these to significant noise environment change is entirely unreasonable. for example, in a stable requirement environment we have been developing replacement gps for one of our older products for some six years. we are still about a year away from a certified engine and two to three years away from a useable ave i don't knowic implementation system. another air craft will take another one to two years. i can tell you i do not know if a new system will work in the most optimistic light squared plands that are on the table. i can tell you it won't work at all at transmission lels and spectrum. companies have been manufacturing, selling and installing systems to the aircraft owners and operators for nearly 20 years. these systems have been designed manufactured and certified to the government's technical standards to provide the saveation consumers with an assurance of useability and acceptability with the the national air space. any efforts to generate a

requirement requiring costly changes will affect the industry and the nation's air space. in closing while we support the concept of low cost national wattage broad band system, no system can be allowed to compromise the safety and security of the national air transportation system. change that is affect the national air transportation system require long range planning and we encourage companies to participate. we have been working towards nexgen for nearly 20 years. if neighboring technologies need changes in order to be compatible these companies need to work with the f.a.a. and rtca so that the next generation of products might be designed and certified to be compatible with their future business plans once the current generation reaches the service life. . . service of to the idea of a new entra to the marketplace can introduce a market compromises' aviatio

safety and security while expected deviation industry to design a manufacture, test and and certify and restore the filter is simply not realistic. thank you for providing me the opportunity to address the committee. i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. taylor. mr. carlisle, have a quick question. on your receiver -- which i've never seen a receiver that big before -- my question to you is the filter that you held up, which you talked about you could fit inside of their easily -- the gps antenna the i have on the aircraft on a flight are the sa size of that filter, maybe just a little bit larger. how is that going to fit in that and and and that includes the streamline casing for the slipstream i'm just curio how that's coming to -- >> i'm glad you asked that question because it allows an opportunity to clear this issue up to read this is a precision received your it gets you down for the use in agriculture, surveying and construction.

the type of receiver you're talking about are not that kind of precision receiver. >> all right. >> under our proposal which puts us othe bottom end of our band under the minimm performance standards which are adopted internationally, we should be fine under the faa reviewing that. but all the testing of the faa received as was done by both the federal government and by industry shows that the aviation receivers perform much better than the mimum performance standards. so we are not talking about under our current level of proposals requiring any change out and let me repeat that because it's important. any change out of aviation receivers. if it was going to take eight to ten years to go through the certification process in order to do that that wouldn't be a commercially feasible business plan so what we have proposed is a use of spectrum that does not require any change at of the aviation procedures.

and the problem i have in the teimony. the part that bothers me you said just now in the question should be it's the should be that bothers me because we deal with is your vote tolerance. a zero tolerance. so if there is any concern out there we are going to end up having to retrofit and filter because it is the zero tolerae and what is going to cost, and i am very curious and i want to hear from all of the panel what we think this isoing to cost in terms of that retrofit because at least when it comes to aviation it has to be certified. it has to be certified that's when it gets really expensive. >> if i can respond to that -- that's absolutely true. the fact is we should only move forward this can be done while

assuring the safety of life and aviation and we're working with the community to do that. that is something the we believe non-negotiable. nobody in our company is running out to deploy and network it is going to cause issue with people with air safety in the united states. that is not what we arebout and we are absolutely committed to making sure this will work and that the faa is satisfied and the ntia and the and cc. we've worked with the faa for years. we are members -- pardon me. we have worked with rtca for years. we've been members for years on these issues so we've put a lot of resources into making sure that happens. in terms of cost, again, we believe our proposals will take us in a direction where there will be no cost to aviation in order to accommodate the network and that's where we want to be. >> how is that no cost?

>> they will not have to be replaced. we are taking the cost of solving the issue on our side which is over $100 million by the way. >> mr. taylor. >> first your comments on whittle to know we don't live in the world little to know. we live in the world of certainties measured in fellows instead of millions of parts,ws instead ofillions of parts, very high integrity and availability and our systems. it also mentioned many of the systems out there were developed back in the 90's. there are a lot f aircraft systems we as a company have over 2,000 systems flying that were developed in the 90's that were requirements significantly less than the requirements on the of modern receivers so they certainly would have to be addressed and i have no idea how they would work n this environment no one has yet tested one. for the new receivers, and as e said, there is very strict faa

requirement for the malaise. as i understand, the proposal for the widespread use of the lower spectrum comes very close to the edge of that or cross is likely the current malaise requirement and the concept we are going to be okay because there is more jutting doesn't work for me. this is something that needs to be tested and evaluated and it isn't one field test. it is a serious coprehensive series of testing but will take a long time to accomplish. >> adult test is. it all sounds good but back to the show me concept and will take you back to 1981 in the field and arizona were a client of mine and motorola was complaining that interference, couldn't talk on a mountaintop 60 miles away, he could see but couldn't talk with a radio.

drove 2 miles back to interstate 19 and found the crew from a construction operating and asked them to to their radios every minute. drove back to the site and said let's try it now and that is wh it was. the client was using a retial in 450 megahertz band for business. that's 400 megahertz and 2 miles away and that amount of electrical energy in the air interfered with a 60 monreal trsocean and note from the chart he brings in that we are talking about a spectrum spread of 30 megahertz between the rib ground-based transmitters so i will just go back to the point, mr. chairman, i spent over $2,000 of the receiver to do my accretive few years ago. we are talking thousands of dollars for other grades of necessary. let's get back to the testing. that's what really needs to get done. mr. green? >> i will concur to the gentleman on my left and mr. taylor othe right. we need to have a lot more testing to make sure we don't go

through an air fare. being in the agriculture industry i do go ahead and recognize that receiver, and that receiver has a lot of the same type size we use for our hi accurate. mfa has approximately to hured 50 hi accuracy gps units across the state and we cover approximately 1 million acres with those high accuracy and hammes. assuming that lightsquared's filter is going to cost around $800 to go on retrofit to purchase the filters it is going to cost roughly $200,000, and $200,000 for the filters and approximately $200,000 for the resour. thresources and personnel, the fuel expenses to go around and take care of that. the timeframe in that period will take at least one year's worth of time. and that is just for the 250 hi

accuracy receivers that we have. if you go ahead and take a look at it, mr. carlisle said there could be between 100,000 in 750,000 high accuracy the antennas. our belief is there is at least 750,000 to 1 million receivers used in agriculture and construction, used in the geography management. so you take those kind of numbers and basically it comes out to $1,600 per unit in rder to go through and retrofit ticket times that 1 million or excuse me, 1 million hi acuracy gps out there in the marketplace >> of the numbers i actually used were the universe of devices could be above 750,000 in the country.

it's not entirely unknown exactly. it could be as high as a million but in terms of the one that have to be replaced or retrofitted it's not going to e the entire universe first because the significant number of the devices already tested go out in terms of being resilience of this ten out of 38 or almost 25%. second, many of the receivers were going to be used in areas far away from anywhere our network is going to be coming and third, our -- this isn't a slash cut we're going to deploy your network of free period with five years. there will be a certain amount of exchange of devices the would take place in the ordinary course of business any way so that's how you get down to the 100,000 to a 200,000 number you have to focus on and change out just to clear up the record. >> i don't want to dominate the member because we of questions and i will save my for the other hearing but i do have one quick one or you mr. carlisle because the test results reveal significant interfence and

that 10 megahertz band coming and so you have proposed launching in the lower ten or four years' service. my question to you is can you -- will you never use that upper ten? >> we will certainly continue to us it for satellite services. we have used there for 15 years without any issue at all with the gps and satellite services to public safety, oil and gas, all sorts of folks in the united states uses it and the satellite services we used after hurricane katrina, after the tornadoes in joplin first responders had the units there so we will continue to use the spectrum. we would like a continued diogue as to whether or not we can ever commercially deploy that spectrum because then you do start to get into the issues that mr. taylor and others have raised about the aviation

functions and susceptibility of a larger number of gps receivers simply because more of th look into that spectrum so you would need a longer conversation about that but we are open to having that discussion and open about talking about alternatives. >> basically right no you are not using that upper band you are just doing that as a company is decided not to do it there is no requirement you can use it at any time to read the on issue that comes up down the road is we deploy out in our network using the 10 megahertz all the way down on the other end of the band. we can do our full deployment to 260 million people with that amount of spectrum. the issue is the number of devices, the amont of usage ultimately goes on the network. that won't be a problem we have at least five to six years. so, and in the meantime, you can either skin the cat a lot of different ways. you can modify the way you are

using your current spectrum, you can use a new spectrum in ways of a different and low-power that will not raise an issue on interference. you could also look at swapping for alternative spectrum or something like that. there are a bunch of things that can be looked at before we move forward on the lower ten and also keep in mind our customers and retailers will have options in the marketplace, too. by that time at the spectrum may have been brought on line and if they need more spectrum for their customers they can buy it from somebody else so there are differt ways to skin the cat down the road and we are willing to talk with of the government agencies and the gps manufacturers about how we do that. >> i am worried about the future and the debt to come that something is going to happen in that timeframe between then and now to the worries me a great deal that it isn't going to happen. i'm going to yield.

>> thank y. mr. carlisle, the filtering technology is the solution to interference. are you aware of how much it will cost small firms because after all this is a small business committee, and we are here because we understand that it could have been negative impact on mall businesses, an i would like to know if it is important for all of us to recognize that is not just because of retrofitting but also if you took into accou in indirect costs such as tying and lost resources or use of equipment if those were included in the calculations. >> i think it highlights an important point in that

faltering is not the only solution. faltering is the solution for high precision receivers. for the vast number of small businesses who day-to-day only use consumer level devices that aren't precision, moving down to the spectrum and lowering our power is going to address the issue for them. for those small as this is to use the precision equipment are very strongly our belief is it shouldn't cost them us and to the chris -- a cent. we will be depleting our network able have advanced notice of where we will be and when they will be there that there will be time for them to work with their manufacturers to get alternative is coming into the manufacturers really should be stepping forward on this. i don't think that there is any question about that. mr. taylor and his testimony, you know, has made statements that this is all of a sudden came up and it wasn't

anticipated that our power levels were all of a sudden jump up operating at transmission levels and power levels approved in 2005. there have been years to address this issue. >> mr. taylor, the dod 2000 standard input filters for gps devices. can you please explain how weeks ackley this filters minimize interference and whether you currently use to filter in your gps device? >> first we do not make much in the way of gps we do a small amount so i cannot specifically address the question rom the general aviation receiver point of view, we would be happy to look at faltering as a possible means of litigating the challenges we were talking about. gps is different from the

telecommunications. the way that gps signal is a broadband signal. we need to reliably discriminate the information and we need to be able to see a broadband signal to the as a filtering the limits filtering the performance of the receivers i can't tell you today to what extent >> i understand the the the plan includes to span the obligation to the entire spectrum but no details have been provided. those the company have a timetable for these expansions and howill this affect gps? >> we won't need additional capacity as i said earlier for it least five to six years and so i think that's the outside a timetable and as i said there are many alternatives that we would want to consider to see what was commercially reasonable

and safe. >> and your company believes it can increase coverage to at least 260 million people by the end of 2015. in light of our current economic conditions, what role do you see your company expanded while the broadband network is planning job creation? >> i tnk it will play a significant role. to build that network, you to pull out $9 billion to the american economy. we have already spent a billion dollars in american technology and put our satellites up. that was with boeing in washington state and in florida. in order to achieve a network like this you have to spend a tremendous amount of money all across the country wherever you put a tower up, that is from your vendors, contractors and the small business people providing that service and then it's contractors and small

business people providing t maintenance going forward. so we have estimated very conservatively that the impct of our investment on the american economy is 15,000 jobs supported each year for each of the five years of te build out. following that, each one of our business partners, because ty don't have to spend money on owning and maintaining their own network can put that money into their own retail operations and higher jobs there. >> my question to t other three witnesses. the fcc believes that lightsquared proposed network is going to benefit and have a positive impact on broadband access for the rural small businesses, but we also know that the gps technology will be harmed. so my question to the witnesses is how do you recommend that we proceed going forward? should an innovative idea be of great rejected without any

attempt to find a technical solution? >> thank you. obviously we don't want to withhold any technology. technology i with our economy. i'm going to sound like a broken record here we need to do some testing. things are not always as they appear to be in the spectrum and i will point back to the fact the original test had one base station. i used to work for motorola. motorola was not only the company that designed the retial in the beginning. motorola was a company that invented cellular technology with the 80 megahertz system referred to. those experiences taught me that when you get two or more radios in close proximity things get a different and you will note some of these tests were done with run radio any waste for the chamber. we need to put a couple of stations out there and i will offer my year plan of someone

wants to chip in for the gas i would happy toly to mexico is a beautiful state to make sure that this thing actually works. >> mr. cream? >> thank you. i concur with a list of the group that we need to do additional testing. being a cubs fan and knowing the spring training happens in arizona i would be happy to go out and help in any possible way i can. more testing needs to be made. we feel like broadband internet will bring an exceptional increase to our business perspective as well but if we don't of the gps to collect the data there will be no data to transfer in order to do more processing. >> again we all agree that we need more in the country, no doubt. but from the aviation community's point of view it has taken decades of complicated

interaction beween the receivers gps consolation, ground infrastructure to come up with something as robust enough to be safe, safety of life for people to fly safely. one or tw flight tests would not answer the question and i cannot tell you there is a ast answer for this. it is going to take time and analysis and interaction. i cannot see any every answer i am afraid. >> mr. carlisle what is wrong with testing? >> there is nothing wrong with testing and we are supportive of the further testing of the ntia asks for by not sure that the background material mr. taylor has read but frankly there has been a more comprehensive testing of this issue than any ever interference issue ever presented to the fcc. there were 130 devices tested in eight independent labs over a series of months by the industry group that had 37 of the nation's top gps engineers on

it. that was just the industry testing. there were dozens of devices tested in new mexico at the base by the air force and. rthermore there were devices tested by the faa and the jet propulsion laboratory. moreover, the rtca gps group ran an analysis of the minimum performance standards against or signal and the analysis is continuing to be done by the faa. so we have no issue with there being for the testing to make sure that we are absolutely safe on safety of life, but let's not ignore the fact there has been an awful lotf testing already have analysis. >> mr. shilling? >> thank you. mr. chairman, just quickly a couple of things. i guess i will go to mr. carlisle. if the retrofit replacement of the gps receivers in the market, if you have to do a retrofit

will you be paying for that or will that be the peron that is having to retrofit on say a farmer for example? >> that's a very important question because for nine months with the gps manufacturers have done is they've said there's only two parties in this debate. the's the lightsquared network and the users of gps who are going to be affected. the have conveniently left themselves o of the equation. i don't think that the user should have to pay a cent. we have already paid, and the total value of the commitment is over $160 million at this point to solve the problem for the vast majority of consumer devices. for these precision devices where there is no solution that we can put on our transmission except to abandon the band entirely, given we are talking about 100 to 2,000 devices may be a few more than that but that is the order of magnitude we are talking about coming and that our power levels have been for

six years that that is the right outcome. >> very good. now i want to go to mr. greenup. i come from a large agricultural area. have you done any looks at me be if things need to be switched around how long it has to be down, how that will affect like a single contractor versus a large family farm? >> i haven't put any numbers per say but one of the things with agriculture is it is three time sensitive, and it's one of those things where if we can't getto everybody by springtime a producer can have the option and well, i've got -- a producer could go and see a projected downtime of -- welllet me give you an example. in the state of missouri we have

1 million acres underneath high accuracy rtk coverage. if you look of 180 bushels per acre, those acres don't go through and get planted that would be $1.26 billion the producers will have lost about a year just for the 1 million acres we have in the state of missouri. >> that's a lotof corn. that's all we have. i yield back my time, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. ranking member. my questn, mr. carlisle, and i will take it into a different deduction. you talk about developing this in rural communities, correct? i'm very conceed because when you start to look at a lot of military type activity, the military activity are on the ground and a lot of the rural communities like these in tce

national training center and china lake and pact and this type of thing. my question is what type of testing, and what is your implementation plan, what have you done to work with the department of aircraft, helicopters, designating devices as well as smart munitions because i think would be a bad day for small businesses and communities if that i'm spectrum were to somehow interfere could to leave to the training exercise and given that some where it inot supposed to be. >> thank you for the question. we've been working with dod since 2008 to coordinate the use of the spectrum, and in terms of the more recent identify issue with gps receivers, which was really only brought up in december of 2010, we have had extensive exchanges with u.s. space command about and also

with northern command. the general's testimony before the house armed seices committee quite accurately of land to talk that well you've got to train the way you are going to fight and so we have to be using the same equipment s we are using over there the fact is we know where the training facilities are. we know where the proving groundsre to read today we operate under a very significant requirement to limit our power near the airfields and the navigable waterways. it limits our power sycophant lee in order to avoid any interference with aircraft or maritime receivers in our band. you can extend those operating limits to the base stations we might put near the military bases in order to avoid that interference because you know where the activity is going on. that's one thng you can do. there are other options.

>> than my other question is have we put these towers out ere and run some tests on this with across the spectrum with different types of aircraft and munitions to make sure that we are certified? >> of the u.s. air force ran a classified testing of military receivers and mexico a and april of this last year. those results are classified. we are -- our consultants have not seen them, but we would assume they've run that testing. now, the ram it under our old business plan which was to start closest to gps and that is part of the reason there was the need for further testing now to make sure that velo work option works for those. >> for the rest of the panel leges the question is when was the first time that you all heard about this impact or potential interference on the gps system? with this surprise us that we should be restrained to

birthdays? >> well, not sure abut birthdays, congressman, but i can tell you le a lot of issues that come up in public policy we had an issue next to our airport we learned about by reading it added in the washington business journal. we learned about this by reading about it in the newspaper. understand that the most recent application to the fcc over the thanksgiving weekend last year was literally over the thanksgiving weekend and the public purse cannot eight hendee turnover of the thanksgiving holiday which having been with of business with the federal government i felt pretty speedy but our first indication was strictly out in the public arena >> same thing. we first basically heard about it in the public arena around the march or april timframe and then from there it was quite simply a kind of watching the news to see if this thing progresses.

>> it's been less than a year trying to keep up with eight ells reports appr in the press. we have been contacted by the faa and military to provide testing so we could become involved that way. >> when we first learned about it, i will be quick, we learned of it in december of 2010 when the gps manufacturers brought it to the attention of the fcc with actually been working with gps interference isses with the communities before 2002 when we reached an agreement with them to limit our emissions into their them, so we have a cliff on the spectrum there are filters in the transmissions that stop our signal from leaking into the gps. the issue -- there was no problem with that agreement for eight years and there is still no problem all of the equipment tested the way it should. the issue raised in the timber, 2010, much to our surprise as

much as everybody else here was that the gps receivers look well into our band. so it doesn't really matter if we are limiting our signal. if we are operating within our brann to be condemned with frequencies they are looking a it and can be overloaded. so that is what we learned of it and we've been dealing with since then, too. >> thank you mr. turney. i yield back. >> what would it cost to retrofit -- noretrofit but for the device is not the father of four built yet to accommodate your bandwidth? >> it depends on the device. if you dhaka what cellular phones where you've got millions of these devices and you can build at a very high level of the volume you are talking about filters that cost less than a nickelhat excess today that can go into this. i think the there was some

ambiguity or just nobody knew how expensive a would be to develop a filter for the precision devices which are the hardest ones to deal with. we now know that you can deal with precision receivers on the marketoday and also sold to government agencies and surveyors and all sorts of people use them for $6. so going forward, this is a very small increment cost to deal with. >> if you missed me will be able to provide internet service to another 50 billion people in the rural communities? >> is that on top of the 260 million we are required? absolutely. we have already struck deals with several companies we have the potential to go outside of our footprint that's cellular south, wireless and southern illinois come and just today we announced a deal with a company that plans to deploy doud to did thousand people or less that will reach deleterious that have

been historically underserved. we may not have a regulatory requirement to serve but it's good business to do it and we should be doing it. >> have you done studies on the potential growth from that economic growth? >> i know that there are studies out there that indicate broadband infrastructure investment is one of the major determinants of economic growth. i grew up in the world neighborhood that, you know, where we had a electromechanical switches until the 1980's in california, and i will tell you the one thing that keeps people in the communities is if they feel they've got economic portunity there. they are not going to have the economic opportunity if you don't have the highway going ot there. the same thing is they are not calling to have that opportunity if you don't have the broadband infrastructure today. it's not going to happen. leave aside issues like public safety, provision of medical

services and education. >> thank you. i yield back. >> mr. tipton. >> thank you mr. truman. mr. carlisle, i would like to go back to one of your comments you talked about the filters stopping of the leaking as you described at. is that 100% with the filters there's not going to be a problem? >> yes, sir that was confirmed in the industry tested government testing confirming they are doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. they filter the signal down to the level that is a thousand times stricter than what the fcc requires and the was a level that the gps industry picked and 2002 and asked us to agree to so that's what we agreed to. >> i come from rural colorado

and supportive of broadband be moved out into rural america but we have a lot of problems right now particularly for small businesses that are struggling in terms of a lot of the cause. and then the more so probably than a lot of our farmers gps users who are already struggling right now in our economy. the u.s. census bureau estimates that about 50 million people live in these rural areas. homany of the 50 million citizens that are in rural america right now would receive new broadband service and additionally, can you tell us how many would be covered by lightsquared if you move forward with your operations? >> in terms of what your list service they would get the day we turned on and our next generation units out there. remember we have a satellite that covers 100% of the united states and up to 200 nautical miles offshore. and it reaches these devices. that's why we spent a billion dollars on it.

we spent 250 million of that inventing technology that have never been built before. so, whenhe day we are not there -- >> is that satellite, is that just a receiver that transmits the technology on the ground? >> it's a pipe, so you can put basically any kind of signal you need over it. so, and that would operate at speeds that are aproximate what you get to see you can do phone calls, e-mails and texts. wind we've rollout, the rollout of the network that's going to depend on the business deals we do and the opportunity but i will say this. we've had a significant amount of interest from the companies who don't see an alternative to be able to bill about on this issue and there is a 700 megahertz for the development that was put out there and unfortunately, those carriers can't get enough of a volume to be able to attract the

new chip companies and handset manufacturers to put the frequencies on their devices so it's been difficult for them to actually have an independent we've moving forward and that's why entities like the cellular association support lightsquared. >> that's an important point because it does get down to economics. in your statement he claimed that the revised implementation plan would solve interference for 99.5% of gps receivers and making the assumption this is obviously a big assumption that you're figures are completely accurate i a understand that 4. of their receivers are afcted by the high precision receivers used in agriculture, construction surveying. you stated in your testimony this figure is actually 750,000 to i believe a million units. that is a lot of americans that are going to potentiallbe negatively impacted by this

implentation. how are we going to deal with that? >> to be clear about the number i think 99.5% is probably a liberal estimate of it. if you take them the worst case scenario of only 400 million devices in the universe which seems to be the minimum we have ever seen as an estimate, and 1 million precision devices being out there which is the largest number we've ver seen estimated it is 2.5% of the percentage so the number should be 7.9%. but in terms of we fix that there are three factors which indicated the universe is not going to need to be replaced. first a significant number of precision devices use different types of technology, some use satellite technology to achieve high levels of precision and some like artie ks terrestrial technology so when you test these out to see different results and ten out of 38 were fine. the majority won't be and by the

way and they didn't suffe >> to confine the rest of this form on line. we return now to anita hill. >> it is my pleasure to welcome you back to this conference, back to the afternoon session, but also back to hunter college. it was 20 years ago in this very same room that hunter posted one of the very first events -- hosted one of the very first events to focus on anita hill's unique actions. many of you were with us then, and i even saw someone today wearing the 1992 t-shirt, which is an accomplishment. i am sure many of you join me in

celebrating the progress we have made, but also hoping for a time when we never have to have the same conversation about equality and justice. there is no better place to hold this conference today, nor was there 20 years ago than punter -- than hunter college. even in the days when few institutions accepted women and few fathers would pay for their schooling, hunter had a vision, a somewhat old-fashioned. he said, the negro shells sit next to the juke shall sit next to the -- shall sit next to the jew shall sit next to the gentiles. the only people he asked us to discriminate against were men. 68% of our entering freshman class are women.

someone who spoke at our first anita hill conference, who i am sad to say is no longer with us, is the president of the class of 1942. [applause] she is here in spirit. [applause] i like to tell liz that her fellow alumnus, the only two women in the world to win nobel prizes in medicine, epitomized the same back then. you can always tell a hunter girl, but you cannot tell her much. [laughter] dorothy's daniels is still with us. surprise, both of these women were raised by hunter girls, so there you have it. hunter has remained on at the cutting edge of the women's movement. one of the program's early directors, the great dorothy

healey is with us today as she was 20 years ago. good to see you, dorothy. her work is carried on by the many faculty here today from , who you will hear from later. speaking of incredible women who were at the first conference and are here again today, we want to give a special shout out to two of my heroes, gloria steinem and lettie [unintelligible] [applause] lettie, the only flaw i can see in your fabulous record is that you do not have a hunter degree. i am happy to say that gloria does because we gave her an honorary degree in 2006, so lettie, watch out. thank you for this extraordinary, extraordinary conference. as a college president, i know that many young women, including

my own daughter, sadly do not fully appreciate the importance of anita hill, lettie, gloria, and how they changed the world. when i brought gloria here i was so excited. i said, this is the woman who came up with a line that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. she said mom, really? this is disturbing, a because historical amnesia is a dangerous thing and so many hurdles still remain. it also means so much that these women were born into a world where doors that were once closed tight are now wide open. as many of our speakers have said today, while there is so much more to do, it is important to remember how far we have come. one of the people who has come so far is our honored guest, anita hill. anita had no idea that she was about to change the world when she went before a senate

committee to testify in the clarence thomas hearings. all she had was her enormous courage and dignity and and a willingness to oppose sexual harassment. six months later, when she stepped to the podium in this very room, two thousand feminists and human rights activists from across the nation rose up to here -- to cheer her. i can only imagine what that must have meant to you, giving your treatment on so many other stages. the audience seemed to hold anita personally responsible for revitalizing the feminist movement in america, and they were right. 1992 became the year of the women. four women became elected to the men's club known as the u.s. senate, and if it was reelected. we have used this conference to call for the election of more women to public office. now we come together again on

the hunter campus to analyze what has taken place in the last 20 years, and to explore the great challenges that still lie ahead. i can think of no better cause and no better place to advance it. anita, thank you for all you have done for our daughters, for our students, and for all women. it is now my pleasure to welcome to the stage columbia professor patricia williams to introduce anita hill. [applause] >> thank you. it is a tremendous honor, privilege, pleasure to be here. i am delighted to have participated in the planning of this committee as part of the planning committee. this has been such an incredibly inspiring event, inspiring and

euphoric arc of events. i want to welcome you all back to the afternoon session. i also want to welcome congresswoman joan adler who i think is the single elected official who has actually made it here. we thank him. deep gratitude for his presence. i'm actually usually somebody who wears all black. i just wanted to draw attention to the fact that i am wearing anita hill blue, just a touch, in honor of this event. i did that because i remember quite a long time ago when anita hill first was speaking truth to power, i interviewed her for an article in harper's. one of the things she mentioned was her great anxiety about the

moment in which she had to walk from backstage on to the national scene, into the hearing room. what she described was very moving and very poignant. she said the only thing i could think of was am i wearing the right thing? [laughter] i remember that anxiety, because she and i are approximately the same -- she is younger than i am -- but approximately the same age in terms of the women's movement and it's incredible pyroxenes are around what we could wear or not where. she and i are of the era of dress for success suits in black or navy only. occasionally there was great, but you could not wear gray when you were arguing before the supreme court.

big two took place of ties at the -- big bows took the place of ties at the throat. maybe a string of pearls. when she put on address, it was a departure, and i believe it resonated in a way that i am not sure younger woman -- women can appreciate or understand in today's world. but we went through those agonizing health examinations in which hillary clinton had to be cross-examined about whether or not a pants suit was an appropriate coat of armor. what i think is an scene sometimes is the degree to which we are still fighting that. when elena kagan was nominated to the supreme court, the official out that for the solicitor general is a morning

coat, that is to say, a morning coat with tails and pinstripe trousers. there was some anxiety as to whether elena kagan would be confined to that or not. when michelle obama chose to wear bare legs and bear arms, we are still having anxiety about that. and it is such anxiety about the appearance, and it seems to me that it all boiled down to the anita hill question, which was not really about did i wear the right thing, but ultimately, what is credibility look like? what do we have to wear, what we have to do to be believed? in that spirit, i wanted to turn to who anita hill is despite the choice of what to wear. you can certainly read her bio in the materials. she graduated from the university of oklahoma and yale law school in 1980 and was put into the spotlight in 1991 and

all the rest of history. but there is a back history that is worth telling, or at least for grounding, because it did not take clarence thomas to make her a pioneer or heroin. long before she was a pioneer and a heroine. she began teaching in 1983. there were virtually no women or women of color teaching anywhere. she and i both teach contracts and commercial law. i began teaching in 1980. i am not exact shore of the precise numbers in 1983 when she began, but there were six women of color in the entire united states who were in legal academia in 1980. four african-americans, one latina, one asian, including in traditionally black colleges and law schools. this is the backdrop. she was, in addition, the first tenured african-american, not just the first african-american woman, but the first african-

american at the university of oklahoma. maybe the last, i will have to check on that. [laughter] i love the way that her bio says she was an adviser to the assistant secretary of education and the chair of the equal employment education. there is no mention of who that chair was. i love the fact that it puts the emphasis on the job she did, not her battle to do it. the recognition and reassertion of her profession, her work product and her scholarship seems to me the thing that is most significant about her incredible accomplishments these 20 years later. in november 1995, she wrote speaking truth to power, her biography from doubleday. it is so beautifully written. she is a phenomenally beautiful essayist. i really urge you to read anita hill rather than to simply listen to her.

her career has been a call right now. she has gone on to become a professor of social law at brandeis university. she also adds a senior adviser to the probe was there. in 2011, just now, she has published "re-imagining inequality: stories of gender, race and finding a home," for which there will be a book signing today. i really implore you to read it, to buy it. it is not enough that she be an icon or a simple, as important as that has been to every one of us in this room. her work and her scholarship is an independent accomplishment. they should be not overshadowed by clarence thomas'words, which are constantly being written into history. we must also read her work product, her written product of

the topics that she has chosen, rather than simply letting her be the day is at smocking and -- deus ex machina. thank you. [applause] and it is my pleasure now to sit down and not a conversation with anita hill. but it had a conversation with anita hill. again, -- it is my pleasure now to sit down and have a conversation with anita hill. again, it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce and anita hill. [applause]

>> thank you so much, so much. thank you, pat, for that wonderful introduction. i am really excited to talk with you. >> i am looking forward to it myself. i want to turn to your book in just a moment, but i also want to begin, because i know that you had wanted to talk about how your team was put together for that hearing, and to the knowledge so many of the people who are here today from the opening salvo in history. did you want to say just a few things? >> i always like to say thank you. i did testify, and many of you have this vision, the image of

me sitting there by myself at that long table with all of the senators lined up in front of me, but i also want to remind you that i had some wonderful people who, as i say, had my back, who came together really, because they believed in the process, the integrity of the court, as i did, and they wanted to make sure that at best i could be fairly treated as best as they could help me. one of those people -- i see one of those people i know, judith resnik, who you heard from this morning. prof. judith resnik. professor charles ogle three who you also heard from -- ogletree

who was also heard from. professor and a jordan is somewhere in the audience. there were so many others. janet napolitano, john frank, warner gardner, kim crenshaw, who i am looking forward to hearing this afternoon, i kim taylor thompson, who is here in the city teaching at nyu. maybe some of her students are here in the city today. so many people came together. many of those people were my colleagues in teaching. as pat said, there were so few of us in lot teaching, and these wonderful individuals, including judith resnik, who knew me when i was a student at yale law school, all came together. people talk about our hot shot team.

it was a pretty hot shot team, but it was not the high-powered law firm that people make it out to be. i just want to say, 20 years later, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of them, and for what you do now. [applause] >> i know you mentioned that two members of your team have passed on, warner gardner and tom frank. -- john frank. i wonder if you could share that moment when you realized that this was something beyond a single moment of testimony. >> when i look at into today's audience, and certainly in the immediate days following the hearing, i have lots of support from women. but john john frank had been an expert on the supreme court and the confirmation process. he was there, he volunteered and

came from arizona. i did not know he was going to come. at the end of my morning testimony, he came to me in tears and he said, "i know this is very hard for you. i know this is a challenge, but you have no idea of how important this is to our country." i was at that point trying to get through the rest of the day. i do not think i fully appreciated then exactly what he was saying to me. here was this man who had been at yale many years ago in the practice of law and studied the supreme court. he was saying to me that this was an important moment in our country's history. it was as if so he looked into the future and had seen you

today. i really do want to remember him especially. it was in a little way may be preparing me for what was to come, but i do not think anything could prepare me for today.am steering geaseeing hee is wonderful. >> i think this moment could allow us to forget exactly what you did go through when you say this is difficult. this was traumatizing as well. as alan simpson promised, in addition to all the accusations, waving the bible talking about exorcisms -- >> that was a moment. [laughter] >> but he did not go away with the hearing. if followed you for quite some time.

there were security issues, practically emotional torture to the extent that even friends of yours were forced to move from oklahoma. little packages of what you described as a fecal matter were sent in the mail to you. there were constant security issues for you for quite a bit of time and even to the present. >> it is a testament to my friends and colleagues that i was able to continue. there was pressure at the university of oklahoma for me to be fired. it was coming from officials, legislators, state legislators. when that did not work, there were threats to the existence of the law school and the funding of the law school. that was an effort for my colleagues to turn against me. one of the women who was on the

faculty then -- i believe she is here. shirley was with me on the team and came with me from oklahoma to help out in any way that she could. she ultimately did leave oklahoma and went on to have a great career. 20 years is a long time to keep people together. the people who were on that team in the beginning are still with make. the witnesses who were friends of mine back in the early 1980's are still my friends today. there are all kinds of pressures that are put on people. and the of you who have gone through these kinds of claims and problems and issues in your own workplaces or attempted to

critique correct problems knows that you can lose people along the way. i have been very, very fortunate not only to keep those people about also to really engage with a lot of supporters threw out these last 20 years that have made what i do in my survival possible. you talk about the difficulty -- it was very difficult. when you return from a testimony that has become this event that you really had no idea what it was going to be what it was -- i would walk out onto the street. they did polling immediately after the hearing, and it showed

that 70% of the population thought that i had perjured myself. in addition to the pressures i was having on the job, the threats to me personally, bomb threats, the law school at my home, i had to go to the grocery store and realize that seven out of 10 people that i would encounter at the supermarket thought that i had perjured myself and my testimony. so, psychologically, the pressure was difficult. of the pressure at work was difficult. and the fact that your family is going through this with you in a very public wy was difficult-- public way was difficult. i was also quite fortunate. >> at one point you said you wanted your life back.

i remember hearing you describe having to give that up as a part of the healing process and moving on. do you mind sharing more about that? >> i think that was very much the toughest part for me and initially. ok, i have given this testimony. a week or so later, the vote was taken. i wanted to say, ok, it is over. enough is enough. i want my life back. i really resented that i could not get it back. once i let go of that idea and said, you know, it is not going to happen that way. i have a different life now. the question i had to ask myself is what life do i want? i could accept that it was not

going to be the life that i had. it was a pretty good life. i like it. i knew it was not going to happen again. out of this, what am i going to have that i can shape, that i can claim for myself so i can continue to do what i do to be productive, to care about the things that i care about and continue to live? that happened perhaps six months or so after the hearing. i had to figure out really what my resources cannot my talents were, what i could do, and what my options and opportunities were. and what kind of support i would be getting to move forward with this new life that i had a

chance to shape. those were all things that i had to really sit down and account for. the other thing that i had to do was to say, you know what? it was an important event. it is helped to shape my life, but it is just an event. it is not me. it is not who i am. so, i had to get back and understand who i am and why i was on this earth in order to move forward. >> i want to turn to your story. i want to say that i feel's about the term -- feel possessive about the term "anita's story." i remember barbara underwood came to yale law school and she

described what is very common for women of my age. there were no ladies' rooms so she was assigned to the janitor's closet to go to the bathroom. my conference story is apparently -- j assigned a security guard to the men's room here just outside the hall to keep all of us from taking it over. [laughter] i love this are: times. -- ark of time. >> i am the real anita. [laughter] [applause] >> as contained in your book, which is a phenomenal book -- i cannot say enough what a

gorgeous writer. she writes like a dream. in the title, you use the word "home." tomorrow will be the 100th anniversary of your late mother. you dedicate this book to her and your grandmother and your great-grandmother. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about the framing of the discussion of the housing crisis in terms of the women in your life. you told me a story about ken burns. i wonder if you could start with that. >> we have all seen the wonderful documentary's that ken burns does on pbs. after the conclusion of the one on jag, i had a conversation with the filmmaker.

it was really a moving conversation for me because what he said was that he had grown up -- he and i are roughly the same age. he had grown up during the civil rights era of. -- era. i believe he lost his mother at that time when he was about 12 years old. so this was a very emotional time in his life and a time that had stuck in his memory. when he came up with the trilogy, the first was the civil war, the second was baseball, and the third was jazz. for him, each of those were metaphors about race in america. i found that very moving. if you think about it, it makes sense. but then again, it does not. my question to him was well is

there and metaphor for race? is there a way for us to think about and talk about race that is not so male-dominated? if you think about the civil war, jazz, or music, most of the stores were about male artists. baseball, of course, the first league formed after world war ii. how do we have a conversation about race and that includes women? -- race that includes women? his response was i did a piece on it susan b. anthony to talk about gender. well, that is a little problematic, too, because we know in the suffrage movement, there was a marginal causation of african american women.

other women of color just did not even appear, because native americans were not included in women's suffrage. how do we then have a conversation about gender that is not racialized? so, i started thinking about ways to do that. what is our metaphor for thinking about equality that does not rely on male domination nor racialization? how can we have an inclusive conversation about the quality? there is one element that looms large in our quest for equality, and that is "home." the finding of the home, whether it is the establishing of a place that one cause their own when we think about stories like "a reason in the sun," and how

significant the home is. for those of you who do not know sun," therehe is a more popular reference -- "the jeffersons." in order to show that "the jefferson's" had made it, they moved on up to the upper east side. it was not just any place on the upper east side. it was a "de luxe apartment in the sky." [laughter] they did not even eat the same kind of food anymore. this was the symbol of them having made it. but you also know and maybe have not thought about this that when

louise jefferson has made it, she becomes a stay at home mother, and what does she do? she getse a maid who is a black maid. all of these issues about the significance of home and how we define it and how it figures and are thinking about the quality really was in my mind. than the housing crisis hit. and the collapse of the housing market really devastated communities and send some many people really in chaos. and i started reading the stories about how it was being read in the press, and so few of the stories included the impact it was having on women.

women of color in particular, women living on their own, trying to buy homes on their own. i realized that the housing crisis is not only a set back economically. is a setback in our social advances for women -- it is a setback in our social advances for women. women were out there buying homes on their own for the last 20 years. this was a social advancement for women because we were finally saying, "look, we can do this on our own. we do not have to wait until we have a spouse or a partner." that was an important movement that was occurring in the year 2005. so i wanted to tell the story of the significance of home without

really having to tell it through the lens of male domination, to really tell the story through the eyes of the women i talk about in the book. >> yet this story has been so under-stated in the media. at one point, you point out why it is so ignored. >> it has been ignored in some ways because the presumption is that the home includes two parents and children, and teh assumption is it is a man and a woman. that is how we have thought about the home and home policy. so, that is what the media has followed. they have not a dog and and look at who is a new home buying market was -- they have not dug

in and looked at who the new home buying market was. when i look back at my own family stories, i realize that when my grandparents homestead in arkansas in 1895 -- it was a significant milestone in our family achievement. my grandfather had gone from being born a slave to owning property. that was significant. that was a significant milestone. they lost that farm. circumstances that were not unlike what is going on today. bad credit options, a poor economy, racial and unrest and violence.

that was significant, too, and it had an impact on my mother as well as our family. for generations to come. when i look here at a college and i think about young people today, i realize that this home in security that we are experiencing now will indeed have an impact on their future. it may be even having an impact on their present whether or not they are able to get student loans through their parents because of what is going on now. all of these things we need to begin to address, and that is what came together. >> you pointed out the dirt. -- the degree to which the statistics are lacking because the statisticians do not know whether to count women because they are counted as a divorced or widowed, but the frame of reference is to a man.

>> it is so significant because what we know now is that that dynamic, the family dynamic, is just not representative of a huge part of the population of where we are. the real things that i think about when i write this book is people say that we know you as your testimony 20 years ago. that is very much a part of who i am. but i have also been teaching for those 20 years. what i really enjoyed about this book was that it brings together so many parts of my life. it brings together in my life as a teacher. it brings together my life as an

ancestor -- i mean as a granddaughter of a slave. a great granddaughter of a woman who was a single mother for 10 years when she moved from slavery to being a free person even though she lived in the same place for those first 10 years. it brings together my history. it brings together some of the impact that the hearings had on me. it really brings to me the issue of the quality that i care about. sexual harassment is one of those issues. what i try to do in this book is to give voice to the people who have not been heard from during this crisis. that is really what i was trying to do -- what i have been trying

to do with the issue of sexual harassment for the past 20 years to help people to find their voices, to talk about the issues that keep them from living life fully and as equals. i want to leave some time for questioning, but one final question. you tell a lovely story in your book and i wonder if you could read a quick paragraph on your definition of "home." >> i do have a vision that i think -- i call it my 21st century vision of the quality. i thought i had a right there on that page. now i have to juggle the microphone. one thing that has happened in the past 20 years -- [laughter] yes, i have the reading glasses now. the final chapter is called "home at last." i define "home" -- i have three

definitions. a lens through which one can safely view the world. we know that for some many women, a place inside tehe home is not a safe place. it is an important element for us to have that home to view the world safely. the second part of the definition is a place where one's ideas, experiences, and work are seen as valuable. that, for me, is home and it symbolizes so much of what is living in the lives of women, the valuing of our work, whatever it is, not that we are trying to emulate anything but

how we are trying to be valued for who we are and what we offer, not only for our work but our ideas and experiences as well. physical body, the being and the place where it is welcomed. it is a physical state of being as well as a place. in my great-grandmother had to imagine what freedom was like after living her life as a slave. she had to imagine what freedom was like for herself and her son, my grandfather. my mother, when she sent me after college or high school and then to college into a world that she had no understanding of, she had to

imagine for me in 1970 what equality was going to be like for me. she had to help me imagine because it was not her experience having been born in 1911. she sent me out with two sets of luggage. she had to imagine really for herself and her children what the quality was going to be like. i think we are at that juncture now it. we must imagine for a new generation what equality is going to be like. we have reached the point now, for example, where we have said sexual harassment -- which can raise our voices and complain about it. but we also should imagine a workplace where it no longer exists. [applause]

so, we are constantly working on the quality. we are putting together all the pieces. when we talk about the events going on in the world, the occupation of wall street. when we think about all the issues that we are struggling with today, all of us are urging us to imagine what the quality is going to be like in the 21st century. we have so much energy in this room today. we have so many ideas. we have heard from so many wonderful people, and we are going to hear from others. all of those are helping us to imagine a better world for the next generation. i could not be more proud than i am today to be a part of that, and i think you. thank you. [applause]

>> we are going to take questions now. while people come forward, if you would like to tell the luggage story that begins her book. >> when i was 17 years old and graduated from college, my mother told me one day that i want you to come with me and we are going to visit a family friend. the family friend was an african american teacher who taught some of my siblings english. at the time when i graduated from school, she had gotten older, sick. she traveled fairly widely in her life but was no longer able to travel. she said she had something to give me. it was a set of samsonite luggage.

i guess now is called vintage. it had her initials on it. four years later, my mother gave me a gift when i was going off to law school. that gift was my own sert of samson that luggage. it was brand new samson night nite luggage. my mother sent me off with two sets of luggage. the older version and now my own set of samsonite. in that, for me,; the symbolism from both of those women who were sending me out to a world that would be so different from their own and the courage that

each of them had to say ok i have prepared you i have given you something go out and claim your own life claim your own home and be all that you can be. i think about it today. people say what is the best gift you ever had? i say ait was those two sets of luggage and what it symbolized for may. that is my story. [applause] i say give your daughters luggage and not baggage. [laughter] >> hi. i wondered in the context of your comments about "home." was your family impacted by the tulsa race riot war?

>> we remained on the farm. even though they were in oklahoma at the time of the tusa they were not, really affected by it directly being out in the rural area. they happened in 1921 i believe. in an urban area in tulsa that was primarily black and quite prosperous. ooted and burned. to this day, many people do not know how many people were killed during those "race riots," which were really mass murders.

they had an indirect impact in terms of people did not go to the city after that. immediate impact we did not have. >> professor hill, what a pleasure to hear you. >> thank you. i'm fine. thank you. [laughter] >> i spent my time at harvard because they had a really good events. we had a theorist who was there during that year and i turned to her and said it does anybody know if anita hill is ok? i want to get to a question about home. d.s. news reported a story last

week that one in three americans is a paycheck away from losing their home. we also know that the economic crisis that is a flooding our courts with new money-related cases with foreclosures, unemployment, medicare, child support, domestic violence, and at the same time, money for legal services is being rolled back a 2000 levels. the administration is not leading a very good fight about increasing its or keeping it at 2011 levels. given the increasing need and decreasing access to justice, i would be interested in hearing your thoughts about closing the justice gap either through advocacy or in terms of using all of these unemployed law

students that are running around. i would be interested in hearing your thoughts about closing the gap. it is great to see you. >> i do propose a number of things in my book. part of it is through better enforcement of the programs that are out there that are supposedly helping people to stay in their homes. the problem that i see is about inequalities that the been built into the living system, that have been built into it and have become institutionalized because of years and years of discrimination against women, people of color, the way that communities have developed over the past few years. there are even bigger inequalities' when we start talking about women's income. they tend to, because of the pay

differential, are going to have less money to access homes. we also know that women, many of them, will spend about 50% of that lower income on their home. these are the kinds of things -- and that is higher than the rate of men that spend on their home. these are the things that i think we need to begin to address. what i propose is something that i am calling -- i propose that the administration get involved. i suggested to the council on women and girls should be a place where we can get this conversation started. is there anybody out here who has access to the council of women and girls? yes, i have one hand.

can you take that message to the council because -- it is one agency that is charged with improving access to women and their families. there is no more critical of an issue for women and their families than homes and housing. so there is a role for the administration to play, but it has to be very comprehensive. it cannot simply be just renegotiating mortgages. and using free labor of law student to do that. it has to be really rethinking a lot of the process about how people find homes. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> i am a city council member in

new york city. [cheers and applause] i was here in 1992. at the end of the conference, i was working for the mayor. you kindly came back to dinner, so i want to thank you for coming that night. >> thank you for finding a. >> you were terrific and as you are today. we spend a great deal of time now trying to stop cyber bullying and bullying in thes schools. as somebody who has taught for a long time and given your experience, do you think we as a country are doing enough to stop the bullying? >> i think we are beginning to understand the issue of napoleon. there was a piece in the new theytimes at todtoday about why

are being bullied. my experience really in terms of dealing with people with workplace issues is that in some ways there is an analogy, that what is going on in the workplace is an extension of the kind of bullying that happens to people when they are in schools. as charles below road today, it is a lot of ways about identity, perceptions of whether someone is a masculine enough, whether someone is gay or straight. all of these things or ways that we have, using our power over other people in ways that really prevent them from doing what they are hired to do in teh workplace or going to

school and learning. have we done enough? i do not think we have because the problem continues. i am not an expert on what more we can do. i think we are starting to become aware of the problem, and that is the beginning. that is the beginning. thank-you. >> hi. i hope you can bear with my other terror in being up here. what to want to ask is a very personal question, in that how do you deal with having had to deal with so much? how do you deal with fear? not over it, udner it, but through it? >> thank you. [applause] well, thank you for that

question. i think you have dealt with fear. [applause] you set out and you asked your question. i think the audience here has demonstrated how i have dealt with my own fear. that is through the help and support of many others. but the first part really is to walk up and confront it. i know there were times when i was afraid. i knew there were times when i stepped out and i did not know what was going to happen to me next. but every day i woke up knowing that this in the cause me to be fearful, that testimony, was the right thing for me to do. it was the right thing to do. [applause] and i would never let anybody

tell me any different. and if you can wake up [no audio] [please stand by] -- there are many people out there that will share your story and your fear and be there to help you. i had to learn to reach out. i was always a very private person. the other part of it is you are trained not to show that you have some weakness. because we are all supposed to be strong and tough.

and i had to let go of some of that. but i thank you because even though you are talking about fear, is an act of bravery to stand up and ask a question. not that this is a hostile group, but this is a group of pretty strong folks. so, thank you so much. [applause] >> hi. good afternoon and thank you for your time. i am a journalist. in your introduction that was given by ms. williams, she made a reference to the idea of what does credibility look-alike. in light of your position as a professor dealing with young people, students, and young women, i was wondering how you counsel young women that you

encounter on dealing with the idea of being in excellent students, may be great people in the way that they are seen by their peers or are perhaps shot down if they are put in a position like the spotlight that you were put in. >> we talked about organizing this conference -- one of the things i said that i wanted to be sure of is that we had young people in this room. i wanted young people and people of all ages because i think there is a sharing there. for me, when i talk to young people i have the luxury of talking to them one-on-one so i get to sit down and say what do you see as your strength. what do you think you are good at? then build on that.

if you go out -- people say i think you should work on your deficiencies. you know, yeah, but that always puts you in a hole. so i like to tell people go out on your strengths. what are your strengths? what do you care about? what are you passionate about? what do you know that you do well? with that, you can build your confidence. even though there will be circumstances that you will not be expected for all that you have to offer. just knowing what your strengths are and understanding what they are will help get you beyond those situations, realizing which of them are important and those that are not important for you to continue what you need to do. this may sound contradictory. find something that is a

challege to you that you really want to do, something that stretches you. because even if you get a little bit closer to that goal, you've started to grow. and that -- there is nothing more rewarding than facing something that is a challenge to you that you come closer to because you know you have given everything that you have. even if you do not -- may be your challenge is to win the nobel prize for peace. i would applaud that. you may not win the nobel prize for peace. but if you engage in activity that promotes peace, then that's

a victory in it of itself. find things that you are challenged to do, set some goals, and then go out and try to achieve it in your ownif