they have laws against holocaust denial and laws against espousing naziism. a problem with that view is that in situations that are actually a problem with that view is that in situations that are actually like the ones you describe where there is a small amount of minorities, you're not going to pass laws that are going to protect the small minority. you are going to get what you see in nigeria and uganda right now. you are going to have the majority of passing laws to oppress the homosexuals and using speech laws to oppress the homosexuals. >> speech laws were used in order to allow the ragtag nazi band headed by someone called frank to march in illinois. it never occurred for other

reasons but if it had occurred, it would've occurred because of a strong first amendment opinion written by a judge who practiced what i call the rhetoric of regret. he kept saying, i hate it. it is going to do a lot of harm. i absolutely regret the fact that we have to allow these horrible things that happen but that is a first amendment. >> i would get this when i speak at universities and i totally agree with stanley when it comes to someone who was espousing holocaust views. malarky.orse that it's one of the reasons why a lot of the times when you pass laws that ban it, you are going to encourage it. if someone has to say, i believe the holocaust did not happen. prove it. defend that position.

i can't. here are the following 10,000 pictures. >> have you ever gone on the website? they defend it. i have read it. >> if you are a paranoid fanatic and you're all idea is to say the holocaust never happened but i am not allowed to say because there was a conspiracy. that is a formula for the society. i would say the holocaust denial is more successful in countries that have these kinds of speech laws. >> it is interesting to remember the public had robust laws and tried to shut down the nazis. hitler used those laws to make himself a national symbol of resistance. you don't want to give these haters the platform.

>> i love when people bring up nazism as an argument for hate speech laws. the nazis did not have concern for individual rights. [laughter] >> gentlemen, this self moderating panel -- [laughter] >> are you still here? >> i am still here. >> we haven't heard from you in a while. >> i didn't realize a topic like the first amendment which everyone in the country agrees on could have such a provocative disagreement. it is time for a vote, ladies and gentlemen. we are going to reduce this debate to yes or no. >> can we have predictions from the panel? >> are you going to win? >> no, not on the vote. >> i don't want to influence the vote. >> john are you going to win? >> i'm going to say yes. >> ok.

who is persuaded by professor fish that the european dignitary in position on free speech is significant? who is persuaded by the american libertarian position is more persuasive? >> i have a question. wait. >> a question for the audience. great. raise your hands if you changed your mind. >> thank you. >> which way did you switch? [laughter] >> [indiscernible] >> what a beautiful summary of the spectacular panel. please join me in thanking them. our panel. [applause] great job. >> thank you. >> wonderful.

>> you are my favorite. >> please come and join us downstairs. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> coming up, three whistleblowers. executive who was prosecuted as a spy, and a former justice department whistleblower who now advises edward snowden. they talk about challenges they faced in exposing wrongdoing. this is a brief portion. >> snowden looked at these examples, look to chelsea manning, looked at julian assange and realize he had to be out of the country if he was going to put up this amount of information to be able to tell why he had done and to comment as he has been doing. to speak now.

i was personally, 40 years ago, i was out on bond and throughout my trial i was able to speak at demonstrations. to lecture. to do this and that. there isn't a chance in the world that snowden would've been allowed to do that and he knew looking at chelsea manning. he would be in an isolation cell like chelsea manning for the rest of his life. no journalist to this day, 3.5, almost four years now, no journalist has spoken to tell cementing. chelsea manning. not in four years. no interviews, no nothing. they won't either. you cannot speak to him in prison. snowden more or less had to be out of the country. he learned from that. he also learned that you need to put out other documents, current documents and all the more reason he had to be out. one reason -- what makes a

whistleblower? it turns out it is pretty hard to do, it turns out. dozens, hundreds, thousands in some cases of people knew the secrets, knew the truths. many of those, perhaps most of them, knew that these involved a life or death matters on which major lies were being told. where the truth can make a big difference and yet they did not speak out. i think we have to change the culture of secrecy. way.t of secrecy in this change the benefit of the doubt that is given quite wrongly to that -- to politicians and the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know to allow, to even thinking for example clapper or keith alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what they are doing in our name. it represents a culpable ignorance unless you are 16 years old or something like

that. if you live through any of these things -- these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. behind the veil of secrecy, extremely bad, disastrous policymaking goes on without accountability as we learned from the pentagon papers. we learned from snowden. as we learned from the documentation. we learned if we got the iraq papers which we still don't have but there have been a number of leaks. the decision-making is actually very bad. it is not only the middle -- criminal, stupid. it is also stupid and ignorant. extent, it is not subjected to a larger debate even within the government or the congress, let alone within the public. the reason that the constitution that tom has been talking about so much is not indeed obsolete.

it was a good idea then and it is still a good idea. it has to be defended against the people starting with two presidents and their minions and many people in the press, after all, after 9/11, we have a new kind of frontier. years old,ution, 200 was not suited for that. we really need a different form of government in which it is true as nixon said. if the president does it, it is not illegal. we have no choice but to leave it up to him to decide what to tell us. the entire program on whistleblowers is tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. room atng you in the congressional hearings, white house events, and conferences,

and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as part of the cable tv industry created 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service. watch us in hd. like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> next, technologies role in helping to grow the middle class. how jobs are being lost to innovation in the digital revolution. a former white house green jobs adviser van jones and scott murphy, a venture capitalist, take part in the discussion. >> to my left is van jones, the president of rebuild the dream which is a platform for bottom-up innovations to help fix the u.s. economy.

he the cohost of "crossfire" on cnn with his old friend newt gingrich. he was formally the green jobs adviser in the obama white house and he has written two new york times bestsellers. next is andrew mcafee. he and eric are co-authors of a new book called "the second machine age." work, progress, and prosperity. those that sign up, you are going to get a book and he is happy to sign them for you. it is really an interesting book. we have scott murphy, the former u.s. representative for new york's 20th congressional district and a venture capitalist. is the president of the board of the directors of the upstate ventures association. of new york.

finally in the empty chair who is on his way from the airport, there was some wind apparently. i lost my one and only scarf. andrew shea is the chairman of meet-up.ork tech he will be rushing in soon. so, now on to the panel. you were really talking about this question of what is the future of the middle class and the american dream? we have to look a little bit and see where we got to where we are. i will start with andy. give us some data on what is actually happening and then moved to other panelists. if you look at the last 50 years, rising inequality and lowering ability, there are three main factors you can talk about -- globalization, the technological progress, and and then there is public policy. the different opinions and the relative way of things.

we will start with andy. >> thank you for coming out tonight. what? i think i am on? no. am i on? i have a little red light on my microphone. we are going to pass the mic. ok, now we are in business. thank you for having us tonight. there is always a lot of things to do in new york city. on any given evening. says, i wantlide to kick off by sharing a bunch of data about the u.s. economy and the workforce over the past chunk of time. the reason to do this is not because i think all of us are data geeks as i am, but because there is a huge amount of rhetoric going on. way too much of it and not enough evidence and facts. i want to ground our discussion

into some of the recent evidence and the story i want to try to tell is of charles dickens moment in our economic history where it is simultaneously the best of times and the worst of times in some ways. that may make that case with data. guess, click. all right. that big slow-moving line in the middle is u.s. gdp and the reason it doesn't move around a lot because it is a big number. it doesn't bounce around as much year to year. it takes those shallow divots and you can see the most recent divot with the great recession. it was still pretty darn bad. you see it really tanked both the green and the blue lines. both the green and the blue lines rebounded very quickly in a very healthy way. the blue lines are u.s. corporate profits which we will see again in a minute. they are at an all-time high. whether you measure them an absolute or the percentage of gdp. bravo. we like profits. that is great.

the green line is u.s. investment in equipment and software. and rebounded very quickly in a very healthy way. the u.s. corporate appetite for the stuff that the industry represented by forward.us made for tech is bottomless and it just keeps on growing. great. we like investment as well. click. what we don't like is the redline which is the employment to population ratio. in other words, the percentage of working age americans who have worked. that line cratered during the great recession and it had flatlined ever since. there was no rebound visible at all. every month when the bureau of labor statistics put out the numbers, this is the one i look at and it is like the ekg of a dead person. is not going anywhere. month after month. is at a level lower than it has been for 30 years before women entered the u.s. workforce. that is the bad news. i cannot tell a happy story about that red line. i promised you a good news, bad

story about the economy. click. because i cannot tell a good story. this is job growth in the country decade by decade for the entire post-world war ii history. you notice that one of these lines is not like the other. the one at the bottom is the decade we have just lived through, the 2000's. even for the -- even before their great recession, job growth was pretty anemic compared to other decades. there were fewer americans working at the end of the decade than the beginning of the decade. yuck. i cannot tell a happy story about that. slide,i click this next i need to make one thing really clear to everybody -- i am a capitalist. i like our system of private enterprise and entrepreneurship.

bravo. the reason i need to say that is because i am out to put up a slide of capital versus labor and when i do that, everybody che t-shirto wear a even though i am not. click. maybe i can borrow one of joe's t-shirts. the blue line is corporate profits expressed as a percent of gdp. higher than it's ever been on a really healthy trajectory. you noticed that that david is very short. look up quickly the profits came back. we like that. the red line there is the total amount of gdp they get paid out in wages to all americans every year. you notice of those blue and red lines are doing a dance just back and forth for most of the postwar history. since the turn-of-the-century, that red line has been

cratering, really, really heading south. what is amazing to me is that red line includes the wages paid to some categories of superstars like ceos and other top managers and professional athletes. and folks like that. if you took their wages out of that red line, it would be heading south even more quickly. a very clear, good news, bad news picture of the economy. and click. this is a story of what has been happening throughout different levels of education over the past several decades. if you have a college education or above, your real wages have been on an upward trajectory and classically, the more education, the more training, the better your wage trajectory is. the problem is the bottom three lines represent all workers with less than a college degree. american workers. with less than a college education. those real wages are lower than they were more than 30 years

ago. that is not good. the bigger problem is those bottom lines represent 60% or more of the american workforce. fewer than 40% of american workers have a college degree. so a minority is doing better over time, and a majority -- you see them slowly losing ground here. click. this is what the superstar economies yielding us. this is not the graph of the one percent, this is one percent of the one percent. this is the top .01%. we have this period of relative equality in the economy and in recent decades, that has been racing upwards. there was no are growing we are that we areg heading into more of a winner take all economy. do i have one more click? yes, i do. this is a line my co-author and

i call the great decoupling. it used to be the case that for things we cared a great deal about were all going up. in lockstep. output, gdp per capita, productivity, job growth, and wages. all four of those are great. the great news is for several decades after the war, we had exactly that. the four of them were going up. in lockstep. in recent years, you see this best of times, worst of times pattern where the two lines related to productivity and output have essentially continued their nice upward trajectory. the line of a job growth has leveled off and in some cases even changed direction. the average median american household now takes home less than they did in the 1990's. i cannot tell a happy story about that, so i find myself simultaneously

really encouraged by some economic statistics, those related to output. and finding some real challenges in the ones related to jobs and wages. all right, that is the end of the data. thank you for bearing with me. >> when you think about these three factors, globalization, policy, where do you rate those things? technology, i am a scholar, so my answer is going to be unsurprising. the smoking gun is technological progress. globalization has been the prime culprit in a lot of ways. the most careful research that is coming out says that is not what is going on. there has been some great work published over the past year by people who are not technology geeks like me. economistske labor likeandard economists, not i am. they have come to the same

conclusion. when you look at the patterns over the past 30, 30 five years, and you look at capital versus labor or you look at the polarization and the problems of the middle class, the prime culprit is a technological progress. computers can do stuff now that we used to need classic middle-class labor for. >> the least skilled things like mowing your lawn, they are good at complex repeatable tasks like accounting and bank telling. >> if you're a busboy, it's not that you have a very prestigious job. you have a job that is safe from technology for the foreseeable future. there is no robot anywhere in the world that can do this, let alone walk across a room without breaking everything and terrifying restaurant patrons. it just doesn't exist. those restaurant involved, low-level, poorly payed --

massage, dog groomer, busboy, and gardner. ener. super high-end jobs, ceo's, stuff like that, also appear to be safe from automation. it is that big chunk in the middleware technology has been having its greatest effect and what i believe is that technology is about to get bigger both low and high in that midrange. >> andy, is your sense that is what is going on -- going on around the world or to speaking about america? >> i see we're about out of time. [laughter] it is a great question. it is pointing the finger pretty clearly at tech progress. lifted that labor versus capital graph. a lot of countries around the world -- he came to the very clear conclusion that it was tech progress. that redline has been going down along the world. gdp paid out in wages,

including in countries including china, india, and mexico. i cannot tell an outsourcing message about that. >> so the amount going to wages is going up dramatically but gdp is going up even faster? the growth of the middle class that is very different in china. you are saying it is still not get -- gaining as a share in losing ground to the other outlets? ultra wealthy in china are getting more money. >> how does not look compared to what you call the first machine revolution? do we see the same trends? whenw we go back? >> yes and no. we have the first industrial revolution when steam power came on. we had electrification. that can be a transition period that can be kind of long but then those waves of progress

give good news for the average worker. the optimistic view is wait a little while and we are going to see healthy job growth. all up and down the ladder. i kind of said you had 3.5 decades. we are saying the opposite of that's why think -- i don't take that much comfort from the historical pattern. awful.t of all, that is >> can we all start our comments that way? [laughter] >> i find that really helpful. i just want to add a few things. i think it is a murder mystery. who killed the middle class? who killed the american dream? >> it would be handy. andy. >> it could be the case that technology is the culprit but i some there are accomplices. markets work really well.

we are all for markets but what would that markets work according to rules and right now the rules are pretty wacky if you are middle-class working family. and they have been wacky for a while. whatever damage is being done by technology, i think there are some accomplices. about the minimum wage -- it is a completely arbitrary decision that the minimum wage should be calledto something whenever congress gets around to raising it. it could be pegged to cost of living. if it would be pegged to productivity, the minimum wage would be not seven dollars an hour but $19 an hour. that is a policy, political decision. is a purely policy question whether or not you have corporate charter reform.

they have to take those quarterly or even pay through the nose for ceo salaries. differentve a corporate charter that allows stakeholders have some influence. there are some actual decisions that get made. part of the reason i think this whole conversation is important -- we live in the united states of amnesia. that is where we live. there is no history beyond the us, tweet, for most of thinking about anything. it is almost like the middle class fell out of the constitution. [laughter] you know, we have america, we have the middle-class. we forget the greatest invention in the world is the middle class and it was invented here. it was created and built here

not only by the employers, but also by labor unions which you don't even think about anymore. but labor unions used to be a huge, huge deal and trying to get employers to behave in a particular way. the new deal. the way we got a middle class, the way we had the american dream, we put employers at the center. employers had a contrast with the west of us, they were going to keep it going by keeping us investing in roads and education. they would pay fair wages. that was the deal. we build the whole economy around you but you keep the game going by paying taxes. investing,keep and fair wages. at some point, employers decided they want going to do that anymore and now you have

employers and corporations sitting on big piles of cash, but they are not investing it. the american corporations pay taxes and then they live in bermuda. it is a weird thing. you don't see anybody going to jail. so i just want to say that i agree technology is doing something really terrible. >> wait. >> it feels terrible for a lot of people but i think there are accomplices that need to be called out. >> i am the guy that thinks technology is a good thing. >> i will stand up with you on that. >> i am a very big fan. >> so am i. anna.not a polly >> i don't believe it solves things all by itself. i was reading andy's book and that's also really interesting parallels. van touches on some of this. when we lived through the industrial revolution, we saw the gilded age. right? ofall know the stories

rockefellers and carnegie and the era we were living through and this real stratification. we also saw public policy come together to rectify some of that or change that direction. it was very bipartisan. it was very bipartisan. >> hear, hear. >> you go down and you see what the progressive republican era was about. >> when was the last time you heard those words side-by-side? >> it was how long is the work week? how long is the labor force? when can children go to work? pushing education, we kept increasing it. you had a way for the democrats to take over which pushed labor unions, social insurance, massively progressive taxation. you had a whole slew of public policy that was directed to rein in what they saw as excesses. part of that required there to be a consensus. you had to have a political consensus.

we are going through something similar. we have this technology driving us forward, this incredible opportunity. network effects, digital effects where you can replicate things cheaply. for a lot of reasons. you get a lot of mass wealth creation at the top. we haven't figured out the public policy to rein that in and share it more broadly. we haven't figured it out and we don't have any consensus around solving the problem which is part of what makes it tricky. let me give you my one epiphany from reading this. if we lived through that last era and we drove education from something that wasn't even accessible unless you were rich to mass, public, and required for 10 years -- what have we done for 70 years? we haven't moved that forward. maybe the answer is two years before -- universal pre-k or universal pre-pre-k. or maybe you can't quit when you're 16. you have to stay until you're 18 or 20.

i know adults can make their own decisions. when you see the chart that says if you get through college you're going to make so much more wealth, we have to figure out how to motivate ourselves to drive people through that. i said this to joe earlier and he said some people are not made to go to college. 50, 60 years ago, how many people sitting in this room were not "made to go to college" because of their ethnic heritage, their religious heritage, because of their gender? there are a lot more people that we can push a lot more further if we had the right incentives. we have the right policy and the right support. people knew this is what the community expects. you have to do this to be part of where we are going and we have to get out there and motivate and work to make that happen. maybe we need to require people to get more education and see where that takes us. >> that sounds like a democrat. >> joe, i have to jump in. when i go on my technology rant, my fellow panelists point out two immediate reactions.

the first reaction is that technology must be bad. no, no, no. the old joke among economists is that technological progress is the only free lunch we believe in. trying to stop the flow of technology or stop this era we are in makes less sense to me then padlocking all the schools. it is the worst possible move we can make. technology is growing the pie. the question is about the distribution of the pie because there is no economic law that says that everybody has to benefit equally from the benefit -- from the bounty of technology. the data i was showing was my attempt to get across the fact that distribution is becoming a thornier issue. this is not written in stone. when i show my data, you can walk away a little bit fatalistic. we are absolutely not screwed. i couldn't agree more that

technology is not destiny. we get to shape our destiny as a society. there are policy changes and choices we can make that will be effective at reversing the course and bringing back some of the stuff. a large stable of prosperous middle class is just one of the jewels of what america has created. let us polish that jewel, not wait for it to get tarnished. >> what i want to point out is -- we talked a little bit about inequality in the pure numbers and income. the african-american middle class in particular is in real peril. that is why i am really interested in this conversation. i want to point out -- we often talk about african-americans as a proxy for the poor. there is an african-american middle class, representatives of which are living in the white

house right now. [laughter] that chunk of the middle-class is in peril. i want to point out that african-americans had a strategy, after dr. king, to get into the middle class and stay there. all three pillars of that strategy have been knocked over. college education, employment mainly in the public sector -- you talk to most african-american middle class, their dad was a teacher or postal work or firefighter -- and homeownership. that was it. the homeownership piece of it was huge. so huge you never heard a single african-american athlete when they get their big contract say, "i am going to buy my mama some stocks and bonds."

[laughter] not once. a house. that is a huge deal. we were not allowed to own property for a very long time and the middle-class folks said stocks and bonds are like gambling. we are not going to be irresponsible. college is unaffordable, the public sector is shrinking and -- we lost 70% of our wealth. we are now back to the same wealth level that we had back when dr. king was killed in three years because of that strategy. especially now, it is important as we are thinking about where the middle class goes. you have some parts suffering and don't have a go forward strategy. >> what some of you guys were saying about -- as we see this so-called superstar effect where there is a spreading out of return on ability.

you have this different thing in a knowledge-based economy where if we are both factory workers, there are so many more wages an hour you can make. you can be 10,000 times as productive if we were software engineers. is there something inherent to that as we see individual productivity? how do we sort of catch up to that? >> this is a great question because there are two very, very different views on what is going on with that superstar chart. one is a little bit what joe had just said which you are seeing a meritocracy in action. every guy or woman running a high-tech company that i talk to says, i cannot place a high enough premium on really good engineers. a good one is worth, not 10 or a hundred times more than an average one, it is like thousands of times better and i will pay them ridiculous

premiums to come work with me. the poaching that goes on is crazy. people like mark zuckerberg and some of the superstars of silicon valley have created ridiculous amounts of value. the other point of view is -- it is kind of like up at the top of the earnings chain. i pay you a lot, and you pay me a lot, and we go home happy. the debate rages about which of those two is going on. the clearest answer is both are pretty clearly going on. i have also seen some work that most at the folk at the top of the one percent are basically people -- they are not innovators, they are the people running very large organizations. how much is that meritocracy? we can argue about that. they are clearly both of those effects going on at the very high end.

>> yes. welcome, andrew. >> sorry i was late. that was only one runway open. i couldn't get here any faster. >> i work as a venture capitalist and there is no doubt there is this question of do we pay people that run big companies too much because of they are running them and what is the differentiation? one of the things that is interesting is that we are continuing to see in small businesses, where you have private equity ownership, the men and women who own the company are on the board and are very involved day-to-day, we are continuing to see that. we are pushing ceo pay up dramatically faster than the other people in the company. it speaks to the fact that we think there is a meritocracy. people are not just lost in the public and nobody knows he has a sweetheart deal with the board --

>> you are seeing a ratcheting up of pay of people running even the companies you are involved in? because the war for talent is so severe? >> we feel like that differentiation -- back to the meritocracy you are seeing -- the company that wins is worth so much more than somebody else. maybe it is a ripple down of that winner take all solution. we are willing to pay up a lot for that even at the early stages of the company. >> i know this stuff makes a lot of sense if you think about it real hard. if you are a regular person, this is just horrible. we have to be honest. normal people are not sitting here trying to figure out, why this is great even if it is great. i live in california -- i live in d.c. and california. we have this thing called the tech flash.

essentially, in northern california, there is this town called oakland. it is within easy driving distance to silicon valley, about half an hour. people are making so much money in silicon valley that it feels like silicon valley purchased oakland to be a bedroom community for itself. we have seen that before, but this is weird. usually when some group comes in and they have some income, they start doing things to make things better for everyone. on the contrary. public transportation is not that good in oakland so google just bought its own buses. you are waiting for a bus in oakland. no city bus comes.

the google bus comes by with blacked out windows and wi-fi for the people who are allowed to go on the google bus. who is not you or your cousin. that is weird. its a privatized set of games. there is going to be situation at some point where my fear is that silicon valley starts seeming like the new wall street. it used to be that silicon valley was the proof of the american dream. it was the proof that you or anybody could go into your garage and you can work hard and you could succeed. now rather it being the proof, in some places it looks like it is the killer of the american dream. in this winner take all economy, these are the people that are going to disrupt everybody.

i was happy when they disrupted the music industry because i'm not in the music industry. i got good free stuff. it was wonderful. i thought they were going to stop there. >> like -- remember the old line when they came for the communists i didn't complain because i wasn't a communist. >> now, they are coming for me too. i wanted to turn the heat up a little bit because i think for ordinary people that are trying to understand, all they know this new technological elite that have been able to disrupt -- i didn't vote for these guys. they disrupt everything they can get their hands on, they make a ton of money. they are paying their ceos more than some countries got. how is that cool? >> i want to bring andrew in. i think -- he has been long involved in new york politics. i'm curious how you see what van is playing out or not playing

out here in new york? >> i want to apologize for not being a woman. we should have a woman on this panel. [applause] one thing i want to make sure everybody understands is that silicon valley does not represent the entire tech community. there is a lot more going on in new york where there is a tech renaissance happening. it is a very different culture than one you would see in silicon valley where the businesses was built on the marriage of the silicon chip to hardware. companies like apple and intel and google, and basically the infrastructure of the internet. in new york, we're living in the application layer where the real resource is human talent. there is no city in the world

that has a higher density of human talent than new york. you will see some sort of tech renaissance happening in cities where people are thinking about starting their own companies, trying to figure out some way to take advantage of these technologies which are disruptive, but also create a lot of opportunities. the problem i see in a lot of parts of the country and around the world is that the legislative and regulatory environment is not able to keep up with the speed of technology. van is right. there is eviction happening in oakland. there isn't enough speed to create infrastructure to satisfy the people that need to get work even if they have right to buy that apartment or house. google figures a workaround and if we allow all these workarounds to continue, we are going to have more disruption. i had a chance to read a review.

there was a fascinating book by thomas picketty. >> when you are done reading our book, read this one. >> there are two big points to be made in that book. the title of it is "capital in the 21st century." the first is you cannot separate economic thinking from political thinking because economists for decades have thought of themselves as scientists basically looking at data associated with economics and not how political theory would affect those economic determinations. the second big point is that when you have -- when capital grows faster than gdp, you will start seeing a big separation between the richer and poorer. >> guess what is going on these days? >> that is what is going on right now. there are all kinds of arguments to be made that will be a blip on the screen. in countries where gdp is growing, we are lifting up lots

of people into the middle class. 70% of the world population is living in a much higher standard of living than 10 or 15 years ago. the increase of people used to live on one dollar a day to two dollars a day which sounds like a ridiculous amount of money. that is a 100% increase in your income in bangladesh or some poor part of the world. the point is that there is an argument made that humanity as a whole is much better off now than it is ever been. i think we need to be really careful not to look at this issue through a straw and wind to start thinking about this more holistically. >> it doesn't matter if what is going on these days is economically rational if it is perceived as unfair. and economist will look at the google bus and say this is awesome.

it is not preventing anyone else from hopping on a bus. it is reducing carbon emissions. this is awesome news if it is perceived that this is bending the rules. i am kind of with you, there is a real danger that silicon valley is going to be perceived as the new wall street or engine of evil. that will be a dire outcome. it is incumbent on the tech community to engage in the conversation and make sure the perception doesn't head in that direction. to underscore something and you just said -- i think one of the most challenging elements of what we are going through is that the technology is changing so quickly that it is really hard for our institutions, our political decision-making processes to keep up. it is not the fastest moving part of the world but when

things are changing this quickly, it is really hard for a lot of our existing organizations and institutions to keep up. the only thing we can do as members of our organizations and society is advocate for the right kinds of changes. if we wait for washington to lead, they are going to follow what we want them to do. >> that is a great transition towards the solutions. >> a couple of things -- one is in politics i think we have -- what we have been telling ourselves and the public which is that we are the agents of change. there is campaign about hope and -- you got a problem? don't worry, we are going to change it. come to our protest or whatever.

i think we have to stop saying that. these guys are driving change. silicon valley in all of the metaphorical splendor, the technology guys in austin and boston and new york city and elsewhere, chicago, that is what is driving the change. politics needs this are saying we are not going to make change, someone else is doing that. we are going to make change your friend. the changes coming. to 3-d printers are coming, the robots are coming, the smart screens are coming. you would drive up to mcdonald's, there will be a flatscreen annual order and there will not be human being touching her order. that is coming. you didn't vote for that. change is coming. how do you make change your friend?

at the same time, two things i think are important -- number one, i was just in silicon valley yesterday. the level of non-diversity, you mentioned this panel not being diverse, the level of non-diversity -- i don't know if that is even a word -- the level of diversity -- the level of diversity was bad. [laughter] not to be too technical. it was really shocking to see, first of all, you go on this campuses. amazing stuff. the energy and creativity, but you just see -- how very bad it is. we are wasting genius. there is genius in african-american communities,

latino communities, genius in housing projects, genius in tech centers and we are wasting it even know we are building an industry built on genius. somebody is losing out on money and market share. it also means there are people that are missing out on opportunities to be part of this economy. i think we have to focus in on that. i love all this talk about stem and all the stuff. >> technology, engineering. >> if you know the people who came up with this, tell them not to do that. >> is new york better? >> i digress. stem by itself -- i get the rose, you get the -- it's better than thorns.

i'm all for science and math, but that is not a job training strategy. that is a long-term play to try to raise that. there was a man that i love to death named hank williams. he is one of the great godfathers of technology in the black community who is here. hank williams has a plan to spend $1 billion getting 100,000 low opportunity young people trained to have a jobs. that $1 billion, 10,000 kids a year for 10 years, $10,000 a kid. that gives $1 trillion to the economy. why don't we go ahead and do that? the public sector cannot move fast enough. a $1 billion is not that big a deal in the overall economy.

the first thing we have to do it technology is going to the leader, let's make sure technology includes everybody. [applause] >> one question is that what does andy's chart show that greater amount of education leads to more income. there was very little correlation between education and income. there was an argument to be made that education which we think of as equalizers become the great un-equalizer. education is highly hereditary. you look at silicon valley and the people who have graduated at top universities and it doesn't look very diverse.

>> they have east asians and south asians, what you talking about? [laughter] how we change our education system? thatucation is something everyone in this room is passionate about. but i think there is an argument -- theade about scarcity difference between scarcity and abundance in education. the internet offers an opportunity for abundance. year -- howof the many hours of the year our schools actually open? kids are actually in class about nine percent of the year. countrya ram in this

that makes schools and libraries attack should -- attached to the internet. republicans are trying to defund it. when gives her -- when kids are in school, that's about one percent of the year. how many of you would be productive and successful if you had access to the internet one percent of all the time in your life? [laughter] [indiscernible] >> we have to start thinking of information is currency. i think the biggest opportunity -- related to try and accelerate the amount of education and training that is available to underserved communities in this country. we have a huge problem with the fact that we have a broadband duopoly in this country. it makes it beyond the reach of most working-class people to participate in the economy.

80 or $90 a month -- $80 or $90 a month is beyond the reach of most middle-class families. you have kids holding up lap tops outside of libraries trying to pick up wi-fi. they are doing their homework on their cell phones. they shouldn't be. can in some degrees and the chains of socioeconomic constraints. we don't have enough teachers to teach stem to kids that want to learn. we're going to throw humanities out the window in our rush to get stem education. we should be really really careful about focusing on just in science and math and really taking a holistic approach. i want to connect this back to policy for a second. if you look at how much money has gone into the pockets of politicians, paid for by comcast

and verizon and others -- you will start to see a pattern of trying to protect the market. there are 19 states that have laws on the books that make it impossible for a state municipality or county to offer broadband services to its employees. 19 states. some state legislature proposed they were going to give information access to the lower-priced to their citizens, and those lobbyists went to those legislators and packed tons of campaign contributions into those pockets. and laws are passed now blocking information access. but it's worse than that. but now i'm going to give you a different scenario. company orent institution founded before 1994 that today wants to see the ,nternet in everyone's hands available as low cost and with much information into the hands of people as possible? think about it.

1994 is ground zero. that is one the mosaic rouser was invented. organizations before that, they hate the internet. it is disruptive to their market. they may have social media strategies, they may be using internet t karst, they want to put the genie back in the bottle. look at the nsa. what does that tell you about our trying to control information? if you look at companies after companiesney for -- after 1994. the closer you were to ground zero starting a company, i.e. google, the more you wanted to see information spread. google had a mission. do no evil. however, the further and further away they have gotten from 1984, they have had to turn themselves into a pretzel.

longer able to do no evil, because the two major reasons. one, the guys who got started before 1994 are now getting and regulations are pushing back. they had to take the data. they collect information on us. the average person who just wants the information is getting screwed. where do we all fit in? let me ask you this question. walking through from beginning to end before you agree on that act you just downloaded on your phone? one person? we are having a massive debate about the openness of the internet and net neutrality.

in thatot participating conversation, and do you know whose fault that is? hours. dictating the future. so van is right we are not disrupting politics. that is the polyp -- problem. it is not going to work that way. you have to have an open democracy so the byproduct is an open internet. an open internet is not going to create an open democracy. >> any economist would talk about the right playbook. it is straightforward.

this will tell you what the classic playbook is. infrastructure, and a little bit of a force fit. research into fundamental technologies. we are doing a lousy job at most elements of the playbook right now. we talked a little bit about education. i could not agree more. amber mentioned rock band. this is america. what are we doing with this? this makes no sense. maybe the econ 101 playbook is not going to be sufficient to get us out of the situation we are in. it's absolutely necessary, and we are doing a lot of it right now. >> as we have seen, we are

currently fighting about how much to cut government budget. a lot of things he said are pretty expensive. how can our political system actually get us there? >> it requires people to get involved and make the case to their elected officials that is what they really want. does anyone think the world was different in the 1920's or 1930's when general electric controlled the electric supply and they said it was too expensive to run electricity to a farmhouse in rural counties? absolutely it was the same debate. can the government give them money? the government decided to borrow

money and to make an investment, and they didn't just admit to the large corporations. they actually build rural cooperatives designed to keep the cost down. they weren't for profit. they were designed to keep the cost down so forever they would have low-cost access to unbelievable technology. how much more education can you get when you have light? to read at night after you have worked on the farm. this is revolutionary change, and the guys in the city had it. the people in upstate new york weren't getting the same benefits. we had the political will to come together and do that. it requires people to say to their elected officials that's what they want. decisions can be done. it's not impossible. you can overcome selected interest fighting against it, and you can come up with a better solution than just giving the money to corporations. >> the issue on immigration reform seems to be a

of just what you are talking about. the majority of american people support comprehensive immigration reform. yet we don't have it yet. can you give us a quick explanation of why not? [laughter] >> i can. you have something called the hastert rule. you have the speaker of the house who said unless a majority of republicans want it to go to the floor, it wouldn't go to the floor. they won't let the bill come to the floor. that means there has to be a majority of republicans who are going to get called by people in in their districts by getting people locally, business owners and others, to get the bill to the floor.

you do need a majority of the republicans in the house and the majority of democrats in the senate to be pushing the same thing at the same time. that doesn't explain why we didn't pass it 10 years ago. there was less public support of its five years ago. the other big thing going on, and i think it's useful for people to understand. migration reform -- sounds simple? we all know what that means? at least republicans are talking about six different bills. there are things they agree about and things they don't. the coalitions aren't always the same. one of the things that goes on in washington is this might be popular with everybody, but leadership doesn't necessarily let that pass because they want these other three things. if they keep the popular thing and attach these other things, maybe it will pull it along, so there are pieces of immigration reform you could pass in the house and the senate but for various political reasons doesn't happen because people

are trying to work the angles to get other pieces of it attached. >> it would be passed no problem. >> they believe they are less likely to get that reform. it's not that complicated. it's just frustrating. >> andrew said we shouldn't put these things through a straw. your explanation of how the house is working is accurate but inadequate. there are lots of different things going on. first there is the way the public is being informed right now. i would argue with any of you if you haven't uncle or ex boyfriend or girlfriend who gets their news from a news station

named after predatory, dishonest furry mammal. >> you are not naming names. >> it is a predatory mammal known for being dishonest that you cannot trust them. you cannot trust them to guard the hen house. i am not going to mention fox by name. i'm just saying. here's the reality. if we have to make real change we have to be more sophisticated than the thing we are trying to change. the strategy by itself will fail. what we have got to understand is we have found ourselves in a moment where we have the best

information distribution system in the history of the world. we have more access to more data, but we are getting dumber because the information system is growing and the wisdom system is not. there is something missing at this stage of the story where we actually don't understand each other. i'm on a show called crossfire. i get a stand -- a chance to stand by my friend newt gingrich. think we live in different countries. we haven't figured out how to hack it where people can pick their own information and honestly believe barack obama has opened the borders and let people fled the country. you know, these canadians, flood the country, when he has supported more than any president before, so we can't

even agree on the facts. rule would not be a terrible rule if we could be outside of this pick your own blog rule reality where people can't even agree on basic facts, so the problems are much more complex. i think it's very important what hank is doing. he has got to get more people involved to have a stake in the problem so when you give people the tools and technology you are just giving it to one demographic. everyone. challenge many of your not from here. probably most of you are not from new york. call your friends from alabama or north dakota and talk to the

people who watch fox news every day. don't talk to your friends who watch msnbc. >> i want to underscore this. most people that i know are people like myself. friendless nerds, bully magnets, unloved by anyone outside of our immediate family and not everyone in our immediate family. [laughter] we have fled from the middle of the country where we reinvented ourselves and in the best to forget all those people, and now most of us can't even go home for thanksgiving without inflicting or receiving massive amounts of trauma because we can't communicate. that's something we can no

longer indulge. we know how to not piss off everybody at the dinner table and make a point. progressive democrats. frankly, as intolerant as we sometimes accuse. i appreciate your saying that. >> i live in cambridge, massachusetts, and i have no idea what you are talking about. [laughter] >> you can ask questions through the ipad. i'm going to ask the audience questions. some of the questions have got an answer on their own. when do we say simply working hard at mcdonald's isn't enough? when do we turn our attention to there is a lot of people working 50, 60, 70 hours a week at

minimum wage jobs. working really hard. they are not making anything close to middle-class wage. at what point does the mentality change? >> there was a really good point by milton friedman. from the 1960's. he said above some level of income you have got to give some money back. richard nixon, a bunch of these crazy pinkos got together in the 60's and said above some income you pay back. how about you give money to the government? it provides a direct incentive for work. we have this great fondness for work that i think is extraordinarily well placed. it gives you something to do. it gives you meaning. it gives you a community.

my solution is if people are working hard and not able to top them off.'s nixon championed it for a while. it's time to bring these ideas into the public discourse. >> i agree with that. that's policy. that's the kind of thing you can get a working-class coalition going. the people can say it's good because it works and the people from the liberal station can say it's good because it's the equality. you get something done. suddenly a lot of those numbers will different because technology is different but because policy is different. i think that's important. we can be completely impotent when it comes to policy.

that is a very dangerous place for us to be. >> the overt role in economics is to tax the stuff you want to see less of an subsidize the stuff you want to see more of. the u.s. federal government gets 80% of its taxes from taxes on labor. if we like labor we are violating the fundamental tenant of economics. we can shift that around if we want to. i am completely with van. we can change our policies in the face of this financial tidal wave that is hitting us. we are not helpless at all. >> did you have any government transfer stuff that would be separate from what you are showing? >> it does not exist. >> would that have been in there? >> yes. >> there is one thing i wanted to address. immigration reform pushes it out

but it doesn't pay for tech executives. will immigration reform push back wages for skilled workers like software developers? >> in some cases yes. in some cases no. we have a talent gap. we have to figure out someway to get talented to this country to proceed and train teachers to go into public schools. we need that in every way possible. unfortunately, we are not going to see any kind of tax reform in this country for a long time, so looking to the government to try to solve this problem by policy is a little ways off. sorryunately, van, i'm to say. yes, it would be great if we were calling up our friends in

parts of the country that should be calling their elected representatives and passing immigration reform, but we keep thinking somehow we are going to elect people who are going to solve our problems instead of looking around ourselves and try to solve our own problems. >> what does that look like? give me an example. >> you have probably heard of e-government. that's where government is using the tools we use every day to deliver the tools we expect them to deliver. government is starting to use more of these tools every day, creating efficienciees of various kinds. but they are also collecting massive amounts of data. some governments are starting to release that data to the public. people are taking that data and building on top of that. moreover, we are collecting lots of data ourselves. when we are walking down the street or in a car we are collecting data. some people are merging that data with government data. they are building new platforms that are useful to people in

their daily lives. they are doing it faster than government. my favorite example is exit app whichwhich is an tells you where to stand on the platform at the subway. the stairway is right in front of you. they took data they collected themselves. they would not give the data to them because the police said it was a security threat, and they basically built that map. the open source tool built during the kenyan election was disputed and used in haiti to help people identify where resourcesere, where were. it was not built by fema. it was built by people. what we have an opportunity to do is to go from waiting for me

government -- e-government and get ourselves to we government where we build the village we want. in tribal times you weren't concerned about your neighbor's ability to throw a spear as you were about your own because your own life might depend upon it. we have lived in a factory model of education and economics where we forgot about facing each other in solving our own problems. we don't need more civic acts. we need acts that are more civic. imagine if air b&b started using it to rent to each other so they could petition for a bus or a betterark or for a school or universal pre-k ? uber weree owners of the drivers themselves? you talk about the shared

economy. everybody talks about the share in economy, but they always get paid in cash. it's not a sharing economy. the way to solve political problems is not to wait for government alone. it is to partner with government and to partner with each other. >> the initial question was about immigration reform in middle and skilled wages. it is clear. if anyone is hurt by immigration, it ain't very many people. it ate very much. if anyone is hurt it is set the low end of the wage. busboys and dog rumors and things like that. the evidence is mixed. if they are hurt it isn't much. we do not need to debate this anymore. the research is clear. >> i want to go to a

forward-looking question. we all kind of agree the robots are coming. the question is when. the question is if it is an inevitable. at some point when androids can make androids, are there new jobs created, or do we need to reevaluate whether work is something everybody should be doing? we associate work as your purpose and your income, and that has served us well. ethic.of protestant does that change in a world of massive automation? >> i think that's a key question. i think increasingly having the orientation he is talking about is going to be the key to the whole thing. i love what he is doing. the way this is going to come

down, the middle class itself, the strategy was how do you get the middle class getting middle-class wage? how do you get to be middle class? i think it's going to be very difficult in this country. here the expectation gap is getting bigger. people thought it would be living this way and they are not. when i go out on the road i see it everywhere. >> it's about having a middle-class life, not necessarily a middle-class wage. there are going to have to be 30 strategies, not one. middle-classe a life. they will keep fighting for jobs, keep fighting for wages. i think it's a losing battle. we are going to be losing more jobs in the united states than we are creating, but i think you are going to have to do to other things.

i think you're going to have to have some kind of redistribution at the government level. there is going to be something that is done so the middle-class cannot just collapse. happynot going to be a outcome. to andrew's point, wages, government has to get involved, and there has got to be some return to some barnraising approach. a neighborly nest. the idea that we are in this together. not do it your self. it's do it together. that basic ethic of using technology to find ways to solve problems together, if you do it right, you might wind up with -- lifestyle, maybe if you are using your social capital more than capital, you may

have a better quality of life. the middle-class life may be better even if we have less jobs, but we have to come to some consensus that we have to start figuring out how we make that work. if we keep telling people you're going to be able to get a middle-class wage, and if you don't it's because the government is run by crazy socialist kenyan or because you are lazy. at some point the stress gets to the point where people start turning to each other or on each other. there is a way for us to turn to each other, using technology to solve the problem. that's the only way out of this. >> so the robots are clearly coming. we just don't know how quickly. i think the absolute wrong strategy is to assume that day is going to come and start planning for it right now. i think the right strategy is to look ahead for the next decent chunk of time. our economy is still recognizable. we still need people as inputs

to the economy. maybe down the road, that is not the case anymore. talking about the entrepreneurs and innovators out there, they say, you have no idea what is coming. the supercomputers. that is the warm-up. we are about to roll out some heavy stuff. even so, that is not going to happen in the next five or 10 years. i completely agree with what andrew and van said. try to do everything you can to have economic growth, because we are still adding jobs to the economy every month. we are not short jobs. e-i-e-i-o. incentivize work instead of penalize it. perspective, that

is absolutely what we should be doing. foread of doing planning the world of robots who are taking care of everything. i think that world is actually coming within the lifetimes of most people in this room, but i do not think it is where we should be spending our energy right now. are putting massive amounts of wealth in the hands of a small number of people. wealth, but so much what are you going to do with $19 billion? even if they want to give it away, they probably cannot, because they do not have the infrastructure to give it away. and they may have signed a to give half of their money away when they die, they are probably not going to die, because they will find some .echnology to keep them alive

they have found out how to edit risk out of their portfolios. foundation, and gates and others, who are giving money where they can, but they are not putting massive amounts communities,nd beyond people like hank who could lose some of it and make the mistakes and learn along the way. we need a new generation of philanthropists who understand opportunity in order to leapfrog and start funding projects. our government is not going to fund it. our media does not want to turn to each other. capital, andneed that is going to have to come from visionary, young leaders and technology. need to solve problems for the second and third world.

>> the last word. >> i do not disagree really with anything that andrew just said. looking back at american history, one of the favorite things they studied and talked about is how did this country come to be, and the famous battle was the battle of saratoga. the british army was coming down, and they were going to cut the country in two. they had the biggest army in the world. and along the way, they kept coming, and the americans kept fighting. eventually, they destroyed that army. the army hadrst on been beaten by a ragtag force. this happened in sarasota, in the congressional district. how did this happen? what could have happened? what happened to the british?

tocqueville came here. he looked around and said, what happened here? this is exactly what andrew is describing. unique and allow the country to come into existence was a vocal community groups. it was the town square in new england. it was the folks that came together, 10 guys with the town square, with their own government, solving their own problems. it was just the community coming together to solve their problems. they armed up and fought, and they kept coming. that little community group, whatever it is, it became the --kiwans club. we have lost some of that.

foreveran sit and play with his computer or playing mine craft with all of his friends. the local community that is willing to fight. i do not think we have to go as far as dying, but they were willing to do that. do thatmmunity could together, and i think that is where we need to go. round of applause. thank you guys so much. [applause] as that was fascinating, if you are interested in events, you should join. $35 a year. you also get a copy of the book. and if you have thoughts on future topics you would like to

around, ourations goal is to have serious, thoughtful conversations about some of the big topics. so thank you, everybody, for coming. good to see you again also. >> thanks. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] asiae president goes to today but stopped off in washington state early this tour mudslidell damaged areas and meet with victims families. willement to --c-span2 have comments. and the president leads for a

japan,g asian trip with malaysia, south korea, the philippines. the visits were originally planned for october but canceled due to the government shutdown. also tonight, governor chris christie delivers remarks at the new jersey congressional dinner in washington, live coverage starting at 7:15 p.m. here on c-span. >> president obama pledged action bold and swift, not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth. today, we are passing his stork legislation that honors the promises our new president made from the steps of the capitol, promises to make the future better for our children and our grandchildren. only eight days after the president's address, this health byl at boldly and swiftly

passing the american recovery and reinvestment act to create and save 3 million jobs by rebuilding america. that is why the bill has the support of 146 eminent economists, including five nobel prize winners, who in a letter to congress this week state, and i quote, the plan imposes important investment that can start to overcome the nation's damaging loss of jobs by saving or creating millions of jobs and to put the united states back onto a sustainable, long-term growth path. more highlights from 35 years of health were coverage on our facebook page. c-span. created by american cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider.

>> the supreme court has upheld the michigan ban about a factor of using race in admissions. the justices sat in a 6-2 ruling that michigan voters have the right to change their state constitution to prohibit all the colleges and universities from taking account of race in admissions decisions. justice anthony kennedy said voters chose to eliminate these because they deem them unwise, just as justice sotomayor or read her dissent. justice ruth bader ginsburg and sided with sotomayor or. there was a washington post article today. and justice sotomayor or who dissented on the michigan affirmative action case talked about her life and career at georgetown university earlier this month. nation's first hispanic justice looked at working as a district and appellate judge and now serving on the supreme court. she also touched on breaking

barriers for latinos. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. welcome to georgetown. it is my pleasure to be with you for one of the very special events, the symposium. deepesto express my appreciation to justice sotomayor or for joining us this afternoon. justice, it is an honor to have you here, and i know that i speak for everyone in this room. i would also like to thank the chief judge of the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit for being with us this afternoon and for all of his work to make this symposium possible. i look forward to introducing

him to you in just a few moments. i also want to thank the professor, the associate professor at the law center, for moderating our discussion today. governmentf our department will offer comments. for joining us for this very special event. >> eloise, you can ask me. >> this is going to get good. these, so i can tell you this is going to be a lot of fun. in symposium was created memory. they continue to influence scholars today.

at princeton, he served as president. and then for the last seven years of his life, as professor of politics and philosophy here, on our campus that georgetown, it is a privilege for us to host this symposium, and it is an honor for the ongoing discussions with policymakers and students on the challenges and opportunities confronting our institutions. been gladars, we have to welcome valerie jarrett and others to this, and we are deeply grateful. tonight, we have the privilege of welcoming justice sonia sotomayor or and hearing her on a life in the law. for over three decades, she has served work as a prosecutor, as a litigator, and a judge, and to

introduce justice sotomayor or, i want to introduce chief judge katzman for the second circuit. president clinton appointed him to the federal bench in 1999, september 13.n like his mentor, the judge is a valued member of the community, having taught on campus as a professor of government and a professor of law and public policy. he is currently a member of the board of visitors of our law center and is one of the founders of this symposium, and she continued to oversee and organize. the conference committee of the judicial branch before his appointment to the second circuit, a fellow of governmental studies programs at , androokings institution

he taught classes at the universities of oregon and ucla and georgetown. received an award from the american political science association. in 2003, he was named a fellow of the american academy of arts and sciences. off, we are so honored to welcome me back to campus this afternoon. thank you for your leadership and generosity. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming judge katzman. [applause] >> thank you. good afternoon, everyone. thank you, president, for your extremely kind remarks.

it's always great to be back at georgetown and to have a chance to see you and my many colleagues. many here this afternoon stirs the mystic cords of memory. it's a very personal experience. thinking back some two decades ago when the bernstein lecture was launched with vice president gore and continued with so many luminaries. anotherlso mention mentor of mine, daniel patrick moynihan. it's been great to be connected to this georgetown community. i've enjoyed coming back here, enjoyed being on the board of visitors for many years. i've witnessed the hard-headed leadership of dean treanor in these very difficult times. i knew bernstein very well. he really was one of two people who was responsible for my joining the faculty. before we get to the main event, i'm going to speak to you very briefly about three people -- marver bernstein, sonia sotomayor, and eloise pasachoff.

my friend marver bernstein admired individuals of professional excellence, committed to public service, of high moral character, and striving to reach beyond their seaming grasp until they attain their aspirations no matter the difficulties. marver bernstein would have loved sonia sotomayor. you students here at georgetown may primarily know of justice sotomayor as a trail-blazing supreme court justice that she is. upon her nomination to the supreme court, the third woman ever nominated, the first latina, her name and fame skyrocketed so that to this day she can't walk down a street with someone, without someone, a cab driver, a bus driver, anyone, coming up to her and telling how inspiring her life story is, what she means to that person, to that family.

i've seen it happen every single time since we've gone out since her appointment. she is accessible to everyone. indeed, she is the people's justice. people of all youths feel a connection with her. those who must struggle every day, often people of color, feel that their dreams can be realized because of her. the warmth and respect given to my friend is palpable. sonia, regardless of what is going on in her life, is always friendly, takes a photo with the person who comes up to her. she gives it her all to everyone 24/7, 365 days a year. who is she? who is sonia sotomayor? i remember sonia sotomayor in law school. she stood out for a number of reasons. she was brilliant, principled, hard-working, determined, caring about others, generous and full of life.

after law school we lived in different cities, had different jobs. and this being before e-mail and internet, lost touch. but our paths crossed again when she was considered for judicial appointment to the southern district of new york by president clinton and senator moynihan. i can well remember saying to senator moynihan when he said, "who is sonia sotomayor?" and i said, "well, she's brilliant, principled, hard-working, determined, caring about others, generous, full of life, and will make an outstanding judge on the district court. and beyond." i joined the 2nd circuit in 1999. she was on it beginning in 1998. we fast became close colleagues. on the second circuit if asked how would i describe her, i

would say, well, brilliant, principled, hard-working, determined, caring about others, generous and full of life. [laughter] and now almost five years on the supreme court i would say pretty much the same. [laughter] as someone very proud to call sonia a close friend, i can personally attest to her extraordinary prowess and excellence on the bench. she is a judge's judge, a lawyer's lawyer. no one loves the law, its structure, its history, its language more than she does. taking apart an argument, pulling apart the pieces, analyzing the logic, tracing the precedent, connecting the case of the constitution, relating the issues to history and today's world, satisfy her intellectually and i think emotionally. she loves what she does. no one on the bench is more prepared than she is for oral argument. no one more eager than she is to

explore what is going on on a case in the effort to get it right, to get that decision right. thinking about sonia sotomayor, it is not just her professional dedication and excellence i admire. it is also her incredible generosity as a friend to so many. she is a friend, as i've said, for all seasons, in good times and bad. i also admire her ability to live a full life, to incorporate life's great pleasures be it travel, dance, restaurants, an expansive social life. now, whether you're interested in law or not, the justice 's story of her life can't help but interest you. each of you here today is the beneficiary, will be the beneficiary, of an extraordinary gift. the justice is my beloved world, extraordinarily autographed by her for each of you.

just think about that. 1,000 copies autographed by a busy supreme court justice. [applause] and by the way, i know you're going to love that book so much. it's free to you, but you're going to go out and buy some more copies. [laughter] it's available in paperback for your siblings, your friends, your cousins. [laughter] know, i fully expect that of each of you. "my beloved world" is a book for the ages, attesting to the extraordinary life, an industrious life, of a highly accomplished and truly accomplished cosmopolitan lawyer and judge. the work inspires us, gives hope to dream, to overcome obstacles to not give up, to realize the potential that is within each of us no matter our life circumstance. no wonder "my beloved world" within days of being published

was ranked number one on "the new york times" bestseller where it lived for weeks and weeks. for us, her readers, "my beloved world" is now our beloved world. and for many reasons, as we will explore, this compellingly readable, multi-layered memoir about an important judge is already an american classic. justice sotomayor and i share in common a former clerk, eloise pasakoff, now a distinguished professor of law at georgetown university law center. i first met eloise nearly a decade ago. she was not only an amazing law clerk with a penetrating mind, sharp analytical skills, and mature judgment. she was and is a wonderfully giving person. her career has been nothing short of spectacular, few beta

phi beta kappa from harvard, mpa from kennedy school of government, harvard law school. she was in 2012, the steven s. goldberg awardee for distinguished scholarship and education law, already a beloved teacher. her teaching and research interests include education, social welfare law and policy, administrative law, governance, and regulation. i predict that if she's not a dean or a university president or a judge, who knows, the sky's the limit. i mean, she's really extraordinary. so when thinking about this eloise immediately came to mind. it is now my great honor and privilege to present in conversation the extraordinary eloise pasachoff and my friend and my sister, the truly extraordinary associate justice

sonia sotomayor. [applause] >> well, thank you, judge, for that incredibly generous introduction. and hello,president, justice sotomayor. >> hello, eloise. >> it is such a pleasure to be with you here today. >> i always love having you back. i don't think he mentioned that she was my law clerk my first year as a supreme court justice. and that's what we share in common, but we share a whole lot of other things in common.

when he called me "sister," i called him my brother. and you can see why. no one could have a more loyal bobsupportive friend than katzman. and i joke with him all the time that there is a protocol in the federal system. you get to be chief judge by seniority. and i was appointed before bob. and in the normal course of things, i would have been chief judge first and he would have followed me. so to speed up his appointment, he managed to get me appointed to the supreme court. [laughter] >> so i actually wanted to start by talking with you a little bit about your first day on the supreme court, which i was privileged to watch as one of the law clerks your first year. so just to set the scene a little, the senate confirmed you on a thursday. i recall i think you were sworn in over the weekend. >> mm-hmm. >> and monday morning, 9:00 a.m., there you showed up for work. >> i did. but actually, it was earlier

because i showed up and went to the gym first. [laughter] >> oh, well. as judge katzmann says, she lives a full life. has a good set of priorities. >> and i went to the gym, and i came back. and sitting in the outer office talking to the law clerks was justice stevens, who became a dear and very close friend in the year i served with him. we went into the office. he welcomed me to the court. and i said to him, "i had just asked the security guards that morning if you were in the courthouse, and they told me you hadn't arrived yet" he said, "i wanted to beat you to the office." so we're talking, and in walks sandra day o'connor. now, you have to understand, from the moment i had been nominated by the president on memorial day in that may, something happened to me where i

had an outer body experience. for a year and a half, it seemed to me as if i was watching myself go through these incredible things that were happening around me. it was almost as if i had to disengage from my emotions, or i would become so overwhelmed that i would be ineffective. and this was yet again another one of those continuing moments where two icons of mine in the law walked in to say hello to me. that was the start of my morning. as you must understand, it is breathtaking. i lived for a year and a half hoping nobody woke me up from my dream, that nobody would pinch me and that i would wake up and think this was just a fantasy. but that was the start of my day. >> what a start. >> yeah.

>> so i wanted to ask you about one of my recollections of that first day as well. in addition to meeting all of the other justices who were in the building, you also made a point of going around and meeting all of the elevator operators. we went to the cafeteria, and you made a point of meeting the cafeteria workers. >> we had lunch. >> we did have lunch. >> are you going to tell them they made me chair -- >> they made her chair of the cafeteria committee. [laughter] she does important work. >> yeah. and the following july "the washington post" did an evaluation of the government cafeterias in the city. and the supreme court cafeteria got an f. [laughter] >> i think it would have gotten an f-minus beforehand. >> at any rate, the chief sends me a letter the next day because elana kagan had been nominated. we all sort of expected she ws

coming on board, and i wrote back. "this was according to plan." [laughter] at any rate, yes, we did do that that day. i was overwhelmed by the building, by the way. >> it is a beautiful building. >> for those of you who are coming to this university, if you don't take the time to come to the supreme court and take a tour, you're doing yourself a big disfavor. it is not only a beautiful building. it's an impressive historic building. and our tours will teach you so much about the law and about the constitution and about our seriousness as justices concerning the role we play in protecting the constitution. so i encourage everybody. i know how busy you can be as students. i was one of them. i did very little exploring of the community i lived in, but it is worthwhile to take advantage of coming to the court one day. it's important.

>> one of the things i took from your meeting with the justices, from meeting with the elevator operators and the folks in the cafeteria is that in addition to the majesty of the law, in the ways you've just spoken of, that the law is a human institution and that relationships matter. >> well, one of the things that i became struck with my very first day and it continued and has continued to this day is how many employees in the supreme court have been there either since the beginning of their careers or for decades. one of them that day came to visit me, the head of our historical society. he said to me, "justice, i love this institution. and because i love this institution i will be your friend forever and i will guard you and your reputation and the court's reputation with my own

life." that attitude sort of comes through the building. but what you're asking is something a little bit different. i very much understand that in one succeeds by themselves. i often hear some people say, "i made it on my own, nobody helped me." and i keep thinking inside of me that's just not true. it can't be and isn't true of anybody because whether you run a business or you're in an office or you're a supreme court justice, you've got people working around you to support your effort. and if you don't take the time

to recognize that, then you're forgetting that basic truth. we don't work alone. you have to be grateful to those who help you. and that's in part what my book was about, was to talk to people about looking around their lives and recognizing those who have participated in reaching where they are. >> let's talk a little bit about that more. there's a real theme in the book about the role of mentors and the role of being open to finding mentors, working with mentors, but also about the role of taking ownership of your own learning and seeking opportunities to learn out. there's a wonderful story in the book about how you sought out one of your 5th grade classmates to ask her how to study. i wonder if you could tell us -- well, tell us that story. it's a great story. then maybe tell us a little bit about how you see these themes of working with mentors and taking charge of your own learning at the same time maybe

in a way that would be relevant for the folks in the audience. >> you'll learn in the book that i started out in grammar school as a not very good student. i attribute a great deal of that to the fact that i had started my life learning spanish before english. and it wasn't until i got to school that i actually began to be taught english. so rather four rocky years of school of not quite understanding what was happening around me. and obviously my grades reflected that. then my dad dies, and we had a prolonged period of time in which my mom was depressed. and i fled to reading to be able to escape the sadness in my home. that may, in some ways, have saved my life because it gave me a window of another world. i tell kids all the time reading is your passport to the universe.

anyplace, not only in the world but in the entire universe, just through books. now, for most of you, you're doing it through television and the internet, but there's still something very special and magical about using words in books to paint pictures in your head. that's where i think creative talent comes from. so it was real important when i was writing my book to paint pictures of my world with words. and that's what i tried to do. i hope i've succeeded. i think i have. what i understood in that 5th grade class was -- i do have a competitive nature. i say in the book that mostly

it's competition with myself, but i had a 5th grade teacher who did something a lot of teachers don't do now, which is she would give you a gold star every time you did well on an assignment. and i wanted to collect those gold stars. but i didn't know how to study. so i was trying to figure it out, and i couldn't because if i had known how to do it, i would have done it. ok? [laughter]