he said, we -- basically they believe he had one speech, no matter where he went, they were driven mad. he gave the same speech for breakfast, lunch, for the afternoon, for dinner, again the next day. he had one speech. and they were driven crazy. how can they write their stories. there's nothing new, it's the same speech as yesterday as last week, all right. so they wrote him off. they did not think he was smart. they figured he was an actor with one speech. okay. what they didn't observe because these are people who are very smart who think with their heads and have no knowledge of communication with the heart, they missed what was going on in one room after another because as the governor was speaking, he was moving people. he would tell stories. he would talk about his aunt jenny or he would talk about the lady at the street corner he met in omaha and how she told him this story and how over regulations and little mom and pop shop were crushing them and he would tell these stories and

he would tell little funny antidotes and people were laughing and crying. it was an amazing emotional experience going on in front of the national press and they missed it. and so he is moving people and people would go home and tell their families, you won't believe this guy, he's fabulous. they would tell. around the country people were talking about this guy ronald reagan, he was different. he really understood, he really believed they felt -- they could relate to him. he communicated with his heart. he shared what he believed. he told stories to explain what he understood as the problem that was causing issue with their businesses and families. he was a powerful communicator, but i'm telling you, they do not

appreciate that, they don't feel it. they just hear it and there's not enough facts and figures. how many time have you heard the problem with donald trump is he doesn't have any facts and figures, there's no basic policies, he doesn't have any details. let me tell you ronald reagan had a four point plan for the economy. he had a four point plan, something i could easily memorize and tell people about. it didn't have 20 pages of details of how he was going to cut taxes. he said we're cutting taxes 30%. we're doing to cut regulation and we're going to get control of the monetary policy, inflation. very simple today policy watchers are going where are the figures. american people don't need all the facts and figures. they have to know you believe. you believe there's a direction the country should take and this is why it didn't work now because you're not taking it and here is what we're going to do. here is the goal. we're doing to get there and everybody says, no, he just

pounds it. what is donald trump's message. make america great again. we're going to win. we've been losing. that's how the american people. we've been losing. they're losing. now, he says we're going to start winning. somebody says it. somebody says it. that's leadership. when somebody will say it. we travel around the country been in speeches we've been on tv for years. you know what the most common thing people to say us is, thank you for saying it. thank you for saying it. the american people don't mind losing, they mind not being represented. they mind not being in the fight, not having somebody there fighting for them, that's leadership. when you don't go along, but you fight for what you believe in. let's go back to the specifics,

how do you make certain that you don't become one of the so-called leaders such as we have in this town, where you have party line vote. that makes a lot of sense, a party line vote. when the leader of the party tells you to, yes, vote on this bill or a no vote. this one is party line, they say, you as congressman or senator cannot choose yourself how to vote. cannot look at it and determine that this is where you think it would be the right response to this bill, no, you've been told it's yes if you're republican and no if you're a democrat. where is -- that is sheep. all right, that is sheep. why not say fine. i'm glad to know how you're going to vote, now i'll read the bill and decide how you're going to vote. they might take your fancy office away or your committee. these are important things, the congressman. that's why they're not leaders.

the most important thing for them is no longer doing what is best for the country, what's best for their constituents, what they believe is right but rather making certain they do that enough times when it's called upon, they do what the party calls them to on those other times. how can you be different. these are good men and women to come back here hoping to make a difference that got caught up in the system. how can you be different and here is how you do it. one, what do you believe, find that issue and decide, what is it you believe. consider the options, consider the other side and then go talk to the other side, challenge them a little bit. so, i'd like to use life as an example for college campuses, it's the best, you find lots of people who are pro-choice from which to talk to. you might trouble finding pro-lifers, they're out there. so what do you do. you decide this is it. life is your issue.

the first time you show up, you say, i understand you're pro-choice, right, explain to me how you can support policy that takes the life of a child every single time and they're going to say, oh, and you explain to me how you can force a 14-year-old to have a baby who was raped by her father. and then you're going to think, well, maybe i'm not so bad. i don't know that i want to defend that policy. that's their best argument and so you have to go back and you have to talk to people and don't expect to know all the answers or be ready to defense this. you go out there and you give it a go. you say, whoa, that's a good position, i don't know that i would want to support this. maybe i believe in exceptions for rape and incest.

you come to you, we don't have i don't have authority to pick and choose which children live or die. all of them live. i fight for every single unborn child. i wish to be a champion of every one of those little babies. and when circumstances are difficult, i will still defend their right to life, always i made that decision. there are good people out there who are pro-life who believe rape and incest should be an exception. you decide what you believe and you have to be able to defend it and explain it. all right, now you've got it. you know that response, when somebody goes up, you're ready for round two, you go back out and talk about people what about this and that and you're starting to hear their position. you get to feel their anger, their willingness to intimidate you and say, what, you're

antiwomen is what you are. where is your compassion, all of this is going to get thrown at you. you need to hear that. you need to feel the heat. you need to feel intimidated like you would rather not have mentioned this. i'll hang out with my pro-life friend we know better anyhow and i don't have to go through all of this, all right. leaders are one that go into the battle, are in the front lines and are ready to take the heat and stand for the cause that they feel so passionately about, that's the leader. i say to my friends on college campuses you young people, you get a chance, you tell yourself, all right, i've worked this through and talked to some people. i've looked at this and understand their side and now i know more than ever i believe in the life of every single unborn child and i'm going to do something about it. so you go to class, wake up. i don't care if it's history class, math class. and something happens in the

paper, somebody brings it up, a teacher mentions something row v e v wade, just anything. and you have your opportunity to make a statement and you're willing to do it. and you say, excuse me, i would like to make a statement roe v wade was one of the worst most tragic decisions ever by a supreme court in this country, because it has caused the life of millions or you might want to make it tighter. every single time there are two lives that are effected, both the baby who loses and the mother. who is tragically by this. something short, long, however you want it. you hit it. you know what's going to happen, how many people in this class, if it's 20, 19 are going to turn and look at you and the teacher is going to be sneering and you're going to feel the heat and wish you never said anything and you're doing to sit there and think, oh my gosh and they're going to be calling you names and looking at you and you're not going to know all the

answers, that's when you thank the lord for that opportunity because now you know you're not ready. so you're going to do this again and again and again, so when you feel that pressure and that intimidation and that outrage of you taking such a bold statement, you said, what's it to me. friends, i have been called racist so many times i answered. you know, it doesn't bother me, i don't care. i know the issue about which i speak and i have studied it and i know both sides of it and i feel without question my position on immigration is the right one for this country and i my position on life is the right one for every single baby and every single woman who might be caught in that circumstances. i am absolutely certain and i don't care what people will say or what they might think. it makes no difference because i

lead -- i represent people. i'm a champion of causes, i'm a champion of those working men and women who have not gotten any kind of a deal for three decades. it's time somebody represented them, fought for them. that's where i come from and what i want to say to you is everyone one of you needs to get there. this country needs true leaders. it needs people who firmly believe that there's a direction this country needs to take, there's some corrective action that has to be made. i'm not suggesting every one of you is going to run for office. you know, i was a single mom for many many years like 20, for instance, i still feel like one sometimes and i stood there picking my kids up after school and i would hear people say, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you hear what they're going to teach the kids next year in third grade. i just can't believe this. no, they're not going to teach

them that. we don't want them. there are our children. when is the next school board meeting. let's get together, if we don't like the response, when is the next school board election, we'll just take it over because we're the parents. we're fighting for our kids. we're not going to let that happen. you need to be a leader in your family and communities you can't let them tell you how you should say things, what you should say, how you should feel, we are americans. one of the greatest gifts we've been given and responsibilities is the right to speak our minds. and our responsibility to make certain that what we say comes from our heart with sincerity as to what's best for this country, no mean spiritedness, just what we feel is the right position to have and then we have an obligation to fight for that, to lead it, to influence others in ways that our talent allows us to. that's our responsibility.

i call on every single one of you, live up to the responsibility you have and the privilege you have of being americans and do not be intimidated, speak your minds. find out what you believe and then you represent that and don't let anyone suggest that you cannot speak freely and boldly about those things you feel are important. thank you very, very much. [applause] thank you. thanks very, very much. we have plenty of time for questions so please and ask any question, it doesn't have to be about the topic i spoke of. yes. >> how can we as young activists on college campus attract other students in the ways you explained ronald reagan and

donald trump has done? >> this is what you have to do, first you start small, because you don't know if you're ready yet, like i said, what issue is you're interested in, pick an issue or two, start talking to others about it. pick an issue that people are not going to agree with and, you know, i know people that do it in a very in your face manner that republicans will love to get in the liberal space. i'm not saying that doesn't work, in some places it's not my style, you know, it's what's your style. my style is look, call me whatever name you want, you want to talk about the issues, otherwise, you obviously have no case whatsoever, it's the lowest form of debate here, you know. so figure out what matters to you. that's on the issue of life i say, be known as a pro-life, be known as somebody who will speak about it. you can save life if you just go into that history class and you make that statement and you feel terrible afterwards because

everybody called you names or wouldn't talk to you, all right. but you had a bold moment and there's somebody with in that class who they look over and say i think that person has lost her mind or his mind for making such a position, but two years from now they might still remember, they said it was a life every time and they might hesitate. you can save lives and change minds if you speak out. i don't care if you're on liberty or anywhere else. there's a lot of apathy, because i think, we're in agreement, we all know what's right and know about our business. you need to debate. you think those congressman come back here and thinking that oh, i'll do what my party leader says. they think they're leaders they haven't been out there or felt that intimidation. the president of the united states calls you and said you're one of my faithful and fine congressman. i helped you win and i need you vote on this. do you say, i think you're

terrific on xyz, voted for you, but on this one, i think you're wrong. you have a right to say that. they can't. they fall in line. that's what you need to learn now as young people, that you won't fall in line. you will always represent the core believes that really burn inside you. >> my name is carter, i was wondering what is the best value or trait you learned from working with reagan? >> i'll tell you, i think this is key to a truly, truly great leader and very not often present in someone who runs for office. as you run for office and win and people call you the honorable or move aside when you come in the rooms. pretty soon your head gets big, that's why you end up fighting to keep that position more than

anything else. it's a wonderful sense that you receive of self worth. he was the most humble person i've ever met in politics. he was truly humble human being. he was -- took office as president of the united states and he understood the incredible honor it was. he didn't think of himself now as big powerful person by having an honor to be there as leading this great country, as you probably have heard, the story, he never went into the oval office without a suit and tie, never -- he respected the office and he was humble. he felt ever i had opportunity to sit with him, had lunch with him and in a group, i was on his right a couple of months after he was shot. and i said to him, i cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have you here, you know, i would work with him for five years by that time. and, he said, babe, i am on borrowed time and i know that.

i have a purpose here, the lord has a job for me and he wants me to stay and do it. that was -- he understood running for re-election, i was told by somebody very close to him, if the decision is he's not to remain in office, he'll be just as happy back on the ranch. he'll be just as happy. he loved his life and he understood that this was something that he was called upon to do at this time and he would do it to his best. but that humility came through. when i ran into him on occasion, he called me in to his hotel room after new hampshire, we won in new hampshire but we hadn't won yet, it was during the day and he had fired the senior staff and he wanted to talk to me about it. of course, i was worried i was next to go he wanted to tell me to stay. he couldn't have gotten rid of me, i don't think.

i was so supportive of this man . he said i want to tell you personally why, i know john seres is a friend of yours, talk to me personally. he said after he does this, nancy is on the couch and she's reading, watching what's going on in new hampshire during the day. and he said, hey, babe, my hamburger just came up. you want to have half a burger. >> do i want half of your burger? i want to get out of here. this guy is governor, former governor and he's going to be the nominee, i think he should be the president of the united states and he's offering me his burger. he always made you feel like you're the cousin you see every thanksgiving. it's great to see him and you haven't seen him in a while, that's how you made you feel, never that he was better or

bigger or smarter and we're all equals and he was called to this and i was call today do something else and we're all here as part of the team. that humility, always remember that, humility is an incredibly, wonderful virtue and we all should aspire to it. and it's tough in this business. and we all should aspire to it. and it's tough in this business. >> i know that what separates a leader from a follower is the willingness to take action when the decisions get tough, but sometimes it's a little confusing for me because sometimes the right answer isn't always clear, there's a lot of grey area, i don't like what's behind door number one or two or three, so how do you make that decision. >> that's a very, very good question. the first thing you do, you have to know what what you believe, all right, so your principles are very very clear to you. that's number one, if they're not, you know, you could be -- there are more options if you

know absolutely this is how it needs to be, you have to determine yourself what is the best option, try to work it out. which one has the least negative impact, you know, that might be the answer. which one has some slimmer of hope to at least solve this, it's not going to be good for this and this, at least we get here, we get something here. if neither of them are good, you have to speak about that. these are unacceptable. you have to figure out a way, next go around the better option is present. it's not easy, but i think it's the easy decisions are not what you're called on as a leader. that's pretty obvious. it's the tough ones. and i mean ronald reagan made mistakes and he's the first to say. he made a terrible mistake out there as california governor and

approved and signed a bill that allowed women to abort if the health of the mother was impacted. and he didn't realize the kind of loophole he had created. and he said this is one of the greatest mistakes of his political career because everybody's help could be explained as being impacted negatively, abortions went on the rise, you know. he thought what he did was right, but it was wrong. and so he corrected it. he fought to have much tougher laws against abortion, you know. and that's what you have to do. is try to do what's best, what moves it even if it's only an inch or two and next try try to go for a foot of improvement rather than just an inch. >> my name is alex, i'm from virginia tech. in your speech you mentioned about passion and drive makes a great leader. do you believe great leader will be born with that passion and drive or do you think it's created.

>> i believe there are some people that are natural, but in the sense that they have this natural interest in issues, another person doesn't have that natural interest, you know. and they might have a natural ability to communicate, all right. but i believe passion, true passion is something that every single one of us can have because we do have it at some level, we'll have -- like if we have our own children, you'll see the kind of passion or level of love you have is unbelievable. you'll fight for them, you know, that's something that comes naturally when you have a child, for the most part. as for the issues, i think when you study the issue, there's some issues you can study and study and know about and couldn't care less about. i know this is important to a lot of people, but i can't get into it. and there's another one that just drives you, that's where you've got to look.

what make as difference for you. what do you care about. i don't think, i've always been pro-life. once i got to know women who have had abortions and i've seen what's happened in the world of abortions. i have become so a champion, just so passionate on trade, free trade, i was a free trader, my brother pat was free trader, you study it. it looks good, you know, and then i started meeting people as my brother will tell his story . we started meeting people who lost their job because of free trade and you start thinking, these are americans, american families being harmed by this policy, what can we do, you start broadening your intention . that's when i have passion when i identify the victim or the person i'm fighting for. that's when my passion comes. i get on tv and talk about free trade, see those working men and women and say, they need a voice.

illegal immigration i think of the harm that's happening to soo many communities in this country and so many americans and i'm very passionate about it. you see, some people have a greater level for this, i admit. but i do believe every single one of you can study an issue and recognize this is wrong and want to be part of it. you may not want to be the point person but want to join the cause and have some representative -- some role in moving it forward. not all of us are going to be candidate. i've been a candidate, i choose not to be a candidate. i would rather help someone else who wants to be a candidate, that's just what i choose. >> and you spent a lot of time talking about true leader and how there aren't a whole lot of true leaders in this town. can you give a list of congressman and governors who is consider to be a true leader. >> i don't know if we have time for this.

i think ron paul is awesome. i did not support his presidency, but i sat every one of those debates back there when he was running for president. i believe it was when romney was the nominee or was going -- no, it was both years when romney ran. and i happened to be involved in a candidate or two, and he would -- in those early debates, people would boo him. all the party people were there and boo him and boo him because he took a position against what the party elites were for on the issue of war. he didn't believe we should be involved in foreign wars. and he would go through it time and again. he had his facts, he had his figures, he would present them, he was sound of mind, he was very passionate about it, and he made great sense. and i used to think, why are you booing him? he's making a case for something that you don't agree with, but you certainly don't boo him. you listen to it and say, well, i think he's wrong, but at least he believes in something. by the end of that presidential year, he was getting cheers from the audience.

and they were full with a lot of young people had started coming in, listening to him, and the party was benefited as young people realized there's another voice in this party. you see what i mean? i think ron paul. i think rand paul is another, a great example of always being very principled person. i happen to love ted cruz. i think ted cruz is phenomenal. i think what he's done in senate in his short time was -- a lot of people say, well, people don't like him. well, they don't like him? sounds like somebody i will like. he's going against the grain. he's not doing what they say he should do, you know? i think that's a real strength. and i'll tell you, jeff sessions is phenomenal, just a phenomenal senator. he's just steady. he's always there. you can completely rely on him. you never have to worry that somebody got to him. he just, he makes his case and he presents it and he fights and he tries to influence others in the senate, but he never moves.

he can lose, but overwhelmingly, doesn't matter, he's going to come back the next time. that's a leader. they don't care that they're losing and that other people in the party are shaking their head and saying, get off this, you know? but he's not running for office, but he's doing a terrific job. so, yes, there's no question they are there. what worries me is the people that run and say one thing, are going to come back here and all the powerful people surround them, and then they come out in a different position, and then they realize that that didn't work, so they move over to this -- it's like, what in the world are you doing here? go back home! you're supposed to come, know where you want the country to go and fight for it. that's what you're supposed to be doing, not coming back here trying to figure out how to promote yourself by taking different positions. >> hi. my name is haley smith, and i go to concordia university in irvine, california. and i was wondering, when people call you racist or sexist or bigot or anything like that, what is a practical way to

respond to such comments? >> just dismiss it. you know, it makes you angry when you start hearing it. it makes you angry. but the key is, you've put a position out there. you've taken a position. you've laid out what you believe. and somebody calls you a name. well, my feeling is, look, dismiss with this nonsense. what is your counter argument? why do you think we should allow people to kill -- doctors to kill babies? do you think this is a good policy? why? can you give me your side of it? and just to call you a name. or take immigration. that's a very, very hot issue out there. and those who are for this unlimited flow of illegal immigrants into the country, all they will say is you've got to be compassionate. these people just want to make their life better. well, we have to have policies coming out of washington that are best for america. so let's discuss why this isn't good for america and you tell me

how it is good for america. but let's not talk about how, you know, everybody should take this position and not say anything against it. key to the strength of this nation is national debate, because then, as i said earlier, when we have somebody representing our side and fighting for our side and we lose, we say, fair enough, we lost. that's what it's all about. we had our fight. we had a great guy. we're coming back in four years or two years, whatever it is, and we're going to try it again. or we'll see what happens under this new leadership that we didn't support and see if it goes all right or not, you know what i mean? but the key is, they use intimidation as a strategy. that name-calling is deliberately done to demonize the messenger, to make you look bad. if i'm a racist and you felt sincerely i was a racist, who would listen to me? you would dismiss everything. that is their argument. they don't want to talk about the merits of the case because

we win! when the american people hear the debate, we are on the winning side. but if they demonize and call you a anti-semitic or a racist or antiwoman or whatever, zenopohbe -- i had to look that one up when i was first called a zenophone, i was like, what am i now? this name-calling is unbelievable. but it means they lack the willingness to make their case public. they know once the facts get out there, our side's going to win. so, demonize us, demonize us, make us bad, mean-spirited people. and what are they saying now? they're blaming it on the voters. the mean-spirited americans have come up with this candidate. wait a minute, these people have voted for someone who's speaking for them, but they can't accept that, so now they'll demonize all the voters in america. you see, that's the key. don't be afraid of taking a position that's different. don't be afraid. learn it. make certain you feel assured

that this is right, that this is something you believe in your heart that's worthy of this battle. and then get into battle and let them call you names time and time and time again until it doesn't matter to you. then they can't intimidate you anymore! they can't silence you! when they silence us -- and they have silenced our whole movement for too many, too often and for too long -- then we lose without ever having any kind of battle. they just win and roll over us. and that is what's wrong. we need to debate, we need people's willingness to speak out for the american people. we need to have our voice out there and so you all need to become the leaders that carry it out there and are bold. you have that courage of your conviction and you smile. call me what you will, but i'm coming back. be the americans you were meant to be. thank you all very, very much. [ applause ]

event, chrise bedford gave the college age conservatives advice on attracting attention from the media. he encourage them to come up with angles to their stories that respond to conditions in the news. this is just under an hour. >> we are ready to get started again. welcome to the training seminar here in our headquarters in reston, virginia. i am an intern here. for those of you who are unfamiliar, we are the premier outreach organization of the conservative movement. we introduced thousands of young of limitedhe ideas government, individual freedom, strong national defense, and traditional values.

chapters and also our center for entrepreneurship and the national journalism center. saveepped forward to ronald reagan's beloved ranch. president reagan committed himself to reaching young to through his ideas. is central to our mission. for more information, you can visit our website or call. for decades, president reagan was deeply involved with young americans for freedom, serving as an honorary national chairman. we are pleased to be here onrying the torch passed from great leaders such as ronald reagan and lima roughly read i have the leisure? -- f buckley.buf

today, i'm going to introduce chris bedford. i loved this session when i attended these seminars. as a founder of my chapter, chris's techniques health us the bill of baseline of what to expect. he has been involved at the foundation and conservative movement for a long time. graduating from american university in 2008. he was involved with multiple campus newspapers. starting in 2009, he became the of publications. he currently serves as the vice

chairman of the board of governors. he has been a staunch supporter of free markets and advancing liberties to read his work has been featured in the wall street radio, andnbc, talk fox news. it is my great honor to introduce a staple of the modern movement, mr. chris bedford. chris: nice work. a trick to journalists out there, right now -- glad you liked the presentation. a trick for journalists is when msnbc or someone else talks poorly, you can see your work was featured there. i have never had an article or point brought up in a positive light. usually it was a leaked e-mail. it would be embarrassing. he rants and raves.

happy birthday, c-span. you are 30 years old right now. if you guys watch the videos, you can see young bob dole from the first day. it is crazy. do we need a microphone for me to talk for attendees to speak with mark i'm going to ask them some questions. i would to know who we are chatting with. why don't you tell us name, where you are from, what you want to be when you grow up. from southern maine. i want to be a constitutional lawyer. >> i am from virginia tech. when i grow up, i want to be a cfa. something along that route.

>> awesome. from point loma nazarene university. i want to be a political commentator. >> i am from saddleback college. when i grow up, i'm going to be the next california state senator. x\ terrible state but it is getting better. i am from north carolina. i want to work in executive management. >> what does that mean? >the in charge? >> pretty much. i am from north carolina. i want to be a pharmacist when i grow up. specifically, pediatric oncology. >> just don't get hooked. >> i am from davidson college. i want to go into marketing when i grow up. >> all right. >> i'm currently winding down my last year.

before i try to do other stuff. >> i am darren england from virginia tech. i studied chemical engineering so i want to be a chemical engineer. s, actual skill interesting. >> is there a reason you don't like american university? i made a good choice. >> is an ugly campus with horrific architecture. at leastbably the only in body, too -- ugly student body, too. their ideas are poorly informed and deeply held. they tried to arrest karl rove when i was there. i was like, you should be impressed. they were trying to arrest him for war crimes. he is a political strategist.

and then when the police, i was watching them, they lifted him up. it was easy because they are skinny vegans. they call that brutality. i got beat up worse than that for breaking curfew. i don't like au. but you learn a lot in opposition. >> i go to the university of pittsburgh. i want to have a career in finance. i go to texas christian university. i'm studying to be an accountant. texas christian university and i want to work in intelligence reports like military? cool. >> i have always dreamed of running for is and one day. >> -- running for president one day. >> i would like to own my own business and i would like to do anything i can in politics after that.

you have to rack up a few things before you run for president or else you could end up and unemployed florida senator. >> i have no idea what i want to do. >> me neither. i go to settle back in california. k inaddleback an california. >> would like to go to sales and advertising. >> and studying business management. >> i would like to work for you. >> good, we got spots. we are going to haze you, though. >> i am also from roger williams university. my goal is to do political advocacy work for veterans. the university of

nebraska. i'm hoping to become a constitutional lawyer. not like the one in the white house right now. is tim.me i go to the university of pittsburg and i want to go into psychiatry. >> the crazy people always want to go into psychiatry. it helps me so i'm going to help other people. now you are in charge of telling people, ok, sure to . >> i am from the university of wisconsin. i'm studying accounting. back collegettle back college and him appearing to go to constitutional law. >> when i grow up, i want to be a criminal lawyer. >> which side? >> district attorney. >> my name is ashley.

cu.o to c i intend to go to law school. >> are you going to wear robes or business casuals? >> i go to st. mary's. i would like to go into law after i graduate. maybe into being a public policy analyst. into the top't get five law schools, you should probably just get another job. >> i go to california state university los angeles. >> the time to come to d.c.. >> i also go to cal state los angeles. i want to be a psychologist with an emphasis on the military. >> i am also from cal state l.a.. starting a masters program in social work of it to tie in politics with social work. >> is going to be a lot of

beatings. politics and social work. state los cal angeles. my ideal employment would be to be self-employed, whether it be having my own business. to make it in business and economics and hopefully i will get there with some push. >> yet. -- yeah. i am a student at texas christian university. >> you didn't want is it with the other texas christian people? >> my name is emily. at liberty university. i'm studying economics and finance. i want to stay in the conservative movement. >> there are jobs and most of them, you don't have to do much and made a well -- and they pay well. >> i want to work in investigative journalism. >> i go to the university of

texas in austin. be a political correspondent or watchdog reporter. watchest somebody who like a dog? there are a lot of places for that, it is good. if you want to do investigative reporting, learn spreadsheets. it is important for some reason. >> i go to indiana university. i'm thinking about pr and marketing. after graduation, i want to go into pr or journalism. fedor -- pays better but is less fun. x i study history and political science. work inould like to

public relations. brandon.e is i want to go into journalism. >> good. the guys in the front are going to be wealthier. >> i go to amherst college. >> in massachusetts? i have been there. good pizza, good beer. i am interested in political journalism or speechwriting. i go to colby college. i'm interested in journalism. >> i go to holly cross. i want to stay at the daily caller. >> i tend a bible college. i plan to be a political journalist. to point park university

. my goal is to be a multimedia journalist. be a multimedia journalist t. is the new problem, a pain in the but for me. am interning at the daily caller and i would like to work there once i graduate. >> work in your bikini slideshows. >> i go to vanderbilt. i would like to work in journalism or television production. >> journalism is more fun. unhealthy with habits, but journalism is more rewarding. i have a passion for politics and the conservative movement

but i can tell you what i want to do. >> i'm with you. i am a junior at yale university and i will probably going into consulting. >> stay away from the weird clubs at yale. they have these weird groups. people come out to amended. -- demented. i would like to work in the white house one day. >> i love baltimore, i went there for halloween. you can get a great hotel and a fantastic dinner or cheaper then drinks and d.c.. i am from the university of south carolina. i'm a journalism major, going to stay in journalism. i am from california and i plan on running my own international nonprofit ngo

focusing on were crimes and human rights. >> that is a great record. just as the clintons. >> -- that is a great racket. just ask the clintons. >> i'm a journalism major. i would like to go into political journalism. >> i attended mcallister college. i want to pursue journalism or law. i go to northern virginia community college. i would like to be a human rights activist and traveling journalism to serve as a bridge between the u.s. and third world countries. i i'm interning with the -- study journalism and political science at the university of missouri. >> don't do anything he does. that is exactly what he told

me. >> he is self-aware. i kicked him out of his christmas already three times. multiple people i had to remove from that event. he was one of the ones that quickly for dave. -- fo rgave. i'm from the university of michigan. i want to be a constitutional lawyer's like can sue universities for a living. >> that is awesome. they have so much money. to get intoike constitutional law and then run for senate. >> i was studying electrical engineering. i want to have my own business or be a rock star.

emily? >> i want to be the spokesperson. >> awesome. >> the first trick of the day is how to turn an hour-long presentation into a 38 minute presentation. i'm going to talk to the people about how to be a good journalist and not just people off, mainly editors. step one, change your major. for your need to spend studying journalism. you just need to be in a newsroom. i want to talk about how to influence reporters. they are a fundamentally lazy group of people who are self-important divas that want to feel like they are smart and figure things out but really, did not.

someone gave us a tidbit. how did the new york times figure out this thing? someone was to read like, i work in the real world. i want other people to know it. they get in touch with the journalists. who is the hack who now goes around saying he is a freedom fighter? i tried to get in touch with even takee wouldn't the e-mails. and then snowden gave him this story and he presents he discovered it read he didn't. he just got in touch with the right leaker. you guys will break stories by developing reputations or catching their ears. we are going to talk about the national new cycle. hearts and minds.

conservatives for decades complained and complained. they are still complaining, there is a professional grievance institution on the right which is why they get their butts kicked. about how the media wasn't on their side and they were not getting hurt nobody was listening. now you see it. the modern incarnation is the hashtag. they mocked the president for having hashtags. bring back our girls. now they think they are going to stop trump with a twitter hashtag. better thingg -- become what you are jealous of. that was tucker carlson's idea. and buckley, in the 1950's 1960's. they were able to influence the world with their opinion. facts thatelying on

had been uncovered by liberal institutions. they were dealing with the facts given to them by people who -- prius starts -- bias starts with how they start dress. what stories you choose to cover. a lot of people say, point to the bias in this piece. maybe you can't find it why was that story chosen and the other neglected? just rule the medium. own talk radio. own the internet. have newspapers. probably not printed. i remember when i was getting

started in journalism, i would write up and like why am conservative as if anybody cares. why you are conservative. nobody cares what your opinions are. nobody cares what your thoughts are in foreign relations. all of us like to write about foreign affairs. we are in our 20's, what do we know? unless you spend your entire teenage years and then early 20's serving overseas in the military, nobody cares about your opinions. you have to break news. things that happened that would affect us. you have to move beyond preaching to the choir. , if you takeou getmp on campus, you can

breitbart to write about it. if you want to make a difference beyond that sphere, you have to get into some of the local papers. some of the majors, places where on -- whydon't click do i hate obama today? maybe they just have an open mind. one way to do that is with a speaker. of ronthis sad picture paul. i wanted to change it because he is becoming less and less relevant. rut there is no sadde picture that is not for some good reason. made an ad, she was trying to attack the governor of colorado. of the governor looking sad next to the president. that was right after the aurora shootings.

this is not politics. politicians look bad for a reason. he is just hanging out. if you have a speaker, i don't care. newt gingrich came to our campus. ok. fine. i need more than that. journalists want more than that. one of mine said, i have the story, nude went to a campus in indiana. i would say, do 50 push-ups and get back to work. was -- the biggest they had seen all year. he drew a big crowd. that could be newsworthy. it is usually better for local papers and campus oriented. you can still get that, you just have to have something that

makes the event special. it has to be, this event was awesome. pat and emily can teach you how to make these events awesome or seem bigger than they are or more contentious. there are lots of tricks people learn. a lot of you have been doing a fantastic job of getting attacked. -- theg with original movement at berkeley, that hasn't changed. people will try to shut you down because you are violating their safe space. it is great for news. when these little eichmanns swarm in because you hurt their feelings or physically assault theircause you hearou hur

feelings, it will probably get you onto fox news. provoke them. be a provocateur. the older you get, the more punches hurt. i almost got into a bar fight to read i called the guy a fat pocahontas. it is true. where was i going with that. life, unless you have been drinking, you won't want to start fights. now you can. also, were their portables? save thesantorum gays will surrender the country to iran? he does occasionally say things that are newsworthy. things youome of the should lead with. e-mail a reporter and

spend three i am not going to read beyond the first few sentences. why is this interesting? get videos. car onude pulling his the side of the road and then ripping down antiabortion protesters to protect high schoolers is news-worthy because it made the news. it's like, you're being violent. so, take video. if you're going to do activism, there are a couple things you can do. remembering the people who died 11 is something that will always get press. it should be done, not because it gets press, because it is amazing. i remember years ago when everyone clearly remembered 9/11, it wasn't as important except to build a foundation.

and yaf really thought ahead on that. now we have people turning 18 in two years who won't even have been born when 9/11 happened. and the memory for a lot of you is probably pretty distant. i have never felt so old as when i was, and i will have plenty of opportunities in the future -- when i was with our entertainment reporter, and i was like this video was amazing , to really help us restore 9/11. and her story didn't make any sense. she was like, i got sent home to school, i was on the bus, i had no idea what was going on. i was like, how did you not know? because she was in third grade. that will always get news because it's amazing to see , young people cherish the memories, and not let people forget. but a lot of the activism we do is not an innocent, beautiful picture and epic story. so it needs something a little bit more. so, for example, if you're a leftist, and you want to build a palestinian refugee camp, you would get a lot more press if you bulldozed it yourself. like, look at what they do.

or if you build a wall, like the berlin wall, tear it down yourself. you don't need a bulldozer for that, because -- actually you , do. but they at least got good pictures of tearing it down with hammers. and if you're lucky, the little eichmanns on your campus will tear it down for you because they say it offends them and it's violating their safe space. those are the kind of things that make news, and would be worth getting in your papers. you can get some stuff in your campus paper, but if you want to reach out to the community, you need to have more than i know paper mache or i put boxes on top of each other. i know, i guess that gets a lot of applause in general on the campus, like i have skills. but it needs a little bit of drama as well. also, the easy, a really easy way to do it is to piss people off. so, you know, do guns, i don't know, go shooting, practice safety. girls help too. we got a ton of press at the daily caller just by having a

contest where we gave our readers guns. so far, no crimes have been committed with these guns. so it did take a little bit of trust and a lot of background checks. then we had run for ar-15's. and right now i really want to raise money for some who wants to hunt a polar bear contest. [laughter] because, first of all there are , more polar bears than can be sustained. like, those starving pictures are because there's too many freaking polar bears for that environment. and it's a really great thing to help the local tribes, which are very poor. and you have to go through them. they've got these indian bureaucracies where they make a lot of money. but and then the left would drag you out to lynch you on msnbc and then you could explain to , them, like, there are actually too many polar bears and they're eating each other. [laughter] chris: -- chris now, another way to do it : outside of making news is to write. so, there are a number of different ways that you can make this happen. the easiest and a great way to

start is a letter to your editor. you also have the opinion or the opportunity to do an op ed or opinion piece. and finally, a news story which, as we found at the caller is among the best ways to really influence people is to write hard news, because opinions can be dismissed so easily. now, i'll tell you what differentiates these things. a letter to the editor is short and sweet and is a response. it's not, ok, i've said this before, but never write the why i'm a conservative. i tried to use it to win a scholarship once, and oh, god, no one cares. you need to respond to something that happened in your local paper, in your campus paper, in your state's paper, or a national newspaper. they constantly have horrific opinions, like we shouldn't nuke the whales, and you can be like, well, i think we should, and then you can write something on why. like we have to nuke something and the whales have been getting , off really easy, and why are we going to let the japanese have all the fun when the manly art of whaling is what built the east coast?

or you could start with something a little lighter. but also stay local. so, if your town didn't have a very good memorial day celebration or recognition, you can write about that. or if there's a change where your town decides, you know, solar panels are such a good idea, we're going to make everyone use them because they're not using them. you can write something that's local. and what it is, is not a -- here's my point. it is a disagreement. so, you see an article that you disagree with, like don't nuke the whales. you would say, actually, here's why i think you should. or if something just hasn't been addressed. so, they have this thing where it's like, great news, everyone it now costs 25 cents to take a , plastic bag from your grocery store. this is awesome. you can say, also consider that, you know, all the rich people in their priuses have their own fancy bags, and all this is doing is adding two dollars in

tax on the poorest people in your community grocery bill and , the money that's allegedly going to clean up the anacostia river, for example, like in d.c. is already spent, so don't , pretend it's about this. but keep it short. editors are looking to fill space in the newspapers while they still exist. so they will print these things, but it needs to be quick, needs to be to the point, and you cannot go off base. you can say, like, you know, we should nuke the whales and we should also, you know, be sending, and set of jobs missiles to china. , like, stay to one or the other. and don't be discouraged. on my first week at the d.c. six years ago, i sent an op ed to our opinion editor who's now studying law at yale. and his response was i'm going to pass on this, thanks. i was like, i'm sitting right next to you, you skinny weirdo. i will knock you out. and he had always taken my op eds, but they will be shot down and you will put a lot of work , into them.

and it will be hurtful, but don't quit. keep on going. also, you can take the same op ed and shop it to multiple places, but don't let it be printed in more than one place because most people do want , exclusivity. i think that's it on letter to the editor. now, if you're doing an op ed, you still have to stay short, but you have a lot more room. generally, unless you're a genius, you should stick to around 500 or 750 words. i would say max out at 1,200. and stay to this model for years. eventually, if some of your lucky people who care about your opinion and then you can go on forever, but not yet. so, you want to keep people engaged, and you want to stay local and stay timely. , again, why i'm a conservative is not a good op ed. why i disagree with this, why i'm for this, that can be an op ed. and you should respond to issues that are already occurring in the news.

now, some friends of mine will drink whiskey in my kitchen and rant to me all day about everything that's pissing them off, everything they hate or everything they love, and they wake up in the morning and they -- they say, i cannot think of anything to write about. i'm like, what about that crap you filled my air with all night? you're clearly passionate about it. so, a trick to figuring out what you do want to write is trying to remember through the whiskey what you were yelling about and , were excited about before, and that's usually a good starting point. i wrote an op ed which probably did better than any i've written based on a thought at the bar which was -- i don't love donald trump i just don't like you. because somebody was arguing over their chardonnay about how like, donald trump says crazy , things. he's literally hitler. well that was crazy what she just said. so, i texted that to myself, and i never publish or send something after a drink, always edit sober, and go back through your case, because your case may

just be a rant. you don't want that. now, stating your case and why it's the best is important. don't just say it's something, like because the liberals are stupid. like, have, like, this is why i think that forcing people to spend more on their energy bill to use some government-subsidized technology hurts the poor, hurts the middle class, and helps the rich. and also, don't be afraid to point out your opponents' points of view. i know you don't have a lot of space, but it's worth saying, like, proponents of this subsidy say it does this. here's why it does not. now, that's not your lead, but it comes shortly after. your lead is your first sentence. we'll talk with njc about that later, although most of you probably know since you're spending four years studying journalism. and stay on target. don't go off on tangents. it's easy. this is another reason to edit sober. it's really easy to get off and get excited and start looping

and duping, and you need to keep, like porky, stay on target. also, don't just use your opinions, because your opinions, i can't stress this enough, don't matter. you need examples -- why your opinion matters. it's not because, you know, we understand our rights to be god-given and by nature, but that's not something typically to make an op ed on if you're trying to say 500 to 750 words. hit them with cold-hard facts. and at the end, have something beyond this. don't just say, they suck, i rock, the end. have a point of action. have something that if you're a member of the community who actually reads the bottom of the article, which most won't, has to do. like, well, here's an actual way that we can help. here's a way, here's why our solutions do work. here's why this is a terrible thing on campus and what can be done to fix it.

and don't quit, because op eds even more than letters to the editor take a lot of work and they will be shot down all the time. i've written some magnum s that are in my inbox, completely unpolished -- unpublished years later. and typically you'll look back and go, thank goodness that wasn't published that was crazy. and finally, leverage your contacts. absolutely leverage your contacts. i would suggest, just in this room, after you and a weekend together, you will get to know each other. have a listserv somewhere you , can swap ideas. you're always wondering, how the hell do these people know people in the white house or a congressman or someone in the senate? and it's just because all of your dipshit buddies eventually grow up to be important or some , of them. like, a third of them will probably fail and drop out. at least maybe a quarter of them will go on to be something. so, keep in contact.

i started a listserv with my class in 2010, and we still use it for professional help, for looking for sources for articles, for looking for work, and more often than not, looking for a place to live in d.c. or around the world, because people also leave, especially this front row. you guys are going into rather diverse fields. everyone in journalism knows each other, but you guys will be spreading out. so, stay in touch, get connections, use people like me, use the speakers. we love to hear from you. and, why did i write facebook and twitter? oh, yeah, i guess you have to use those, too. i hate twitter. it's a, i can't use the word here. it's like a bunch of people in a circle doing things with themselves. and e-mail lists. so, when you do write stuff, send it out. because no one has the time to load the daily caller, which takes a few minutes. multiple times a day, just waiting for my op ed to drop.

so collect e-mails. when someone accidentally doesn't blind carbon copy someone, take those e-mails. that's how i got karl rove's e-mail. someone screwed up at the daily caller, actually. and e-mail your op eds. put them into people who care, like your grandma's inbox, but also put it in different contacts you meet along the way. and also make sure to probably not include everyone in every e-mail blast. like, when i'm making fun of ted cruz, i don't put ron on the e-mail or, just kidding. when i'm making fun of a senator, i don't put his staff on the e-mail. now, you can write these down. they're weird. they're long. i can also send them to you or send you this presentation for evidence in my eventual criminal proceedings. but this top site is actually still kept up to date, and it has a list of all the papers that have still managed to exist. who are, by the way, very hungry for content because they have less advertising, less money and

want your stories. you can get your pieces, this is a good way to target. so, even if you want to move outside of your state, like something's going on in idaho and you're in indiana, you can , find ways, like what are these newspapers that i would want to pitch? how would i get my story out? and that bottom one is fantastic, too, but it went for 20 years and they stopped updating it about a year ago. so, you probably will run into a couple dead ends more and more as time goes on, but it's still a decent news site. so, i will use another minute of this presentation to let you guys write that down. just kidding. all right, so, getting into people's hearts and minds. you want to know who you're writing for. are you writing, i used to work for an absolute yaf legend, and our second executive director, richard vigry at conservative hq, you'll know you've made it in the senate right once you've been fired by richard. almost everyone has.

and he would always say, who are we talking to with this? are we trying to get to the tea party in oshkosh or ed meese, reagan's attorney general? those are different audiences. one you can probably have like an eagle tearing through a flag and say, like, obama, hitler is coming for your gold, and they'll read it. ed meese is not going to read that. so you have to know who you're writing for and direct it towards that. if you're writing towards students or you're writing towards your town or you're writing towards your state, if you're writing towards professors, keep that in mind with your writing and don't muddy it with trying appeal to everyone. there are some things that can broadly appeal, like a hard news story, but it's a little bit difficult. figure out what your message is, and who you want to reach. and the best way to get people to read your article is not, there are some pundits who amazingly have made a living, and since we're on tv, i won't say their names, by telling you things that either one you disagree with, two, you agree

with, or three, you don't care. nobody wants that. that's not impressive. what's impressive is telling people how to thk about something in a way that they hadn't before. creating a sense of unease in them. wow.g them -- like, like, jim is probably the best at this. tim cavanaugh, total psychopath, also very good at this. they present opinions you hadn't really considered. like wow, that is interesting. tim cavanaugh once made a case for why dog-fighting is the greatest, and scientology is pretty cool, too. and by the end, i was like, you're smart. now, i'm going to tell you how to avoid a few mistakes, which is -- which plague us all, at least, and go away a little bit as you get older or get more experienced. one rule is you should write at a third grade level if you're writing journalism, simply because people absorb it very quickly. it's not because your audience is stupid. it's because your audience typically has a lot of skills, and journalists find this all the time, like they don't understand my writing.

it's like, yeah, but they have skills and all you do is write. so, they're busy, they're doing other things. you need to write at a level that's kind of explanatory, like the great reddit thing, explain it to me like i'm 5. also, you get to a fifth-grade level when you write op eds, because essentially the people who do not have time for your stuff, will not read op eds. you get a little bit of leeway, so you can pretend people are in fifth grade. and don't use sarcasm. it's not funny. it's just snarky. some people are really good at sarcasm. they're rare. and you typically come off as a jerk. and no one is going to read you if they feel like you're insulting them or agreeing with them right off the top. now, i'm going to go through this fairly quickly, in case anyone has a question. but bill buckley, founder of young americans for freedom, one of the original conservative journalists and one of the most successful, he founded national

review in 1955, young american freedom in conservative party of 1960, new york in right after 1964, barry goldwater got his butt kicked, ran for mayor of new york, a very liberal place. when asked what the first thing he would do in office was, he said i'd demand a recount. he founded firing line, one of the longest syndicated talk -- political talk shows ever and , is celebrating its 50th anniversary next week? silver? what is silver? silver anniversary. in his spare time he wrote 50 books. hundreds of columns, wrote for newspapers all over the world. unfortunately, you're not bill. none of us are bill. so we can't just rely on his strengths. so we need to focus on our lead. the top sentence. and choose carefully the words that we use. so this is an example of a buckley lead. now, that is one paragraph.

it's like a swirling maze. he wrote in the united kingdom style of essay writing. you start here with this, but this, but this, but this, you can't do that. united states audience won't read it. and even the british won't read it because they're, despite popular opinion everyone in the , world is stupid. not just the united states. they won't read it either. you need to have your points. think back to writing class in grade school, what is your topic sentence your supporting , evidence. get to your point as soon as possible. so if you're writing a letter to the editor, what's your beef? i read the, i get these tips online that go on and on before they go on and on before they say and i don't like this , article. and if it's an op-ed, what's your thesis? what are you trying to talk about. with a newspaper article it's the news. i'm going to give you an example. i can't name drop because there's dozens of people watching right now. here's an example of a lead i

got a few years ago. on sunday's broadcast with fox channel's "fox and friends" conservative columnist ann coulter to issue with previous comments made by florida governor jeb bush. right now, i am completely bored. and if you're working in the news or living the news, or living your life you're reading thousands of headlines a day. and life you're doing real things and don't have time for that crap. what is his story? so that should be conservative fire brand ann coulter said jeb bush is definitely getting into the race sunday. that's the news. i guess i'm dating this presentation. jeb bush is getting in the race. and now we know it's a very successful run and he's about to be president. don't waste time with, even rarely use what day it is. that can be second. what happened. what is news, why am i reading this. this is from the same writer.

i love to shame him. he lives in florida now great , guy. probably watching right now, he's a tv journalist. probably not. so he did the same thing here on fox business networks tuesday simulcast of " imus in the james carville -- ok. so now i know there's a tv show. there's a day of the week, that there's a radio. and that james carvel a democratic strategist doesn't like republicans. -- three minutes? i know that. get right to it. get to the point. finally, words. now, this is buckley, again don't use those words. , people have no attention span. how many, raise your hand have you have clicked out of a video in the last week because the advertisement was 15 seconds. so that's where our attention span is. this is a group of people that came all the way to washington

dc to sit in seminars and learn. if that's your attention span, imagine the reader. don't make them stop to google something. let them know how smart you are with your point, not with your vocabulary. do not shy from learning words and loving words and understanding words. they have their place but not in the newspaper. also, make an ass of yourself, all the time. people using big words incorrectly is great. also be very careful with the word, ironic, because he will almost certainly screw it up. "ironic" is not examples of irony. oh, don't get too grand. i was reading this great story in the daily signal this morning from a war reporter. and he went on with flowers and flowers and he's like the stench of death creeps on as the souls of those who suffered. and it went on with flowers and grandiosity.

it made him look like a poofter. you shouldn't do it. but do not despair he's got a , lot of lessons for us. just because he's not buckley. for example, if you're talking about abortion, your don't always have to come at it from a christian right point of view. talk about the social costs and libertarian costs of a family that is childless. of a country that's childless or talking about divorce the monetary costs of this. i'm going. you can come at libertarian issues from a socially conservative point of view as well. know your audience and don't be afraid to branch out. balance your ideals and pragmatism. fires on top of them. you will win some and lose some. use your local professors. call up experts, call up doctors. rand site i grand -- ayn

for every one of your op-eds. there's brilliant people out there you can reach on your campus. take risks, don't be deterred. accept responsibility. work hard. you hear all this from lee edwards. this graph is wildly out of date. our traffic is more around depending on the month. 16,000,000-18,000,000, right for the daily caller. i'm going quickly. you can join the list of authors -- this awesome list of reporters, a lot of which sat in the seat, and a lot of which, like ted goodman, awesomely smart dude. went to law school, now a reporter. you can skip the debt if you come to us. drop out right now. i'll leave that just for a minute. i'll send you this so you can e-mail me. you can also e-mail me at bed ford at daily caller.com if somebody goes crazy, bedford, this is going nuts. now eat snickers and eat all the junk food they got for you.

[applause] >> at that same event, federalist society's lee otis and jordan lawrence advised students on how to defend their right to free speech on campus. this is just over one hour. >> good morning, everyone. i want to welcome our audience of student leaders here to young america's foundation national headquarters, and also extend a welcome to our audience watching from around the country. we could not be more excited to bring this important panel to all of you this morning. my name is emily, i have very proud to serve here as a spokeswoman at young america's foundation. young america's foundation truly is the premier outreach organization of the conservative movement. every year we introduce thousands of young people to the idea of limited government,

individual freedom, a strong national defense and traditional values. there are conferences, chapters, and a center for entrepreneurship and free enterprise. to savewe step forward the branch in santa barbara, which we use as a centerpiece of our efforts to help inspire students with his ideas area more information can be found at yaf.org. today, of course our young , american freedom chapters are in the spotlight, rightfully so. we've gathered some of the nation's leading students here in washington to equip them with the resources they need in order to promote conservative ideas on their campuses. a territory that is famously and increasingly hostile to their world view. perhaps that is why young americans for freedom which was founded at william f. 's buckley's home in has 1960, experienced growth in recent years, resurging to new heights this past spring. fox news wrote of young americans for freedom that we trace our roots back oo the -- to the conservative movement icons like buckley and reagan.

reagan was the former honorary national chairman of young americans for freedom and , president reagan said freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. yaf studentsn of in this room vividly feels the reality of that statement as their freedom of expression is under assault every day from coast to coast. students here are on the front lines of the bitter battle raging on campuses across the country to protect and preserve first amendment rights. in fact, leaders of the california state university los angeles young americans freedom chapter are with us today in the audience found themselves in the middle of a pivotal moment last february when they attempted to host a young america's foundation sponsored lecture by author ben schapiro on their campus. after hundreds of liberal students and professors organized a dangerous and violent protest that physically blocked the entrance to the speech, the students had to be escorted into the venue through a side door in small groups by

police who were seriously afraid for their safety. all in an effort simply to listen to a conservative speaker. activist myself, i do extreme a wrath of the campus left. one of the least pleasant experiences of my life but one that inspired me on to my career at young america's foundation. so really it's time for us to consider the question, should this really be happening on college campuses in the united states of america. of all places. today our panelists will offer their wisdom in an effort to answer this critical question. i will go ahead and introduce both speakers, after which each will deliver remarks from the podium before we open the floor up for a question and answer session. our first speaker is jordan lawrence, who served as senior counsel. he is assisting the foundation l.a.lawsuit against csu,

in the aforementioned event. lawrence argued before the u.s. supreme court in the precedent setting southworth v board of regents in 1999 challenging the university's requirement that forced unwilling students to contribute to activists groups. he led the challenge to new york city's ban on private worship services in vacant public schools in the long running bronx household -- lawrence earned a jd from the university of minnesota law school in 1980. he received a ba in journalism from stanford in he was admitted 1977. to the bar in minnesota, d.c., virginia, and multiple appellate courts. next up is lee otis, faculty director. after graduating from yale, she clerked for judge antonin scalia.

she served as a special assistant of the department of justice. she returned to clerk for justice scalia after his appointment to the supreme court. he was an assistant professor where she taught constitutional , law. courts, appellate advocacy, and legislation. she went on to counsel for president h to view bush to practice the washington office and service chief counsel to the immigration subcommittee as the senate judiciary committee. served on a general counsel of the department of energy and most recently as a associate deputy attorney general at the department of justice. as the founding director she has been an important member of the federal society team since the organization's beginning, 25 years ago. we're so excited for these speakers to share their insights with all of you today. please help me welcome jordan lawrence to the podium. [applause] jordan:

thank you, emily. the, one of my most recent experiences with yaf was last fall, going up to gettysburg college to talk about why censorship is bad and freedom of speech is good. now, you would think that such an elementary principle of constitutional law and american values would be something that everybody would agree with. but i face that hostile crowd of people who know their right. and i just thought that even though they may be, you know, hipster whatever they would call themselves, they are the most rigid fundamentalist authoritarian people i have run , into. frequently that's the label we get for ourselves. i get that, i'm the one advocating for freedom of speech on campus, tolerance, civility,

etc., and sure did not get it when we were up there. that's the fight we're in. i want to start this with a quote from abraham lincoln, from a speech he gave about 10 months into his presidency, in december of when things were looking 1861, pretty dark for the north. he said this, in a message to congress -- the struggle of today is not all together for today. it's for the vast future, also. with a reliance on providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us. i'm going to get into some of the specifics of your rights on campus under the first amendment at state universities. i want to point out because i think abraham lincoln gives us a perspective here. in the providence of god you have been selected to be the age you are at this time in history. not 200 years ago. not 200 years in the future. you're in the united states,

you're not in some other country. so what we are fighting for is both what is immediately before us, we're not fighting the institution of slavery or trying to bring down soviet communism. we've got this politically correct authoritarian disease that is running rampant at universities. our fight is not just for today, it is for the vast future. and providence has devolved upon us, has thrust upon us these events. and that's what we're fighting for. it's not only just for you and your students at your campuses that are in your chapters but it's for the vast future. it's for our basic institutions. and they are under threat. and we have heard examples -- ben shapiro in california. you know, yale, university of missouri. just some of the crazy thuggishness we've seen where people somehow view themselves

as academically more enlightened and advanced and yet they implement these authoritarian measures to silence people who are against them. so we see things like safe spaces and trigger warnings and all these types of things that are totally at odds of freedom of speech and protecting our right of association. unlike the ad that says what , happens in vegas stays in vegas, what happens at the universities doesn't stay there. it spreads into regular american society. so these universities that are training tomorrow's leaders are basically training them to think it is normative to have speech codes and speech zones and non-discrimination policies imposed upon private organizations, compelled

payments of student fees to groups who oppose your ideas. et cetera, et cetera. that that should all be viewed as totally against the liberties that are secured by the first amendment. no, this is normal. we got to protect people from hearing things that they don't agree with. et cetera. and that's what we are fighting for. so let me go on to some of the specifics about some of the things that as specifically manifest themselves on campuses that, in my job at alliance of freedom and other attorneys and allied attorneys we are fighting. and i want to add one of the things i do, i worked on our university cases. but we've increasingly had a quite an effective impact at the u.s. supreme court. last 4 terms we've had 7 cases granted, six of them have been decided. we won all six. we have another one that's going to be argued in the fall.

it is really, really difficult to get cases up at the supreme court and win. f havect that we at ad worked to have quality cases that the justices are ruling in our favor to me, i just have to say i'm very proud to be part of the team at adf that's put that together. we're not just some outsiders who have no effect. just make a lot of noise and have no effect. speech codes. restrict offensive speech. let me just say, this is like saying two plus two equals four under the constitution. there is no right not to be offended. and yet on many campuses they think there's a right to a sanitized corridor that they can walk down and not hear anything that offends them. if they do, they are allowed to invoke the authority of the university officials to silence the people who offend them. in 1949 the supreme court wrote, accordingly a function of free

speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. it may indeed best serve its higher purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates the set -- dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. it doesn't give you a right to silence those people that evoke those reactions in you. in a free society you've got to tolerate hearing things you don't agree with. at many campuses they do the opposite and try to silence offensive speech. we get things like this, here's a speech code from san francisco state. students are expected to be civil to one another. this was used to bring their administrative charges against the college republicans. this wasn't like some sort of, you know cracker jack box statement of, fortune cookie thing you should be civil to each other. it was an enforced policy against the college republicans.

under adf's lawsuit, the federal courts struck that down as grossly violating the first amendment. what does it mean? civility? like, that just arms the government with the ability to shut down anybody that they don't want. one of my favorite speech codes is this from penn state. intolerance will not be tolerated at penn state. again, used against people. i could go on and on and on. groups like fire, from philadelphia, have pointed out how wide spread these speech codes are. and there has never, when they have been challenged in court they are always struck down. none of these have ever been upheld. but we need people who are willing to go to court and to challenge these. let me just say, also, the first amendment only applies, the constitution only applies to the government. private schools don't, you don't have freedom of speech rights at a private school. there may be some other legal issues there, but the government

cannot disobey the first amendment. so a speech code at a state or city university, those are in violation of the first amendment. speech zones. so another way that things are, speech is suppressed on campuses is with speech zones. speech zones sound like they're a moderate reasonable regulation. we have a lot of people on campus, we have to regulate the flow of folks, et cetera, et cetera. that type of thing. what they have done frequently is used to suppress speech. on some campuses you will have these spaces that are about, you know, eight feet long and about three feet wide and that's the only place you can stand to hand out literature. and they usually then will put it, you know, at the far end of campus, you know, on the dark side of the moon in outer mongolia where nobody ever goes. although there can be reasonable regulations to, you know, et cetera, these things are manifestly unreasonableful they

-- unreasonable and unconstitutional. they basically say him a you cannot have spontaneous conversations. you cannot have one-on-one conversations. you can't hand out anonymous literature. and have very, very restrictive times that you can speak. so just yesterday, adf attorneys were in court against north carolina state. that basically under their policy, if you are in the student union and said, met somebody and said, hi, my name is so and so. i know you wouldn't do this but i have to illustrate this. you would do it with your iphone or whatever. if you hand the person a written note with your telephone number on it that would violate the policy. it would be soliciting without a permit. and that you would have to run upstairs to the student union to get a permit to say give me a call, here's my e-mail address, you would need a permit for

that. we are hopeful after the preliminary injunction hearing yesterday the federal judge will soon be striking that down as unconstitutional. we defended the chapter at palm beach state college in florida. they wanted to hand out literature from the heritage foundation. the police for that university stopped them. said you can't do this you need a permit. you have to get 24 hours advanced notice, and then you are relegated to this small little area. those are unconstitutional. if you encounter that, give us a call at alliance defending freedom. if you have any question, call us. 800-telladf. ask for the university lawyers and we can give you advice on , this. we've got your back. student fee funding. this was the case i argued against the university of

wisconsin about six seniors ago. -- 16 years ago. we got kind of a half result with all of this. we tried to argue that students should be totally exempt like the union dues cases from being forced by a state university to fund groups that advocate ideas they disagree with. if you're prolife you don't have to fund the, if there's a chapter of planned parenthood on campus as a condition to attend that state university. you should not have to pay a group that advocates ideas you disagree with. the lower courts agreed with me. the supreme court said, well, we're going to have this rule. it's still a pretty good rule. i would have gone further that you can force students to contribute, but the money has to be available to everybody without condition. they can't say we like your viewpoint, you get money. you don't get money because we disagree with what you say. so, for example, this would be unconstitutional.

virginia tech yaf chapter had bay buchanan come to speak about immigration issue. they funded it through student fees. afterwards the administrators there --yaf people their flyers went too far. they were offended by the title, alien invasion. that was offensive to some groups and you don't get any money. this was unconstitutional. this was blatantly unconstitutional. if somebody said we should have more immigration they would have funded it. that is a violation of the decision from the supreme court. now, so they can have this we don't like your viewpoint or they'll do another trick categorical exclusions. they will say, we don't fund religious groups or political group area i won a rosenberger

case, it says you cannot single out religion as a subject matter. the catholic group at the university of wisconsin was denied funding because they spent student fee money on religious things. we were able to get the 7th circuit, a great decision to say that that was blatantly viewpoint discrimination to single out religious groups for exclusion. they can exclude you because you're a political group. that is also unconstitutional. it was the conservatives at texas a&m wanted to discuss race and social justice issues from a conservative perspective. they were denied this because they were a political group. even if it was star parker was , mild and nobody disagreed with her which probably wouldn't have been the case. if she had been they would have denied her under this exclusion against political groups. that is something that is not allowed under the constitution.

also, security fees. you're bringing in somebody controversial. so you're going to have to pay $10,000 in security fees or something like that. financial deterrent that's unconstitutional. the supreme court and lower courts have said. i've got, i want to wrap up on one point. if you have specific questions we'll get to those. , the thing that i want you to get back to the quote from abraham lincoln. you've got to think that this is your time and destiny. what we really need are people who are willing to do lawsuits. because people say wait, i think this is unconstitutional. man, you know, i want to get into grad school and i'm going to flunk out here at the university of babylon if i challenge their speech code or something like that. what we need is people to see that their moment in history is both a present reality and for

the vast future. and we need people who courageously take the step. now, you know, there could be other things. it may not be a lawsuit, it may be something else. but what we don't need are more people who are playing it safe , but we want people who are willing to take the courageous risk because then you get the big upside. i want to end with this. this is a quote from teddy roosevelt, from a speech he gave at the sorbonne university in 1910. many you may be familiar with this. the man in the arena. this so accurately captured the character of the type of people we need to bring -- revitalize our constitutional rights and liberties that we cherish. president roosevelt said it's not the critic who counts not the man that points out how the strong man strumbled or the doer of deed could have done better.

the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. who strives valiantly. who errs but knows the great -- who comes up short again and again but who knows the great enthusiasms. the great devotions who spends himself for a worthy cause. who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he , fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. thank you. [applause]

>> thanks everybody. great to be here. : thank you very much to pat and the young america's foundation for including me in this. i am going to start, actually with a story about how i find myself here. and the story has everything to do with campus freedom issues. a long time ago i was in college at yale. and i was really not particularly interested in politics. in fact, you know, i was pretty much of an apolitical left of center liberal person who didn't

really pay attention to all of these ideas. i just assumed, coming from manhattan, and the upper west side of a jewish family that you , know, had long been associated with, had long associated -- has long been associated with liberal views with goodness. that, you know, everyone who was anyone was a liberal and that, you know, nobody could, nobody who really thought about these questions would ever be a conservative. so i was very surprised when i got to college, and i met among the student body some very smart , charming, friendly conservatives who actually were very curious, intellectually curious, and always eager to get into debates about things. and then on the other hand, i was quite surprised to discover there had been a controversy at yale the previous year about the question of whether a debate

should take place between william shockly and william rusher. interestingly enough, the young americans for freedom play a pivotal role here. because this debate was originally going to be between shockley and someone else i can't remember sponsored by the political union. but there was student opposition to it, and a lot of protests. shockley in fact holds some views that are you know, almost certainly incorrect and you know, about significance of race and determining iq. and so basically this triggered a wave of protests and disruption, ultimately of the debate that was held which was

, actually not between rusher, shockley and the original opponent, but between shockley and rusher sponsored by the young americans for freedom who took up the cause of free speech when the political -- yale political union abandoned it by this inviting the speakers -- dis inviting the speakers. as a result of that disruption yale appointed a committee and the committee produced the woodruff report, which is -- to this day, i think viewed as a model of the statement of principles of free speech on campus. the effect of this on me was also to be very surprised that it turned out that the left was opposed to free speech and the , right was in favor of free speech. this was contrary to everything

i had been led to believe when i was growing up. as a matter of prejudice not as matter of informed opinion. and as a result of these experiences, i gradually you know, began to engage with conservative ideas. and ultimately found myself starting the federalist society at chicago law school along with some other friends. and so in a certain sense the federalist society owes its -- friends from the yale political union were very pro-free-speech and who kind of took over the union partly in , response to what happened. and as a result of all this, you know, i would say the federalist society is in a certain sense the product of efforts of campus , censorship.

so what do we take from this? i think one thing we can take from it is that these efforts to sensor can certainly have unintended consequences. and i do think that people who are, you know, being told at the age of 18 what they are and are not allowed to think or to some extent, despite the push in that direction, going to be fertile ground for having a possible negative reaction. because i think that at that age we all tend to be somewhat contrarian. and so i think that is potentially at least an opportunity for all of you to capitalize on. the other thought is that i do think that the particular form

that censorship is taking right now is in some ways a little trickier to combat than was the case when i was in school. now, when i was in school, you know, you had the same situation that basically with the university administrators in terms of their predilections. their impulse was to bring up on charges the people who had sponsored the event as opposed to the people who had disrupted the event. that was their instinct. but i think that the rhetoric that was being used to attack the event was a little different and that the current rhetoric is , a little more difficult to deal with. the rhetoric at the time was something like, you know, we can't have a debate about racism. it's not a debatable idea.

and, you know, the problem with that is, obviously in fact people have debated the idea and it's not at all clear that you do better dealing with it by not debating it than by debating it. that was a very bad argument i think. one that left the people glancing at someone naked because it is so directly contrary to the presumption of the market of ideas. on the other hand the current rhetoric i think is borrowed -- it is from this origin actually in sort of an out growth of the civil rights laws. and in particular, i think that it's an expansion way beyond kind of even, you know, what was contemplated when this

originated as the notion of harassment. essentially the current movies basically if it makes me unhappy , or uncomfortable it is harassing. and that's a very difficult proposition to maintain, too. it's kind of when you think about it, you know, the idea that you should be able to be free from things, from speech that upsets you, is very difficult with the basic premise of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas. but i think because it has a more apparent victim, you know, in the way that the problem is framed, and because there is, seemed to be an infinity of victims you can come up with, nessclaim that their upset

is privileged, it does put you in a somewhat more difficult rhetorical posture. so i think actually, that, one thing that needs to happen that this needs to be discussed more. the fact that, i want to be freed from having to be upset. because i think if you put it that way, you know, it kind of just clarifies the difficulty. and it also, i think, puts front and center how we've got to zero some problem here. because, you know, what if i'm upset i'm told i can't upset you? now what? you know. and you can do a regression forever. i mean, the answer to some extent that the censors come up with is, well, you know, some people are entitled to be upset and other people are not , entitled to be upset. usually the policies can't be

framed exactly that way. and so you can, so i think, i do think that, you know, just explaining what's going on can be helpful. one other thing, you know, i think that turned out to be helpful in the yale event back in the late 1970's, that also turns out to be helpless to us at the federalist society is i , think it is very good idea to try to hold debates where you can. in other words not just to invite a conservative speaker , and or a libertarian speaker. but to invite people to debate something. i think this has a couple different advantages as a tactical proposition. one of them is that the you'll

get people there who don't agree with you now. but who may agree you when they leave. and, you know, speaking from my own experience, again, i think it's a great way of not preaching to the choir and also of testing, you know, the ideas that you are thinking about because it is possible there's something wrong with them, god forbid. but in that case it's really good to find that out. and the other thing is is that i think that automatically if it's a debate, it sort of assumes it's a question that can be resolved by means of ordinary

tools of reason. and i think one big thing that's going on with the censorship is essentially an effort to discredit reason as a way of resolving disputes. and -- but people don't really buy that on the whole. i mean, you know, not really smart people, which is what most people who are in colleges, you know, are. because after all, you know, where would they be if reason gives way to force? i mean, they would not be in good shape, believe me. most of us. i think that anti-reason is not really ultimately a viable position. but it's a tempting one. you know, and we're all tempted by it from time to time. it's not like, listening politely to other people's views is something that comes naturally to people. it's actually a great innovation that needs to be protected as emily said. you know, one generation away at all times.

and so i do think jordan is quite right in his call for action here. i think we are at a scary point in a lot of ways are for freedom of speech not only on campus, but i think also he's right that it doesn't stay there. and so, you know, i do think it's very important that, you know, people have some moral courage and stand up to this. i don't think that you're -- i think it's a good idea to try to do it civilly, politely, you know, simply to borrow an unfortunate, you know -- the fact there's a rule in favor of civility is bad. but nonetheless, civility itself is actually not a bad thing in a community. and so, you know, try to do it civilly and respecting other

people's motives and ask them to respect yours. and point to your own sort of upsetness when yours are not respected as well i think. and you know i think this -- there is still enough belief in these values that there is a reservoir you can tap to essentially i think jonathan hite who is the social psychologist who has done very important work on universities and on this question and who has this blog. has come up with i think a useful distinction between the liberal left and the illiberal left. i think there are members of the liberal left out there, they are intimidated because they don't

really have great tools to fight back. i think they're out there and i think it's not the case that a majority of students really, you know, do want speakers shouted down or disinvited. i think it's a vocal minority who is causing this. there is important there be push back. i commend all of you and all the young americans for freedom for encouraging that to happen. [applause] >> thank you so much to both of you. if the students can start lining up by the microphone. we hope to have a robust question and answer session here. >> can i also -- lee has great humility and modesty of character that i want to say --

she says, you know, casually i'm the founder of the federalist society. sort of like yeah, i helped write the first amendment, something along those lines. i graduated from the university of minnesota in 1980 which was two years before the federalist society started. it was just an unrelenting monotone of leftist talk and there was no way, no breakthrough, any alternative views. and i remember it frustrated me and lee -- if i get this story right -- three of her associates, a guy named professor scalia, right? said why don't we set up these debates at universities where we bring in somebody to debate the other side the way she was talking about. i want to add from my own experience, that the other value of the debate is that if you think of yourself in a classroom and your professor says some very extremely dubious but left wing thing, the professor is in

a power position in the classroom. has probably 20 years on you, a couple of degrees, you're a 20-year-old or whatever. what a debate does is neutralizes those advantages. you put him or her, the professor on an equal footing with somebody whose not the

professor's student and also is equally qualified. so they can't just lord over you in an unquestioning manner. you know, where they're never questioned and never challenged. and i want to point back to this lincoln quote. she probably -- i don't know her that well, but she probably is not even thinking about this. when they were in chicago and started this, they had no idea -- like lincoln said the struggle is not all together just for today at the university of chicago campus in 1982. it's for the vast future. this year alone i have spoken at i believe nine -- this school year that just ended. nine federalist chapters, university of michigan, yale, harvard. and i think of the freedom that has been called out for students to hear an alternative point of view. i don't think you had the idea this thing -- they have a convention every november and they get a thousand people at it. why would a thousand people when to hear reform of the telecommunications industry? it's a family reunion. they say i'm not alone. i'm not crazy. i'm at this family reunion. it's like therapy just to hear people say things like, i'm not nuts to believe there's a better way that liberty is right. the thing is, i want -- you need to understand. when you take the risk and take

the steps, it can have this explosion. some of the liberal law school, the federalist group is the largest group on campus. there was this little obscure student and her three comrades. compatriots. who put this together and so you always -- i just think risk taking, taking initiative. not playing it safe. is generally the way to go. and so thank you, lee. >> well, thank you very much for everything that you do, including speaking to all of our chapters. with that, i have to say that i hope that if any of you are thinking about law school, that we will hear from you if you end up there. >> that's right. >> absolutely. please take all that to heart. i want to add to lee's remarks, is that, it's important to keep in mind you aren't in the minority. we have done polling at young american's foundation we have done polling that shows the vast majority of students do support free speech rights.

they need to be educated on what they should look like. that is key. it's not true there's mobs and mobs of vast majority of students hate free speech. it's not true. you do have a position of power in your campus as far as that goes. but with that i'm going to open it up to questions. please state your name and school and keep them brief because we have an awesome line. we want to get through as many questions as possible. [inaudible] >> my question is, obviously, there are certain types of speech that are not protected by the first amendment. do you believe that speech that is likely to the site violence that that type of speech, do you think that restriction is too broad or do you think that is a fair restriction? >> the supreme court has said it's got to be advocating for imminent lawless action. so i just think, just a generalized call, i just think is -- you got to be very very careful.

i think whenever you say the government can ban this, that's -- i think there are things they can, the supreme court has said that. you've got to be careful because the government always wants to expand the boundaries. >> one exception there isn't as for quote, hate speech. there's no such exception to the first amendment for your information. i mean, you wouldn't get that from reading a lot of things. but, actually, there's no recognized exception for quote, unquote, hate speech. partly because the boundaries of what that is are very unclear. >> next question. >> my name issanders. i go to hillsdale college. i'm passionate about the first amendment. i find i can't be on the front lines at a liberal university fighting against it. what would you recommend for a student like me to do on my campus to fight for the first amendment?

>> one thing that -- also, because hillsdale is private, it's not subject to the first amendment. if you're thinking about law school, and you're at a place like hillsdale, then think -- try to excel in your grades so you can apply and go to the university of chicago or harvard or yale or stanford and go into places that are much -- where the next generation of leaders are going to be and advocate for freedom of speech there. that's what i would suggest. >> thank you. >> i do think while we're on the topic of private schools, there are still issues with private schools restricting free speech rights. in their mission statement they talk about free expression and free speech it can be a -- >> yes, that is generally correct. for example if you have a religious school like, you know, libertyquinas or university, they can say we

advocate christian values, if you don't like it, tough. we're going to throw you out or something like that or don't come here. they're allowed to do that. but if a private university says, come here to our campus and we engage in freedom of speech and protect students' rights to express their ideas without punishment. then they're setting up a contract. they're making an offer and saying come to my school, we'll protect your rights. then, they say you can't say anything offensive. there's a breach of contract. there have been some cases like that against schools that do -- was obviously. >> bringing some muscle here. >> one of my good friends took that video of her. she was assaulted.

>> really? oh wow. >> in the journalism school right now, there are actually members of the journalism school who stepped out in support. there was infighting in the journalism school. as someone in a tenuous position where i'm a staunch supporter of the first amendment, not wanting to like risk my future academic career but also trying to balance that between, well, i know i have raw protection because this is a public university, how would you suggest somebody not really prone to being quiet about supporting the first amendment kind of balancing that with not academico risk my future in the college?

>> what do you want to do? >> i've always said i want to own my own breitbart someday, being a pioneer owning my own news aggregation, that kind of thing. as things descended into lunacy on the campus, i've gotten into the activism side of it, too. >> i guess, i don't think if you are polite anything bad will come of it academically. maybe i'm being a crazy optimist here. i suspect explaining your views in a measured, reasonable way will be ok. am i crazy? >> no. i think that's right. i think that -- i don't think this is a formula, like you follow a cooking recipe. if you do this, then you can be conservative and kind of, you

know, get through everything like that. what i would say is -- and this is sort of reinforcing a theme, is you want to cultivate a habit of risk taking. sometimes people may accuse you of being rude or you actually are rude. i don't think you should be rude. i think the biggest problem, hey, young person, you have to dial it back. you're being too flamboyant or reckless, for every one i have to say that to, you're too cautious, not taking risks. i think you want to cultivate risk taking and learn how to stand alone. i am willing to suffer loss to do the right thing here.

and i think those are the kinds of people that later -- that as -- you're stakes get higher. if you've cultivated being courageous, that's when you get high rewards and big upside. like roosevelt said, can you suffer defeat. there's even a dignity in i tried to do something big and it didn't work. i think you have to take the circumstances as they come along. don't be needlessly offensive. boldness, that is young people. if i had to do my life over again, you hear somebody say that, they are giving you a million dollar piece of advice for free, i would have taken more risks.

lee and people at the university of chicago did that and many, many benefited because of a risk >> i have a little bit -- i don't fundamentally disagree. i think courage is a moral habit and easy to get into bad habits about it. i think it's really important not to do that. but i also think you're something of an ambassador to people who don't know any conservatives. that's also important. yes, take risks but i actually think it's pretty important to do it in a way that will be attractive rather than offensive personally. >> i think that's a good thing to say. last october when i had people screaming at me about how i wasn't giving them dignity. i would read their flyers. now that you've gotten to know

me, do you feel like i'm showing this. i hope i'm showing respect to you and you have eternal dignity. i would just read them their quotes. after a while, they were just kind of hanging their heads and wouldn't respond. so you never want to vow them as cardboard, lefties, but all people made in the image of god and therefore have intrinsic value and due respect because of that. i'm really glad you added that. you take risk taking with respect. >> my question is, what do you think, what function of these liberal universities are causing students to arrive at the answer undeterred free speech is not the answer and like restricting free speech is the answer. what function of the university is causing it. generally speaking many universities know the consequences of restricting free

speech and even aware of that going down the wrong path. >> i would say there are two things. they think they are right, so why do we have to tolerate error because we've already arrived at the right answer. the other thing is i think state universities do not view themselves as governmental entities. they are kind of a denial they are governmental entities subject to first amendment. no, we're just enlightened ascended masters that are bringing light and truth to the unwashed masses. if you oppose that, you're on the wrong side of history, blah, blah, blah, this kind of thing. when you bring up this first amendment stuff they look at you like what are you talking about? >> also, i would say moral courage is something to cultivate i don't think they go into this to be morally

courageous. to the contrary, they get into bad habits. the screw tape letters are pretty good example of how this kind of thing works. it's a beaurocracy. are acrewtape letters" beaurocracy. administration is a beaurocracy, a beaurocracy composed of very smart people but probably more cowardly than the average person. so they also are generally, just this general no enemies to the left mentality, i think, among liberals. when they have liberal left wing students screaming at them, i think their tendency is to cower that isn't know that going to change anytime soon,

unfortunately. >> only beaurocracy penn state will come up with a statement intolerance will not be tolerated. >> next question. >> i'm olivia, at cal state l.a., next quarter or semester will be at usc. we saw at cal state l.a. a lot of leftist protesting ben shapiro coming to campus. there's this trend of organizing that's very aggressive. it's almost like you can't get a word in. being courageous and being respectful is almost not an option, because you're being attacked. how do we compose our selves and win on campus when we're fighting an uphill battle? do we fight dirty like them? >> no is one answer. let me -- this is -- on the specifics should we, there is a near riot in the auditorium,

should we shout back, i don't want to speak to a specific circumstance but this is a helpful thing to think about. when i worked for concerned women for america, we had a great media person, rebecca halen, who said to me -- the way i would encounter this, i would be doing a debate. there would be a big audience and the guy would be screaming and yelling and saying dumb things and i couldn't get a word in edgewise. she said to me, do not think everybody is agreeing with the screaming people. there's a lot of people who don't quite know what to think and they are willing to listen, that's the audience you speak to. you don't try to address the screamer, you address the convincible people in the middle. you still treat them with

respect like lee was talking about, so you don't dismiss them. what happened, you kind of get focused on oh, yeah, oh, yeah, to the person. it's almost like you've got to tune them out and speak to the others. that might be an alternative environment, like you do a blog post or event, you have to think about how you specifically implement that in the environment you're in in southern california or whatever. the thing is you direct it to the people that are convincible. that will help liberate you from this frustration. these people, i bring up intelligent answers and they scream back to me with invective and slogans and don't even respond. it's like, you know what, maybe they will be convinced in the future but those aren't the people -- they are really not your target audience. >> i agree. that's very good advice. >> that's what happened. we actually got a lot of recruits after that event because they saw.

>> adf was there to defend you guys. >> yeah. [applause] >> my name is anna martinez, i also attend cal state l.a. taking in consideration your history and experience dealing with censorship and fighting for free speech would you consider overseeing campuses the worst wave of censorship you've seen. >> i would say in my lifetime, it's the worst. to me it's getting worse and worse and worse. to me, i almost -- i have this feeling like it's got to implode or something. it can't go on add infinitum because it's so nutty to be like that. >> i agree. it was fairly when i was in college. some of the things i said in nature of the argument, also, all of the identity politics

have really, you know, made it extremely difficulty to have an actual argument about things in a way that is worse. i agree it's an opportunity, but it's an opportunity, it may implode. i don't think we can count on it imploding on its own. i do think it's important to stand up and point out what's going on. >> right. >> i just want to add, we bring up the next question here. just one thing i want to say, one thing that i wish i would have known when i was in college and law school was how much training comes from mentors. try to find people that are smart, the obi wans and yodas that can help you wield the light saber. i look back and wish i had an

understanding of that so i could have consciously sought out people to train me on how to do things. it is amazing to me, you've got to go to school to qualify, to take the bar exam but you learn how to practice law by some mentor. so internships, all those kinds things, look for that. don't think all learning is classroomy stuff. >> hi, my name is kenny shu, i'm from davidson college. >> where is that? >> north carolina. you can think of steph curry, he went there. so basically, the baying thing around surrounding my college is the talk about privilege, especially white privilege.

we had like a pathways of privilege event. i went to that for some reason. i was just not impressed at all. it just -- that's the big talk around here. so please, yoda, please explain to -- me. sources. intellectual spread?this combts the best way to it -- combat it? jordan lawrence: lee may have more, she deals with faculty and may have more ideas on the whole white privilege issue.

i would say this. this is one tactic i do with debates, bring up something outside of the way they are constructing the reality of white privilege and say, you know what i really think i benefited from was marriage privilege. my parents marriage ended when my mom died of cancer and breathed her last breath during my second year of law school. i and my two brothers benefited from having a stable marriage, no divorce, et cetera. there was accumulation of wealth, emotional stability of the home and all that. i basically think the most important things my parents did was stay married. it didn't matter my skin was white. if you say i have white privilege, much of my success -- one brother is a successful stockbroker, another a mechanical engineer, very successful, has patents all this stuff, i've argued at the supreme court. that comes from marriage privilege. they say, no, no, no. ok. look, how much of me is white privilege and how much of me and my success is marriage privilege

and then when we see the black community ravaged by these very high percentages of children being born out of wedlock, the churches i defended in new york city, people come and none of the kids have married parents. they talk about come to christ and marry the mother of your children. see, that's the type of thing where like i don't really know on whitehetoric privilege. i do know stuff. i basically invite them to my home team, my home field and ask them to explain to negate that before they can talk about it. it's like coming in blindsiding them. they had never thought about that. they start bad-mouthing it. i start reading some of the things president obama said from fathership initiative. you oppose what president obama has said about his father leaving him and going back to kenya was one of the most devastating things to his life, and stuff like this, and then

they -- then all of a sudden you've changed the discussion and maybe opened some minds. so that's one thing i would offer. lee, do you have anything? >> actually i have not traced the specific history of white privilege. i would be curious to do that, actually. as a general matter, i think a lot of this is mark arguing essentially the same thing about, you know, it's equally, the poor man and rich manner -- the poor man and the rich man are equally free to sleep under

and alan coors teaches at the university of pennsylvania and is very involved in fire, the organization that, you know, is dedicated to combating censorship on campus, says that basically when people talk about multicultural education and diversity, what they really mean is that there's one western culture. you know, and that it's the enemy. and that it's been spreading ignorance and despotic power and that only -- any voices that challenge it and only voices that challenge it are the ones that are entitled to be heard. his speech is on youtube and well worth looking at. but it denies the individualality of people.

and that that has to be wrong. that sort of grouping everybody as white or as women or as anything else, you know, is -- prevents them from defining themselves. and that can't be right. >> whose speech was that? >> alan kors. >> a great guy. and david french, national review, has -- online has written about this as well. he's probably not -- he doesn't have lengthy scholar shi discourse on t but i recall that he's written on this as well. >> yes. he's great. and i'm sorry he's not here. >> next question. >> hello. my name is manfred wendt. as a student at private university when should i know that my school has crossed the line and i can sue them?

>> look to see and like the student handbook or the regulations what they say about freedom of speech. and also think of this more organically in the sense of here i am as part of my university community. who could i bring in to speak about these things to educate people and to -- and to basically to be a benefit to those on campus? not necessarily -- even though i came across yeah, let's have a big street fight or something like that, i also want to say that you want to view yourself as part of a community that you're bringing something of value to them by hearing about the need to tolerate expressions of opinion that you disagree with. and to -- that's an important american value. and find people that can bring -- or to bring on campus and to talk about it. and if that provokes controversy, so be it. but it's like you don't want to

have controversy for troughs' sake. you want to bring -- nowadays, saying we should have freedom of speech, marriage is only one man and one woman. that provokes nuclear war on many campuses. and -- but maybe that's something that needs to be done. but you bring in articulate people and this is what the federal society has done and why -- because there's such excellence in many of the speakers that come in and do these debates. wow, just the power of ideas cannot be denied and you convince a lot of those people in the middle. you'll always have the activists that will never be convinced but those who are worn over by more traditional points of view. >> there is probably many of you in this room who have had that experience and that's going to be our last question. so i just want to say i think this was -- sorry. i think this was absolutely fascinating conversation.

and i hope that it's developed your conception of the censorship movement that's probably on your campus. if it's not it's probably coming. and that you'll use it really as a resource to combat that censorship movement. that's really what it deserves to be called. remember, like president reagan said, freedom is never one generation -- more than one generation away from extinction. and i don't think that's ever been more true than it is right now. and i think you guys are our last line of defense. so don't just brush that aside. that's a very serious responsibility and obligation. we're so glad all of you are here and glad you were here to hear this panel and i want to thank our panelists and with that we'll adjourn to lunch. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

>> c-span washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, with several presidential primaries being held this month, "washington post" columnist stewart rothenberg and nathan gonzalez, elections editor for roll call, talk about key 2016 house and senate races. and the impact of the presidential campaign on those contests. then dr. ezekiel emanuel, medical ethics and health policy chair at the university of pennsylvania on how antibiotic resistance is

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then a discussion on possible action to address puerto rico's debt. of that democratic presidential candidate senator bernie sanders of vermont at a campaign rally in los angeles. >> today is a historic occasion. the proceedings of the united states senate are being broadcast to the nation on television for the first time, not that we have operated in secret until now. millions of americans have set in the galleries and observed senate debates during their visits to washington. but today, they can witness the proceedings in their own homes. we might say that the nation is tuning in late. woodrow wilson said that the informing function of congress should be preferred to its legislative function. today, as the u.s. senate comes out of the communications dark