expand those types of opportunities for kids that don't have them and when we do that that's when we'll start seeing the chind of reform and changes we'll see and ultimately that does go to a point where kids and familys are making these choices. host: birmingham, alabama. tom on our line for democrats. . if they don't have activities,

and are studying year-round, that's no fun and they will get fat in front of the television, and then everyone will say, oh, well, that system doesn't work. well, i graduated from school in the '60's, 1967, and we had ph.d.'s, we have directors at my school, a small school in brighton, alabama. host: what kind of things did you doer 0er -- do over the summer? caller: we went on vacation. i would visit my relatives in selma, alabama. we had activities, baseball, softball. you just cleared your mind of all your school activities so you would be fresh and don't mind going to school, you liked it, you enjoyed it. guest: the research shows, and this goes back to 1906. there are over 30 empirical studies that show young people are at risk of experiencing setbacks when they're not engaged in constructive

activities and for many parents and many families they are able to turn on a faucet of opportunities for those trips, enrichment, reading, all of those kinds of things, families are able to do that because they have the resources to do that because they have those opportunities available. many families don't. the question then becomes how do you make sure that all kids have some kind of opportunity for constructive opportunity so they don't experience the setbacks, so we don't have the significant growth in the achievement gap? a recent study shows that 2/3's of the achievement gap can be traced to differences in the summer learning opportunities, so we clearly need to work on reforming our schools and improving public schools during the regular school day and year, but then we also need to look at the summer months and think creatively about it. it is not just extending the school year. it is not just more of the same. that's certainly not what we're advocating. we're advocating for the kind of

creative approach to learning during the summer months that brings a lot of these elements together, to camps, the parks, the libraries are, the schools, working collaboratively to create the comprehensive programs that more kids and more families want. host: as we take more calls, talking about improving learning over the summer, we want to show you the fourth circuit court of appeals judicial conference that we will go to at the conclusion of this program and they will talk about the supreme court term review and a conversation with chief justice john roberts that. will be coming up in just a few minutes. back to the phones. salem, oregon. tory on our line for democrats. you're on with ron fairchild. go ahead. caller: hi. it's good to be talking to you guys this morning. i have two questions for you, mr. fairchild. the first would be, well, the first should start out with a story. i used to work in, like, a

summer program for children through americorps, and one of my problems was that there were children that -- it was hard to deal with because of the fact that the children who were bullying were very sly about it, very tricky, and i'm sure that any teacher would understand, you know, that, and -- host: tory, unfortunately we have run out of time. we have to cut you off. thanks for your call and thanks for everybody who has participated in this edition of "the washington journal." we will go live to white sulfur springs, west virginia where the fourth circuit court of appeal judicial conference has gotten underway. we are going there live. we will see you again tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> purchased and brought to the court, and in that state of euphoria, the court was able to work through the problems, and

issue and resolve their differences, and issue opinions that were for the large part unanimous. in retrospect, the chief justice was impressibly successful during the particularly active period from 1811 to 1823, the supreme court decided 457 cases of which 437 were unanimous. the chief justice roberts shares justice marshall's views that the supreme court's decisions would be much more happily received by the public with a yew unanimous decision. as chief justice roberts said if the court in marshall's era had issued decisions in important cases the way this court has over the past 30 years, we would not have a supreme court today of the sort

that we have. that suggests that what the court has been doing over the past 30 years has been eroding to some extent the capital that marshall built up. i think the court is also right for a similar refocus or functioning as an institution, because if it doesn't, it's going to lose its credibility and legitimacy as an institution. of course, chief justice roberts was exor theing -- exhorting a return to the notion that the supreme court speak as an institution. i must say from my own observations, i believe that the chief justice is making significant progress, although this is a task that, of course, takes time. this morning, we will begin our session with an interview with the chief justice by our former chief judge, jay wilkinson, and following that, we will move right into our traditional panel

on the supreme court, which is moderateed by professor dick howard, to discuss the supreme court's term. as you know, they're still three cases for the court to hand down. i understand we're looking to monday to hear about those. so at this point, i would now like to welcome to the stage judge wilkinson and the chief justice of the united states. [applause] thank you. good monk, everyone. we are -- good morning,

everyone. we are delighted to have the chief justice here with us to kick off the review on the supreme court term. we are going to have a q&a session, a few questions from me to start off and then i would like to throw it open to the audience to ask some questions of the chief justice. surely you have one in mind, and then we're going to have a wonderful panel, which will be moderateed by a long-time friend, dick howard. i don't think you can find any better panelist than jan crawford greenberg and lizzie greenhouse and john mcginnis and ted olson. they are going to discuss replacements an retirements, and the past supreme court term. we're very proud that our pals of this caliber would join us for the occasion, and we're especially delighted, as always,

to help our friends to serve as the chief justice. as i mentioned last night, sometimes it's very hard to get judges to be unanimous about anything. i think you can say anything you can say about judges sometimes, which you can say about legislature is getting them together on something is like herding cows, but if there's one thing that those of us in the federal judiciary argue now about in this hour of respect, affection for the chief justice. he is someone of great warmth and great humor, and enormous legal skills, and one of the things i think we respect so much about him is he has an essential sense of the dignity of the job, so those of us in the federal judiciary to have

someone of the chief justice's caliber leading our system. i have a few questions of you, chief. you mentioned last night in your remarks that one of the things that you had accomplished was the front load of the calendar of the supreme court calendar a little bit so everything wiewpts be jamed up in may and june. that's one of the reforms you worked on. what aspect of the present supreme court pations and practice -- supreme court operations and practice that you feel could be improved? what is the one single thing about the present supreme court practice or the way it goes about things that you would change if you had a chance to? >> the chief justice should have

two votes. that would be the easiest one. that would solve a lot of the others, but something that is familiar to a lot of judges, we get a lot of briefings. it was not the case, i think, when the current page limits for briefs were set down that we typically had a half dozen at least, and sometimes 40 briefs in each case, and i think it would be good not only for the bench, but for the lawyers to cut back on that a good bit. it is roughly 50 pages now. we do the word limits but lawyers are very clever about squeezing words onto a page but it comes out to roughly 50. of course, if you go back and look at the briefs i filed when i was a practitioner, there will be some sense of hypocrisy here,

i'm sure, but there is no reason that a party's brief couldn't be more effective at 35 pages, certainly at 40 pages if it forced the lawyers to do a better job at getting the main points they have to argue. other subsidiary points could be flushed out in a brief, as they often are, and i think that would be mentally good for the judges and good for the lawyers as well. you said the one thing, but another one that i think we're getting carried away in oral arguments. i'm sure many of you have been this. it is a little too much domination by the bench. again, i'm as guilty as anyone. it's gotten to the point where i think justices feel they really got to pounce on air time to get points across and get answers, and it would be good if we were a little more restrained. we talk about it every now and then, that we ought to cut back a little bit, certainly on rebuttal time. we really make a conscious

effort not to jump on the lawyers during the time they save to make their points. the actual reform, i think we should get one of those, you know, when they have the little timers for speed chess, you get only so much total time. each justice should have one of those in front of them. if they want to ask a five-minute question they can, but that will eat up the rest of their question time. that would be a good idea. >> your comments about shorter briefs bring to mind, i guess the same thing would be said about judges as can be said about lawyers, but our dear colleague jerry widener says opinions are a little long and he said, oh, my goodness, we don't have time to write short opinions. chief, one thing i have wondered about is that the job

of chief justice of the united states is about two or three jobs rolled into one. i think of all the different duties that you have, you must look at statutes and prepare opinion assignments and take a first cut at the discussions for conference, and whenever the fellow justices or some members of the staff have a matter of some moment, they bring it to you, and you have so many invitations floating in, and many of those invitations you will want to accept, and have been very gracious in accepting, and on top of that, you are a parent of an 8-year-old and a 7-year-old, or maybe they are both 8 now, but i don't really

understand how you managed to do all you do, and one of the questions i have, do you ever have a chance to just kick back and read a mystery or watch all the football you want to watch, because the amount of things that you are required to oversee is absolutely astonishing. do you get any downtime? >> starting tuesday, i will. the funny thing about it, actually, our work really ramps up to the end of the term, and then it just drops off. i mean, you come in there the day after the term is over and just kind of tbidzel your -- tbidzel your thumbs. we carry forward in the summer a certain level of work to keep up with the occasional emergency matter. a hot of items, you mentioned, of course, i've got wonderful

people who carry those forward. you know, i have, on paper, responsibility for a lot of administration of the federal courts as a whole, but the judicial conference does all the heavy lifting in that regard, and then i do participate in that. the administrative matters, i try not to make too many mistakes in terms of second-guessing what they do. the smithsonian is an interesting distraction, but obviously, they don't turn any heavy responsibilities over to me in that regard. you don't have a lot of spare time during the year. the trade trade-off is you have a lot in the summer and i try to catch up on things at that time. >> last night you were talking about who your predecessors were, and one of those that you

admired, chief justice taft and one of those that you thought went awry with salmon chase, and looking back on the history of the supreme court, people say that the two most important decisions were probably brown versus board of education and marbury versus madison were really different reasons, but looking back over the history of the supreme court, are there some decisions that stick in your mind other than those two as being of the most monumental consequence? because it seems to me that when people start getting beyond marbury versus madison and brown versus board of education, the views about the importance of some of the others diverge, and so i was wondering what cases

you might add to that list of really, really landmark cases in the past. >> well, i do think there he's one that stands out, and it's a counterpoint. i mean, people talk about the monumental cases and you assume they're talking about the good ones, marbury and brown. i would say the third most significant case in the supreme court's history was dread scott, in the sense that marbury and brown are good examples of what to do in very challenging situations and how to handle it, dread scott is an example where things went terribly wrong. you need to look at that and try to figure out why, and i think some of the reasons are pretty clear. you had, of course, the most divisive your shoe in our history -- divisive issue in our history, leading the country toward civil war, sectionalism overlay on top of that.

the political branches failing to address it, in the case of the executive and failing and causing more harm than good in the case of the legislature, and you had roger tawney, whose reputation would be quite different if it wasn't for this one case. looking at it and seeing the other branches aren't working, this issue is thet ning to destroy the country and i'm going to solve it. i'm the only one who can, and he more or less took it upon himself to leave the court into a resolution of those issues that were dividing the country and in a broadway that really had no basis in a proper reading of the constitution, and in a decision that could have been resolved either way on much narrower grounds, which would have preserved the court above the fray. i mean, i don't think it could

have avoideded the civil war. i'm not suggesting that. i'm suggesting that the court as an ip stiewtion could have played a more effective goal in the crisis if it hasn't suffered this self-inflicted wound. i think when you look at marbury for the message you can draw about the necessity of one, developing a broad degree of consensus office court speaking as a court, approaching the case in narrow grounds, rather than heaping right away to the broad ones. avoiding politicization. i mean, you have to remember that democratic republicans and jeffersonians were just waiting for justice marshall to take action on the central issue that would have resulted in a court backing plan for federalism, and i don't know if the court could have survived. you need to look at dread scott and say this is a good example

of how not to do it. that can teach you just as much as good examples. >> but you wouldn't want to draw from that a general rule that the court should steer cheer of a controversy or -- >> no, not controversy, but i think what tawny did was he used a case that could have been resolved on quite narrow grounds. i'm not suggesting that it would have resulted are in a nobel decision, freeing the country from slavery. it might well have resulted in the same decision, but it wouldn't have had the dramatic political impact. tawny went quite beyond what was necessary. it could have been resolved on several different levels, either in relief for dread scott or not, but instead he wasn't straight to the results on the broadest possible grounds, and as a result, i think, threw the court into the political realm quite self-consciously. marshall's decision in marbury

reflect add decision to pull the court back. the central issue from the jeffersonians had. the white house, the legislature, they said our efforts will be blocked by the supreme court. here is the crisis issue. they're trying to pack the courts with federalists. that's the central political issue of the day. marshall doesn't even get to it. he pulls back results on a much narrower ground. there are situations where the court obviously has to resolve the legal matters that are of great significance. i think it is important to look and see if you can do that on a narrow legal basis. as tawny did not, i think it's important to realize there will be huge consequences if you do leap ahead and involve the court in politics. >> i want to return to a somewhat more personal vain before we take questions from the audience. i remember during your confirmation hearings that senator schumer asked you what

your favorite movie was, and i think you responded " "dr. shivago" and that's my favorite movie, too, but i think it's because julie christie was playing laura, but i'm sure you have more profound reasons for liking it. i wonder if you could tell us why you responded to senator schumer by saying "dr. zhavago" was your favorite movie and what you liked so much about it. >> i responded because it is my favorite movie. i was under oath, after all, and if i were under oath here, i would have to answer pretty much the same way you did. aside from that, and i'm

certainly no film critic, but, you know, a level of an astounding cast, great drama, wonderful cinematography. i mean, the images walking through the russian winter. you know, on a more fundamental level, it does tell a story about the triumphs of human spirit an basic human emotions over oppressiveness over the communist regime, over the oppressiveness of war an revolution. you still have people at a very personal level triumphing, including the triumph of laura, you remember the scene of the young girl mays with the ballerina and art will persist in the main character's poetry,

things that appeal op a number of different levels but that's the central message. see what happens once you get me started! i mean, it is the symbolizing of the people try you um offing -- triumphing over the russian winter and the story line of their fundamental human emotions persistent through human oppression. it all comes together and it's a great story. >> and a beautiful theme song. >> right. should we whistle along? >> we would like to hear from members of the audience. i know some of you have a question that you would enjoy asking the chief justice, so please step up to the microphone and pose your question. i will ask that it will be a question, not a speech or a monologue, but somebody come

forward. >> there's usually not a shy bunch in here. >> come on. you're all lawyers. >> mr. chief justice, judge, last term, i think it was, there was a school case commonly known as bong hits for jesus. this term you had a school case involving a strip search. if you were a school administrator, how do you go forward? the has ska case, unfettered power to punish a student for a speech off campus. this term, an administrator strip searches a student believing that the

administrators have the power to do that, but the court rules no, there is a limit to the power. what guidance do school administrators get from those cases? >> first, i wouldn't characterize the bong hits case as unfettered power. there are limitations there. but also, i think it is a central point and it's true across the board, if you're going to get all your guidance on issues of that court, of that type from the supreme court, you're going to have a lot of difficulties. just take the strip search example. in many cases, many communities have policies, and they say they don't care -- tippy they don't care what is going on, you don't strip search the children. you have to do this or this or that. that's where a school administrator gets their guidance. it is only when bodies who have the on the ground responsibility for laying out the rules haven't done so that the courts have to

get involved. it's no different than anything else. businesspeople, you know, read a couple of our antitrust cases and say we don't have precise guidance. that's why we have a f.t.c. and antitrust division and justice department. the same i hear from folks in the past on civil rights employment cases. you hear it from both on the labor side and the management side. at every stage, there are other people with expertise who have the opportunity to lay down more precise rules for guidance. you can't expect to get a whole list of regulations from the supreme court. that would be babd, because we wouldn't do a good job at it ap we wouldn't have the type of adversary presentation on each issue that i think is very important. the one thing about school administrators, the flip side of the decision that came out is that the administrators have

qualified a unity because of our decision. they department have clear guidance. that was largely our fault in trying to put together our decision, so we laid down the rule about what they can and can't do. we said they would have to fork over damages from their own personal funds if they guessed wrong. >> i thank you for your question. other questions? >> chief justice, a number of observers have noted that the current court is drawn from the court of appeals and that the court would again fit by having members from other walks of public life. i would be interested in your views on that subject. >> first of all, where are you? raise your hand. >> no wonder. it's hard to see out there from here. you know, i speculated in the past what's behind that. it is an unusual thing t is the first time in the court's history that all of us are d