justice ginsburg: justice o'connor was the most welcoming.e me some very good advice. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. alrit.

justice o'connor was also. justice scalia was. there were only nine votes -- >> only three. >> three. that's that breyer guy that was nine. i don't know. >> yeah. >> but it is now 31 in your situation and the last few there's been over 40. are we at a point where there's no turning back in terms of contentiousness of the confirmation process and what kind of damage does that do to your institution? >> if you think back, way back to 1980, when i got my first good job in d.c. i was pinted appointed to the c appeals. the chair of the judiciary committee was ted kennedy. the ranking minority member was strom thurmond. those two worked together to get well qualified judges appointed to the federal courts. it was the same thing 1993 when i was nominated then senator joe biden chaired the committee. orrin hatch was the ranking minority member. on that judiciary committee orrin hatch was my biggest supporter. that's the way it should be. and the way i hope i will see again in my lifetime. but it will take people who really care about our

justice ginsberg has said frequently when she joined, justice o'connor was the best friend any justice could have. she appreciated her thoughtfulness and support, and their shared expenses. how was it manifesting itself and how did justice o'connor view and value justice ginsberg? >> i think she valued her very much. they both respected one another greatly. they had a little bit of a competition over who would get out the first opinion. [laughter] >> which was kind of fun. but justice o'connor, i think, respected her tremendously. and it was just a wonderful for us to be able to be there and see that. >> that is remarkable. justice ginsberg says in her in my own words book that justice o'connor's advisor was just get the decision out as fast as you can, see do not get a really boring assignment the next time around. but i did not realize they competed. so i have to ask the obvious follow-up. who won? >> well, my co-clerk is sitting in the audience. i believe we won. >> any insight on the justice ginsberg justice o'connor relationship? >> just to echo what mike what my co-clerks have sa

[laughter] >> she would sometimes say i'm justice o'connor. she's justice ginsburg.hat happened not to just occasional lawyers who showed up, but even the solicitor general, he called me justice o'connor, realized the mistake that he had made. >> he said he wanted -- he wished there was a trap door under his feet. [laughter] >> but nowadays we are one third of the bench -- [cheers and applause] >> we're all over the bench because of my seniority, i sit next to the chief with justice sotomayor on one side and justice kagan on the other. people who have attended arguments at the court know that my two sisters-in-law are not shrinking violets. they are very active in the colloquy that goes on. in fact there was a rivalry between justice scalia and justice sotomayor on who could ask the most questions. [laughter] >> and sometimes she won. >> it seems to me appropriate since we began this interview talking about justice scalia, we should end it in some ways there because the two of you were such pals for so many decades and such unlikely -- it was such an unlikely friends

justice ginsburg: justice o'connor was the most welcoming.he gave me some very good advice. >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way. all right. ♪ david: i don't consider myself a journalist. and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. i began to take on the life of being an interviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. how do you define leadership? what is it that makes somebody tick? ♪ david: when you went to cornell, your grades were obviously very good. you applied to law school at harvard. you got into harvard law school. was the class half women and half men or? [laughter] justice ginsburg: in those ancient days, i went to law school from 1956 to 1959. in my entering class at harvard law school, there were over 500 in the class. nine of us were women. a big jump from marty's class, he was a year ahead of me. there were five women in his class. and today, the harvard law school has about 50% women. [applause] davi

her fellow justices got to see as close or as much of what made the justice who she was as a justice. clerking is a really unique job. it's not really a job. it's closer to a discipleship than it is to a regular job. you work long hours, and i can tell you that o'connor's clerks worked longer hours than most of us. you have incredibly close contact with this person. you spend your time thinking not about how you can influence them, because very few of us had the kind of arrogance, particularly at the age of 26, to want to push the justice in a different direction than he or she wanted to go, but really trying to understand what it is that the justice needs or wants or is trying do and to fulfill those needs, to provide the research, to provide the thinking, to provide the kind of argumentation that helps the justice shape her views. so, who better to give us a sense of what it was that made justice o'connor the justice that she was, who better than those, particularly in those key cases and important cases, who did the work with her? and so, with that, let me bring on the next panel.

it makes sense when justice ginsburg joins justice o'connor on the bench in 1993, the two bonded over their historic role in transforming the supreme court. both justices had to overcome discrimination and professional rejection, but justice o'connor once put a helpful spin on it if they had come of age when women could easily be lawyers, she told justice ginsburg, they would probably end up as retired partners at some law firm. but because that route was not open to us, justice o'connor explained, we had to find another way and we both ended up in the united states supreme court. one woman they inspired was a young attorney in manhattan. she had been working in the da's office in 1981 when she heard president reagan had nominated sandra day o'connor. just two years earlier, she and her law school classmates had wondered aloud if they would ever see a woman on the supreme court in their lifetimes. little did sonia sotomayor imagine that 20 years later she would become the third woman on the court and make history in her own right as the first latina judge you the. these three women co

when justice ginsburg arrived, justice o'connor wrote 1 million ladders. this is what makes writing about her so wonderful. there is a letter from o'connor to senator gold walker and, she's talking about some arizona thing. then it says, p.s., quite unprovoked, ruth ginsburg is a very capable and knowledgeable justice. just an fyi. >> she did an incredibly generous thing when ginsburg was pretty junior justice. o'connor was assigned the va my case. she said to just a stevens was signed it, this opinion should be ruled. that was an ink generous thing. it's a big opinion. when justice ginsburg assigned the opinion, she has signed that mississippi case and looked down the bench at ginsburg and the two of them had this moment. nobody else in the courtroom noticed, but they did. that was all that really mattered. i always thought it was kind of important. linda, your book -- let me just say this outright. you are a lefty and you are more and sympathy of it, a ginsburg's overarching way of approaching the law. but you came to believe that o'connor was the perfec

justice ginsburg: justice o'connor was the most welcoming.ave me some very good advice. >> would you fix your tie, p

justice ginsburg. watched how he went from the kind of tough but we all know and lighten up how he felt about his good friend, ruth. he told several stories. one was when they travel to india together and they went to visit the tosh mall and justice scalia described how he watched justice ginsburg u listened to e tour guide described the love story behind the building of the taj mahal and he said he saw the tears start to stream from her eyes and as he told me that, i'm 90% sure i have a tear both related to the opinion. the other story he liked to talk about with parasailing the justice ginsburg when she was a young 70-year-old was in need of the legal exchange. she turned to her husband and said that looks like fun. we should do that. he said are you crazy and if you do that i will remember you to our grandchildren. the host said i will go parasailing with you. so his wife was equally horrified and said if there is an accident and they can only save one of you, if that were not e -- it better not be

justice blackman when he sat next to justice revenge wihnqur ju just justice came on to the court, justice blackman said now no fooling around. but basically nobody knew. and the sweet thing about this is they ended up having a great friendship. yes, sandra turned him down. she actually strung him along for a while. she did it in a gentle way. they formed a real friendship. they both married the loves of their lives. and they had a great quiet but real friendship at the court. and justice rehnquist quietly lobbied the reagan administration, at least the attorney general, to put her on the court. >> i feel that i need to give jay an opportunity to respond if he wants to respond. how was it to find out that your mom had a love letter from chief justice rehnquist? >> it was a surprise. i'm sure my dad knew more about the relationship. that isn't something she would have hidden from my dad. but she never disclosed it to her three sons. and so evan called up and said, you know, boy i found some interesting letters. listen to this. and so we were definitely surprised. she was -- had handled that

justice kagan was with justice marshall in what year. >> '87. >> seems like yesterday, after having attended princeton and then oxford and then harvard for law and serviced in judge mcvau's chambers and all of our panelists served on a court. >> it was a good court. >> it was a great court. >> and was in the white house council office and then clinton administration and then in the policy council as deputy director. couldn't she keep a job apparently. taught at university of chicago law school and then after getting tenure there moved on and settled at harvard. not very long after that became the dean of harvard law school and then couldn't keep that job either and became associate -- solicitor general first and then associate justice of the supreme court. judge paul engelmayer is judge in the southern district of new york and has been since 2011. and i should have said, elena, you came on the court in 2010 -- >> mm-hmm. >> and paul went to harvard and to harvard for law school and clerked for judge wald on the d.c. circuit and then was in the solicitor office when drew days was solicitor ge

what past justices does roberts admire. >> chief justice hughes and chief justice marshall, the fundamentalunding, he was not our first chief justice but he was the first one who wrote harbor versus madison who gave the supreme court as power to decide what the constitution means. he has a lot of regard for john marshall and he said he thought about how history will think of him and he said no not be john marshall but you don't want to be -- but chief justice hughes who studied the court during the court packing era -- >> i was to hughes and marshall. >> would you comment on robert's health and how this will impact his longevity on the court. >> that's only thing that i know and we know so little. >> he had to epileptic seizures that made public and from what i can tell, it's very hard to get information on the justices help situation, he has not had one since 2007 when he was up at the vacation home in maine and hit his head and then it was revealed that he had a seizure in the early '90s on a golf course and as a matter of fact there were two instances and i have not seen anything or hear

and when justice ginsburg arrived, justice o'connor wrote a million letters, right? this is what makes writing about her so wonderful. but there's a letter from o'connor to senator goldwater and she is just talking about, i don't know, some arizona things. suero cactuses or something in this normal letter. then it says, p.s., quite unprovoked, ruth bader ginsburg is a very capable and knowledgeable justice. just fyi, senator goldwater. >> she did an incredibly generous thing when ginsburg was pretty junior justice and o'connor was assigned the vmi case. she said to justice stevens who assigned it, no. this opinion should be ruth's. that is an incredibly generous thing. that is a big deal opinion. and when justice ginsburg announced the opinion she cited that mississippi case and she lacked do looked down the bench at ginsburg and the two of them had this moment that probably no one else in the courtroom noticed but they did. that was all that really mattered. it sort of, i always thought it was kind of important. linda, your book, you know, let me just say this outri

then, the justice was not satisfied. he wrote a concurring opinion in which he said, i agree with what the court is doing but it is not going far enough. it should get rid of challenges altogether. it was that pushing of the envelope that brings a smile to my face and makes me think that that is the justice thurgood marshall that i revere. since you mentioned to sorts of opinions i will mention another weird it is not just one opinion but a series. justice marshall came to the conclusion that capital punishment is in all circumstances in violation of constitutional standards. he descended in all capital punishment cases in which somebody was sentence to death. that stand too, is a stand that makes me salute him. >> let me ask you to elaborate. justice marshall and brennan reiterated that. as opposed to, a tentative view that once something is settled that that is it. do you think this was because of justice marshall or the philosophical difference? >> i think it was largely because it was capital punishment. justice mars

every justice shakes hands of every other justice. justice bryon white, the all-pro half back from the detroit lions, shook her hand so hard he crushed it. the first woman went into her first conference crying. there were tears squirting out of her eyes, because he had crushed her hand. and the other justices, justice stevens told us there was a tradition, the junior justice takes notes and gets coffee. justice stevens said he talked about this. we're not going to ask her to get coffee but they didn't. >> so, this brings me to the kind of mystery that animates my thinking about justice o'connor. i'm going to ask you to respond to it. we have talked so much about how we think about her being the first. i'm always more curious about how she thought about being the first. and i say it in part because i know she spent her whole career saying it didn't matter. a wise old man and a wise old woman would come to the same conclusion. there is no such thing as female jurisprudence. we're the same. she was very meticulous about saying that her g

justice o'connor moved to the left as a justice?he said yes. and i said why? how? the two word answer was justice scalia. sandra day o'connor did not get along with him. initially they did she thought he was sleepy and old by the late eighties but scalia suffers that all of you will recognize as the smartest kid in the room syndrome and in this case it was the courts conference room. he would hand out the amino grahams and correcting them on their grammar and that did not go down well. but more than that in public he would write to these dissents that ruth bader ginsburg told us that she went to scalia and said you are hurting yourself. you are not as effective as you could be because you are alienating your fellow justices particularly justice o'connor about one of her abortion decisions he said you cannot be taken seriously. very harsh and gratuitous thing to say about your colleague she never dealt with this publicly she never fought back publicly but when her courts would draft her opinions, they would put in zingers and she wou

we have justice randomized joined by justice holmes issuing a concurrence. people have speculated about that ever since. the normal expedition is tied up to an aspect of justice brandeis ' worth noting. he said this. there were procedural defects in the record below. the attorneys that were representing charlotte whitney did not in fact make a first amendment issue of what was going on, did not introduce the appropriate evidence. he says this is a fact-bound inquiry. on the record below, there was evidence that was given to the judge and the jury that could support the conviction. on that basis we can't overturn this verdict. he did this in an opinion and it is famous, that reads like a primer on why free speech is important, why the first amendment is a centerpiece. freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are a means indispensable in value and to the discovery spread of political truth. without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile. with them it affords protection against noxious doctrine. the greatest menace to freedom is iner

every justice shakes hands of every other justice. justice byron white, wisor white, the great all-pro halfback from the detroit lions, i think it was, shook her hand so hard, he crushed it. so, she went into -- the first woman went into her first conference crying. she said there were tears -- this is her words -- squirting out of her ears, because he had crushed her hand. you know? and the other justices were, justice stevens told us, there's a tradition, the junior justice takes notes and gets coffee. mm. justice stevens said they talked about this. they said, well, we're going to ask her to get coffee, but they didn't. >> so, this brings me to the kind of mystery that animates my thinking about justice o'connor, and i'm going to ask each of you to try to respond to it. we've talked so much about how we think about her being the first. and i'm always more curious about how she thought about being the first. and i say it in part because i know she spent her whole career saying, it didn't matter, right? a wise old man and a wise old

justice. david i hope you are taking notes. [laughter] for this lineage to the supreme court reflects the reagan legac legacy. it is no secret were president reagan wanted that legacy to be. america's courts he said, "should interpret the law not make it. the role of the supreme court in his view was, "make sure the principles of law are based on the constitution. justice gorsuch new book is practically a user's manual with a faithful interpretation of the constitution. it's also a wake-up call if we steer too far from the constitutional principles. the title is a republic, if you can keep it. that phrase is how benjamin franklin answer questions a type of government they created at the constitutional convention. his response was trying to convey just how fragile the constitutional liberties are and how diligent the citizens must be to preserve them. but freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. during tonight's conversation we learn what america's court and citizens can

justice brandeis joined by justice holmes in 1927. they are two of the most prominent examples of something i call being agreeably disagreeable sort of the court etiquette version of judicial fighting words said with a disarming smile. now, dissent is not something new to the court. very few people realize the very, very first reported opinion of the court by an obscure justice thomas johnson of whom it was said no one has served on the court with least distinction and least impact, the first recorded written opinion of the court was a dissent which he got to deliver as the first opinion because they did -- each justice announced he was the junior justice and then got to sit and listen to every other member of the court tell him he was wrong. the next, this was 1792, the next year a more consequential dissent, one out of five saying in spite of the clear text of the constitution you could not bring a suit as a private citizen against the state of georgia. the case was chisolm and produced the 11th amendment. we won't go any further wi

it points to justice john marshall harlan's own defense in plessy v. ferguson. to that court's holding that separate but equal facilities. they argued that the constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens the law regards man. as thomas says do we quote from the majority or the dissent, it is the dissent that one day 60 years later so he lays down his markers and his contempt to let history judge. he uses his opinion. in the drama of the constitutional subversion. in that opinion arguably his finest he agrees with the majority of chicago's ban on keeping a handgun in one's hou house. no state may average the privileges or the immunities of citizens of the united states. what did the drafter drafters mp language? they meant slaves were american citizens with all the rights of citizens. and no state could interfere with those including the senator and the framing of the amendment the personal rights guaranteed in a secured by the first eight amendments of the constitution. as a typical commentator wrote, the rights if guaranteed

>> i do want to say that justice justiceberg's papers are here.this conversation by remembering that she made a cultural contribution of such enormous moments. i ran into her at an event after i was writing a book and the clerk would not talk to me and she said she could never walk down the block to go to lunch with justice o'connor because on every block they would get stopped five or ten times by girls and women that want today share her hand. this was late into her ten year. >> and what she means to women now. the fact that a african-american career librarian could read this get inspiration, get some tips, how to do it it is a legacy that speaks to people on a different level. things change laws change, whatever changes but inspiration doesn't. for her it is a statement of faith in the future and doubling down and reinvesting in our democracy. and those are important parts of her legacy too. >> another thing that i think is a perhaps unusual legacy is the true, deep affection that people have for her. people who knew her slightly and people who

pioneers of justice award. he's married to author and labor organizer sau rew and they have two daughters and they are raising them here in oakland. he's got quite an impressive resume let's give him some love. i believe it zach wants to share something from his book. he's gonna give us a short reading from his book. >> right on.how is already feeling? good, i appreciate seeing all of your beautiful faces. being in this institution the library, which is my favorite public institution. just appreciate y'all being here and when i told my mom, she knew i wrote the book but that i was in a go on a book tour she said you have to read from the book. so i gotta follow my mom's orders and read a little bit from the book. it's just about one page just to manage expectations. how are y'all feeling? good. 1823 month unknown. slaveholders from the deep south were more desperate for slaves since the abolition of the atlantic slave trade in 1808. and since the cotton gin invented in 1794 had allowed the production of cotton

with justice thomas on that side. let me and with another of the books main, it takes a certain kind of individual international character to be capable of liberty. thomas himself embodies precisely that character. that's why i've written a life and works book, which chapter two, recounting thomas his biography, his character is bound up with his in an exemplary way. one in a kerosene lit chanting, and a hamlet founded by freed slaves, thomas enjoyed a few look thin like childhood years until his divorced mother moved him and his younger brother to a savanna slum, a foul backyard toilet. on made wages, the children new hunger without the prospect of eating and cold without the prospect of. after a year of this, thomas his mother sent to doors away, to live with her father and and mother, and oliver twist like transformation. anderson, the self-made, if some are literate proprietor of a modest fuel oil business lived in a sparkling clean block house that boasted porcelain plumbing. a full fridge and a no excuses child

when we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe. these people are killers, and must be treated like killers. finally, let me say that i ask all americans tonight to pray, to pray for the people who have lost their lives, to pray for the families and the friends of the dead and the wounded, to pray for the people of oklahoma city. may god's grace be with them. meanwhile, we will be about our work. thank you. >> [inaudible] attorney general reno: this has been a tragic and heartbreaking day. i can tell you this. the fbi and the law enforcement community will pursue every lead and use every possible resource to bring the people responsible to justice. the fbi has established a command post in oklahoma city. it is in 24 hour contact with fbi headquarters command post and the department of justice. four fbi special agent's and charge have been dispatched to the scene to provide 24-hour operation of the command post. the fbi has sent four evidence response teams and explosive ordnance teams to oklahoma city. five of the best fbi agents, e

so she, and one other justice in the modern era, justice charles whitaker, are the only justices who actually served on all three levels of the federal judiciary. justice whitaker was appointed to his positions by the same president, president eisenhower. justice sonia sotomayor was appointed by three different presidents. george hw bush, the district court, president clinton, to the circuit court, and president obama to the supreme court. somehow, she has also found time to write some books. about her life in particular, i commend them to you as well. but let me just turn the program over to justice sonia sotomayor, it is a privilege for me to introduce her at this time. [applause] >> it was a miserable night last night. >> good evening everyone and welcome to the court. i am delighted that so many of you could join us this evening for this first lecture in the supreme court historical societies 2018, leon silverman lecture series. this term as you heard will focus on the supreme court in world war i. 2018 marks a century since the first world war ended. a fitting moment for our soc

so she and one other justice in the modern justices charles whitaker are the only justice that's actually served on all three levels of the federal judiciary. justice whitaker was pinlted to his position by the same president, president eisenhower. justice sotomayor was pinlt bid three different presidents, george h.w. bush, to the district court, president clinton to the circuit court, and president obama to the supreme court. somehow she has also found time to write some books. about her life in particular. i recommend them to you as well. but let me just turn the program over to justice soeta mior. it's a real prif lenl for me to introduce you to her this time. gtz. >>> good evening, everyone. welcome to the court. i'm delighted so many of you could join us this evening for the first lecture in the supreme court historical society's 2018 leon virlman lecture series which this term, as you heard, will focus on the supreme court and world war i. 2018 marks a century since the first world war ended. a fitting moment for the society's first series to focus on that important chapter in our

in the department of justice. after i rounded up my husband from a cocktail party he was sitting outside hunched over reading the national post waiting for me for quite a long time. a week later i called up the historian to work in the nazi hunting unit. i asked barry to talk to me about what she was doing here and recounted a story that prompted me to write this book. soon after the collapse of communism, barry white and peter black, you already got my joke and i haven't told you my joke yet. already got to the punch line. they went -- communism had collapsed and they knew that the nazis had stashed a lot of records in progress, war documents and they could never get to them because the communist government wouldn't allow them inside the archives but after the collapse of communism they could get in and this is a treasure trove of information for these historians. imagine what we might find. it would shoved across germany, in the middle of the night. the russian caretaker was very upset barry white was not there

and what the old justice of kentucky had been like.the jaws of which did not meet only with the larger objects. america is not a country to make a celebrity of a judge much less an intellectual, he scored the ambition of office. i wouldn't do much more than to be called chief justice, as he jokingly told nina gray i could find my aspirations to be the greatest lingle - - legal thinker. and with that legal scholarship. and in 1881 when he was just 40 a work of profound learning and revolutionary or shocking implications. and tracing that to the most ancient roots the common law that had always change to adapt the necessities of the time and as he put it the law embodies through the many centuries and it cannot be dealt with as they contained the axioms and corollaries of mathematics that is the genius of the g common-law and the justice over the court one - - over time even as they decide individual cases with those conduct to the relations between landlord and tenant and buyer andre seller in the ever-changing and complex world. the bo

and that even delayed justice is better than no justice at all.and that it is perhaps more important now than ever to show the rest of the world that this kind of that war criminals have no place living on u.s. soil and every time the people inside the justice department were questioned why are you going after these guys and it's been years and leave them alone, they are little old men. barry white would say, if years later we found one of the terrorists who blew up pan am 103, would be say well, you know, 30 years have passed. let's let him go. of course we wouldn't. why should it be any different for perpetrators of war crimes in the holocaust?oc why should it be any different? and so, they really were doing this in the name of justice and they did it most successfully. the justice department were able to prosecute more of these men from 1990 on than any other country in the world. this included germany. to this day they continue to do their work although the unit has expanded now to include war criminals from otherer parts of the world, guatema

of the department of justice and he ignored it. i think a president was correct in firing him. >> laura: it's the second inspector general he's fired since the beginning of this pandemic and of course that's used to say the president just doesn't want watchdogs. >> i think that's true. i think he wants responsible watchdogs. >> laura: what can you tell us about the state of john durham's investigation? people have been waiting for the final report on what happened with this, what can you tell us? >> i think the report may be and probably will be a byproduct of his activity but his primary focus isn't to prepare a report, he is to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses and he can show that they will can to or criminal violations and that with the focus is on. and as you know, being a lawyer yourself, building these cases, especially sprawling case we have between us that went on for two or three years here, it takes some time. it takes some time to build the case so he's diligently pursuing it. my own view is that the ev

and then only one year after that, justice stevens retires and president obama names justice kagan to the supreme court. she is now going into her tenth term here. and we are very privileged to have her as the host of this evening. justice kagan. [ applause ] >> thank you jerry so much. as you can tell from that introduction before coming here i couldn't keep a job. [ laughter ] jerry, thank you for everything you do, for the supreme court historical society and everything that the supreme court historical society does for the supreme court. the historical society does extremely important work in reminding people of the importance of our constitution and our judicial system and its history and we're deeply appreciative. this evening marks the second of the society's 2019 leon silverman lecture series, which is devoted this year to dissents and the supreme court. on my way over here, professor justin driver and also jerry libben reminded me i have written a few of those. tonight's speaker is professor justin driver. he is professor of law at yale law school. he teaches and writes in th

there is perfect justice. but the whole points are that chastity is not just about the physical act. ut begins in the mind and heart into the emotions and i talk about it in terms of lust of the eyes, lust of the pride of life and all the things that can result in unchaste behavior. so in terms of your second question, i do think the contraception mentality has harmed marriage, the institution of marriage and our understanding of marriage and has contributed to an idea that marriage is about to sexual partners together throughout life and here we are. so i think that evangelicals and baptists have a lot to learn from popes. >> can you hear me like this? okay, sorry. on intern here at the heritage foundation. my question is guarding aristotle and going off her question, chastity -- not chasity, temperance is defined as natural order of desires. would you say regarding chastity, sort of a middle ground between, it's very much in the gray zone where we determine it by field rather than by a mathematical formula o

that delayed justice is better than no justice at all. and so even though this is -- there were dark moments in this book, i write that it's also about light. in large part because i was moved and inspired as a human being. by the people that dedicated their lives to this type of work. >> to add one more thing. you said this little old man. i heard that a lot. and it's interesting because if joseph was still alive, would anyone say and found him now, would anyone say what are you doing? he's so old? right? would anyone say that? no. >> i mean as she said, you know, we see these men today. they're old men. but we don't see them as she saw them when they were strapping young men who had the power of life and death. >> i'd like to turn to our audience questions. thank you for submitting them and knowing i may have to merge some if they're similar topics. we have a couple of questions that are about whether there is a double standard or any hypocrisy in u.s. government policy that there were other nazis or nazi collaborators who entered the u

as we all know as a result what happened was not a restoration of justice simply but with those justices to be imposed once those who have been oppressed those who had a festive so that's an example not the corruption and then writing about his own country england following the french revolution. he was basically that error of access is what they saw the french revolution. there are two layers and i read about the chapter in a way i hope we could see our moment where we see cries of injustice everywhere and need to be concerned about it. there's is also international human tendency to into this telling he gives us of the french revolution for his time and i have tried to reach for our yard signs to bring back the virtue of justice. so now i would love to take questions from you. give me some feedback. >> this book for those who don't read this book for those who don't read. >> i go to georgetown and i have worked in the summer as well but my question is i have read it a couple of times i'm not a scholar but one of the things he talks about of someone who is a good person and following th

justice, racial justice and environmental justice. i want to think the many hundreds of people on our campaign staff. your willingness to move from one state to another, and do all to berk to do at had done. no job was too big or too small for you. rolled up your sleeves and you did it. core of our movement. not me, but us. i think each and every one of you for what you have done. you will recall, nelson mandela, one of the great freedom fighters of modern world history famously said "in all these things impossible until it is done." is at theant by that greatest obstacle to wield social change has everything to do with the power of the corporate and political establishment to limit our vision as to what is possible, and what we are entitled to. if we don't believe that we are entitled to health care as a human right, we will never achieve universal health care. if we don't believe we are entitled to decent wages and working conditions, millions of us will continue to live in poverty. if we don't believe that we are entitled to all of

, and justice o'connor, sandra o'connor. also a student of mine. and i can tell you from those long-ago years that he is super smart and super thoughtful, with a very keen eye for fascinating historical subjects. so you are in, as i am in, for a real treat, justin driver. [applause] >> hey, so i've been introduced by a lot of people over the years, but i have to confess it is an odd sensation to be introduced by a supreme court justice. perhaps one of the few things more still is being in the audience -- odd still is being in the audience when he introduces a law professor. it must feel like a really fancy restaurant where the main course arrives before the appetizer. it's a sort of proper standard of affairs has been woefully inverted. it was justice elena kagan who did the introducing tonight makes it all the more thrilling for me. not only did i have her as a professor, i was also a third-year law student at harvard when she became the dean. and she transformed that institution. i saw it happen almost overnight. there was

obtain or not attain political or social justice which i don't mean social justice. justice. in a societal communal way. essentially justice is the right ordering of relationships within a community. we have as an individual need to desire that right ordering, and if we are just individuals, we want our society to obtain and protect that right ordering as well. and so in the tale of two cities, we see again this propensity we have as human beings to gravitate towards extreme because the friends revolution is the center of the story. was a reaction to many years of injustice perpetrated upon the poor and the oppressed by those in power and it was a horrible terrible thing the french revolution came about in order, hopefully, they thought, to correct that injustice. but as we all know, as a result what happened was not a restoration of justice, but simply an extreme that went in the opposite direction and further injustices were imposed once those who had been oppressed became empowered and they perpetrated similar perhaps even worsese injustices on those who had oppre

opinion of the court by an obscure justice thomas johnson of whom it was said no one has served on the court with least distinction and least impact, the first recorded written opinion of the court was a dissent which he got to deliver as the first opinion because they did -- each justice announced he was the junior justice and then got to sit and listen to every other member of the court tell him he was wrong. the next, this was 1792, the next year a more consequential dissent, one out of five saying in spite of the clear text of the constitution you could not bring a suit as a private citizen against the state of georgia. the case was chisolm and produced the 11th amendment. we won't go any further with that particular one. now, context is very important to what i am about to talk about tonight. in particular context under which john marshall became chief justice of the united states. the myth surrounding chief