they go to their teach when they have a problem. this is the person they're learning from. they say your dad comes from the taliban. it plays a role in the overall climate. >> i'm wondering if we have any data or statistics about muslims being disproportionately targeted. if we don't, quite hon 6thestly, why don't we have it? does anyone know?

>> i can speak from the local level. we are collecting that data. we are definitely collecting that. i have in fact, put out the call for all of of our schools to report their incidents from last year. anecdotally i have had parents call me about fears. more than that, i really do feel we have triggered our adults if we haven't triggered our kids into this equation yet. the district is somewhat different in terms of our population.

hearing it a lot from our immigrant communities in general. certainly our latina community is hearing all kind of things on the playground that wasn't said. that wasn't said before, you know, this last year kite to that level. so we are hearing it anecdotally. we talk about the identifying factors that the d.c. human -- but it is is the d.c. human rights act. why is is it the power dynamics, how kids are on the playground, how are we distinguishing the two? >> i would say what's fascinating to me, we have over 200 different school buildings

in the district. half are in the d.c. public schools, half in charter schools. building by building it looks very different. if you don't see any signage in other languages whether it's in spanish or any other community languages there is a real recognition who is in that building i can promise you there are schools that are literally two blocks that the climate and culture looks very different in terms of who is recognized. >> i think part why i say it is is the norm to have this rhetoric, i was reading an article, and many of you may

have read it she was talking about how she was speaking to a group of young muslim women and asked a question, have you ever been bulled? nobody respond. she said, well, have you been called a terrorist. then everybody's hand went up. i use that to say because it is is so normal to be dispairageded in such a horrible way, people and children oftentimes i don't think are calling that or defining that bullying. it is more the parents are hearing it and saying wait a second is. it is not okay for my kid to hear that.

we had an intern, my cousin, who was very casually last summer telling me, oh, yeah, i've been called a terrorist in school. and i said, oh, really? did that make you upset? and he said, oh, no, i'm muslim. everyone calls everyone terrorists who are muslim. i know your question was about data collection. there is a reporting issue of whether children can use that language to say this is bullying. i'm feeling harassed enough report it to the a school administrator or even a parent stphrfplt that circles back to the point brenda was making that i at least initially started this talking about student-on-student bullying. something i think brenda raised that is an important point, we have school administrators perpetuating and feeding into

that same anti-muslin rhetoric. let's rewind. >> i do want to jump in. we have a very specific definition in the city. one of the parts is it does have to cause harm. i don't want any child to be called a terrorist for any reason. but we have learned that the effect of bullying on kids is really the important issue. some kids really are affected differently. we have learned this with other populations the same way. kids will walk into a room and be called names. they don't think anything of the other kids and they don't care. and they move through their life just fine. and their resiliency is built. they have a good self definition. they feel a part of the community. other kids who don't tell us also when they are being targeted. it completely undermines their sense of self, their sense of safety is and their ability to learn that classroom.

trying to figure out how kids are hearing it. bullying itself is about the psychological harm. saoeupbg it is a really important question. that doesn't they shouldn't be sensitive and they shouldn't call it out. how we address it is is a little more complicated. >> that is the challenge. i do a personal reflection growing up in boston where mandatory boston was trigger warning, trigger warning here. did i become used to the language? yes. did it impact me? here i am 40 years later realizing it did have an impact on me. because it has become so much the norm to call muslim students

terrorists we say, ah, what's the big deal, he was just called a terrorist. maybe we can rewind and look at the legal stand. what are courts requiring? on a national level we are probably ahead of the curve back to suzanne's office in what you are doing. >> i think just on the question of studies there are a fair number of people who looked at this question in terms of how many kids experienced this. it is is how we interpret this

inside the anti-discrimination statutes. c.a.r.e. interviewed 600 muslim kid. it is prevalent in teachers as was just noted. it really set the tone. and the kids do follow the tone of the institutions in which they live in. as i said, there is no national statute that prohibits something called bullying. there are a number of laws that provide that students who go to

school have to be free from discriminatory conduct. it is critical to whether you create a climate where each student doesn't have equal access to education. if you are bullied and you can't get the benefits in a way that the student who wasn't subjected to that could get the benefit of education that is prohibited by federal law. that is discrimination. that's the extent to which the law provides the kind of protection.

the department of education has no statutory authority based on religion. under federal law, the enormous hole that prevents the -- that goes to race, national origin, gender, color but doesn't protect against religious speech but the department of education has promulgated regulations and offered guidance when the discrimination based on religion goes to actual perceived ancestry it is prohibited under the federal statutes.

title 9 requires free and equal education for everyone. it is a tricky area or under the law. you have to balance. you have to first get to the more complicated question, which is what is the impact on the child? it prechild on equal terms. how do you balance the other rights of the student for those who engage in expressive conduct.

they have provided very little guidance. they give wide latitude to speakers. less so in the school building in the school house. my colleague was with the department of skwrus 2eus. under his direction, d.o.j. authored the ferguson report. and i actually snubbed my nose at it because it was coming from the department of justice until i read it.

we are climbing this mountain. do we know what strategies are most effective when it comes to protecting children in schools? >> these folks may know better than anybody. they have a policy. collect some data. and it doesn't provide the kind of leadership inside the schools to make the behavior unacceptable. there has to be a policy in place and the school district is demonstrating to the policy. were you going to -- -- >> yeah. i was just going to add

something. one thing we did in part because we have so many parents out of this fear, what can i do? we drafted a letter to every state superintendent or whatever their title would be in the states that is responsible for education in their state. and in that letter we highlighted, similar to what you just went through, the legal obligations as a public school district in that state and what under under title 6, as well as potential liability there in section 1983 as well. what we have done is we attached to that a fantastic that went out before ernie duncan left is and incoming secretary king started. december 31st, the letter went out, a dear colleague letter, that highlights not just the obligations of each school district for what they should do, but also highlighted some potential, you know, strategies

for how to talk about these issues in school and highlighting the climate for that. we have also asked parents to take that letter and share it with their local school districts as well. so we took the sandwich approach. we will send it to the state superintendent. you take it to your local school district. >> i know karama has been providing support. if we are looking at what's working, it seems like, and we have a room full of lawyers and the courts aren't working ironically. we have an advocacy letter that goes out and being responsive to

the needs of students who are bullied. what about training, workshops, be working with students, identifying some of the ways that we can actually, i don't know, changing behaviors and providing supports. >> so i think that one of the things that is really important is having kind of these know your rights type workshops and training really for parents. and some for children. it's interesting. i did one with children and parents together for karama at a local mosque. it was really interesting. because i think the parents were horrified by what their children were sharing in this kind of a forum. so there's a couple of layers of problems here. one layer is that i think that there's not a lot of communication happening between parents and children

particularly about cyber bullying. they want to turn a blind eye to what is being shared. i think that's what i kind of gathered. and i think when the young people started sharing some of the things they were sharing with one another and how they were talking with one another, i think the parents were sort of surprised that was even happening. so that's one layer. the next layer is just not knowing how to approach an issue. a lot of the calls that i preferenced before from parents is how do i go about reporting an issue. should i go to the school principal, to the teacher, should i put my child in counseling? what are the mechanisms for

relief? i think they are still flying blind. many years ago when i was practicing in tennessee there was a case, it was an interesting sort of remedy. a girl had filed a protective order against another girl for harassment and for -- actually we kind of got it under stalking, which i thought was not so creative but it was -- it's not a good -- in the end i thought it was not a good long-term solution. in tennessee the statute was as long as there were three or more incidents of stalking-like me haver you could file a protective order against somebody else with whom you did not have a relationship. that's a standard in protective order cases. and i remember even then, this was several years ago, the judge was scratching his head and said i don't know how i feel about a

child getting a protective order against another child. how would that work in the school setting. so do they not stay in the same classroom? do they stay, you know, 50 feet apart from one another? how is that going to be regulated? what are the regulatory mechanisms of this happening at the school. and frankly i'm not in favor of more police officers being in schools and whatnot. so i think certainly -- so the know your rights is a little bit of a catch-22. you have to know what you're going to be pitching to parents of what you should be doing. without guidance from the courts it's difficult. even starting dialogues, conversations between parents and lawyers about feeling like you are not totally without any mechanism of rei think is very important >> so i think there are two

challenges. one for parents to know the remedies they have for the students. once they determine the remedy, finding an advocate who will help you navigate an often very complicated legal system. is suzanne, i know your office has some kind of -- the office of human rights has some kind of complaint process. could you share that with us. >> i want to echo something aisha said. you're right. where the kid don't share. a big problem around the issue of bullying is that our kids don't tell us exactly what's going on. but there is a really good reason why they don't tell us. that's because we usually overreact and make it worse as far as they're concerned. this is sort of that double-edged part of this that we work in, especially as our kids can get older, they don't tell their parents because parents overreact. they feel like it will make it that much harder in school, how to navigate it and how to deal

with this kind of stuff. so we have sort of taken the frame. we do have a process certainly in the office of human rights. part of the work of the bullying prevention program, which is the program that i run is that prevention mode. and getting parents in the doors to schools before an incident happens to talk about how do we illustrate an inclusive community. here is a place where everybody is recognized, seen and validated. and we need parents to do it. i have to be honest with you, schools don't always want to do it without a little bit of pressure. and that piece of it is so super important. certainly through my office and my law very specifically there is a claim through hostile educational environment based on a particular trait that you can use to address bullying in a public educational institution. we have a dual process because we want to make sure that you actually get to me first and we try to resolve the issue for the

child because sometimes the court process, no offense to all the lawyers in here, it takes a long time. i can't afford to have a kid stay in that kind of environment for any length of time. we try to work immediately to shift the dynamics, provide the support to the kid, so they feel -- the most important piece is making that kid feel safe and protected again and understand that the adults actually can do something and can do something helpful. that's the part we really want to work on on first. and we really appreciate it if the legal folks ensure it doesn't happen over and over again in the same school. >> is i think in the dear colleague letter i think is helpful in terms of taking on this issue. it recognizes the balance of people wanting to have a public debate against the need top protect students. but i also think as we think from the legal perspective that there's often not an

understanding of what it is if someone understanding bully in the context of a school. that may or may not be enough and we need to look at those things. do muslim kids spend more time getting through the screening process. do teachers talk about the greatness of america in a way that -- what are the permissions being given to students by subtly and not so subtly by the student itself. how do they do that?

just knowing what one student said how frequently that happened. it probably would not be enough. i suspect the more you dug, the more you would find this is school promoted conduct. >> this is sort of related in the cutest way. but i'm thinking a lot about this issue about access to an education which is a basic right for children and this idea of save for discrimination. it is is interesting because one of the pieces that karama is working on currently is the teaching of islam in public schools. so there's actually quite a large movement that is now becoming a national movement. it started in tennessee, texas, colorado, of just an erase aour

from curriculum and textbooks. there were a lot of politicians who were saying that we were indoctrinating children in islam by even teaching. for example, if you're teaching the basics of theology. muslims believe in five pillars. the first is faith in god. there is an arabic saying that goes along with that. it so happens that is the saying that people say when they convert to islam as well. that's what they are saying. so there is this idea that, on oh, my gosh, they are designing the curricula to convert all the children in schools. it is is kind of funny. it's really awful. but i think what this is doing is it is vilifying other islam

and erasing history as if it had no is significance in the context of our world and saying we should be taking it on out of textbooks altogether. it is is interesting because while we have made inroads with the department of education they are saying that is really up to the schools. it is infiltrating the overall discourse in the schools that there is something wrong with islam. >> the crusades of 911. >> that's the only historical fact that needs to be aware of. >> it is is important that you mentioned overall climate for

students. one thing that i always try to remind folks is that when we talk about anti-muslin hate crimes what we have seen in the past year, you know, just to give it a date accepts the attacks in paris, we started mapping on a map hate crimes all across the country. at one point we had over 50% against houses of worship. what i try to remind folks this is where students, young children go on their weekends for koran lessons, potluxe, spiritual enlightenment, prayer. this is the safe place they go to. after the paris attacks, we had mosques smeared in fees aoes, mosques that were firebombed. most recently we have seep in the past two weeks, two different attacks thwarrted with

misch issue that type attacks, with 16 bullets found in someone's home, they were planning a columbine type attack against a house of worship. when the community centers are attacked, how that makes them feel even if they go to school. maybe their classmates aren't saying something to them. but they are already feeling otherwise. like something is wrong and different. why would my house of worship be attacked. we have to keep in mind the very real environment that has been created. >> can you share some of the strategies that you imbedded in the dear colleague letter, suggestions that you had. >> so the dear colleague letter actually came from the two secretaries, arne duncan. >> i'm sorry. >> oh, the letter we sent?

our approach to the letter was to describe the environment for the students, peer-to-peer bullying and where -- there was a teacher in texas that created what you need to know about muslims and included facts that said 38% of muslims think you should be executed if you decide you don't want to be muslim anymore. we talked about these multi-faceted issues and hate crimes as well. we put in there, by the way, your obligation is to ensure a safe and healthy environment for students to learn in and attached the resources. so that was the approach we took. this is a real climate across the country.

we considered sending it to individual states with, you know, instances of bullying in each state. we were like this is a national problem. this is an overall national climate. >> i do think one of the strategies sometimes is to, when you mentioned fact, just by a show of hands a third of the muslims are what ethnicity? african-americans. 10% of the africans that migrated to this country were africans as well. after animas limbs that came to the country through one of the most horrific holocausts of slavery.

we want to make sure everyone has the perception of muslim otherness of being foreign terrorists coming to this country to do nothing but bad to us. so i do think that fact statement becomes critical going back to how do we create cultures within schools that are inclusive. we talk to regulating private speech in the social network. has anyone been working in this area of social media and bullying? aou swrapb, you're smiling. >> i'm smiling because it is a constant. webb on our law covers bullying whether it's social, verbal, or electronically.

we have it on paper. that's a start. hats off to the people who wrote it. we see most kids who are targeted on social media are targeted in real life. it is very rarely disconnected. so what that means is it is not that it is now a 24/7 clock that they are under. they don't get away from it.

i do a lot of parent talks. the schools did not give your kids those phones. we do. i as a parent gave my kids their first phones. how we talk to kids about how to use them, how to stay safe with them, what they should be used for is really part and parcel. we have to work with our schools on this stuff. it is a much more complicated conversation. right now all we have is the input when something goes really wrong and social media has a piece to it. we're trying to figure out how to punish that piece. that is really we have been able to accomplish so far on that. social media, as you mentioned, i can't keep up on what app my kids are doing. my kids are now in college. i'm not even going to try. but it is an extension of who

they are. part of their perblt personality is in their social media profile. i need to help them understand the consequences, how to stay safe is themselves. there's a lot they need to be thinking about because we're not going to stop social media from happening. >> we did the a report click here to end hate. we do a lot of work with social media companies. it is is based in san francisco and the bay area. and, you know, what that report highlights is, you know, what you do if you feel that, you know, there's hate speech. how to report it. what to do, where to click and how long should you wait for a response. there have been several instances where in the past year alone where there is a picture

of a woman wearing a hijab in a walmart parking lot. somebody took that picture and wrote racist comments about her. and it turned into like a meme of this woman wearing hijab. she had no idea. somebody had taken the photo of her. and you know, with our relationship with the social media companies, we were able to, you know, not just click here and report this to have it taken down, but you know, we went straight to the social media companies and got it taken down right away. so there is also, you know, ways to combat that once it is out there. and that's something we try to do, because sometimes it isn't fast enough. it spreads like wildfire, in hundreds of thousands of shares, quite quickly. so that is something that we have been trying to navigate that space as well. >> is that a tool that you would recommend for parents? is that something that parents could easily -- >> yeah, yeah, so the report, so

it is not -- i can certainly share the report with you. it is not -- it is not something that specific to bullying or specific to anything in particular, but you know, there are these variety of categories, and i'm embarrassed to say i really only know how to use facebook, i know there are so many others out there. the drop down, i don't like this post because, and different categories for it. we've been working to try to get those categories, particularly when it is hate speech or something that is, you know, it is my picture and i didn't ask for it to be up or whatever it may be to try to get them to take swift action on those. >> so i think that the unfortunate reality is that a lot of this is emerging as an issue. so you know, a couple of weeks ago, we were just talking about this, to brenda's point, right before the panel, that there was a young boy who was beaten up who was bullied had quite real physical harm done to him, not

just verbal bullying. and i feel like with that story going vai airal, other stories g viral, a lot of studies to the point where there studies, data. there is a lot more studies that are being done now of the ptsd, of the, you know, what is the psychological impact of your point of seeing these images, sees the stories on social media and how it is impacting. i think facebook, twitter and other social media platforms are coming out and trying to be cool and saying, hey, we're seeing this is a problem, but sad it is happening after, you know, these so the of horrible acts have occurred. and i think that it also begs a larger question, and i definitely am not going to feel i'll toss it to my right. this issue of sort of free speech and chilling free speech, because i think in the bullying,

it may be easier for people to understand, because children are children and there are different standards, whereas we're seeing hate speech amongst adults, which is leading to hate crime. just to reference for you guys, there is a center for the state and extremism out of the california state university. they just issued a study a couple of days ago on -- they did a recent 20-state study of hate crimes. i won't -- it is a little political, but after a widely known political candidate tweeted something, at 1:47 p.m. on december 2nd, after the san bernardino attacks, they saw there was an 87.5 increase in hate crimes against muslims in a five-day period. which this attorney, his name is robert levin, is citing, let me make sure i got it.

brian levin, excuse me. he believes there a direct correlation between that tweet going viral and kind of the impact on hate crimes. but he also says that, again, this is an emerging issue, the university is going to be doing a lot more detailed study on what that nexus is. but i think, you know, we're talking about bullying, but we're talking about chilling free speech, and social media, i think it is a complicated legal question. >> did you want to add anything. >> did you want to handle that? so there are, i think, two bodies of law to think about in that context. the courts have recognized. one is liable and slander. and if you say something untrue about somebody, and it harms them, you can be sued and they can recover damages for that. if they are a public figure, the standard is higher and complicated to succeed in

securing damages. that's available remedy, unsatfying one candidly, because you can, you know, the court won't restrain the speech prior to being made. the court will give you money afterwards, and after litigation in the long process and what have you. the second we were talking about earlier, to what extent can you criminalize the kind of speech that causes harm. and the courts have been extremely reluctant to, because of the first amendment, because of the sort of difficulty of trying to wade into the area of trying to understand when someone's speech has a damaging effect in a non-liable way, and the court is really focused in on those -- when one speaks, one does it in a way that creates a threat. so that you cannot -- you're not

permitted to threaten to harm someone else. you place them, the court, the laws recognized there is an injury that occurs to you, just like being fearful someone will hurt you, and so if you -- it is called truth, truth read doctrine. if someone says something online or to you in person or writes you a letter, and the reasonable person reading that would believe that that person is going to carry out that threat in some way or another, and you subjectively believe that person may carry out that threat, it could be criminalized and subject to liability in civil proceedings. we're talking earlier, i litigated with my -- i personally didn't litigate it, but the team of folks i was with, different context, represented a doctor who provided abortion services in topeka, kansas. she -- one of the anti-abortion activists sent her a letter that

said you should just be careful going forward, because you know, you should look under your car everyday, because there may be a bomb placed. she never said i'm going to put a bomb under your car. she said you should be careful and look under your car everyday, because there may be a bomb and you should, you know, you should pray for your redemption and what have you, because you never know what will happen. the court originally threw it out and said it is not a true threat. you should look under your car everyday and -- her defense was i was being a good christian woman, because i was warning her that there may be risk to her. the woman who wrote the letter was good friends with scott rotor, serving light for murdering an abortion doctor in topeka, kansas. she visits him every week in prison. the court appeals, took it to the circuit court of appeals. under those circumstances, any reasonable person could see that there may be a basis for which,

you know, would be fearful the threat would be carried out. whether she intended to carry it out or not is irrelevant. whether or not a reasonable person reading the letter knowing those circumstances, might be carried out. the doctor had a subjective belief it could be carried out. that was a true threat. so in these circumstances, we are somebody is encouraging violence in a way in which you -- a reasonably objective person could say the violence may be carried out and the receiver of that subjectively has the experience that they worry that that violence could be carried out against them, that's the truth under the law. the courts don't extend that to this sort of hor bible, vile craziness, specific target, specific sort of threat, it doesn't have to say i am going to do this to you. it just has to be a reasonably objective basis for doing that. and that's where the courts have bumped up against the first

amendment, and that's where they've sort of drawn that analysis. >> i want to shift a little bit. i think we've been spending sometime talking about protections for students whom are being bullied, having represented students who are alleged to be bullying, and school systems attempting to expel them. how should we be balanced here? we keep talking about children. we forget that part of the equation. suzanne? >> i would -- i will jump in here. the old-fashioned moethod was t find the bully and punish them. i will tell you, that is not only a remarkably infect i have strategy for addressing bullying, it is probably a tremendous amount to increase the school to prison pipeline. we have really pushed back very hard in the work that we're doing in the city to actually not be in the discipline frame,

but be in a public health frame. and we know from the research that really what makes a difference for kids is that you change the behavior of the kid who is being aggressive. kids are usually being aggressive for an unmet need. there is an underlying reason that they're behaving that way. it could be honest to god, many, many different underlying reasons why they're behaving that way. one could be they're watching too much, you know, political coverage and hearing the words and mimicking them. there could be more serious reasons why they're acting that way. so we're really pushing back and saying with the kid who is being the aggressor, let's fiend out what's going on and change the behavior. that's really working around, you know, developmentally, that looks different when we've got little kids versus middle school kids versus high school. empathy building is important all along the spectrum when you're dealing with a kid that is being aggressive. the flip side is that we also know from the research that we

have done a tremendously bad job in addressing kids who have been targeted. they actually have the repercussions, whether they know, and i don't disagree with you it can have harm even if you're not category rising it as harm, but we've done very little to reattach our kid's sense of safety and belonging in the school building or where ever it is so they see themselves as the person that will always be ostracized or the person that won't belong. until we break that cycle, they're at a much higher risk for all kinds of dangerous behaviors going forward. so that's where our energy should be in changing behavior, because we are talking about kids. and i am -- i will -- i do not believe in criminalizing behavior of kids. i really do think we need to think in a developmental framework when we're talking about that. it is their job to push boundaries, it is their job to try to figure out where they belong and who their peer groups

are and what these things mean. we need to model appropriate behavior, teach them, not just tell them what to do. but we really need to be spending a whole lot more time around our kid whose are being targeted. we've left them out of the occasion in all those suspensions we did. >> so i want to make sure that we have adequate time for questions. i would like to take this moment to open the floor for questions, if anyone has any questions. if you could stand for us, please. >> hi, so thank you all very much. this was really helpful. as a mom, and as a lawyer, it is great to know about the remedies and what i can do. but ultimately, my goal is preventing harm, not going to court, right? like to seek remedy. so i was just wondering, and for me, with the current political climate, part of me is just like

this is our new normal and i have to internalize that because no matter who wins the election, this climate isn't going to change overnight. what are the strategies you guys discuss with parents to make sure my kids are confident an strong so that i can't ignore it is going to happen, because it likely will. i'm lucky, i am in a public charter school that is very diverse, but you know, what are the things that you guys are working with parents on the ground to say, you know what, i'm going make sure my kids are really strong and if this does happening, it rolls off their back. >> i mean, i will just quickly say, i mean, we learned a lot back in the day from the gay rights movement, to be perfectly honest. right after prop 8 happened, the level aggression against the lgbt kids was really strong in california. and across the country. and i think that some of the strategies were to really go out there, actually and use social media on the other side and you

know, everything from the it gets better campaign to, you know, really taking the bull by the horns and saying, no. that's actually not our reality. we're going to create our own reality. our reality will look very different. we really do want to, i think we have to thin about those things, because it -- you know, as a parent, i don't want our kids to inherit this mess we've, you know, presently have here. and i think that there is, there is -- there a lot of connection that can actually happen through social media, and i mean, we saw this again. you know, rural kids very isolated from larger communities can come together on the internet they didn't have in real life. certainly for lgbt youth. i think some of those places where we actually flipped the script on people and raised up in a very powerful way can actually be some of the things we could start thinking about right away to be doing. >> so i would add, and i appreciate your question on so many levels, because you know, i

do this work day in and day out, and then i have twin seven year olds that i worry about everyday. so it is, you know, it's, you know, the irony is certainly there. but one thing i'll say is that i certainly think that we can't assume that the school is aware of the fear that you have about your child. and so that is in part why we encourage parents to take our letter and share it with their principal or vice principal or the teachers themselves. these are things i'm concerned about. my kids, they're in second grade, they come home and talk about the election all the time. they have these conversations on the playground, who they're going to vote for. i tell them you're seven, you can't vote just yet. you know, but it is -- for me, it is has allowed me to have healthy conversations with my children, people can choose, we're in a democracy, just like you get to vote what we want for, you know, we're going for dinner. you have a turn. whatever it may be.

it gives me the opportunity as a parent to have these conversations with my children. but in part, because of the climate, it wasn't until i went in and spoke to the teacher, and the principal. even though they don't have a problem. you know, they haven't been bullied or anything. just letting them know this is something i as a parent at the school many concerned about and i just want you to be aware this is the climate and most of them already know, depending on where you live and that you know, he have a child in this school that i want to make sure that you are aware of these, you know, the environment and some of the different ways that manifests itself. now, on the flip side, there are some other organizations that are doing really great work in terms of improving cultural competencies in schools. making sure that teachers and administrators have had this greater cultural competency and are aware of what does it mean to muslim, statistics, not all immigrants, diverse, and you know, there are, you know, the

statistics range between three and six million. you may have one in your school. they may not have a neighboriam muhammad abdella. it is a great effort and ways to bring the conversations to schools. one last thing i'll add is i met this amazing 16-year-old who started a program at her high school in montgomery county called seek kid to kid. what she has done is she has, because of the confusion and people didn't understand the differences between sikhs and muslims, they started an organization at their school where the kids talk to the teaches about what does it mean to be sikh, how is it different from muslim. and they created a whole program around it and they talk to other students and groups. also as your children get older, there are opportunities for them to own their own narrative,

right. we raise them to be proud of who they are and you see that, seeing this 16-year-old girl start this organization to increase do you recall r increain cultural competency, maybe there are some efforts by students in public school as well. i wanted to share there are things you can do as a pair rent. resources that can come to your school, and then, you know, encouraging our high school kids to shape their own narratives as well. >> really quickly, i want to answer the question in a very different way, which is i think that so karamah is an organization and we work with different groups within the muslim community, mostly women. a lot of the work is on gender equity, which is, you know, it is a little bit of a different, you know, bullying is one issue of marginalization, and

patriarchy is another one. and i think what is really the root of what is happening is that islam is being vilified. islam is being torn down. and i think as proud muslims, who are proud of their faith, i feel like we have to counter the narrative for our children at home, so that you know, these voices are so loud, but i think that there can be much more emphasis placed on creating a strong identity, which is not only in just religious teaching of doctrine of practice and rituals, which is all very important, but also, you know, for example, civic engagement, the time for voting right now. i find it incredibly powerful as a muslim woman that the first group that ever voted in islamic history was a group of women. that's a story that our children should be hearing. and i think that that idea of democracy and civic engagement from a religious perspective

should be apart of the kitchen table conversations in muslim families so that we're countering somewhat of -- we're not going to be able to stop what kids are hearing on the news. we're not going to be able to stop what they are gate anything social media, so this idea of really teaching islam in its just and equitable scholarship that has been done, you can check on karamah's website, shameless plugs all throughout, but i have found it has been so transformative in the gender context for people who are like well we didn't know we had these rights. what we don't want do is create a generation of kids who are saying, you know, i'm not as a muslim because i'm so embarrassed of being muslim or i'm scared of being muslim. instead, we want to give tools primarily and i'm putting work on your plate, but for parents to be teaching kids about the legacy of islam and what to be

proud of. >> yes? question, could you stand please? thank you. >> hi, thanks to all of you for coming and helping us learn more. so i am a government paralegal. i work with attorneys for nine years. one thing that attorneys tend to work with and some of them really love is hypotheticals. so for all the panelists, i want to give you guys two hypotheticals that are similar but related, and i would love for the panelists to react to it. how about that? so i want you guys to imagine any public school, and i want to you imagine three students. kadeisha, a young muslim woman, any age. ali, any age, background, immigrant, american born, whatever. and then think about bill. non-muslim student in the same

context. i was really moved by you guys comments whether kids have internalized and absorbed muslims are terrorists so it is okay for me to be called a terrorist. i want to think about, i want you guys to think about kadeisha being called that, and being really emotionally affected by it. and i want you to think about ali being called that by a peer or super over, and ali being like, yeah, whatever. just like your cousin was. it is no big deal. yeah, everyone calls muslims terrorists. and then think about bill, who is not muslim, not in this -- not understanding the same background, and just sort of feeling like, why is kadeisha so upset. i don't really get it. with this hypothetical, i would love to hear you guys think about and talk about, you know, what happens in our community where you have these two muslim

kids and they're interacting with each other in schools or in the muslim community outside the school, and one kid thinks it is no big deal, another kid is emotional h emotionally affected by it. what you call empathy building but also emotional intelligence skills, and how it will affect muslim youth. >> can we stick with the one for now? it is related. >> go ahead. >> flash forward 20 years, they're all 20 years older, in the workplace, they've had this situation i described to you. i'm 20 years older, still in the work force, and i would love to you hear you think about what this will all do for people my age, people their age, 20 years in the future, as members of the work force, and as employees. sorry, it is a lot. but you guys can handle it. >> so i think you kind of touched on this a little bit when you referenced -- >> i mean, it is a wonderful

hypothetical and it happens everyday. and i've seen it with lots of different sub groups of kids. and one of the great parts about my job is i do focus groups with youth all the time to talk about what is affecting them. i think that it does, again, default back to kadeisha needs to be told it is unacceptable, and she needs to be validated and she needs to be -- she needs to be assured that kids aren't allowed to keep saying that. so we really do need to address it. but the bigger context is we need to pull back. what's going on in the school, and i think jonathan, you said it best, that makes it okay that this kind of stuff happens. we need to make it socially unacceptable. because there are consequence for how we talk about things. the difference for me is i don't want to criminalize it and i don't want to assume that i know what the consequences for everything is. because i really do want us to

be thinking about we seem to be -- we seem to be going in cycles, where we'll think about one particular sub group at a time. instead of stepping back and saying how do we create a place where everybody, whether you maybe bill has some issues. i don't actually know. how do we create a language and a consist tennesssee where evers validated. that's a much harder piece of the work, but i do, i listened to the same panel and that young girl is awesome, and i hope we all get to vote for her some day. because she is -- everything about her was phenomenal. but the fact of the matter is, she is, again, in that position of k recreateding the wheel. when do we step back, and help ourselves see that i can't predict who it is going to be,

b can promise you, there is a small native american population here in d.c., but the football does undermine a lot of kids' safety and security. i want it addressed at the same time. that pulling back to me is how do we really help all three of those kids go forward, saying yeah, that might have happened, but that was not the right. and that's not the environment i want to have going forward. >> i am geoing to jump in and deal with the last two questions. i don't have -- i have the privilege of not having that conversation with my kid. but i have a different special obligation, because i have that privilege to -- >> what kind of privilege is that, jonathan? say it. >> the old white guy privilege. >> there you go. the one thing i love about him, he acknowledges his white privilege and uses it for good. >> well, i make mistakes, just

like everybody else. but so and you know, there is -- there is an obligation that i then have of modeling the behavior, so that bill sees somebody who says that's not okay. so bill understands through the experience of saying that's not okay. i'm going to test, push back on the premise. i don't think, i don't remember the name of the boy. >> ali. >> i don't think -- he may not think he is being harmed by it. he may not even believe he is being harmed. he is being harmed by it. and so, right, and so having -- having some -- my obligation, then, as a parent is for my daughter to see that i don't stand -- it is easy to be, when people do bad things, it is easy to be silent and not intervene and not -- dnot to make a

difference. there are consequences. some of my privilege i have to give up and expend that privilege on things. and for my daughter to see that i do that, and build in her to be a human being that will do that as well is a critical piece of change. it sounds very abstract and everything else, but it is something, i you know, we have to think about it. the debate, noy he we're not saying the names, but one of the candidates said something really horrible about what, you know, that, you know, people saw guns and stuff, and this, you know, this counter factual kind of statement. and then the other one said didn't actually dispute the facts, although she should have, but then went on to say something that was sort of extraordinary, because it was the progressive answer, which was we need to build relationships into the muslim community so that we have better intelligence and all that sort of stuff. well, dylann roof walked into an

african-american church and shot people and nobody said how come white community didn't stand up and say why didn't they tell us he was going to do that. it is this sense of -- unreality about what a community is and what it means and how people are and this difference in this separation and stuff that you're talking about. and so it was sort of -- that was sort of -- i was watching the debates along with my wife and daughter, they refused to watch them, because it made them crazy. and it started yelling at my computer while i was doing it, but realized, there was nothing else i could figure out what to do. that's the stuff that's on me in this room. it is too bad that there aren't more people like me that are sitting here in this room tonight, because that's who we need to be talking to. right? i mean, i have an obligation, as dr. car mikele said, white people should be talking to white people, and that's an ethic for us to remember. >> i think the only thing i

would add to this is sort of a more sort of anecdotal story about my own sister, because she is kadeisha 20 years later. we grew up outside of detroit, hijackings to airplanes going on, and they were going florida on a plane. and the chaperone joked around, oh, is your uncle going to, you know, hijack the plane. this was on their way to their school trip. and you know, when i look back, my parents' response to that was we packed up, and we moved to ann arbor, which is a much more progressive. i grew up in a bubble, and my sister did not, growing up in an en vire wr environment, she was the only muslim in her entire elementary school. a very different than i did.

when we talk about these things, you know, she grew up in an environment where she didn't feel empowered to say something, right. she was the only one. she didn't have allies, classmates that were there, supporting her, and helping her. sort of get through things. and my experience was very different. i grew up in a bubble where even to this day, you know, maybe because of social media, my elementary school friends and high school friends are so supportive, and what can i do, i had a friend, a friend who teaches now in guatemala asking me what can i talk to my students about anti-muslim bullying and what happens in america, right. that's kind of like the true power of, you know, just being in completely different circumstances within our own family. my scisscys sister doesn't have.

she has friends that have different views about muslims and islam. you're right in terms of thinking about what happens then, and what impacts them 20 years later. i think if you don't do something earlier on, engaging with, you know, the families talking with students, creating a culture of inclusivity and appreciation for diversity, at a young age and a culture that fosters empathy, what you end up with is 20 years later, the same people holding those same views. i think that's really the tragic part of it, so. >> i think we have time for one more question. yes? could you stand up, please? thank you. >> so my name is terry thompson. i am a school divinity school at howard university. >> hu, you know. >> you know, i'm also a lawyer, so i'm going to say i agree,

lawyers don't have the answers. we like to believe the faith community has some, but right now, i don't think that they know what the tools are. and i would like to hear some discussion about from an interfaith perspective what are some of the things that the faith community can do kind of from a more general perspective, in helping to eradicate some of this. >> i'm going to let the panel answer this, but i definitely want to piggyback on something i should mention that i thought was really right on target. this idea of teaching children and girls in particular, the power and rights embodied in islam. i converted to islam when i was in my late 20s. i hate to intellectualise, i was amazed as a feminist about the

rights that the religion bestowed on women, in 1890s, women were just getting to own property in new york, and in saudi arabia, given the right to own property. i do think that from the faith based community, doing exactly what i should mention, treat -- teaching and perpetuating and instilling the gender eckable principles of islam and other faith based communities, understandings the commonalties when we talk about interfaith dialogue and different programs. let me pass that question on to our panelists. >> i was just going to -- and i always appreciate the question about interfaith efforts, because that's really one area where i have seen, where those interfaith relationships are built before hate crimes happen.

to see how communities come together, communities of faith come together, and really for the overall, you know, everything in communities, you no, not justinterfaith, but broader that can be resolved through communities coming together. but one thing i wanted to add is that in recent months, every single time there has been a hate crime against a house of worship, almost always the first people to show up are interfaith partners. a mosque was vandalized last week in new jersey. before prayers the next day, interfaith partners were there scrubbing off the hateful rhetoric. and you know, we've seen time and time again where there are armed protests that take place outside of mosques. the first people standing there hand in hand to protect, you know, young children going to pray or protect the congregants,

that shows a true symbol that this is not what america stands for, and so in moments where, you know, it is easy to feel, you know, as low as possible, when you come to your mosque and find feces smeared all over it, when you see the community come together in large part interfaith communities that were come the next day, clean, clean with you and tell you this is not who we are. that's really, you know, it is truly beautiful. that actually gives hope after such tragic attacks. >> so i love this idea, unless someone wanted to add, i love this idea, and it sounds very coo coo -- give our panelists a round

of applause. i do have a few announcements i would like to make. those of you not familiar with karamah, we invite you to become members. conveniently, we're prepared to take your membership applications. want to take a moment, can you stand for a moment. these are two of the founding members of the bar association, we're very fortunate that they had this vision to pull us back together so that we can begin to address the issues that we are seeing to prevalent, they are so prevalent in the muslim community. i thank you both for your vision and your work. [ applause ] we have a few upcoming events on november 3rd, we will be -- we'll have an election and an opportunity to meet the board candidates. please go to our website, so you can see all the events we have going on november 14th, minority flight, why women of color are leaving law firms and how to turn the tide.

co-sponsored with the women's bar association. we have flyers out front that list some of the other upcoming events. thank you all for coming. we appreciate you. [ applause ] programs from the emerging civil war on great attacks of the conflict, including the army of tennessee's assault at franklin. the federal break through at petersburg virginia and a separate program on four in flew when shall civil war wives. american history tv begins tonight at 8:00 on c-span 3. remarks now from jean sperling, chief economic advisor for hillary clinton's campaign and president obama handling of the 2008 economic crisis.

part of a recent wall street journal and leaders forum. thank you, gene, for joining us. playing clean-up, which given the events of a week ago, particularly apt. >> yes. >> apt meaning for you tonight. but no, thank you for being with us. so let's talk first if we could about this election, you were an advisor to the clinton campaign, you worked as john said, you were both in the bill clinton administration and the barack obama administration. you've been a very key advisor on economics, policymaker and advisor on economics. advisor on this clinton campaign. you heard elizabeth warren no

doubt today. >> yes. >> about some of the issues. what -- give us, i don't want to press you for a postmortem, but what went wrong in this campaign? why am i not talking to you now as the next treasury secretary? >> well, i think there will be lots of considerations about, you know, campaigns and strategy. you know, i think we had an excellent person in hillary clinton. i think her misfortune and maybe our misfortune for progressives, we had somebody who was perhaps extremely qualified, vast experience, at a moment in time where that was not wings to fly, but like a deep weight. and you know, i think my first campaign was the dukakis campaign in '88. and george herbert walker's experience was very tough for us, it was hard to overcome. here, i think it did make it harder for her to capture some

of that anger and outrage that perhaps trump and bernie sanders were able to capture. but look, you know -- >> because she had been part of the incumbent administration? >> because she had been there for, you know, i mean, she was first lady, she was senator from new york, secretary of state. and she had to, you know, have a delicate message in the sense that, you know, those of us really believed that barack obama saved our country and deserves credit for how things have gotten, and yet we're like the football team that was 0-16 and now 10-6, a lot of improvement, but people want to go to the super bowl and it is not there. she had to both kind of be a change candidate and yet somewhat build off of the support, the legacy of this, you know, past president. so it was difficult. but you know, i mean, i will say

that, you know, having been involved in all of this, i believe one should be very passionate about their values. you know, to me, i'm in policy because you know, i believe we should have a country where every child, you know, that the accident of your birth should not overwhelmingly determine the outcome of your life, where there is room for poor americans, immigrants, people to rise. and that working families can work with dignity, raise their families, retire with dignity. those are values i hold dear. i think you have to have a lot of humility. >> one of the things underlined by last tuesday is how disastrous the last eight years have been for the democratic party across the country. you can measure it, they've lost half a dozen senate seats since 2008. they've lost about 25 house seats. republicans now have astonishing control of state houses, governor ships across the country. ex ord

extraordinarily position. what has gone wrong from 2008, where you took everything, and the yet you seem to be advancing across the country and now you're in a worst position as a democratic party than you've been for a generation. >> well, you know, look, that goes to the humility that we won twice, but there are problems. you know, as i think elizabeth warren said earlier, you know, yes, they won the electoral college and that is how you win the presidency, and they get to govern, but know, they're going to have a respectable popular vote loss, and they lost spots of the house an senate. so there are conflicting sources. you know, i guess what i really feel in my heart is that barack obama coming in to a terrible financial crisis was no doubt a mixed blessing. it absolutely made it easier for a democratic to win the presidency in 2008. but terrible financial crisis, as i think others have said,

three ways it makes it difficult. number one, the degree of pain and suffering of people who lost their dreams, their houses, their savings, was ter bible. secondly, when you have recoveries after great financial crisis, you don't get the pent up demand 1984 america. you get people deleveraging. you get people deleveraging at the time you need the robust growth so you don't get long-term unemployed people who never get back in. and then third, the remedies are almost inherently unpopular. you have to stabilize the 75% of the system, which is large financial institutions. you stabilize them to help little -- the average person, to help their savings. but that person still sees you stabilizing the people who look like they're the culprits. and so you get yourself in a situation where you have to do

what you have to do to save the economy. but it is not out of anybody's agenda for what is popular, and then it -- >> save the economy, but destroy the democratic party? >> no, i think it was, when you inherit a financial crisis like that, it does help you get reelected, but it does make it hard to completely meet the expectations of people when you're overcoming the type of -- i mean, look, it wasn't an average recession. it is the worst recession and crisis since the great depression. you didn't bounce back as quick. i think, you know, look, we could talk about other things. people got kind of stimulus fatigue. you know, if you want to know what was the chart we used to show barack obama, that would drive him absolutely crazy, we would say what would growth be in the economy in unemployment if state and local spending had been the same under your

presidency as it had been in the bush and reagan recoveries? and it was devastating. i mean, look, private sector gdp has been 2.6%. i mean, the reason why it is over 2% has been the contraction at state/local levels. i think ha showed a bit of the, i think, the public tolerance for kind of canesian and two ways to look at it. no, you need to keep increasing demand, do more infrastructure, get people to work. >> productivity has been very, very poor in this recovery. it has been one of the weakest we've had, private sector productivity is back at level it is hasn't been at since the 1970s, that's a reflection, begun i again -- it is fots not an econ achievement. >> no, but there is a lot of mystery about productivity right now, whether it is, you know,

accounted for right, the fact that, you know, whether gps, you know, clearly makes us more productive but doesn't come into the gdp factor, so therefore can't be part of productivity. i do think, and a think the lot of us feel there are demand issues at a time you needed to get things back, and to be fair, barack obama did try those things. you can think they're bad policies, but can't say he got to implement them all. i think right now, many progressives are united, in that we need more full employment economies. you see a lot of us more -- janet yellen, would like to see more demand. quite honestly, i think that is more pervasive even in the business community now who are hoping that donald trump actually succeeds in what has been the democratic agenda of a stronger more significant infrastructure boost into the economy. >> why don't we ask the audience questions.

right here. >> hi, i'm nick pincheck from snapon tools. you said about president clinton and about his focus on the middle class and promoting it. and you know, i would suggest that i just spent last week, you know, election week in iowa at a factory. it is like this, if you look at the campaigns as the balance between priorities social versus economic issues, they clearly sought a democratic campaign as prioritizing social issues, before their own economically based issues. whereas they saw trump, you know, the other side, whatever they thought of him, as prioritizing jobs, and economic issues. despite the fact that carl rowe wrote books, it almost seemed like the democratic agenda departed from bill clinton. so going forward, how do you see

that playing out? do you see the democratic agenda going back to emphasize economic issues over social issues? or do you see them trying to double down on the social issues? >> you know, it is obviously, this whole week has obviously been very painful, and it is painful to hear you say that, because from our point ever view and from her point of view, the economy was first. so i don't think that that is a -- i don't think that was the aspiration of the campaign. but you know, we will very to look at why that didn't break through. maybe it is just the idiosyncratic once in a lifetime personality of donald trump, we work forever on a really ambitious college plan, and it came out the day he was fighting with megyn kelly. and we just couldn't get any coverage. i mean, that's what it was like. you know, now, was that just

kind of bad luck? was that our failure? i think that, i guess what i would say it policy wise, no question the focus was still the economy stupid. the focus was on, you know, and this is a little different from what david cody was saying, but i think we were trying to focus on an economic plan, a plan that aligned tax incentives and investments in what would create jobs on our shores what, would be good for the middle class and an infrastructure plan. people responded quite well. even exit polls are very mixed on who they thought had the better economic policy. but as i said, you have to have humility and can't sit there and said we meant to do a, b, and c. if we failed, then we have to look at that for going forward. but i don't think it reflects that there was a conscious desire to not have it be an economy stupid campaign, because i can tell you that she -- that

was her aim. if it didn't come through, that was more of a failure of execution than intent. >> any other questions? >> yes, right here. >> mark from hyatt hotels. the first two major economic initiatives put on the table are infrastructure and tax relief. or tax reform. first, what is your take on what has been indicated so far, and secondly, what level of congressional support amongst democrats do you think there will be for this, those two initiatives? >> well, i think that's to be seen. because they will try to do this as a reconciliation measure, which not to bore everybody, but it is a process by which you use a budget resolution to essentially only need 50 votes in the senate and obviously

vice-president pence can do the tie breaking vote. that creates the opportunity for donald trump and the republicans to pass a tax reform, and perhaps infrastructure bill, without any democrats. now, you know, reconciliation is a complicated term, and you know, that's a possibility. now, part of the question for them will be if you can do it, do you want to do that. and i think that if they want to pick up democrats, you know, they're going to have to move off the vision that's going to -- there will have to be more focus on the progress of the tax package, on whether it is draining, you know, draining our fiscal situation for tax relief, that is you know, going mostly

to upper income americans. they have this challenge even in the campaign, which is on the republican side, you know, there is a lot of pressure when they cut the corporate rate to cut the pass-through rate to the same level. we all know that probably everybody would be for that, if every pass-through was the owner a hardware store. as we know, pass-through income is every corporate law partner, hedge fund manager, every consultant. you know, and most -- for a lot of people, that's going to be just a back doorway of lowering taxes for the most well off. so i think, you know, when people have -- when people have both -- the white house and the house and senate, they tend to go -- tend to look at it as their moment and sometimes overreach a bit and they'll have to be careful. i would say this to people in terms of corporate tax reform. you know, obviously as part of president obama's team, we were

engaged in that process. we do believe that our current process is irrational, and that you want something that is simple, more fair. and encourages more job creation here, and has your brilliant cfos spending more time helping you create more products as opposed to international tax arbitration. we kind of agree with that. but i think that people will judge this a lot in the end as how aligned those benefits are with the kind of job creation, and investment impact. and in 2004, when there was a repatriation holiday, which lots of democrats voted for, and george bush signed, the analysis was fairly clear. almost unambiguous, almost 90 plus percent of the money brought back was for stock buy backs, that will raise the compensation of executives, et cetera, and if people look at

the end, and they say they did tax reform and led to this rising tide and helped workers, but if it looks like boy, this was just something where they were able to do whatever they want, because democrats didn't control anything, and this was just a, i guess, what elizabeth warren would call a wet kiss to elites, then it will backfire. so i think when you have the privilege of having the whole government, you know, again, you know, be interesting to see whether you run the table, or you realize that it might actually be in your long-term benefit to try to buy more support from progressives.

-- a couple of more seats, some folks want to join, and i'll see you may 16th, at the tokyo palace hotel, for the ceo castle asia. back to jerry. >> thank you very much. thank you, indeed. [ applause ] >> to be the quarterback of the losing team in the super bowl, and having to go out and do the press conference straight afterwards, think of gene as the cam newton of the democratic party. 2016 election. that concludes this wall street journal ceo council. thank you for coming. i want to say a particular thank you to our team who worked so hard to make this such a great event and make it go so smoothly. you can tell from the agenda, we had to scramble pretty hard in the course of the last week to make sure we had an appropriate relevant topic agenda for you tone joy. thank you all indeed for coming.

just a reminder, the sessions and discussions will be published in a serb special report and wall street journal, november 22nd. i want to thank again our sponsors, enterprise florida, mufg, nasdaq, and work day, thank you very much, again, to you. it wouldn't be possible without your support. please do share your thoughts. we'll be sending you a short survey tomorrow morning. just to elaborate on what john said, as ceo council members, you're all invited to a number of events in the next year. the ceo council lunch in dallas will be there on tuesday, january 17th. dinner with the wall street journal editors, two of them, in the next two months, one in menlo park, california, on march 28th. one in chicago on may 16th. we will be holding our first annual ceo council meeting outside the u.s., may 16th, palace hotel in tokyo, with very

senior asian officials ceos experts and others. of course, next year's annual meeting will be back here next november. it won't be after such a momentous election and a year to digest these extraordinary events and see what's going on and a lot of other events in the course of the next year and hearing more about them. once again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. please join us outside now for cocktails. thank you. [ applause ] ♪ this week on c-span, tonight at 8:00, former advivice presid dick cheney. >> the challenges are very great and we have unfortunately over the course of the last many years done serious damage to our capabilities to be able to meet those threats. >> we're living from that period, a lot of flash points, and a new administration is going to have to look at that

kind of world, and obviously define policy that we need in order to deal with that, but then develop the defense policy to confront that kind of work. >> thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a look at the career of vice-president elect mike pence. >> amidst the shifting sands of contemporary culture and law, we have stood without apology for the sangtivty of life, freedom of religion. >> on friday night, beginning at 8:00, farewell speeches to several outgoing senators, including harry reid, kelly ayotte and dan coats. this week, in primetime, on c-span. now white house and political reporters discuss challenges of covering the trump administration, including reporting on executive actions during the first 100 days, and president-elect trump potential

conflicts of interest. hello, thanks a lot for coming out. my name is chris adams, director of training adams. i'll be leading the program today. the first panel i'm turning over to jason dick from cq, who will lead you through discussion about the -- what will be happening with one party controlling events on capitol hill. the second panel will be dealing with what -- dealing with presidential authority and executive orders and what president trump can do from the authority of the oval office without dealing with congress and the third panel will deal with the relationship between the administration. so, for each of these panels, you know, there will be discussion from the moderator but a lot of it is mostly questions, set aaside time for questions from the audience.

when we get time for q & a, a microphone will be requegoing a. broadcast on c-span. it is also streaming live on facebook. the other thing i wanted to keep in mind for half the room right here are paul miller fellows, early career d.c. journalists. the other half of the room and many other people, i think, coming in aren't paul miller fellows. i want to give a recognition to our paul miller fellows and also to the fact that two of our panelists today, including one on this first panel, is a former paul miller. we always like to see paul millers do well. jas jason, sarah binder from the brookings institution and christina peterson from the wall street journal.

jason? >> thank you very much, chris. thank you for university of maryland hosting this and national press foundation. just a quick little psa, we are talking into microphones, but you won't necessarily hear amplification. don't worry, we will project and it's primarily for cameras and transcription and recording. it's been a whirlwind month since the election for those of us covering it. it was a whirlwind in cases where people spending a lot of time in iowa corn fields and nevada and prepping for the election. politics never sleeps, though. we're already seeing contours of future races. it's easy to get distracted with that. what we want to talk about is

congress one thing that we've noticed as journalists and scholars who are covering congress is that congress, it is always a sort of omnipresent in our lives, but necessarily not in the public's eyes. so we want to talk about how -- it's always relevant but how do we make it resonant for people watching our stuff and watching our news reports. so i want to first just start with christina and everybody is going to introduce themselves, talk a teeny bit about themselves for a few minutes and get into questions before handing it over to q&a. christina peterson. >> i've covered congress for about four years with the "wall street journal." previously i covered the fed for a little bit and tax policy and the stock market and i'm from maryland. >> professor bender. >> sarah bender, scientist, half of me lives at brookings think tank, the other half of me, usually left-right, sometimes top-bottom, professor at gw in

the science department. i study congress. i have to say i've been in washington 20 years. every year congress gets slightly worse, so i'll just leave it right there. >> i'm a congressional reporter at "politico" focusing on the senate and immigration policy. i've been at "politico" since 2009 and covering congress since the summer of 2011. my first foray covering congress was during debt limit fight which was a nice introduction to congress. and i'm from iowa. >> let's start off with paul miller alumni. what happens under unified control, not terribly -- we haven't seen that since the first couple of years of obama administration, 2009-2010. before that bush administration 2003-2007 and a short time in 2001.

the tendency is for people to make more in politics. it makes sense, you exaggerate what you have or don't have on the agenda. let's talk about what sort of burden that can be also. >> i think if you remember at the beginning of the obama administration the democrats -- once al franken sworn in, 60 votes in the senate, control of the house and also president obama in the white house. they got very ambitious with their legislative agenda, passed health care law, dodd/frank. at least the house at the time pushed through an energy bill. it will be interesting to see how republicans on capitol hill and also the president-elect handle what they do with -- first of all, do they see a mandate that was handed to them

and also what they do with that. what's going to guide that, two republican leaders in the house. christina and i were talking about this, it's actually interesting how speaker ryan and majority leader mitch mcconnell had differing views on what they see as the quote, unquote, mandate of the election. paul ryan immediately after the election talked about kind of like this big mandate he felt republicans had because voters for the first time in many years handed republicans full control of washington. but mitch mcconnell in his own press conference two days after the election said, look, i've seen from kind of histories and elections past, there is a tendency to overreach. he's going to be very careful not to do that. how do those two differing philosophies kind of collide with each other as they try to set a broader republican agenda, what does that mean for desire to repeal health care law,

restructure laws, handle immigration and how the president-elect sees this. i think that's going to be really interesting to see how that guides the thinking in terms of how ambitious they can be with their own agenda. >> the health care law is a really great example, because in the house they have had 50 some votes to repeal the affordable care act. now that they are playing with real bullets, it's a much dicier proposition. they have to think about not just repealing it but what kind of transition have you and what to replace it with. the ordering of that is something of a land mine. will people feel comfortable repealing health care law before they know what they are going to replace it with. you don't need democratic votes to repeal it but you will probably need democratic votes in the senate to replace it. so those are two very different procedures they have to go through.

you can just see them grappling now with how tricky that's going to be. it's a lot easier to say we want to repeal obama care than figure out a working way to do that. >> professor bender, this is actually a nice segue right to you and expertise and what we're talking about with procedure. within newsrooms, people who have a lot of experience, you start talking about procedure, floor procedure, structured rules in the house versus open rules and reconciliation instructions. everybody is going to be -- this is starting as soon as we get back, as soon as new congress sworn in, we'll be faced with some of these questions. what are some of the ways you would advise or we need to look at procedure and be able to explain it in a way that gets beyond a bunch of geeks like us who know these sort of things? >> perhaps it would be helpful today and thinking how to cover procedural or institutional questions. i think briefly, let me say one thing about why we should care about the rules and, second, think about why the house and senate looks so different and maybe that will get us up to

speed. keep in mind, this seems obvious, it's important to realize majorities and coalitions don't just materialize. they don't say tax reform and suddenly there's a tax reform coalition. those coalitions have to be built from the bottom up. the ways in which they get built depend on the rules of the game. the rules of the game are going to dictate who has agenda setting power, who puts proposals on the table. the rules of the game will basically tell us which party has an easier time with their policy proposals in committee and on the floor. the rules of the game will tell us how many lawmakers are required, simple majority, two-thirds, three-fifths. the rules of the game matter. this isn't just political scientists playing egg head geeks here about the rules of the game. so just to be clear, it is important to kind of familiarize yourself, perhaps not so much why they are different but

certainly how they differ. just i guess the briefest of sketches here, for the house, it's evolved into an institution that is largely driven by the majority party, assuming the majority party is cohesive. the one instrument to keep in mind for your reporting is to keep your eyes on the house rules committee, which really we think of it as an arm of the majority party leadership because the speaker appoints the nine in this case republican members. the democratic leader will appoint the four democratic members. you might think, wow, hmm, nine republicans and four democrats. we know that the house senate majority is 52, 53% of the chamber. i don't have an exact number. so that rules committee is stacked in the favor of the majority party and stacked in the favor of the leadership. rules committee decides what's the structure of bills going to the floor.

will they be open? that is, can anybody essentially get a vote, offer an amendment on the floor or will they be closed? will there be no amendments? a tax reform package if it were to come to the floor, no amendments. it's closed. you don't want to start unraveling the carefully together package versus somewhere in between. somewhere in between is where most bills are. somewhere in between tends to treat the minority party from their perspective somewhat unfairly and tends to advantage majority party assuming they are unified and assumes it usually knocks out any ability for bipartisan coalition to come to the floor or to allow a minority member to offer to split the majority party. if we look at the house, wow, majority rule really works there. majority party rule. but that's dependent on the rules and dependent on the majority party sticking together to protect those rules. >> doesn't always happen. >> as you guys watch. >> when they can't get their rules, ruling on the floor, more than likely gets yanked from the floor.

majorities don't like to air their dirty laundry. none of us do. on the house floor. turning to the senate, i think the thing to keep in mind here, there's one rule in the house that is the critical thing for understanding the senate. in the house there's something called the previous question motion. all you have to know is when a majority is ready to take a vote in the house, move a motion, ready to vote, all you need is simple majority and you take a vote. in the senate if you open up the senate rule book, no previous question motion. so there is no ability -- except in some circumstances, reconciliation, there's no majority to decide, hey, let's vote except for nominations that we can come back to. you have to get a bill on the floor. mitch mcconnell will have to seek unanimous consent, all senators, all democrats as well as all his republicans, or he needs 60 votes through the

cloture process. 60, 52 republicans. that means he needs all 52, rand paul, john mccain, susan collins. >> ted cruz. >> ted cruz. >> so they have to stick together and they need eight democrats to come over. partisan politics these days. to get eight you probably need to get 20 or 30. you don't usually get eight to peel off. joe manchin, a handful of moderates that are up for re-election in red states. yeah, but there aren't eight that will cross over. why is it important? you need 60 votes to get stuff done. that means to replace obamacare, to do immigration reform, defense spending, all sorts of big-ticket items on the republican agenda are going to need 60 votes. finally where you started off reconciliation, there's a bunch of procedure. we don't need to get too far into it. there is a budget procedure, it does allow majorities to work

with 351 votes in the senate because you can't fill buster these that come out. there's strict rules about how you can get to reconciliation and what can go in it. it's much easier. tax reform will probably be done that way. it's not clear. but rules of the game matter, especially in the senate, where otherwise you get crickets. >> moving on to some of the personalities we run into on a daily basis in the house and senate. congress can be a very intimidating place. it's not just more than 500 members of congress, it's their staff. it's a big place. it's like a small city. there are 27,000 people who work for the legislative branch of the united states. it's a big apparatus. how do you start just developing sources there? >> i think you just kind of start with a different -- start with a focus, start small. if you cover -- if you work for

a publication, washington correspondent for a state newspaper, obviously start with your local representatives and local -- and the two senators. if you cover a policy, members of the committee that has jurisdiction over that policy, not just committee members, in terms of the lawmakers themselves but staff members on the committee and staff members for members who sit on the committee. i think i kind of came in to congress as a general assignment reporter. i was kind of a newbie, so i was being tossed everywhere, kind of whatever -- whichever breaking news story was going on at the time. but when i transferred to covering immigration kind of exclusively late 2012 and really focused on members of leadership, members of the gang of eight, members of the judiciary committees on both sides of the chambers, that's when i became sourced up in the capital, which not only helped me with immigration reporting but also how to help me kind of broaden that expertise to other policies and kind of helped me to where i got today. i think if you look at congress

as like oh, my gosh, i have to get to know all these 535 people, get to know their staffs, agendas, you are going to be overwhelmed. it still overwhelms us every day. if you start with a small focus, develop a niche, home state or specific policy beat, interesting coalitions if you want to cover progressives in the house and senate, a great one for the next few years, i think if you tackle it like that, it will be -- that's the way to kind of dip your foot in the water and get going. >> i think that makes a lot of sense. since it is a new session of congress that's about to start, there are new lawmakers and they want to get to know people. so that can be a good toe hold into this. since we do have one party controlling both chambers of congress and the white house, there are more issues moving, so i do think there are more industries and fields with advocates like immigration or

health care policy or tax reform where they know a lot and are happy to talk on background with reporters. so that's a good opportunity to start chatting with people from different angles. i think what's nice about the hill is there are so many different ways to get into every story and every beat. so you can be a white house reporter and cover the administration from the hillside, because, you know, we just have so much access and ability to bump into people and talk to different people and lawmakers and aides. you could do the same on a foreign policy beat. so it's just a great place to be able to have so many interactions on a daily basis. >> i think, you know, you can't emphasize enough the fact that there are no small beats. >> yeah. >> your background covering the fed will probably come in very handy when they start talking about a new federal reserve

chair, chairman or chairwoman. >> immigration, which covered a lot, senator jeff sessions was a key person in that because he was a very vocal critic of legal immigration at the time when it wasn't being voiced very much in congress. now he looks likely to be the next attorney general. so really interesting how people you talk to years ago end up in a different role. >> professor bender, how important is it to know just how the -- this sounds like a squishy term but the culture of congress and of washington. washington has been disparaged like no other place in the universe the last couple of years in this campaign, so it may be difficult to think, oh, i'm going to spend time getting to know the people or the city. how important is that forming the basis of the context for developing an expertise and covering congress and a new

administration. >> so, since i'm wearing the science hat i'll give you two contradictory answers. i think i believe the second one more than the first one. most political scientists tend not to study the culture of interactions, personality, all the ways you describe in which life gets done and happen on the hill. >> probably what we do more of, better at it than what we would be. but the reality is, though, particularly in a period of polarization where you can't just count on some broad political center to come together to mold political coalitions, the only way for congress to do big stuff is for people on opposite sides who don't typically interact with each other get to know the other side, right? just think about this. if politics were just a single pie, and we're going to divide it up, you get two pieces, three pieces, zero sum, you wouldn't have to know anybody.

democrats wouldn't talk to republicans, send somebody over, divide up the pie and you're done. big deals don't look like that. immigration reform, even if it didn't make it to the house, i think of it as enlarge the pie. you really care about path to citizenship? great. you really care about border security? fine. we're going to knit them together. as barney frank told me, he said, you know, in congress the ankle bone is connected to shoulder bone. i'm not a doctor -- i guess i am a doctor but i'm not really a doctor. i don't know much about anatomy. you can put things together. the only way they put things together is if they know what the other side wants. so your ability to try to figure out what those relationships look like i think is pretty important. education, alexander, patty murray, budget deals patty murray in the past, paul ryan, right, some of these folks are getting to know each other. some of them have dealt with each other repeatedly over the years, but you don't get big stuff even in unified party

control, you don't get big stuff unless you bring along the minority. >> before we get into questions from the audience and conversations there, i do want to go over to the flip side of it, which is polling, data, following money trails and so forth. polling took a real like sort of beating in this particular campaign. how important is it, how much is part of your repertoire as reporters, to look at polling numbers and data trends and so forth. >> yeah, you know, that is a really good question. i don't know how things shake out with polling. it is something during the campaign year we've relied on a lot. from covering senate races, we looked at real clear politics average of polls. i will say broadly, i do think data is important. on the hill, things that have been very helpful are congressional research service

reports, cbo reports, congressional budget office that gives dollar figures on legislation. gao reports. these are sort of very well respected, independent agencies that i think -- i hope still buttress our stories by giving us facts and analysis that both sides tend to agree upon, at least in the past. so i think will trump -- will president-elect trump say gao said that so i'll back down or cbo scored the bill this way, i don't know. in the past those have been very helpful resources for hill reporting. >> i think i agree with everything she just said. also on point, i'm not a polling expert either. i rely on the numbers the same way christina does when we're

covering senate races, especially the battleground states. my one personal lesson from this is that i in terms of pitching story ideas, i was polling based on story ideas. actually in the last week of the race, we were pondering kind of a bigger story on the wick senate race. but i think i thought that, look, you know, russ feingold may be losing his lead over ron johnson but look at the polling. we assumed he was going to be one of the republicans gone. the polling -- the closing as an outlier. we should have done more on that race. i think we were probably -- i was probably too reliant on polling. now i know for the next cycle where to go with more than just where the numbers are. as we can see there's much more to that -- much more to reporting on these races than getting a sense of where the numbers are. so it's going to take away from the cycle. >> did we overuse polling, professor bender? >> christina very kindly reminded me today we talked on the phone at 4:30 on election

day and by 9:00, 9:30 when she wasn't going to be saved by alaska and probably ripped up whatever it was a sent her. >> that story got written through several times on the course of election night. >> so i would just offer one way to think about polls in terms of legislative contest or legislative politics. maybe the example of the 2013 government shutdown would be helpful. so october 2013, the government was shut down for two and a half weeks. it was all over the spending bills which you will eventually come to terms with why it's so important. but ted cruz, senator, had basically taken the spending bills hostage for an obamacare repeal. in terms of partisan battle, keep in mind democratic senate and republican house. who was going to get the blame, right? were republicans going to be blamed for trying to take the ve