Transcripts For CSPAN Conversation With Justice Elena Kagan 20170903

Oconnor. This Aspen Institute event is just over an hour. Good evening and thank you merrill. On july 7, 1981, i was driving in my car where i was a relatively recent partner at my law firm. Our lawyers and our spouses had returned from a firm outing to prescott, arizona, which has the oldest rodeo on the fourth of july. Of course aware of the rumors that then judge oconnor was being considered for the Supreme Court, we asked her some questions. As you would expect, she was dismissive of the rumors and quickly turned in a conversation to another topic. As i drove that morning, i turned on the news. Just in time to hear president reagan say, she is truly a person for all seasons. N a convn to another topic. As i drove that morning, i turned on the news. Just in time to hear president reagan say, she is truly a person for all seasons. I had missed the first part of his remarks and i had not heard him say who she was. During the rest of his remarks, he did not repeat the name. Only when i of course was pounding my Steering Wheel asking, who is it . Only when a reporter began speaking, i knew she was Sandra Day Oconnor. I reacted the way many women lawyers reacted, with great emotion. We hoped the world for women and law had changed that day and it had. Justice oconnors impact on womens opportunities began immediately. First, we immediately felt new energy and confident we could encompass what we wanted. Also, she immediately disproved the notion that women could not handle the more amending areas of Legal Practice because if a woman could handle being a supreme justice, what areas should remain offlimits to female women . In addition, she was outspoken in educating those who would deny women opportunity. Thousands of young women, many of us not so young anymore, tell moving stories of the difference she made when she spoke with them at their elementary or high school, at the law school, at the law firm, at bar meetings, and events she organized at the United States Supreme Court. She also used her position and her influence to further other objectives important to her view of the essential nature of a judicial system that ensures continued to the rule of law. Expending that Judicial Independence is the essential underpinning of our democratic government. She cautioned such independence is tremendously hard to create. And its easier than most people imagine to damage and destroy. Working with organizations, local, national, and international, she spoke with leaders and judges and lawyers in numerous countries to help them reach their goal of forming and independent judiciary. Her work to further Judicial Independence and reliance lead her to the realization that in this country, too few of our students and too few of our adults understand our government, our history, and our laws. Alarmed and frustrated by the lack of Civic Education available to middle and High School Students, Justice Oconnor began a project now known nationally as icivics to teach citizens about our government. The justice and Society Program has brought together all of these important strands of Justice Oconnors legacy through the Sandra Day Oconnor conversations. I am delighted to introduce the first of them. I begin by returning to the difference Justice Oconnor made for law. In 1981, this conversation would not have been possible. If we look to 1981, women who served as a state supreme justice, our task would not have been impossible, but it would have been difficult since only for women had ever held that position. Fortunately, those things changed. Our interlaboratory this evening, retired chief Justice Margaret marshall spent 16 years in private practice and general counsel to Harvard University for joining the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a can at as only the second woman to serve on that court. She became its first chief justice and i can and im and it served in that capacity until 2010. Her commitment to equality and justice, honed as she worked to end at minority rule in her home country of south africa, became a hallmark to her service to the court. And in 1981, it would have been not just difficult, but impossible to hear from a woman who served not only as the first a male dean of the Harvard Law School, but also as the first woman to serve as solicitor general. We can do so today because we are joined by Justice Elena kagan, the fourth woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Justice kagan established a distinct career in Public Service and academia before being confirmed as solicitor general in 2009 and 2010 as associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. She continues to practice, not initiated, but much of expanded by Justice Oconnor, speaking publicly to expand the Important Role of the court and of the rule of law. These two women embody the traits Justice Oconnor has worked all her life to promote. They fiercely support Judicial Independence and the rule of law. They promote Civic Knowledge and engagement and they serve as role models and mentors to young students. We are fortunate to have them with us. Please join me in welcoming Justice Elena kagan and it chief Justice Margaret marshall. [applause] i have to say just listening to her talk about center day oconnor, it reminds me just how far we have come in a short and help throw i am to see you as the chair. As we look, you are clearly a Glass Ceiling breaker, a concrete ceiling breaker, whatever it was. I sometimes told Justice Kagan she is shorter than i am because she was knocking her head against concrete ceilings and mine were only glass. I begin by saying, what is your view of Justice Oconnor, anywhere, anytime, anyplace . Justice kagan thank you for asking me that question because i have a lot to say about Justice Oconnor. Let me thank the Aspen Institute for inviting me here. It really is my honor to be here to honor Justice Oconnor at this inaugural lecture named for her. Everybody knows she is one of the most Important Supreme Court justices. She was also one of the greatest Supreme Court justices and people judges can be great for different reasons, in different ways. I think for Justice Oconnor, she was great because she did more good for this country that pretty much anybody than premuch anybody in modern memory that served on this Supreme Court. If you think about this, this is a thought experiment, but suppose you were creating a constitution. Somebody said, here is an idea. We are going to take all the really hot button important issues in a society and we are going to make sure they all go to the Supreme Court. And then, the spring court will have nine people in it, but really for several decades, only one person is going to make all the decisions. [laughter] and everybody will be talking to that person, theyll be writing reached to that person, he will be delivering their oral arguments to that person because they all know she will be the decisionmaker. If you are in a Constitutional Convention and someone said that to you, you would think that is ridiculous. You cant do that why that one person you cant do that. Why that one person . Who is he or who is she . The answer is that, if it was Justice Oconnor, it would all turn out alright. [applause] and i can think of precious few people who you could say that about. In case after case, issue after issue, the most important issues of the day, hottest issues of the day, the most divisive issues of the day, that because of circumstances, Justice Oconnor very, very often, almost always, cast the deciding vote, and she did so in a way that demonstrated extraordinary wisdom that understood something about this nation, about the people who inhabit it, about what they would and would not stand for, about what their best values were and she did this over and over and over again. And it really, we are such a better nation because of that. Because of her decisions and her votes. There was a kind of practical wisdom that i think has almost never been seen on the Supreme Court that she had. And this nation had a very good fortune, that for several decades, person of that practical wisdom, actually made actually decided a lot of the most Important Supreme Court cases. What is striking about Justice Oconnor as well is that after she retired, most justices after they retire, they putter around a little bit. They putter around, they make a few speeches. She retired, most justices after they retire, they putter around a little bit. One of the most remarkable things about Justice Oconnor is that she had this whole Second Chapter after she retired. The i Civics Program that she helped design and led for quite a number of years now has done remarkable things in terms of teaching students across the country about our system of government in ways that make it all seem like fun. And if this curriculum she has developed has been a great educational change. So she has had these two remarkable periods of achievement and a compliment. I have to say, part of the reason for that is, Justice Oconnor is a woman who likes to get her way. So just to tell one personal story about that, it goes back to when i was a very young lawyer. It was a couple of years after i graduated law school and i got to clerk on the Supreme Court. Justice oconnor had been there for several years already, i clerked for Justice Marshall. I got to know some of the justices little bit, conversations around the building, and occasional lunch or two. I got to know Justice Oconnor in that way. And Justice Oconnor at the time and i think throughout her tenure on the court, had an aerobics class. Like 1980s style aerobics. [laughter] and one of the things Justice Oconnor liked was that she thought that all the women like 1980s style aerobics. Clerks should come to her aerobics class. [laughter] and there were too many of us then. I think there were only seven of us at the time. And she thought a good turnout would be seven. [laughter] now at the time i fancied myself as kind of an athlete. And i thought, aerobics . That was not real exercise, that was not sport. Its also, as some of you might know, there was a Basketball Court at the Supreme Court and several times weekly, some of the clerks and other members of the court staff go up and play basketball. And i thought basketball was more my style. So i went and played basketball. The Basketball Court at the court, until a few years ago, was basically, the floor was basically concrete. This meant, really you could not play for an entire year without seriously injuring yourself. And one day, it was my turn. And i towards some kind of ligament or tendon or Something Like that and i was hobbling around, i was on crutches for several weeks. One day, i was at the court and i was walking down the hall with my crutches, making my way very slowly and Justice Oconnor was coming the other way. She stopped and she said, what happened . And i said, you know, i tore a tendon playing basketball. And she looked at me and she shook her head very slowly and she said, it would not have happened in aerobics class. [laughter] thats my Justice Oconnor story. [laughter] [applause] but i love Justice Oconnor and so its real privilege to be here. Thank you so much. Is that the end . Justice kagan you what me to say a few more words . [laughter] just a wonderful story. One of my guests likes to get away and she was on the Basketball Court and not playing aerobics. Let me go back to touch on the second part of her career, which both merrill and lusef touched on. I come from south africa, which did not have an independent judiciary so i really loved watching Justice Oconnor and i want to read, if i can, a short piece, quotes and i want to ask you about your education. This is a quote from Justice Oconnor, which she has used many times. The better educated our citizens are, the better equipped we are to handle the system we had. Every generation has to learn it and we had some work to do. I want to emphasize that when she is talking about our government, she is really talking about the structure, the function, the three ranches of government. Where did you learn your Civics Education . Where did elena kagan come from because we have not been teaching civics for a long time in public schools. Your brother is a teacher, i dont know why you are not a teacher but i think you are a teacher. Where did you figure out how the sky this system of Government Works . Justice kagan i was very lucky and there were lots of kids that were nowhere near as lucky as i was. My parents were educated people, my parents were very involved in their community and in civic activities. And i went to great schools. So when all those things happen, activities. And i went to great schools. About how the Government Works. But not all kids are that lucky. And i think you look at some of its easy to pick up things the polls that are done, every year it seems another poll comes out asking about what people know about the american system of government. Sometimes they will read the First Amendment and say, do you agree with that . And everybody says it no. [laughter] about basic things about our structure of government, the institutions, the presidency, congress, the courts. Its always pretty shocking to me. So what i think Justice Oconnor recognized was that schools had to do a much better job of this. And that is what she has done since she retired in the court. Let me just ask you a little bit more. She had been mostly talking to High School Students and Elementary School students. But i am astounded at how many, frankly, loyal, dont understand the difference between the constitution like what you described. Should law schools are doing more and universities be doing more . Justice kagan i hope the people coming out of law schools they dont. The former congressman Mickey Edwards said, we dont teach a think about civics and democracy and he was emphasizing our colleges and universities. Im talking about the basic structures. They might know about the great court final deciders, but it seems to me we have an awful lot to do. Justice kagan i think if you havent done this time you go to college, its very possible it will never happen. I am a big proponent in doing it early. We are not doing it enough at public schools. Its wonderful that you have civics, but you dont teach civics anymore. Your brothers teach civics . Justice kagan my brothers are both social studies teachers. Do they teach civics . Justice kagan they probably do. [laughter] i have damning questions for them. Justice kagan you have a new job, Justice Marshall. It will make my life so much easier. So Justice Oconnor, you heard ruth talk about how she heard the news. I wonder how many people here know Justice Oconnors information hearings before the senate were the first to be televised in our nations history. If you want to be a first, you heard how she was quiet and first, where were you when you heard of her appointment . Justice kagan i dont remember where i was at that moment. But i completely agree with Justice Macgregor about how important Justice Oconnor was for lawyers of my generation, women lawyers. And also men lawyers of my generation. In terms of the past that she set. When it came time for my confirmation hearing, you get up in front of the cameras and you are allowed to speak for five minutes and thank the people who ought to be thanked and two of the people who i think were Justice Oconnor and Justice Ginsburg. Because that generation of women lawyers and Justice Marshall, made all the difference in the world. Two people, one generation on. To people one generation on. They were saying i was the first this and the first that come up but it was more of a fluke than anything else. There were women deans at from your law schools before me and there was a woman attorney general before, a woman solicitor general. Women had already cracked that ceiling, not as much as you would wish, but it had already happened and it happened because of people like Justice Oconnor and Justice Ginsburg. To graduate at this time, there were such remarkable stories. They graduated first in their class and basically nobody wanted to hire them and they had to make their careers up from scratch. They had to figure out how to create these brilliant careers even when the institutions of the Legal Profession were saying, we are not ready for women. And in doing that, those two women made such an incredible difference. If you think about the four Supreme Court justices, it is Justice Oconnor and Justice Ginsburg and 25 years on, it is me and justice mayor and justice mayor and i would not have been possible if not for Justice Oconnor and Justice Ginsburg. I will accept that, but i will not accept that it was a fluke. But let me ask you. You clerk for Justice Thurgood marshall, Justice Oconnor was on the court even if you didnt enjoy her aerobics class. What did you learn about how they, in their role as justices approach their work, what did they bring . I dont mean in a particular case, but how did you see they went about their work . Justice kagan Justice Oconnor, i have already spoken of what makes her so important and i cant really add anything in terms of what i saw in the court because chambers to function as sort of nine separate law offices and i wasnt privy to the conversations with her about how she decided cases and so forth. One of the great honors of my life was that your clerking for Justice Marshall and to have sort of nine separate law offices and i wasnt privy to that opportunity to sit with him and talk about cases and talk about anything else he wanted to talk about and often he did. [laughter] do you have any stories you can share with us . Justice kagan the stories about Justice Marshall were so legion i dont know where to start. He was, in my view, the greatest storyteller i have ever met. He was just a record tour. We would come in and talk about cases and those were serious conversations. I guess the thing i learned about Justice Marshall the lawyer was this, and i tried to apply it every day, that he had the knack of seeing straight to the heart of what most mattered in the case. A lot of our cases are very in the case. Complicated and complex, you can ask a thousand zillion questions dealing with various facets of them, but often the thing you want to do when you decide a case, that maybe you want to do in an argument in a case, is ask the single question that goes to the heart of the matter. Once you know the answer to that, Everything Else falls into place. And i thought Justice Marshall had that. I would call it, a real lawyers great lawyer skill of seeing to the heart of something. I think the reason we all felt privileged to clerk for Justice Marshall was not just because he was the Supreme Court justice privileged to clerk for justice and he had these great lawyerly skills that he brought to the bench, but because he had been this extraordinary lawyer, i think the greatest lawyer of the 20th century are not in part because of his skills and in part because of what he used them to do, being a great lawyer is doing a lot of justice. There is nobody who did more justice than Thurgood Marshall did in that period of time maybe ever. He talked a lot about his life and about his work for the Legal Defense fund. Sitting there in his office and being regaled with these stories, many of which were extremely sad, tragic, horrible stories, and somehow you are both crying and laughing at the same time because of the way he told them. I will always look back to that year and think, boy i had the opportunity to hear from its really quite extraordinary, great man that very few people did about his life, about the way he viewed the law and about the way he viewed the world. It was a real treat. I think he taught his law clerk one thing, how to be a raconteur. I dont know whether you picked up a whiff of that. I dont hold a candle. I can assure you. [laughter] let me say a little bit more about being the sort of first woman, first africanamerican. They are important, there was a 25 year gap between the third and the fourth were appointed. There is an awful lot of discussion going on and im looking at a lot of students here, where there is evidence that you can be the first, in some ways i was the first and then other things came more easily, but then there is a third, fourth, fifth then things get stuck. So, when you are talking to people who havent been to the very top who havent been , solicitor general or the dean of the Harvard Law School, what advice do you give them to give them the same kind of inspiration that Justice Marshall and Justice Oconnor gave to you . Justice kagan i dont know that i have much advice about how to become solicitor general or how to become i was hoping there would be an inside tip. Justice kagan be in the right place at the right time is what i would say. Whether i wanted to or not, i had to do a lot of advice giving to a lot of Young Lawyers and mostly what i told them was, to follow their own passions, to use law school and to use the early years of a legal career to find out what really mattered to them and what made for genuine meaning and fulfillment in their lives. It is Different Things for different people, and to try and say, im going down this channel because this is what all my friends are doing is the worst mistake you can make but instead, to really use those years to find a job that when you wake up in the morning you just cannot wait to get to work. Because what you are doing has real meaning and what you are doing, matters. Because i think its in jobs that really matter that people find their own greatest personal fulfillment. Did you know where you are headed or did you sort of find your way there . Justice kagan i didnt at all know where i was headed. My career path was lots of twists and turns and zig zags, one moment i thought i was on the path to do one thing and then it turned out i was on a path to do something completely different. If you had asked me 18 months before i became a Supreme Court justice, i was in my sixth year at Harvard Law School and if you had said, what is the next thing . I would have said, i will spend a few more years here and i would go be a University President someplace. My view was that i was going out of law entirely and all of a sudden something happened and i got this opportunity of a lifetime to become solicitor general which really did come out of the blue, a little bit. All of a sudden, i was a person who would naturally be considered to be a justice and that was wildly unexpected. Before you became solicitor general who is the lawyer for the United States before the United States Supreme Court, had you ever argued for the court . Dutch argued before the court . Argued before the court . Justice kagan i hadnt and i will do you one better, i hadnt argued before any appellate court. [laughter] so here is a little bit of a story. I had been contacted right people in the Obama White House and they had asked me whether i was interested in a particular job and i wont say what the job , is, but it was not solicitor general. And i said yes, i would be interested in that job. It was a very good job, not solicitor general. And it was a job where i thought, this is a job that kind of makes sense, that i have some of the experiences and skills to do quite well at this job. And then i was pretty far along the way through the vetting process, you know where , everybody reads every word youve ever said and talked to everybody youve ever known since kindergarten and pretty far along that process, i suddenly got a call and it said, we have decided you are not going to get that job, we want to know if you want to be solicitor general. And i said, what . [laughter] and i really did say on the phone, i have never done the Supreme Court argument. Im not the person you want or need and im not the right person to fill that role. And they said, we thought about this a lot and we are confident you can do this. So i had to think about it a little bit. Uhoh. Justice kagan i told him i would call them back in a day or two and it really was, i am not sure i am the right person for this. I have a healthy self regard, believe me [laughter] but i just didnt know. You just said it. You had never done an argument in an appellate court. I was giving you a way out. [laughter] Justice Kagan and then the self regard took over again and i went in the back and i said, yes thats what i found myself doing. I couldnt have done it except that the Solicitor Generals Office is such a remarkable place. This is the office, can anybody hear anything i am saying . Justice kagan this is the office that does all the appellate litigation for all of the united dates read so all of that for all the United States. So all of the Appellate Courts, particularly in the Supreme Court. It is staffed with these fantastic appellate lawyers, who stayed from administration to administration. There are only two people that the president appoints, to the Solicitor Generals Office, all of the rest are people who are there regardless of party or administration. And they are remarkable lawyers, incredibly generous people, and they basically taught me everything that i know. Whatever that is. [laughter] do you remember your first argument . Did you start off with sort of the intermediate Appellate Courts or did you start off the. Justice kagan i didnt actually have that opportunity. My first argument was a special session of the Supreme Court. They call it a special session just so i can do my first case, which was a reargument of citizens united. [groans] Justice Kagan sounds as though you know it. [laughter] it was all about Campaign Finance regulation. It had been thought of as a small case when it had been argued by the deputy solicitor general. And then the court decided it actually wanted to reconsider some of the some of the precedence that the case was argued on. It happened in september when the term starts in october. The lawyers are instructed to brief the following questions, those questions eating whether those questions being whether to overturn very significant Campaign Finance decisions of court. Finance decisions of court. You can imagine this was a little bit petrifying. Not at all, not at all. [laughter] Justice Kagan i thought, my gosh, this is such a big deal, such a big issue in the eyes of the world. The one thing i said to myself was that you not the end probably argument will not make a difference. That when the court does Something Like that, they have a pretty good sense on the courts part that it knows what it wants to do. That it is giving everybody an opportunity, to brief questions that they didnt have before, that they probably there were five justices who were ready to overturn these cases, and issue this decision. So i hope i didnt lose the case, i dont think i did. It was a pretty petrifying experience. Story from you one the argument. Reallyt was beating hard, it was the only time in my what that i had known expression means. I practically could not hear anything because of the pounding those happening inside my own body. I thought to myself how am i , going to do this . I got up to the podium and i had memorized, as people do, three or four or five sentences to start with. And at the end of the first sentence, which frankly, i hadnt really thought was the key sentence, it seems to me a fairly undisputed anodyne kind of sentence. At the end of the first sentence, Justice Scalia leaned over the the bench in this way i knew he had, leaned over and i had just said something, a short declarative sentence and he said, wait wait wait wait except he said it more strongly than that. [laughter] he proceeded to tell me why this single sentence was wrong, but it was the absolute best thing that anybody could have done. Because it just forced me to be in the game right away and my own view is that he knew that. Absolutely. That he knew from the sound of my voice saying that single sentence, that i was a little bit shaky and he was just going to put me in the game right away and if somebody challenges you you have to stand right back and that is what happened and it turned out fine. [applause] i told the story once before, maybe even a couple of times before. And i had remembered it in my head as Justice Scalia leaning forward on the bench and saying, no, no, no, no. [laughter] it was really the way i had remembered it and one of the reporters who saw that speech that i gave said, you know it wasnt for 4 nos, it was 4 waits when you say wait, everyone hears no. [laughter] you said that there was an expectation that five justices were at least preliminarily prepared to overrule some of the precedents. We just completed a year on the court, it runs from october to where there were only eight june, justices. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience is like because the court did not stop issuing opinions. They were issuing opinions throughout the year. There were a couple that was maybe a chilly reading that they have been held, but it went on and on and it was not that easy to confirm another justice to the court. So they seemed to be, i dont want to be more consensus but the shutter want to say, more consensus but they had to reach , a decision when eight justices, and another unusually long period of time. What if anything, can you tell us about that, not much about a particular case them up but why that would be different . Justice kagan we went the better part of two terms with eight justices because Justice Scalia passed away in the middle of 2016, two terms ago. But before most of our cases had been decided or issued, and then most of this year, this past year, also with 8 until Justice Gorsuch got confirmed and set in last month of the term. So for the better part of two terms we had made decisions with eight people. And there is a reason why Appellate Courts do not have even numbers of members. It is because, when you have an even number of members, every case can end in a tie and then you are not doing the job you are supposed to be doing which is actually deciding cases. Deciding important cases, and resulting divisions among lower resulting divisions among divisionsng among lower Appellate Courts and so forth area but that is it, i think the twoyear period had one Silver Lining area and i think we learned a few things during the period that i am hopeful. I am hopeful that it will have a lasting effect. Didthat is, as you said, we keep issuing decisions that was , because all of us were committed to trying to issue decisions. That we did not want to look as though we could not do our jobs. I think that was right across the board, people said, every 44 decision, where he threw up where we just throw up our hands and say we confirm the decision below every decision is , a affirmed from the decision below, it was a failure on the part of the court. So we work very, very hard to reach consensus and to find ways to agree that might not have , been very obvious. Sometimes, it led to a kind of the lyness area sometimes, the thing that we found to agree on was something that nobody cared about. [laughter] but often, i thought the process is very good. In terms of finding ways to massage issues, modify issues, in such a way that all of a sudden we could see the prospect of a broader consensus that might have appeared on first glance. And i think that that was a good thing for us to learn. The chief justice has said from the very beginning of his tenure that he cares a lot about achieving as wide a consensus in our decisionmaking as we can. I think that even before these two terms, we do that much more often than people give us credit for. About half of our cases are decided unanimously. Another significant set are decided with only one or two dissenting votes. But still i think we manage to find consensus in places during the last two years, that we might not have expected to find out of necessity. Because of some really great leadership skills of the chief justice. And i hope we remember that, and i hope we can continue to sort of go the extra mile. To see if we can find ways to build bridges across differences and to develop more consensus than you think might exist. [applause] ms. Marshall Justice Kagan, i am going to with difficulty have to turn my back on you, because im going to ask the audience if there are questions and maybe while we are coming up with questions, i will ask you one other quick question, a very serious question. We have talked about the independence judiciary and i , know that Justice Oconnor has become increasingly outspoken about threats she sees to our constitutional democracy. Primarily i think not because of ofttacks or criticisms Supreme Court decisions but the kind of conversation which seems to me, to suggest that the Supreme Court unlike the other , two branches, is somehow beholden to the popular will, the majority of the people. Do you have any observations from sitting on the court, are you aware of the increasing concern . Justice kagan i think that we tune a lot out, because ms. Marshall you have to. Justice kagan we have to. You know this. And i think it is really important not to say this in a way that suggests the judiciary should not be criticized. Ms. Marshall absolutely not. Justice kagan because the judiciary is doing important things. Any given decision, some people may support and other people may oppose, and both sides have a right to say their piece. And so i think it is quite important to talk about this, do not to suggest that somehow we are immune from criticism and everything we do is perfect. At the same time i think certainly other actors in the system of government, federal, state, president s, governors, members of legislatures, they too can criticize but you hope that they would respect the judiciarys Important Role in the system. You said at the very beginning of our conversation, we are not a you are democracy. That means the judiciary has an Important Role to play in the policing of boundaries of all the other branches. And it can make the judiciary an unpopular set of people when they say to a governor or president or congress coming you cannot do that. , because it is not within your constitutional powers, or because it infringes on an individuals right. And again, those decisions also can be criticized, but you hope that and i think it has been one of the great glories of this american constitutional democracy is that the great majority of time, however unhappy other governmental actors wore with the court decision, they understood that was the courts rule and they respected the judgments. And that is what you hope happens in the future as well. Ms. Marshall and if i can add to that, the fact other branches of government and our people accept the decisions of the United States up in court is the United States Supreme Court, that is a remarkable achievement. It was not going that way and it probably will not always be that way. There are many countries around the world who have tried to copy our model, but where it is not so obvious is one the court rules it will automatically be obeyed. I think that is from my point of view, one of the great treasures. Now. Your first question, i know it will go to one of our young colors. Please put up your hands if you would like to ask Justice Kagan a question. Somebody will find you. As a justice of the Supreme Court, you are responsible for upholding a constitution that was written over 230 years ago. How do you honor or uphold the constitution while acknowledging societal change . And how might that responsibility come into conflict with your personal beliefs . Justice kagan that is a big, deep question. [laughter] [applause] ms. Marshall she is after all one of five scholars that came across the country to be here, so more power to you. Justice kagan can we go to one of the adults now . [laughter] ms. Marshall let me tell you, they are so shocked nobody is putting their hand up. [laughter] Justice Kagan um. I think one of the most support one of the most important things, for any judge whether it , is a Supreme Court justice, a trial judge, anybody, is to understand that your personal beliefs are not what matters. The law matters. Now i am going to talk about something that is hard to figure out, what exactly the law is demanding, but it is the law that matters. Your policy believes, personal beliefs, you have to put those aside, you have to put the many box, because when you are interpreting a statute, it may not be the statute you would have written, too bad. When you are interpreting the constitution, it may not be the constitution you may have written, too bad. It is the constitution that we have and your oath of office and your responsibility to the American People is to do your best to interpret and apply the law that we have. The statutes that congress passes, the constitution that was ratified more than 200 years ago. Your personal beliefs can be in that box and it is a hard job on which people will disagree as to how the constitution ought to be interpreted, what it means with respect to any given situation. And as you say, that job, part of the reason that job is hard is because of the passage of time you are talking about. But part of the reason the job is hard is because the chapters the drafters of the constitution actually knew that the passage of time would happen and they want to the constitution to stick around for a long time. Because they knew that they wrote it not to be very specific. There are all these phrases in the constitution which are not self defining, which you know, they do not tell you exactly what that means for any particular case. So if i say to you, i will use an example not from 1789, but from 1868, which is one the 14th amendment was passed the source , of an enormous body of current constitutional law, if i say to you the constitution says everybody is entitled to due process of law or to equal protection of the laws, now you have to tell me what that means. And the dictionary does not just tell you that. So you have to develop ways of deciding what it means to ensure that every citizen in our country has equal protection of the law. Now different justices have different views about how to do that and am not going to use this to push my own view. You know, some justices say that you really do have to look back and see what ever you can see about that moment when that amendment was ratified. I do not agree with that. I think the constitutional interpretation is more of an organic process, the way that you understand and apply those provisions is by looking not only to what they meant at that moment in time, but throughout the stream of American History up through our own moment. And particularly looking at what the courts have said about those provisions year after year after , year. I think that is what produces the decisions that are most faithful to the constitution and that fits best in our current world. So that is how i do constitutional interpretation. Others do it differently. But we are all struggling with the same problem, which is everything the one of us on the court i have absolutely no doubt , are putting our personal views , into that box as far as we possibly can. We do have different views about interpretation, especially as to the constitution. In some ways with the statutes as well. And those differences account for divisions on the courts as to various important issues. But all of us, every single one is doing law rather than , applying their own personal preferences in the way that they think makes best sense. Ms. Marshall any other questions . [applause] ms. Marshall yes . Thank you. First i am a retired High School Teacher and i know i am not smarter than i high school been a High School Student and i would like to congratulate , them on their achievement, because it is really wonderful. [applause] Justice Kagan thank you for saying that. I should have said that but i was so flummoxed by that question. [laughter] thank you for your presentation Justice Kagan and he made a comment about each justices chamber is like a separate law office. So my question is, i was curious as to the process as to how much time you spend working on your own and how much time you spend debating with each other and discussing before you come to your decisions. Justice kagan most of your time is spent on your own. If i could count the hours i spend sitting in my office just staring at my computer screen, or talking with my own clerks, it vastly outnumbers the hours i spend talking with other justices. But of course, the time spent talking with other justices is where the decisions get made. So then you just spend a lot of time basically implementing the decisions by writing the opinions that you are assigned and so forth. But the way that we decide cases, maybe i should say a little bit about that, is we we hear a couple of cases on, we hear a couple of cases on monday and then a couple of days later we go into conference on those cases. So we have had some time to think about the arguments. We have also had some time, if we want to, we could reach out to one or two of your colleagues and see what they are thinking. But for the most part that does not happen all that much. Really, the first time we get together and talk about the case is at a conference a couple of days later. And that is the thing i think, if you would ask me, what are you, what surprised you about the court . I would say the thing that you never know as an outsider looking in, however close you are to the process, you just do not know what that conference sounds like. So now that i have been at that conference, i can tell you that you would think it sounds pretty good actually, i think. The justices come in, everybody is prepared, everybody is thoughtful, everybody listens to each other. The way we work it is the chief justice always starts, and he will say, remember this case, it was about x, y, z and the issues that have to be addressed are a, b, c, and then he will give his own views and then everybody realizes they are preliminary views. But he will say, you know this , is what i think, and to sell i and so i would vote to affirm or reverse or whatever it is. So it goes around the table, and there is a rule that nobody can speak twice before everybody speaks once. And it goes in seniority order, from the chief justice to the senior associate justice and around the table and security order. And until a couple of months ago, i was always the person who spoke last. And i can tell you that as the person who speaks last, you definitely want the rule that nobody can speak twice before everybody speaks once. [laughter] Justice Kagan but it is a great place to be and i have spent the last month regretting that i do not speak last anymore, because you get to anchor the conversation a little bit and hear what everybody has to say, so i hope Justice Gorsuch appreciates that position. There are pretty vigorous and valuable debate and discussion at the conference. Eventually we have a vote. In thesenior justice majority, so that would be the chief justice if he is in the majority, assigns the opinion. Usually these senior justice in the dissent assigns a dissent, although that is a little bit less strictly enforced. Then you go back to your office. You do spend a lot of time staring at your computer and trying to implement those decisions as best you can. I have a question. One more question. There. Ver while you are getting the mic there, the Supreme Court of massachusetts does it the same way, although the chief justice speaks last, which has all the advantages you said you have had for the last couple years. When we get our first woman chief justice of the United States, i am hoping she may try a slightly different model. [laughter] she may remember how nice it is to speak less. Justice kagan i think with is definitely last is definitely better than a score sixth. Than eight or sixth. I think it is probably better to speak first. You really get to set the tone. [laughter] kagan, i want to ask what advice he would have four young girls you would have four young girls who have similar ambitions to your own, but face derailments along their path. For example, limited economics or lack of parental support or family obligations that seem insurmountable. How do you stick to your dream . Justice kagan there are lots of girls and young women who are not nearly as lucky as i have been. To stick to your dream when that is the case, they are doing something whole lot harder than i have ever had to do. Is mostly based on grit and determination for girls and young women who dont have great advantages. The people who make it notwithstanding that and who succeed despite all of the terrible things like has thrown at them are the girls and young women who have a kind of stick to itness that will never be done i think. Never beat them i think. There are people like that who have come from backgrounds like that on the current court, and i am unbelievably admiring of what they have accomplished. I was just name names, the two people who are like that that had so much stress throne of them is Justice Sotomayor and justice thomas. Their ability to rise above it all. I think both of them found people in their lives. Mostly it is because they have the kind of steely determination and grit that says i am not going to let life defeat me. It is an amazing thing to see. [applause] what a great thing. Q so much Justice Kagan. [applause] cspans washington journal, live every day, with news and policy issues that impact you. Morning, theday person who oversees Femas National Flood Insurance Program discusses the programs role in the aftermath of hurricane party. Robert gallucci of John Hopkins School of advanced international studies, talks about north korea tensions. Michael leavitt, former health and Human Services tech secretary under george w. Bush, discusses Health Concerns post hurricane harvey. Watched cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning. Join the discussion. \ friday night and q and a, we look at this book. President s and trying their legacies. Every single comment ive received has done one of two topics how angry people should learn is happening, or how they are reticent to learn whats happening. Think they are angry about the fact of president ial library of house records. Especially for this, records ipo 100 years. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q and a. Now Justice Clint bolick of , the arizona Supreme Court talks at the conservative forum of silicon valley. This is an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] [applause] Justice Bolick thank you so much. And welcome and thanks to each and every one of you. I was not going to start out with this anecdote but when i heard the very strong round of