. some wise heads who would be focussed on the good of the country. and who would look toward the ways in which our republic needed to meet the everadjusting challenges of governing a free people. i think the senator may have a little bit to say about that tonight, and i am honored to welcome him as our barbara olson lecture. senator sass. [ applause ] >> thanks gene, and thanks all of you. it's an honor to be here. when i mentioned that i uber drive and i applause happened. i can't help but imagine most are sucking up and looking for a ride on the way home. i do work tours all the time actually. and we've just never had a press

strategy around it. it's obvious that was a mistake. i've had a brand that's been tied to the republican presidential nominee a lot for the last nine or ten months. not something i was intentionally seeking. had i known i just drove yuber, that would, helpful. for those that don't know just for a minute, i want to talk about why we slont republican and democrat categories on the execution of law in the article 2 branch. we shouldn't have republican versus democratic categories in judging. there are a whole bunch the places where we shouldn't. i don't to want assume that all of you are oriented as i am. but i'm presuming that most of you are. one of the great things they learned driving uber this weekend. i do the work tours with nebraska yans for a bunch of rans. one of them is that town halls which i do a ton of as well are not always totally representative of the public as large. politicse who come to town

and policy than the nbl skbrrl. if you do a work tour, you've got to be in service posture, you get to learn about industries, but you get to talk to people in the course of the day-to-day life and learn things that are sometimes different than town hall meet chgs can be astrotoughered. i do them because i have three little kids. 15 and 12, five, and one of only five that's never been a politician before. that, as jane mentioned is a good thing. some sense of that again, but i'm the only guy i think in the senate that does a family commute. and if you're the only one doing something, probably means you're a naive rookie and kind of a fool. if we moved to washington, i live in nebraska, i come back and forth every week and i bring whichever kid mom is most sick

of. so usually we alter between the 12 and 15-year-old girl, this week i have the five-year-old son and that's a whole new bag of worms having run around the senate. he is not bashful about trying to ask questions at committee hearings in the senate. but, when i do work tours at home, it's frankly a chance to make my kids suffer. like we go and we feed cattle at 5:00 in the morning, and i want them to have that sort of work ethic experience of having to get up and get out and do something which when it's cold. when i drove uber, it's a nerd who's interested in the different parts of the service economy and i wanted to have consumer product, but people who were driving for uber. little did i know if you drive yieber on game day in lincoln which is i did, you quickly find out that yoouber has lever. for the bard district on weekend

nights. if you throw up in an uber, you will be charged $150. and this is because the contractor's driving his or her own vehicle. aye learned a lot driving uber that may seem like it's not directly relevant. but in certain ways, i think it is relevant to label the of what we to want talk about tonight. before we do that though, i want to say directly in front of 600 of his closest friends what a privilege it is to get to follow ted olson in this lecture by 15 years and to be able to be here celebrating br bra. she was an incredibly special -- [ applause ] thank you. she was an incredibly special woman and if you didn't really know her, i met her in social circles in passing two or three times, but didn't really know her at all, but knew her larger than life personality and her convictions and her commitment to trying to persuade other

people. about the american idea. she is an impressive person and to be able to honor her legacy and speak tonight is a true honor. and i began to write some notes about her, and as a tribute to her and then frankly i realized that what i was going to say probably wasn't quite as meaningful as being able to give you all a reminder of what you heard last year. i read some of the lectures that proceeded tonights, and last year when tom cotton gave his lecture. he talked about this guy that he referred to as susan davis for a while. which is the stage name of the woman now known as nan cotton. and anna cotton is from west point, nebraska, about 30 minutes from where i live. it's one of the largest cattle counties in nebraska. nebraska is the largest cattle state in the union. to take that all you texans. and anna, when she got to the law school, at the university, she got there and found this

institution called the federalist society. there's a chapter there in a that made a big impact on his life and tom who like me who barely knew barbara is married and the woman whose the mother of my son and she was formatively shaped because of things that people had made before and those people are you all, they are now 60,000 alums, i believe, of federalist society chapters over the course of the last what would our math be now, 36 years, 35 years, and anna benefitted from the fact that barbara had been the founder of that chapter and tom said this, he gave a bunch of personal detail and then he got to the place where he discussed character that invests in future generations. and he gave this beautiful, long paragraph summary of habit formation. and he said this about someone like barbara.

aristotle, the first great teacher wrote a lot about character formation and the only way to develop character is the hard way. in other words, there is no royal road. the way of making each choice, each day were for 1,000 days, and then for another thousand days, the way of listening to one's conscious when pleasure beckens or pain repels, or if developing one's adjustment to see the immediately present. and in the eternal truths. true virtue isn't knowing the good but doing it also for he says we are not studying in order to know what vir schu, sfwou in fact become good. for otherwise there would be no profit in this. the dee character development for aristotle is practical wisdom. to combine with knowledge and right principles to reach sound judgments and moral matters. it is the habitual exercise in

every situation that leads to virtue. but he says this as well, to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time with the right motive and the right way. this is not for everyone, nor is it easy, where for goodness is both rare and lotable and noble. let us apply to the fact that my character is barbara's. [ applause ] there are a whole bunch of reasons why it's daunting to stand in front of a group that learning this. not least of which is i'm not an attorney. i'd join with you in the cause that the federalist society has been fighting for for 35 years, i don't have your training. and so there are a whole bunch of places where i can step in potholes. but by background, i am the turn

around guy. i'm a historian and college president for five years before running nor office. i've worked like the boston consult group that i have. and i've gone into organizations that are a mess. a part of helping leaders and boards asking questions that's accomplishing what it's set to accomplish. maybe it should be required. maybe your project succeeded, maybe it's mission was brin for a time ten years ago and it didn't succeed, but it doesn't make sense anymore. sometimes institutions need to die and cultural pluralism enables that kind of trail and error and experiment in voluntary organizations and that's a good thing. and so i actually came here tonight to speak primarily about successes that fed sock has had and some ajay isn't a problems that are not a criticism, but a larger cultural problem that i

would refer to as the crisis of cultural cat key sas. the fact that we've been raising for 40 or 50 years now a couple of generations of american orphans. in the sense that president reagan used to warn that any free republic you're always only one generation away from the extinct of freedom. if you don't pass on the meaning of america for the people that need to be ruling merck. we don't believe in the rule of professional, permanent, expert incumbent class. if the people who are supposed to be ruling america in 10, 20, 30 years don't understand what america is, if they don't understand the american idea, then freedom will slip away. and we have for nearly half a century, stopped to discuss who we are as a people. we don't have a shared understanding of these things. and that is not precisely the federalist society's mission, and so i was going to give you a brief history of the federalist society and celebrate some of

those high moments over the course of the last 35 years. partly as a way to lod you, but to focus my preparation, i wanted to learn more. as a forearm professor, i learned selfishly and then think of excuse which is an audience. and so, i was headed toward teaching you label the of history, the history of the federalist society reminding you of it and then by analogy talk about religion in the early modern period. and i say that because i'm an academic historian and my mom believes i wasted all my years and i have to prove her wrong, at least once a year. so i manufacture a reason to give a history lecture, i also think there are probably a whole bunch of cultural and pluralism jokes when there's a vacancy and my people are unrepresented on the court. [ laughter ] i had a dispretty impact joke and affirmative action joke, but i'm going to spare you all of

that, but there's a really important thing. that happened in the ten years after treformation. it starts as people people are saved and theologians are debating it in latin and a specialized institution that is a high yar call church. and yet, so 15, 17, to 15, and yet by the 1570s and '80s, there's a reformation movement and catholic movement that are both heavily involved with laity. and how you went from the one, an intellectual debate among clergy in lath whon have the same job to a mass movement relates to a moment in the 1527, 1528 period when martin luther, the father of the reformation ten years had assumed the debates he was having, especially since taken to the vernacular were surely reaching

the people. then he left academic lectures. federalist society conferences, and he went out and he started interviewing some or its and moms and dads and 14-year-old kids. and he came to the conclusion that they don't have any idea what we're talking about. this movement is not actually penetrating. it's having political implications. it was sort of -- the world was being turned upside down in a whole bunch of ways about the people who might elect the next holy roman emperor, but it wasn't roaching the masses. so the catechism movement starts in 1529 and '29. what i had come to speak about was the difference between the movement that you've been so successful at, the fact that before 1981 at yale and in 1982 at conference that brought 200 law students from 20 law school ts and 1985 when the general

addresses the aba and he talks about original intent. and then the debates that follow and the next three or four or five years that migrate orthodoxy for most of you from original intent to original public meaning. and then all the jokes about how legislative history doesn't matter. and you go through this moment where we goat a place where think how stunning it is that when justice kagan is at her confirmation hearing before the senate judiciary committee and proclaims, we disgroo with with her, about what she thinks she means when she says, but it's a pretty stunning thing about the skt. about founders and nurturers and the investors in this movement. that justice kagan would say, we are all originals now. she said we are all originalists now. now, we don't think she really gets it. and yet, you can't say that teches are irrelevant. that's an unbelievable interesting and fascinating

thing, but as i was thinking, i'll admit, my skepticism about the nominees of both of the parties over the course of the last six to nine months didn't have anything to do with speculation about how the election would turn out, that there were concerns about executive restraint in both portfolio parties, but i'll admit, i was surprised by the outcome last tuesday night, and i realize than there are all sorts of new moments of opportunity because of this that aren't just because there are a bunch of policy preferences advanced that i appreciate a lot more than the policy preferences that would have been advanced by secretary clinton, and not just because i think it's highly likely that his first nominee for the court will come from that list of 21, those are two really great things. but i also think that there might be a new moment of opportunity. and i'd like to explore with you a little bit tonight about what the opportunity for lay cat key

sis might be in the strange time into which we're now entering. but i didn't pivot what i'm going to talk about because i thought of that on my mean. here i'll admit, butterflies to say this. i'm pivoting what i'm going to talk about because of how many of you in this audience reached out to me yesterday or late last night or early today concerned about your own organization. what's it like to be the non-attorney giving the barbara olson lecture and by the way, do some serious introspection. you have two big and really important projects that are on the agenda for fed sock and that you've talked about. you've talked about the article one project and you've talking about regulatory reform. and you've got a standing mission to serve as gate keepers of the kinds of people who should be on the federal bench. in all sorts of fundamental ways, you are about advancing an organization that teaches at law

schools across the country where not a lot of people were advancing this vision of founders understanding of separation of powers. of limited government. of checks and balances. these are beautiful things that our people do not understand. right now, current polling data shows that 41% of americans under age 35, 41% of americans under age 35 think the first amendment is dangerous. because you might use your freedom of speech to say something that would hurt someone else's feelings. that's actually quite the point of america. [ laughter ] [ applause ] for those who need a trigger warning or who now want to flee to a safe space, let me forewarn you. our founders in virginia, there

were a bunch of materialistic commercialist folks. we'll just ir nor. just ignore them a little bit, but by and large, the american founding was led by a whole bunch of people who differed about the nature of god and about heaven and hell and how salvation might be claefd and they came from a continent where people had been thinking for about 100 years that you should kill each other if you disagreed about those things. you should spill blood over those questions. hear me clearly, i think those questions were critically important. i think those questions are more important than policy and politics. i also think the american experiment is the most glorious experiment in the history of the world because it takes seriously the human soul. takes seriously conscious. it takes seriously persuasion. and the idea that if you differ about really big and important things, you can't solve that by

violence. so instead, we have this crazy idea that we will come together in a community. we will expand the domain or the reach as madison would have said, to incorporate more and more people with more and more disagreements so we can get to a place where everybody understands themselves to be a minority. and if every american understands that there are minority because there's nobody that i ultimately agree with on everything, honey if you're watching on c-span, except for you, there's nobody that we're going agree with on everything, and the founders were scared to death about the tyranny of the mashlgts. and they wanted to create a minority consciousness for all of us. and the first amendment, these great freedoms which it's a laundry list, right? they're outside the document on purpose, because our constitution is glorious because it's a legtive in a moment domt.

freedom comes first. natural rights come first. god gives us liberty, god created us with dignity and we come together as a people to form a government as a secular tool. so our constitution innumerates the powers that the government gets. and the rights of the people are limitless. that's where the structure is trying to tell us. it's outside the document that will sort of reteach and recat kiez our people on some of the most important things and all the way to the ninth and tenth amendment that says, if there are any powers that weren't expressly given to the federal government, only states and locals can exercise that. and oh by the way, if there are more rights we haven't talked about here. people have all of those rights too. and we'll start the bill of rights with the most important top line freedom. so what is the most important freedom. and the first amendment is a dog's breakfast. it's religion and it's speech and it's press and it's assembly

and the right of grievances. and all of you that sold out on the cause and became lobbyists. you're still an important amendment to the bill of rights. and so, those, let'ser that from the lobbyists. [ applause ] those freedoms are what the first amendment is about. and the idea that any american could think the first amendment might go too far means that we as a people haven't done the first things of teaching it. and the data's actually much worse nanna just snag you might think imnatos from the campuses right now. the 41% of americans under age 35 who thinks the first amendment goes to foor. if you ask the general voting public. the general voting public, can you name of the freedoms in the first amendment. what is the bill of rights about. what can you name? 57% can name freedom of speech.

57%. 19% name freedom of religion as a freedom that exists. and none of the other three freedoms the first amendment break 10%. think about that. when you think of benjamin franklin out of constitution hall in philadelphia and 1788 and the little old lady and the maybe story and comes up to him and says, mr. franklin, what kind of country did you give us? what kind of government have you built? and he says, it's a republic if you can deep it. i would hazard to guess that most of our founders who were in philadelphia, if they knew the state of civic cat key us is and understanding today, they may have made another run about that monarchy. there are fundamental things that were not getting done and they're a crisis. and i thought that i might be

standing in front of you talking about this at a time when we were about to fill justice scalia's seat with some horrible, super legislator who wanted a job that didn't require them to run for reelection. and i say as somebody who lived on a campaign bus with three small children for 16 months, i did about 1,000 events nearly 400 town halls and it was a whole bunch of two-year-old throw-up on that thing and nobody paid me the $150 uber charge, it's not fair. for some democratic nominee. [ applause ]

some of you know that waters of the u.s. rule of the epa. and essentially it's just a bunch of post-modern mumbo jumbo that says, in the clean water act, when it says there's an intrastate distinction, we would

rather have lots more powers and so we will obliterate the distinctions. in the county in which i live in nebraska, my county supervisors can't make their own decisions about road widening projects along a two-lane county road that has a manmade ditch next to it that is usually dry and when it has water, the only water comes from a center pivot irrigation system that the farmer has rerecollected there because that is supposedly an interat a time waterway and the epa's reach now extends there. that is laughably absurd. i want to take a crane and put a speedboat in that ditch, and have my kids stand behind it and i want to film a youtube video of them crying that the skiing isn't working well and i want to talk about to the epa administrator about how she can fix my problem. and i was traveling to nebraska last summer as the rule was

about to be finalized a and rancher, who was, you know, a larger that be life marlboro man and he was angry about the waters of the u.s. rule. and i was completely alienled with him on the issue, and i still thought i might die from this encounter. and finally, he goes from anger to resignation. and he pivots and he says, you know what, i'm not just mad about this rule. you know what i'm really mad about? i'm mad about my memory because i keep racking my brain and no matter how hard i try, i can't remember who i voted for at epa. [ laughter ] [ applause ] i've heard readout from some of your panel today. and i think that king richard should be fired. that's my personal view. [ applause ] because these regulatory agencies are not in any way

ultimately accountable to the people. and you all have two projects. you have an article one project about the restoration of balance between the legislature and the executive branch. these are equal branches, but they are listed in an order, article one, article two, article three for a reason. because they move from more policy making and therefore more democratically accountable to less policy making and less democratically accountable. again, the -- [ applause ] the 435 of 535 people can be fired every 24 months. and most policy is to be made by statute. in the executive branch, the president has really important commander and chief responsibilities. and especially in times of emergency. but the president's job is less democratically accountable because there's only one time if he or she stands for reelection where you're begin accountable to a judgment of the people. and the courts are to be making no policy and therefore they

have lifetime tenure. but, if they were going to be a legislative superlegislative body, they should have to stand before the people. and we need to teach that again if we are going to as benjamin franklin enjoined us, if we are going to succeed at keeping the republic. and many of you in this room, even though you don't talk about it much in polite company, are currently worried that the caricature of the left of those of us who say that originalism is not because of our policy preferences. it's not because of our preferred outcomes, it's because of our constitutionalism. it's because of our oath of office. it's because of our brief in the fact that policy making should ultimately be accountable to the people. we say that we're not driven by outcomes. and yet, many of you, i think, have said, to me, that you're actually worried that the

article one project and the regulatory reform project might get -- that the regulatory reform project might get a momentum that doesn't stop at rescinding things that we think were passed with president obama's pen and phone unconstitutionally, but might become a new power that's yoousful not just to destroy things that were wrongly created and built up, but to become a new policy making tool. and that the article one project for all of our supposed sincerity about having policy making go back to a legislature, might have actually been because of the blue wall. and the fact that there was a belief that republicans, who had won one quadrennial election since 1988, think of that at a popular vote level, since 1988, we were at a place where had secretary clinton won this election, we would get to 2020 and you would have americans in their 30s, think of that, you'd have americans in their 30s who

would have seen one time when the republicans win a popular vote since the cold war. one time in their lifetime, and that was when the democrats nominated a frenchman in the aftermath of 9/11. [ laughter ] [ applause ] okay. that was a mistake, i didn't plan that. and note to self. call secretary kerry to apologize. if we're sincere about what we believe, it needs to be the case that we again remember what we thought two weeks ago. which was that we need checks and balances. that we need a separation of powers. that we need cultural acat see sis for the next generation, we that we need everyone, democrat, republican, or independent to know why it's a really, really troubling speech for a president of the united states whose taken an oath of office to say it

doesn't really matter if the legislature passed the laws i want, i've got a pen and i've got a phone. that was troubling when the guy who said it was a democrat and it will be troubling in 2020 and 20 in 2024, 2028, and 2032, regardless of the partisan label of the person who occupies 1600 pennsylvania avenue. [ applause ] here's the opportunity of the moment though, the opportunity of the moment is, just as madison envisioned a time where every american should think of themselves as a minority and should go and want to defend other minorities, no american should naturally aspire to be a part of some ma jortarian coalition that wants to grow washington and shrink the centers of america where life is

actually lived. the american impulse is to want to see those little platoons. and to see the families. and to see the rotary clubs and to see the churches and the synagogues and to see as tokeville thought of it as the rotary club, z a the center of american life. when tokeville came here, remember, he was coming in the 1830s as essentially a traffic reporter. we know our kids know the birth date of america as july 4, 1776 and we all think of this republic as having been inaugurated in 1789, but europeans still saw as jealous zel outs on the frontier of the earth. and the british had just been distracted by having a drunk, crazy king. soldiers who didn't want to fight much for the wages when they got her and distractions. it isn't until the war of 1812 that britts and europeans come to think of us as truly endependent.

and so we win our independence in their mind in the 18 teams for cultural pluralists and zel outy reasons for intellectual reasons for philosophical reasons. think about the great line that european nations are born of history, but america is the only nation born of philosophy. by the 1830s, there is a thriving economy here. there is a market revolution. there's a putting out revolution and the way goods are being produced in most specialized way. there's the railroad revolution coming and europeans can't make any sense of why this is happening. and so, tokeville, essentially comes here as a travel reporter to right back and explain why such a glorious dynamic place. not just with religious and cultural liberties, but with economic vitality. and he says, well if you have a better economy than our countries in europe, it must be because you have better bureaucrats. and so he comes to washington, d.c. because he's going to find

the meaning of american diamondism and he's sure it must exist in the capitol. and he gets here and he says, actually washington, d.c. is a swamp with a whole bunch of people that aren't that creative. not a lot has changed. [ applause ] i know we have 10,000 current students and 10,000 alums. when you all clap in washington, i feel like we should start a drain the swamp chant right now. but, tokeville says that the meaning of america, that he found, was when he went out to there were then 25 states and he goes to 17 of the states. and he says, i found the meaning of america. it's the rotary club. we europeans have this idea that there's a continuum between

isolated individual lichl and state-run collectivism. these americans believe this crazy, glorious thing. these americans actually believe in community. it seasonality the case barney frank, that government is just another word for those things we choose to do together. government is another word for coercion. there's some coercion that's necessary. government has important responsibilities, we are not anarchists. but community is the word for things we choose to do together. volunteerism and persuasion are the words that show how american community is formed. because if you want to persuade someone to marry you. if you want them to join your synagogue or your church, if you want them to buy your product, you don't go to the king in his court. you can learn thousand sell it.

and when we say the first institutions of america life and are not in the public sector and not just what we are talking about that. we're talking about not for profit ventures. we're talking about social philanthropy and he says, we're talking about that. people who actually try to live out a life of gratitude by serving the people who live next door. it lacks texture and meaning that we read at the beginning. we find happiness. and the friends and your work the system that you wrestle through with the people you actually know. washington exists. this is the american idea. washington exists to provide a framework for order liberty. not to accept disagreement.

not to try and squash down on the difference of opinion we have. and then of all people to persuade their neighbors. we might want to do everything possible to teach the next generation. that we aren't really about power. we're about a framework to run liberty so that love and persuasion in their communities is where they can live lives that truly flourish. and if we believe those things. and we were scared. the political culture. the court would have drifted and for the washington of the world. we have a new offer. and many of you in this room will have special opportunities. because many of you are about to go and you will be trying to do

the very important work of helping him beautifully pass the laws that have been passed by the congress. the commander in chief but especially in times of crisis and emergency. and you will be raising your hands and swearing to limit a government and when you swear that oath, you're about the project of continuing to depoliticize american life. the policy and those unelected and serving in the administration of justice on the courts. regular reform is the execution of many complicated statutes. you have boefd confidence that all of us should be part of is the conversation so that people can wrestle through real ideas instead of having to always be

afraid of faux outrage about the fact that complicated issues in life don't lend themselves to 140 character tweet. federalism, we would like to see recovered is about depoliticizing the fact that the decisions that do need to be made by compulsion should be made about democracy so it can be closer to the people. so semi-truck an experiment with what works and what doesn't work. nebraska and vermont, we have different people. but we shouldn't try. everybody from burlington, it's a huge thing. i would love to do that afterwards. we shouldn't try to solve every problem as the waters of the u.s. rule does. there are important interstate environmental and water issues

that need to be solved in washington, d.c. but every discussion that doesn't have to be solved in washington, d.c. should be driven back to the states. and so i'd like to close by having you think about when tokeville was coming here. what public discourse looked like. in the form of school books, and in the form of public art to make sure that kids understood what came next. think about for those of you who've spent any time in indianapolis, think about what it meant when general washington in december of 1783 resigned his commission in maryland at the maryland senate because the continental congress had been meeting there and he came and he resigned his commission and that famous painting that still sits in indianapolis of president washington -- then general washington, resigning his commission. that came out in 1824. right up the street in

baltimore, the washington monument of baltimore, we think -- when we hear washington monument, we think of the waun mile from us here. 555 foot statue tower that exists here, but the one in baltimore is actually quite a bit more interesting. because what did he say? what is on the top for those who've ever been to the montana vernon neighborhood and there's 180 foot tower and there's a 15-foot george washington at the top. what is the artist trying to say with that piece of art? he has washington wearing a roman toga. and he's laying down his commission -- it is the scene that happened in indianapolis when washington resigned his commission in 1783 and he's handing backseat the scroll, but he's wearing a roman toga. why? because they knew the story . they knew the dangers. they knew that when this guy

whose term of council was over and he went back to growing cabbage or whatever forsaken vegetable it was. and they came to get him and they said, will you be dictator? they're law allowed far deck cater. this is a legitimate calling. and so he accepting the calling and he came back and he took up limitless power. for six months. they won the battle in two weeks. and he resigns his commission and tries to go back home. and the people say no, no, no, you should become dictator. and he says no, that's not the law, but no one would fooz. you just had this glorious military victory. you did it in two weeks. no one will oppose you. and he says, no, we are a republic. and in a republic, we follow laws. and he goes back home and american school kids in the 1820s and 1830s would have

understood what that toga meant on that statue. the most vivid picture, the most vivid symbol of freedom and of natural rights and of individual liberty that exists in iconic form anywhere on this globe is the dome of the capital. and when you're in the dome of the capital, there are three famous paintings. yet there's usually only two that we talk about. there is the declaration, the committee drafting the declaration of independence and there is the surrender of the british at yorktown. and both of these paintings are trauma. you can hear the drum beat as you look at them. the world has been turned upside down. they're filled with drama. and yet, there's a third painting. and it is ridiculously humble and boring. it is a hand with a scroll.

and that hand with a scroll is to shout out to the american people. that it isn't about this city. it isn't about the powerful. it is about the fact that we believe in a republic of laws and of limited government. and those who serve in power want to embrace restraint. they want to embrace judicial restraint. they need and want to embrace restraint. the laying down of that scroll is another way of saying the center of the world isn't here. it can't be fixed here, it'll be fixed in the communities where our people come from. it is passed on to the generation. and all of those of you who will soon have the chance to go back into government and those cheering you on the outside as you take on that important executive branch calling, your jobs are not chiefly about the policy outcomes when you serve

your new president. your job is about the administration of justice because the checks and balances that you believed in two weeks ago and that fed sock was foundened about 35 years ago, are not just your new callings when you take the oath, but you have this special new opportunity. because when people stand up against power and they disagreed with that power, no one's surprised. they all expected that. what's glorious is when people believe in limited government and restraint when we are the ones in power. and we now have the opportunity -- [ applause ] -- to model that restraint. thank you. [ applause ] >> video earlier of the 80 foot spruce arriving at the u.s. capitol's west lawn from idaho's national forest. it'll serve as the capital

christmas tree this holiday season. harvested on november 2nd, it traveled over 3,700 miles over washington, d.c. >> good morning. >> how you doing? the u.s. capitol christmas tree will be decorated and prepped for it's december 6th lighting ceremony. >> c-span where history unfolds

daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. that is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> on the supreme court. she's interviewed by journalist bill press. >> well a lovely way to spend a tuesday night. thank you for joining us. >> well, thank you very much for being here. it's an honor to have you. i'm dyne ya ingram, i'm the executive director at the old naval hospital. we have lots of things going on in this build, and i am very curious, how many have never been in the building before?

welcome. check out all materials on your seats. this is a special year for hill center. i think everyone got and we're celebrating the fifth anniversary of hill centers openings and the 150th anniversary of the first naval hospital now, the old navel hospital in washington. it takes a lot of time, energy, and funding to keep this beautiful 150-year-old building in it's pristine state. please join our 150th anniversary circle. so that we can have these beautiful programs for your greats grandchildren, great grand nieces, and new babies. tonight, please join me in thanking the capital hill community foundation for supporting free programming at hill center. big round of applause.

please take a moment to turn off your mobile devices. and bill suppress an award winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and he has created this very special series, talk of the hill, with bill press, conversations with the fascinating people of our time. so thank you, bill, for all that you do for hill center. >> thank you. it is such an honor. >> i like the prorock is or it. >> maybe not tonight. >> it is such an honor to welcome to hill center, sonia sotomayor. supreme justice of the united states. it's a simple format. bill and her honor will be in conversation for about a half hour. then we'll open it up to q & a. we are taping this for our youtube channel. so charlotte will be passing

around a microphone, please wait for the microphone, and please try and be very efficient and crisp and quick in questions for the justice. she has requested that we not photograph or videotape the conversation. so let's respect her wishes on that front. and let me turn it over to bill. >> we're ready to go. thank you, thank you diana. and justice such fun and such an honor to have you with us tonight. we have had at these programs, a bishops, and nuns. and u.s. senators and members of the president's cabinet never a justice of the supreme court. so it's nice. [ applause ] >> thank you. it's nice occasionally being a first. >> yes, made a life of it. as i reporter and member of the

with us press corps. i was there when president obama announced your appointment. you were there with your family and such a magnificent moment and it's just been so exciting to see you settle into the court and exert a strong presence there. so we welcome you tonight, and i do know -- >> i don't think i've ever told you. just before i entered these conference rooms, i was walking down the hall of the president and vice president. and because they have longer legs than i do. they were walking really faster than i was. please stop. and they both simultaneously turned around, faced me, and smiled. at that moment, i had an outer body experience. it was as if my my conscience

self flew up somewhere in the sky and looked down at what was happening. and i realize that it was my way of disconnecting from the overwhelming emotions i was experiencing and giving myself an opportunity to do what i had to do which was give a speech. but i don't know if i had hasn't done that whether i could have. and maintains my calm. but i thought it would end the next day, it continued for about a year and a half. >> and took a while to come back down to earth and now i'm fully here. but, it wasn't a special day that day for me. >> now justice, there is an 800 pound gorilla in the room, which i want to tackle right away if i can. and ask you, are you in any way apprehensive about what happened in this nation last tuesday?

>> i'm going to demere from answering that question that way. >> okay. >> i will answer it in a different way. which is, i think that this is the time where every good person has an obligation, both to continue being heard and to continue doing the right thing. we can't hope for a president to fail, and it is true for those who tell us that we have to support that which he does which is right, and help guide him to those right decisions in whichever way we can find to do this. but, we can't afford to despair. and we can't afford to give up on pursuing the values that we and others have fought so hard

to achieve. and so far me, this is a challenge. so i'm going continue doing what i think is the right thing. and it's a channel we all have to face and maintain. >> i think you answered it the right way with the right answer. one thing for sure is that the new president will be naming probably very early in his term, another member, a person to the supreme court of the united states. for the last nine months, since the death of antonin scalia in february, the court's been operating shorthanded with eight justices. how has that handicapped the work of the court, if it has? >> well, as you know, last year we were quite fortunate in part because my dear colleague and

friend justice scalia passed away in february, which was later in the term. we had already heard half of our case load essentially. and so we managed to split in only four cases. and we tried very hard to work together to come to consensus where we could. and i think anyone who's familiar with our jurisprudence can probably identify the cases where we compromised. all right. mostly what we did was to avoid the issues we granted. and resolved the cases on other narrow grounds. but that begs the question, why don't we do that all the time? and it is the right question. because there's a need to

resolve and perplex the court. virtually all circumstances. to hear it. and that means the justice is being applied across the country. and the reason the situation. to solve the case that avoids the issue that's perplexes the lower court. unfairness is to a country. and so it's not an ideal situation, and it's not a format i obviously speak from knowledge only with respect to himself.

because we can. >> i was interested that you mentioned the justice scalia, your friend justice scalia. whafs co-host, i was always asked was how can you stand to sit across the table from bob novak or pat buchanon and the question of you and justice scalia, and justices is how do you get along with working with other members and how do you come together when you're deciding these cases? >> because we respect each other. as much as i care care about this and our system of government. they care as much as well.

but it's not from ill will. and it's certainly not from evil intent. it is from a genuine belief. that my answer is the right one. >> so if you look at those cases where we're riding. what's the word i should use with that. you know, those opinions where people think we're being a little harsh with each other. most of the time you'll notice that the vast majority of the harshness, the loser. a lot easier. to forgive a loser for getting upset. and it's a lot easier to forgive

when you understand security where reactions because please see it my way. i think we all understand that. we all appreciate what animates it, what drives us, how hard we work to get to our individual vote and then to express what's important to us for others to understand. and so i think that's more of the reasons question remain friends. as you know, the most two unlike unlikely i think most people may not know that we agreed about that. and in some areas more than others, he was a libertarian as you know. and a lot of areas.

in criminal law. and so it doesn't take much for a rational person. the person that you're fighting against today you may need for a vote tomorrow. to recognize that when we disagree. it's not because we dislike each other. he was fun, he was humorous, if to sit in a conference with him where are someone that he loved eating.

you have to come back from a nice oysters at one of our favorite places in the city. he likes doing new and interesting things. there's a picture of him and justice ginsburg on camels. we were both avid yankee fans. there had to be some good, right? that was a joke, okay. no, my point is, that he was a devoted, devoted father. and those are important to me. as they should be to other people. and so it wasn't and i think you have to accept in this life that people will disagree with you. and perhaps on some things that are fundamental to you, but if you're working together. to find a way to breach that

void. and maintain a relationship where you can continue talking. >> i was lucky to have the opportunity to interview justice scalia a couple of times and justice breyer, and i remember interviewing justice breyer after he had written his book about the constitution basically making the case a constitution of living document. and then i interviewed justice scalia in front of a big audience who emphatically said no, the constitution is a dead document. >> did he do that only once? he usually will sit there and pound the table about a half dozen times, yes. >> do you care to weigh in on that? >> no, i won't weigh in on that. i will say that when i spoken to justice breyer, he would tell me that he always had fun in those conversations because it was so

easy to excite. but, i am aware of those conversations. i think everyone is. >> you and what is is it -- it was seven years now on the court, correct? >> i've started mideighth. >> eighth. right. looking back, personally, dealing with and wrestling with -- is there anyone case that was the toughest one for you to decide? to come to grips with? or a couple of them? >> i'm not trying to be cute or to avoid your question, but i am going to tans in a different way, which is, i think every case is hard. and every case is hard for one simple reason. when bedecide a case, we automatically choose a winner. and by definition, we declare a

loser. >> uh-huh. >> and the one thing i'm very conscious of, much more than i ever was when i was on the lower courts. as you know, i was a district and circuit court judge. i have not appreciated before coming to this court how much comfort i took from knowing that there were courts above me that could fix my worst mistakes. flost court above me. when we render a decision, we have really declared someone entitled to a right to acclaim, but we've also told the other person the other side, that a right they thought we had was gone. that a claim that they felt was important enough to bring to the supreme court has not been recognized. and so, i am much, much more conscious now in every single

case about what my decision means and how much heart ache it's going to cause a group of people. or institutions. and that makes every case really tough. >> that is a burden that every justice bears, i'm sure. you're a historic figure, that's the first latina on the court, did you feel, in addition to that on top of that maybe, a special burden or a special responsibility. >> no. i have often said that i'm not a latina justice. i'm a justice. i am a latina person, but i am also everything else that i have done and experienced in my life. i am yes, a catholic, a child

brought up by a single mother. ivy league educated. a former prosecutor. a former corporate lawyer representing some of those big corporations out there, okay. i've been a district court judge, circuit court judge, there isn't one part of my life that defines sonia. i'm an alga mall thom of all of those experiences. and so i don't feel a particular responsibility merely because one part of me is latina. my responsibility is to do the right thing for the country. and so, i don't think that anything enhances that sense of burden. or minimizes it in any other way either. >> you talk often wonderful book my beloved to grow, a lot about

when you got started in practicing law, this was still maybe a tough time for women in the law. as a woman, do you feel that you had equal opportunity, it was tougher? and has the situation in the legal profession for women improved? >> who am i to say on the supreme court justice? >> yeah, right. >> it's like when i tell law students i have one professional regret in life and i look and say that's a disingenuous statement. what big mistake could i have made and still gotten the supreme court, okay? my answer to that question is i have e i should have clerked. which i think is important career choice that i should have made differently. putting that one aside.

>> some of the things that people called you. >> it felt hurtful. exceedingly hurtful during my nomination process when there were some people saying that i wasn't smart enough. now you sit there and you sort of look at my record. i graduated from princeton. before great inflation by the way. all right. way before grade inflation. i was at yale. i was the editor of the law journal. i was a managing editor of the international law journal. i have been a fairly successful prosecutor and i think successful in as a judge, as a

lower court judge. and it was hurtful for me to hear people say that i wasn't smart enough. and when i thought about it, i realized that it is the language that many taint women with when it comes to positions of responsibility. either not smart enough, not creative enough, not something enough. >> tough enough. >> well, with me, they said i was too tough. you know, i mean, my former colleague and i, justice scalia sparred on who would ask the most questions. and certainly didn't think that i was harsh on lawyers, but i was describened and am described as very aggressive. he wasn't described as aggressive. and boy, was he.

i mean, if you look at two of us, i may have been tough, but i was never harsh. he could be both. but that adjective wasn't used to describe him. yes, there are gender differences. not only in those ways, but having a marshal when i was on the courts below say honey to me. can you imagine anybody calling a federal male judge honey? maybe his or her wife, or spouse, but it would be unlikely. or sitting in a room as a lawyer. in a room full of male lawyers and someone turning to me and saying could you get us coffee please? i didn't have to respond then because i was working with a mentor and a colleague who i until the day he died remained a

dear, dear friend. but he turned to the lawyer and said, the phone is over there and i'll give you the number for the coffee shop, she's a lawyer. but what would i have said to this day i'm not sure. my friend didn't give me a chance. but i know it was hurtful. when it happened. i think every woman has had a similar situation occur in their professional lives or something close to it because it is a natural sort of part of our lives in the professional world. people don't hear often what they're saying. and they often don't think about how they address others on the impact it's having on the other person. so yes, but i don't know that in the end it impeded me much.

>> but you're right, the justice loves taking questions from the audience. and we will get to that just after one more. so i just want to get your questions ready. and we will, charlotte has the microphone, if she's nearby. so in terms of -- kind of a couple of questions in one. what inspired you in your life to go into want to study law and practice law and when you were applying to princeton, were you helped by affirmative action and is it still important to date? >> well, without question, i was helped by affirmative action when i was applying from high school to college. from my high school there had been only one other minority

accepted to princeton before i got there. and he was asian-american. chinese, in fact, he's stale dear friend of mine. he's the one who called me and i describe the call in my book, but sonia, you have to apply to ivy league colleges and i said, what are those? you have to read my book to understand my background and the fact that i just wasn't familiar with the ivy league schools. my college applications were after he called me, harvard, yale, princeton, columbia, city university is my safety. and stoney brook, estate university, which is where i thought i was going. that's how unsophisticated my knowledge was back then. but so why was princeton why did it accept kenny and me and not any of the other kids from our

high school? we were in the minority in our high school. but this was the era in which which institutions in the country were understanding that civil rights meant not just dejour in law. but a only giegs ensure that we took care of de facto segregation that institutions have, and i still do believe have an obligation to recognize that there are structural barriers in our society to a quality. the first and most important structural barrier to equality is the lack of of quality in education. i firm live believe that fe don't take care of that

inequality first, we're never going to have an equal society. because if you can't educate your population on that then we're never, ever going to be able to achieve equality. but at any rate. previously drawn from all of the elite high schools that it had sought students from, had a great source of the types of students they were accustomed to accepting. and that experiment than they ever had before. and they're still doing that today. and i think that that's to the better. because it is reaping a greater portion of the population and not nearly minorities.

kids -- right nonminority dprids of aly that didn't start having opportunities in places like princeton and harvard and yale until the civil rights movement made these institutions think about diversity in different ways. do we still need it? if we are committed to ensure ing everyone is stepping outside of their sort of regular routine and stepping outside of what's easy to do to create a more equal society? then we do need, if not affirmative action, we need that spirit that says, we want to be more than we are. we want to be a country that

stands as a beacon for every one of it's citizens. and so, i'm a person who very much don't believe in the affirmative action of quotas and things like that, but i do believe that we have to be committed to ensuring that the processes we have in place to select people are really selecting on the basis of potential merit and not on the basis as happens in many situationsings of engrand habits. you know, and how many institutions -- especially in places all of you have worked. having engrajed sources of selecting people that excludes so many others. and so that's what we fight against. >> i can't resist the temptation to transition to you're taking questions from the audience when you look at this audience, i'm sure you've noticed as i have,

how many young people are here tonight. >> i am really grateful. >> and they're hear because they admire you and they look up to you, and i'm particularly looking at these two girls in the second row on this side. and just when they see you -- >> you weren't with me last night, were you? >> no. when they see you and see where you are -- what do you want them to know and remember from your life and your experience and what's your message to them tonight? >> i picked law because it was the way i thought i could help people. what lawyering is, for me, good lawyering, it's helping people in their relationships with each other and with societies and institutions. lawyers are doing the right thing are trying to help people in trouble, right?

or help people who are trying to work together and help those people figure out how to do it in the best way. so both their interests are protected. it's what out how to do it in the best way in the interest of protecting. that's what lawyers do. for me that was service i wanted to be a part of. it is service i like being part of as a judge. but most importantly, it brings me something that you should find in your own lives. i love what i do. i've loved being a lawyer. i've loved being a judge. it's something that i wake up to every day, and i feel good about myself and about what i do. as you live your life, be looking for that passion, that thing that drives you inside,

that makes you excited about living. because if you can find that excitement, you'll have the happiest life. just like i have. [ applause ]. >> okay. where do we start? fire away. >> all right. there's -- i'll tell you what the benefit is for asking a question. let me just say the following. i don't like sitting down. you'll know that when i was a child i was very curious about everything and never stopped running. my mom says at 7 months i got up from the floor and didn't walk, just ran. and i still do that. but you have to be careful, because you see some of these guys and ladies around here, they're my police force. they're here to protect me from

me, not you. but that means if you're asked a question, you can get up but don't get up unexpectedly. i scares them, okay? so i will walk around. i need a hand down. that's the other thing i need. thank you. thank you, sir. and you get a picture of me. a still photo. no social media. so who takes advantage? i always know how to drive people the right way. >> we know a lot more about the court from a public perspective. >> tell me who you are. >> i'm sarah montgomery. i'm an attorney with the federal government. i wonder when you arrived at the court there was any tradition or

practice or quirk that you found kind of personalized the experience for you that you could share with us to the help you know a little less of the public side but one aspect of how things function. >> you know, i don't know what i expected. but when i got to my role in courts in both the district and the circuit court, there weren't manuals. but there were judges who through the ages had sort of created writings about how to transition into being a judge. and it was helpful. that didn't happen on the supreme court. the closest to that was the first day i arrived in the middle of my desk was justice

ginsberg's chambers manual. and i think that's what most justices and their law clerks create. it's the manual they pass on from year to year to new law clerks to tell them how can chambers operate. and how do i identify how the justice thinks about certain things s. so a simple example. what does justice ginsberg and what do i think about granting extensions to people who want an extension of time to file their petitions? and justice ginsberg's manual, and now mine, basically tells incoming clerks, this is what the justice the looks for. is the request to spend time timely? has the person exercised due diligence? what's the nature of the excuse for seeking the extension? and ultimately on some that are

late, what's the value of the petition that's being sought or might be sought? so those sorts of things i would not have known intuitively or otherwise. it would have taken me time to develop those factors for myself. having hermanal was invaluable. unlike my other courts, nobody told me how they set up chambers. i guess i could have found out. but at that point i had been a judge for 17 years. so i had my own way of doing things. and so i figured that out. there's a lot of things in the court that are just what happens. and i often felt that first year that i was walking in the middle of a conversation among the other justices. a lot of them had been together for decades.

and it wouldn't and did happen where somebody would say something. i would look at myself and say, that wasn't in the papers. what are they talking about? they didn't mention that case. and a colleague, just advertise stevenson in the beginning, even justice the alito, would lean over and say, sonia, don't worry about it. he brings it up in everything. all right. it give me some confidence. or practicing about things like -- the i'm trying to think of something simple because i can't breach confidences. when do i grant stat the us to the an applicant and when don't we? and go straight to things like

that. things like that aren't written down anywhere. so you have to live in the experience until you get to know those processes. so it is more surprising than i think the public would understand. and not infrequently we'll turn in the middle of a conversation and say to the chief, can you find out what the court has done in the past? it might be helpful some day if we had a justice who started taking notes. >> thank you. >> i'm not one of them, but it would be helpful. >> if i could take a picture. >> absolutely. thank you. i offered a picture to the two young girls. come o. are you related or no? if you're not, i'll take separate pictures. they are related? okay. do you admit it? is that a cousin or a sister? >> sister. >> do you like her?

you heard that. keep it. she might deny it some day. all right. thank you, you guys. yes, sir. >> the gentleman right here. >> thank you, justice. and thank you, bill. my question may be twofold. and please naturally exercise your prerogative to answer what you wish. one is i never understood how a justice could be quoted an originalist or a strict constructionist since it is related to experience. how can one see in the mind of what our founders experience? and the second part, again, to answer or not, i don't understand how you can be separated in reaching a judgment

from your life's experience. and i was brought up to believe that judges ruled on high with just strictly based on words. can you offer some observations on that? >> tell me your name. >> jay glasser, retired proof of public health in the republic of texas. >> for the nonlawyers in the room, i'm going to similar phi this greatly. so i don't want to receive criticism later for being too simplistic, but i will try. originalists like my colleague justice scalia believed all questions should be interpreted through the historical lens of what the founding fathers were confronting when they wrote the provisions of the constitution

so that when you get a case involving an issue, and i'll give you an example from a case i was involved with in an exchange between justice scalia and justice alito, who pretty much saw things the same way a lot. but a number of years ago we had a case involving the prohibition of the sale of certain video greetings to children without their parents's consent. and the justice alito in questioning of one of the lawyers said, do you really think our founding fathers ever imagined the day when a video could represent a killing of someone in such realistic terms that as exist today? because some of these animated cartoons seem life-like.

and the lawyer said, no, justice, i don't think so. and justice the quipped back, but our founding fathers knew about bias and they didn't permit the control violence. so as a strict originalist as he was would say since they didn't control violence this may be a more extreme violence today but is still, at its core, violence. so i am not going to go submit the suppression of this. i think he would describe himself as an originalist. but slightly different. but on the other side is what bill press called the living constitution theory, which is

that the constitution is not a dead document but a living one that was intended to last as long as the country could last and that our founders hoped it would be for basically forever. and that it was ended to grow with the society and it was to be interpreted within the norms that the society develops. and so, for example, on issues like cruel and unusual punishment, a person or a justice more akin to the living constitution would say, you know, it was okay back when to burn people to death. today our norms of decency have changed. today that is cruel and unusual.

justice the scalia at one point in the start of his tenure said he's really not a strict originalist because he probably wouldn't permit burning of people today. shortly before his death he said, no, i'm going to go back to it. if society is going to the tolerate, i'm okay. but his quip in that situation i think tells you a lot. they are closer to the strict originalists. but even those have veer said away from it strictly. because society does change. our press dents have had 200 years of creating experiences within the law that you can't ignore. and so even the strict originalists have had made exceptions.

we have to go back to understand what our forefathers meant to be able to give a framework answer to a new problem. and so i don't think that there's any real strict person completely at either end anymore. having said that where does life experience come in? in many ways. but the most important is in understanding the impact of law on people. and that you can't ignore. and it's why you need diversity on the court as you do in everything. because to be able to understand the arguments of everyone involved before you, you need people who can present those

arguments with clarity. you know, i give an example, a small one. many, many years ago there was a case involving a school that had searched a 13-year-old girl for an alleged possession of aspirin. there had been a trickle hearsay of someone who reported the girl for having taken an aspirin in a no drug school. and they searched the girl on the basis of this triple layer of hearsay and searched her without informing her parents. strip search. and so the case came to the argument before the supreme court. schools are public institutions, and they are subject to some fourth amendment on reasonable search and seizure limitations.

and during the argument it appears -- i wasn't there. so i'm relaying something that's public information, okay? one or more of my colleagues a nalogized the strip search to undressing in a locker room. how much different was it? my colleague justice ginsberg was criticized for this. but at one point she was overheard to have said, i don't think some of my colleagues understand what it's like to be a 13-year-old girl and how sensitive a child is to their personal integrity. now, do i think that changed any votes? i wasn't there, remember. unlikely.

do i think there was value from the fact that no opinion in that case analogized this search to the a locker room situation. yes, i think there's value in that. and so, yes, your experiences, and it happens, someone in an opinion uses a word that's offensive to certain groups. and it's not a question of political correctness. it's a question of unknowing injury. and, you know, if you can avoid unknowing injury when it's not necessarily to the point that you're making, you might elect to change the word. but you should be informed. you should not do things from ignorance. and i think having justices with different experiences helps ensure that we as an institution

are not doing things from ignorance. >> justice, a question -- >> would you like your picture? >> my 15 minutes of fame. >> all right. i'm coming this way. >> hi. justice sotomayor, i'm a private sector attorney representing the pharmaceutical industry through the fda. my question is the predecessors to your chair on the core and if any of those specifically inspire you in some way that you have their chair? >> oh, interesting. hello. how are you? thank you for being here.

i will say the following. i consider one former justice john paul stevens who i overlapped with for only one year. i still think of him as a mentor because he taught me to have the courage to speak when i thought speaking was important. even if others didn't agree. and when you think about the group dynamics involved in a conglomerate of nine individuals, you realize there is a lot of pressure to conform with the majority.

and if there suspect pressure to conform with the full nine, there's pressure to conform with your subgroup. deviation is not something that's looked upon favorably by people who are trying to get your vote. and so it is very unusual in any given year for any justice to be a solo dissenter in any case or to speak out by themselves. and there's a reason for that. it's just called group dynamics. but justice stevens gave me comfort in understanding that, yes, you would like others to join you. but when you think that something is important enough to say, even if you're not going to win, say it. and i think that that probably, i hope, took off a number of years from my coming to that

conclusion myself. but it's only a hope. it was very nice to have a mentor who said it's okay to do that. and so, yes. i feel privileged. and, in fact, when i heard about his retiring, i went to try to talk him out of it. i obviously wasn't successful. come on down. >> we have time or at least one more. >> thank you. are you related? come on over. does he treat you well? she's not talking.

the only people who get pictures and don't ask questions are kids. thank you. thank you for being here. >> justice, we have a question here. >> okay. all right. who am i going with? >> i'm sorry. did you have a question? >> come on up. >> i didn't know she had the microphone. >> and tell me who you are. >> hi. my name is jessica. >> hello, jessica. what do you do? >> i'm a security guard at the metropolitan museum. >> neat place. >> i'm very excited to meet you. i traveled all the way from just to meet you. and i read your whole book, the entire book, and i was very touched by it. >> thank you. >> i don't have any special titles or status in life. but i want to know -- >> we all do. do you like what you do? >> it's doable for now. i like it, but it's not my passion. >> all right.

so you've got to work at finding your passion. >> yes. i was going to ask, i'm in my 20s. for somebody who has lived a lot in life, what would your advice be when you're feeling hopeless or discouraged in any aspect or spectrum of your life? >> that's a hard one, isn't it? and i sort of understand it because i see so many people who live with that. i'm not perfect. i get discouraged too. and i get sad. and there are moments in my life where i thought, why do i bother? you know, life is hard. you can't change the minds of some people, so do you even try? and i think in the end what i

decided was something related to a condition i have, diabetes, which taught me this when i was very, very young. when i was first diagnosed, and not true today, the prognosis of diabetes was very poor. i believed most of my childhood and i probably didn't change my mind until i reached 50, that i was going to die young. and the one thing that that thought gave me was a drive to pack as much as i could into my life as fast as i could. and so when i tell people this, they don't believe it. but my mom will tell you, okay, when i was in high school, i would go to school all day, i was an active participant in student government and a whole bunch of activities, including forensics and debate and all that other stuff. i would go home and study until

midnight every night i would go to bed. i would do that all week long monday through thursday. friday and saturday i would party all night long. saturday and sunday, i would get up and work. family had to because of our economic situation. and so i would party until 12:00, sometimes 1:00 or 2:00. my mother was of the opinion that i could be trusted. and if i called and told her i wanted to stay out late i was okay, which i did. but i was up at 6:00 in the morning to start work at 8:00 in the morning. is and i can't keep up that pace now. but i'm pretty active. and i do lots of things because that experience taught me that we're given a gift, a treasure. we're given life.

and we have no idea how long it will last. but we know that if we take advantage of every minute we're given, if we try to do something meaningful with those minutes, but then we give value to that gift we receive. and so i tell people i have two thoughts before i fall asleep. the first is what real thing did i learn today. because if i haven't learned something new, then i've wasted my day. and the second question i have is, what good thing i have done for somebody else today? and if i can't answer that question, then i haven't lived a meaningful day. because those are the two things that make living special.

so when i get down and i despair, i just think back to the value of that special gift that only i have, which is i can make other people happy from what i can give them. and every time i learn something new, i might be able to help the world in some way. a lot of the knowledge i've gained in life i use in my judging. and some day when you find your passion you're going to use that knowledge to do the same. don't give up. good luck. [ applause ]. >> justice, one final question here.

>> hello. >> hello. i'm kathleen. i work at a local nonprofit here in d.c. we heard you speak about gender-based bias in your career and the hurt you felt after that. for women who may experience similar bias, what advice oren couragement would you give to keep it from impacting your commitment to the living out your passion? >> you know, i don't know if there's an answer -- that there's a magic pill answer that an approach to it that is right for every situation. because every situation is so generous, okay. there are moments where private conversation between people is the way to resolve an issue of bias. so, for example, with the marshal i was