Transcripts For CSPAN3 Voting Rights 20171216

My name is jodie allen. Im a visiting assistant professor here at sewanee for this score year. I am also working as a consultant on the slavery project. Going back to the panel, i am asking them to answer the question in our program and that is, does history matter to the future of the 15th amendment . I will ask them to think on that and then we will open up for questions and answers with the audience. I dont know who would like to start. Thank you. I think about history and it reminds me of sancofa means you have to know your past to understand your present, to plan for the future. When it comes to the 15th amendment, what we have learned today, and ive learned a great deal from these panelists, we have to understand the intent behind the 15th amendment, the history that gave rise to it, the effect of it. Those people who opposed it and the mechanisms that were put in place as obstacles so we can better understand today the Voter Suppression we are dealing with, the need for White Supremacy, the mechanisms to attempt to maintain White Supremacy and, as we go forward into the future, by 2040 five, by 2045 this country will be , a majority of people of color and some of the mechanisms being put in place give me concerns about an apartheid state in which you would have the minority, european americans, or who are still in political power, and have put a structure together to maintain a White Supremacy, despite what is happening around us in this country. To be the beacon on the hill that this country claims it is supposed to be, to be that democracy, requires we have fewer obstacles to the right to vote. Were one of seven nations that takes away the right to vote for life because of felony conviction. There are so many issues we have to overcome and if we look at history, we can see this is not the first go around. Thes just another step in guise of 21st century Voter Suppression that has too many similarities to what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thank you. Yeah, i would just add, will history have an effect on the future of the 15th amendment . Probably not, i am sorry to say, given the current and likely future composition of the Supreme Court. Should it affect how the 15th amendment is viewed and implemented . Yes . Yes. My pessimistic first answer is based on a feeling that, with a few exceptions, such as judge koontz, many jurists have a truncated view of the history of reconstruction, a limited view of all those amendments were intended to accomplish and as i briefly mentioned last night, we are trapped in a jurisprudence which is beholden to the old school of reconstruction, which saw it as a big mistake fundamentally. I think a narrow vision of what was attempted, what was tried to be accomplished in the reconstruction era is still dominant in much of the jurisprudence we have, including recent decisions we have heard about about Voting Rights and 15th amendment implementation. I hope a more uptodate view of history comes to dominate the Supreme Court thinking. So far, theres not much evidence that has been happening. I would just add a word. There is one limited sense in which history is relevant to constitutional interpretation. There are occasional Supreme Court cases where somebody will be able to challenge a current uncoveringased on an of the history behind that practice. The Supreme Court in the 80s struck down a particular gerrymandering of the crimes that would exclude you from voting in alabama and the Supreme Court, without dissent, said, weve seen the evidence that in 1901, when i say racial gerrymandering, they excluded people not for murder, but for wife beating because they assumed murder was something caucasians committed and that wifebeating is something African Americans would do. Other than that, im pretty skeptical of the idea that history is going to affect how people think about contemporary issues. Justices have a truncated view of reconstruction. That is true. I asked myself, if they had a semester to sit in on a reconstruction class, do you think it would change anybodys vote on affirmative action . It is not inconceivable but it seems unlikely. Think about confederate monuments. One thing we have learned fairly recently is when they were put up and what their meaning was. These were not adopted in 1866 to commemorate war heroes. There were put up, the one in charlottesville, there are photographs in the local newspaper, showing the ku klux klan demonstrating around the newly erected robert e lee monument in the 1920s. What percentage of the population do you think, knowing that, would affect their view about whether we should take down the monuments . I dont think nobody would be affected but im skeptical that a large segment of the population. I think about this. I teach a class in constitutional history and my students are surprised at how recently things were really bad. We talk about the killing of civil rights workers in the 1960s and the lynchings and they are surprised. I wonder, if everybody took this history class, how many peoples views would it change about some contemporary issue, like affirmative action . I think the answer is not very many. I do not think that is how people think. Their views are not going to be imposed by learning a new bit of history. Im skeptical about this. It is not just because they have the old view of reconstruction. Even if they had this view, i doubt it would change many views. If i could try and add a little bit to this. I am less skeptical, particularly after listening to the students. I think history should not just matter for the 15th amendment. We should be thinking about the war powers act. What history allows you to do is think critically. It allows you to think structurally to understand the world was not created overnight. There was change over time and it helps you start thinking in terms of evidence. Will it change the world overnight maybe not here in i was particularly struck by the students today that once you ask a question, students are students can find incredible things of the states by doing incredible things by doing research the kind of , undergraduate research anyone can do with their phone or anything else is revolutionary. It helps to start thinking in a different way, which is what history allows us to do. Which is why i would say, yes, it matters. I am more optimistic as well. History is about lessons. History is about opportunity. History is about changing the tide of history and learning how fate and circumstances led to who we became, but more often, it was a question of who did what. Of decisionmakers moving in a certain direction or not. I think, through the study of history, we can define those moments, where a single individual made a difference or a single individual followed by Movement Made a difference. I am hopeful that those days are not over. It is more challenging now because it is hard to discern and to teach discernment to students today. Theres so much swirling around and sometimes, i think they are walking into this miasma of contradictory information. It is partly our job not to lean on them with political philosophy but just to straighten out and help them clear the brush from the path to knowledge. I think it works. The other thing i would say is that, the students are hungry. I think the American People are hungry for this. No one is born and ideologue. People become what they become through their association with people and friends and with a pastor or a teacher or a buddy. Sometimes, that can be a lively, wonderful, intellectually Challenging Group and sometimes group thatn awful you would not want your kids to be with. Were all part of something larger than just ourselves. It is our job as historians and journalists to create as many opportunities for the better outlook on life than the limited outlook on life. The best way we can do it is to become knowledgeable ourselves and to share that knowledge because, to avoid the cliche i never use because i avoid cliches. Knowledge is power. That is our job is to empower the next generation so they can find those paths to clarity and truth. I believe history is important and i believe it will continue to inform us but i do have a twist that knowledge is power. For those of you who watch game of thrones, there is a moment when a bad character says to an even worse character, i know something and knowledge is power. The very bad character, who we will call little finger, finds himself surrounded by guards and the very very bad character, says, turn him around. Cut his throat. No, wait. She leans forward and says, knowledge is knowledge. Power is power. I am very optimistic. We have had an africanamerican president. We have three women on the United States Supreme Court, one of whom says three down, six to go. Im very optimistic. Then again, i was born in bedford stuyvesant, raised in Public Housing projects. I earned four degrees from harvard, worked on wall street for 33 years, served as a commissioner on the civilian Complaint Review board, reviewing allegations of Police Misconduct and worked for mary wright adelman and the childrens defense funds, doing Civil Liberties litigation for children. I am very optimistic. Thinking back to the question of the Supreme Court and history, i think with the appointment of Justice Gorsuch, who, like his predecessor, claims to be an originalist, there will be opportunities to educate the court on the history of the 15th amendment and one of the things that is striking is howriginal is him little the reconstruction amendments figure into it. It goes back to the founding. 1789 is there all the time. You do not see the 1860s or 1870s very much. There is opportunity. I agree that it is not necessarily going to sway votes but at least, the record can be made and people can hear those arguments and learn from them. We missed an opportunity to test his point with a scientific experiment because when Justice Gorsuch was an undergraduate at columbia, i was teaching. He never took my course. If he had, we would have a test of what impact it makes on his decisionmaking but unfortunately, he did not. We will just have to see where he learns from. Thank you, everyone for answering the question. I want to open up now to the audience, to see what questions you might have for the panel. You might have to ask another question . [laughter] may i raise one point, while they are thinking, i will do like i do with my students and say, it looks like you really want to ask a question. 1. I wanted to make and i spoke about black suffragettes earlier today. I wanted to talk about, how you have these conflicting interests in history. In 1898, in wilmington, north carolina, black politicians won a majority of offices. There were positions of political power. There was this underlying simmering racial hatred but it was triggered through this conflict with not just the white general population, but with white suffragettes. One particular white suffragette, rebecca fitton, wrote an editorial, in which she said, if it requires lynching to protect a womans deers dearest position from drunken beasts, then i say lynch a week. D a week eric a there was a response in the black newspaper. There was an uprising. Hundreds of blacks were killed. The elected politicians were chased out of office. Black this misses burned. Black businesses were burned. Homes were burned. It was on the record that the First Political coup of the United States. You have a number of interests. You have the suffragettes. You have women who desire the right to vote, yet they cannot see the interests of the African Americans. You have people who believe in democracy yet they cannot see the people who are elected have a right to determine some outcomes and they may or may not agree your it i see many of these dueling interests of that time. Can we, as a democracy, have dueling interests without it ending in a deadly way . We are now in the 21st century and we feel so much more sophisticated than 100 years ago, that these things could not possibly happen, yet, i would have to ask if were going to , learn from history, have we learned the lessons and how can we if most people dont even know this to happened . If they dont know things like this can happen . How can we learn from our past, to know more about what is going on in this time. Of swirling, dueling, interests. So we can do better in the future. On the 14th or any other laws. If i could pick up on that point, there. This may be a softball question. One of the things that has impressed me and has impressed everyone who is attended the symposium is the way in which each of you, in your own fashion, have made important historical questions accessible to a general audience. It seems to me that a part of the answer to the question posed of this discussion requires us to think about the way in which that history is presented and its accessibility. I happened to go home last night and there was a review of kernows biography of grant in the new york times. It is over 1000 pages. The reviewer, who was on balance quite charitable to the author and the book, admitted that there is more detail in there then most people would care to read or to know about. This is not meant to be a cheap shot at the academic establishment. It will be on the bestseller list. Of course it will. How will the public, as opposed to simply how our students, get their history and learn it . Years ago, the president of the american historical association, talked about it is time to reassemble the narrative. I am not sure we have managed to do that. If were going to answer this effectively, it seems to me a lot of it has to do not only with the way in which history is understood but the way in which it is presented. That is an open question for anyone. It wont be a surprise that i agree we need to find ways to tell the stories. We need to tell it through the people who are affected, the people who benefited, the people who were hurt. It is one extra step in the research but it is a giant one and well worth it. There is no doubt i agree with that. How do you market history as vital to who we are . I do have a concern that goes deeper than that and that is what is our default knowledge about who we are . I dont think there are any of us who find this surprising that we have seen a deterioration in the knowledge of that ever since something as simple as civics died in junior high and high school. We do not take civics. Ifs there even a textbook out there published anymore that has a cartoon on how a bill becomes a law. Remember that guy carrying the bill. I was thinking about that when former Justice Sandra day oconnor was taking up because taking up the cause of Civic Literacy that she was onto something very strong. I think it would also match beautifully with this new Movement Across the country with colleges and universities who are developing new literacy programs. What is news. How to discern. We need a National Campaign that would combine both of those. As much as i do think that those of us here can convert everything into compelling stories about how history was changed, there has to be some default baseline on how our Government Works which i think would go a great way toward reducing the cynicism toward government. Once people come in with a position to dislike their government, theyre going to be close minded to understanding how so much of what we find is important to how something functions. I agree. We are of the few professions in which the wording exhaustive is seen as a compliment. Magisterial. And in reconnecting it to the first question, when you make things relevant to students, you have them in a heartbeat. If they see it is just a potpourri of interesting things that are not related to their daily lives, it is beyond them it is beyond that. Like i said, i think history is a way of empowering yourself. That is whether it will change the world, i cannot promise that. Is al start, whether it scientist, engineer, or a medical researcher with one basic western and we have to allow the evidence to take it where it is going to take you and sometimes those will be uncomfortable places. I think in terms of a default we think history happens somehow, that it is somehow written, and that people like professor f come and revise it. Oner and that is bad. That is bad to think about something that is new. Finding ways to make history more relevant is our task. I think it is one we are easily capable of doing, because it is not that hard to come up with a question that will immediately engage a large audience. I want to express fors certainly a good thing stories to be able to present their views and accessible ways and more knowledge about history is a good thing. We live in a world where people dont agree about basic facts and people denied basic facts, they believe in alternative tax, they believe in things that are not true. That is such an enormous problem and i dont think historians writing and more accessible ways is going to be a to solve that problem. In the last 10 years we have Voter Suppression, and anyone who is studied the history of the 15th amendment or anyone who has been alive for the last 15 years would be astonished in lights of death in light of what went on with the Voting Rights act. In light of what went on with the Voting Rights act. One of the Political Party decided it is in their best interest to suppress votes. Social scientist look at the phenomenon agree that this type of voter impersonation fraud does not exist. One study looked at a sample size of a billion votes and they found 30 instances of in person voter fraud which is the equivalent of it not existing. The secretary of state in kansas has spent five years trying to and has voter fraud found nine cases to prosecute. The state of indiana passed a voter id law based on zero instances. They can find no evidence of in person voter fraud and they passed a law to make it hard to vote. Every state where republicans have had a majority in the legislature and governorship has passed Voter Suppression legislation. North carolina is the most extreme example. In north carolina, it is not only voter id requirements, it is also eliminating sameday registration, it is eliminating automatic registration for 18yearold, it is cutting back early voting days because African Americans take it vantage of sunday voting the day before the election. They tried to shut that down. That is not happening in one or does go places, not just the south, it is every state. It is wherever the Republican Party has decided it is in their interest and a control the government. It is not just true about voter fraud, it is true about climate change, lying about the fact , it islling obamacare lying about tax reform and saying tax reform will derive to the benefit of the top 1 and policytacking the tax center which does nonpartisan evaluation and saying they are making it up or saying in the congressional be trusted with regards to the numbers on obamacare repeal, even though that is a Nonpartisan Organization headed by a republican. We do not believe in the same fact anymore, and people dont believe and fax it wont matter how accessible historians make their work. We have a more basic problem which is people are not living in the same world anymore and that is a hard rubber to solve. If we do not hard problem to solve. If we do not solve that we are in trouble. Have a deposition from Vladimir Putin press we will know. Perhaps we will know. One of the things that i like to do, and i really agree with that, i think we need to just say people who are using butter suppression tactics as they did and 20th and 18th centuries. They did so in many ways to stay in positions of power. Far ast i do as accessibility goes, i write plays. I look at it and i say, what venue can i use, what platform can i get my point across when it comes to history . Slash ecent play is clash and it speaks to the anger of white middleclass americans to feel they havent cheated out of their dream. I into context the think africanamericans but the conscience in the constitution that they would read the constitution and feel inclined to do so. Educators, wef probably stand on our heads to try to get our point across to our students or to people who are in lifelong learning. That is part of what we do, but i do agree that sometimes we are not in the same universe. Even in the classroom, there are people in our classrooms who are not thinking in the same way, and they feel they have the right to think the way they think. We put the information out there and we have to trust that some people are going to get it and other people may not. That is part of our job. I look at legal history, but as an educator i think putting the information out there and hoping that it catches. I would just add this isnt something that is new. When i was looking at 1942, i read that a lot of educators were upset over the fact we dont know our history. The reason we are involved in this worldwide conflagration is because we dont know our civics and they are not teaching it and the physicist about how many people were graduating from fouryear colleges without any civics or history was alarming. We have got to fix that for the greatest generation. I have a feeling that 70 years from now will be saying, people dont know anything. We cant give up. Weve got to find newer, better ways to relate that. On the other hand, we give them a lot of junk. It is hard to distinguish between real evidence and what you really want to hear, and thats kind of the human condition. I dont know of any way to get past that. Aboutonder how we think how we should be thinking about public history. While most people, i know since i became a historian, one of the first things people ask me what i do, they get this look on their face and they say i hated history. , most people arent going to end up in our classrooms right. Classrooms, right . Or they are going to take the survey class to test it out. Or watch cspan. Out as a result of ap. Most people in this country get their history from, if were lucky, good museums, but otherwise hollywood. , theo we use these possibility of affecting hollywood or museums or how we teach public history, you know . Do we respect public history enough to elevated death to it, is it to elevate that scholarly enough . I think one of the things we are saying is that scholarly is not always whats affecting regular people in the public. Im get a take a slightly more optimistic view. Public history is a good example. Shells thatopinion Public Opinion polls show people dont know much about Public Opinion polls show people dont know much about history or civics. Your average person cant answer many basic questions. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of interest in history in the country. Much of it is expressed through attendance at bcms. The new museum of African American history and culture has been swamped by people. Cant get him. Far more people have come to it than they anticipated even in there must optimistic in their most optimistic projection. Attendance at museums is high. More to the point, the presentation of history at these places is very good and uptodate. It has really improved over the past generations, partly because scholarly historians, exhausted historians have begun to view public history as something that is important, not just a side issue as you suggest. And value that sort of thing. Ive worked with museum exhibitions, New York Historical society, Chicago Historical society, gettysburg. Many find historians have been involved in that. I think most americans who do go to these places, national parks, are getting a much more sophisticated and much more bittersweet picture of the trying toast without just depress everybody, showing the many problems we have faced as well as the many great achievements of american society. That is not going to translate onetoone into the right Supreme Court decision or any particular political position, but im enough of a story and to think that it is valuable when citizens in a democracy do have a better sense of history than the history, and that for a generation or two has been created by historians who really have challenged the old narratives, is now very widespread. I am impressed by how good many American History textbooks are now that are used in colleges and high schools. They are very candid about the history of slavery, the history of segregation, the history of labor conflict and other things which used to be very ignored or downplayed in textbooks. What the practical consequences of that are is impossible to say. I am more upbeat about the level of knowledge of history in the country, despite many examples to the contrary. Concur with what was just said. Im old enough to remember when the nation was mesmerized by a tv show called roots. Everyone watched it and im impressed with the work of Burns Ken Burns on the civil war, on vietnam, on baseball, and on jazz. I am also very impressed, and i want to make this point very forcefully if i can, with the work that youve seen by the historians on this panel and telling global stories through the experiences of individuals. One man murdered in front of his wife and child. One person who goes through the of growthst of and leaving a city, leaving a part of the country. That story, those stories, that you hear individually, you hear the phrase cold case, but its really about a person, and as was pointed out there is no statute of limitations on murder. When i first started teaching as an adjunct at Brooklyn Law School i always show the film judgment of nuremberg about judging the role of lawyers and judges and what i refer to as a criminal enterprise of Murder Incorporated state. These are important things to both atyou show them the global level, but also through the personal stories of the people who are going through it. The historians you have here are very adept at telling the individual story to make the global point. I think that is what is incredibly powerful. , am very optimistic, although im not sure that historians realize what good work they are doing. I think they should be commended for that. I really do. I just have one, going back. Youre referring to books on the college level. Juniorcollege. Here is the reason why i am concerned. Where wesm pops up have texas that changed textbooks, i think it is mcgrawhill but decided that slavery was a working condition of immigrants. I believe, arizona the school board said they are no longer going to allow certain classes to be caught about what happened to native americans. The censorship is there as well, the retelling of history, decisions that we are not going to look at the painful part. Maybe that is why the country remains so immature when it comes to raise. Every country has something that is deep seated in the fabric, it could be religion come i could be color, it could be anything else. In this country the original sin is raise and oppression of peoples color, but this country andses is race oppression of peoples color, but this country refuses to acknowledge it. We have to make sure we dont take the privilege of escape and people decide they are not going to look at history intentionally , because they feel if they dont want to be bothered or called out and they dont want to feel the pain of it. Those people have a stance too in the writing of the history books, and their position, in sanitizing things is leading some people not knowing what history not nothing not knowing what really happened. I think there is a question in this section. I am a High School Teacher and im a high school American History teacher. I also teach a class on social justice and i also have to believe that knowledge can bring power. Just watching my students who have grown up in a bubble. They think that their reality is the reality that everybody seems to share, and so when they become aware that the reality they have lived is not the reality that a lot of other people in this country have optimistic, based on what i see from a students. , you have given me so much that im excited about taking back to my classroom, i just want to know, as somebody who really teaches maybe a broader spectrum of kids than College Professors do, and i think High School Teachers have that, we reach a lot of kids. What advice do you have for those of us teaching American Kids ando 17yearold what can teachers do to engender in our students this respect for difference and this appreciation for history, which in the end lead you to be a really good citizen . I guess im just looking for something to help us Us High School folks. I have probably talk to your years than everybody else here, so im not necessarily the best one to speak up. Different,t from a im not a trained academic. I think of a lot of different things. I think students, even against my better instincts, i find i have to trust the students and trust them to reach that moment where the light bulb goes off. To be patient with them and be ready to pounce. Sometimes im asked a question and i will wait a long time. It is not that they do not know or do not have curiosity, its that they are uncomfortable in that environment. Is this the right time to raise my hand . What if i get it wrong . In this world, we have built this culture where it is humiliating to be wrong. They need to know they can be wrong. Well you dont know, take a stab. Anyone who lasts is kicked out of the class. Me, probably the greatest gift i have had of a professional nature other than opportunity to have worked with jean roberts on the race beat and to write that book and explore that history. To just dwell in the joy of the counter narratives. Im still in all of how close we came in that election that i spoke about earlier in 1948, again very few people, im just saying the obvious to people who forever, teaching this few people expected harry truman to win. Lets say he had lost and do we won, how my history have changed over something far greater than who would be elected president and Vice President. Deweyll comes down to who s running mate was. Arl warren and it earl warren had been Vice President of the United States there is just no way he wouldve been chief justice of the Supreme Court and we all know justice and simple other sources, that earl warren, despite the other things you were talking about him, or that decision and made it unanimous because he set the station cannot survive a divided. Ecision on brown versus board he brought southern justices along, not just you go black. That was pretty powerful. Was one person acting in the greatest interest of this country. He would not have been there if there hadnt been an unexpected turn in that election. Students get charged with they are allowed to offer, spend time doing the what if. You dont want to spend too much time because you have to get to what actually happened, but i do find that they get sparked by Little Things and we just have to pounce on those. Thats just one small idea. This is almost a trivial suggestion. Been teaching history for a long time and you are to do these things. I would think showing videos like the eyes on the prize video, especially for High School Students so they can emphasize and sympathize with High School Students were asked to do something morally courageous. There were a lot of those. There is a fabulous ken burns documentary on jack johnson, the black heavyweight champion who was basically exiled from professional boxing and thrown in jail on concocted charges for marrying a white women. I think students like stories. The stories that hank was telling can really mesmerize them. I think students get drawn into that sort of thing. I think this is something that facing history does. Putting students in a position for they have to make moral choices that historical actors had to make. Would you be willing to hide jews in nazi germany, what is your position on colin kaepernick, would you be willing to take a need during the National Anthem when everybody is looking at you because you feel like this they courageous thing to do. Judges confronted with fugitive slave clause cases, abolitionist judges. Are you to resign, do you manipulate the law, do you just go along because he took an oath of office . Those are things kids can really resonate with. I dont teach high school, so i dont want to give you any advice except to say thank you. Freshmanh a lot of because i like those firstyear students. The first thing i try to remind myself is how little i knew. Before i start getting too , i remember just how arrogant i was, i do nothing. As one of my professors in grad school once told me, you can never reach anybody while youre too busy condescending them. , i teach at the university of kentucky, so i do this class for freshmen on modern kentucky that come in the first day that you have a final exam question and it is one of the biggest problems facing the state, how do we get here and what you want to do about it . Im not trying to trick them on the final exam, but lets spend the holes investor thinking about context and Solutions Area the best. Best solutions. Solutions. The essays i get from these gives far surpassed the legislature. [laughter] what about the judiciary . Nothing about the judiciary. We are good. I also like to have my students, and these are sophomores go to the jewish cases, go watch the court , going to the community. One thing i am going to have them do after all this is happening with the statues, go to the stack usually pass every day in all of these little parks. Who were these people . Who were these men, what do they do. That is why we mentioned before these phones that they have. There was a time in which africanamericans would be killed or maimed for reading. Here you have in your hand a phone that is filled with the libraries of the world to access, and all you do is taxed. Secretly text, but i can see you. Is, history ise right there in front of them and as was pointed out, these are very practical ways that they are a part of history when walking by that statute. When they carried down would r it care it down tea down. Down . Havent discussed the issues that are taking place. The Supreme Court issues but also the other issues that are taking place, because there are so many more dilemmas that are going around and people like hank who write about these things become history later, but the news makes it history before its history. I teach law students mostly come when i Start Talking about Voting Rights i have them do the old louisiana literacy test that is three pages long, you have 10 minutes, you cannot get any long wrong, and they barely make it to the first patient always get something wrong. They are all very well educated students, and that brings it home. Like to put i would thatere, i am not sure institutions of Higher Education are being fair to teachers. Are fullyow that we educated people who are going out there to educate, and i say that because on most campuses, learning about people who were different from you is an elective. It is not a requirement, so you have teachers who are leading colleges and they are not prepared to talk about africanAmerican History, womens history, native American History, but we expect them to be able to challenge their students and educators students. And to understand have to have a tough conversation. That is a lot of work. Just they during how to have the tough conversations, so if you cant, or if you think things are going to go off wire, you avoid them. You have to train the teachers to teach the students. We need to do a better job at that. I feel you have a question sir. What is the question you wanted to ask . [indiscernible] wait for the microphone. I am a former federal prosecutor and have a pretty active state and federal criminal defense practice. , and i lot of jury cases notice a vast difference between the deniers that we get in the state court system in nashville versus the denier we get in the middle district of tennessee where i do most of my practice. In the middle district of tennessee they use folder registration rolls for a denier. In the state court they used the tennessee drivers license roles. Kuntzt know what judge experience is in the Eastern District of new york, but it is a remarkable district difference. Orn we bring in tourist federal court, i may have five or six africanamericans on the panel. In state court it is much more representative using drivers licenses. What they do in Eastern District of new york . The Eastern District of new york covers brooklyn, queens, staten island, nassau, and Suffolk County. We have a much broader range then our state board equivalent. In our state court which is the best in our Supreme Court which is the trial court. Dont ask me why they call in our Supreme Court which is the trial court. Dont ask me why they call it that. If you believe you want to have a working class am a largely minority jury for the purposes of a tort case, you will do anything to destroy diversity jurisdiction if that is going to get you into federal court where you may have representatives from the east end of long island. Ok . There was a movement years ago to split the Eastern District in two, we have a courthouse iceland. In central there are two things you can see from the moon, the great wall of china and that courthouse. There is only one thing you want to see from the noon and it is not the central iceland courthouse. For the obvious reasons of powers that be decided not to make the Eastern District two district because you would have wound up with a situation where giving segregated housing matters. You would have had very different juries in criminal cases. Slip than innd brooklyn. We have people who live in brooklyn who complain about having to go out to their for jury duty. And people live the end of nassau Suffolk County have to go into downtown brooklyn to serve on juries in criminal cases. ,hat was decided by the judges not by judges, but by Political Forces not by judges, but by Political Forces. What is your source of information in the Eastern District for assembling the list of jurors . Is it the Voter Registration . Use it Voter Registrations. We use drivers licenses we use utility bills. We are stingy about granting exemptions. Lawyers serve weird people who people who have a Small Businesses serve and we do not let people out. At how much amazed more effective that is. I hated it when i was a lawyer and i love it now i am a judge. I wonder why the Administrative Office of the courts would permit the middle district of tennessee to use of Voter Registration and your district has a much wider reach with those other sources . Those are good questions to ask them. Thank you. You noto encourage one is going to make fun or laugh a you or laugh at you. Theyre not going to be many opportunities to have a group this is steamed to ask questions of. Please, ask questions. Morning, the doctor will come to my desk and knock and he will say, should we do it again and what should we do it on . Spot, he puts me on the im going to ask you, what amendment would you have the symposium due in 2018 . What amendment would his street matter to would history matter he matter to . I would not do an amendment. I would do an article. Article five three. We are not too many states away from having that convention, even though no one is paying attention. 30 states have already called for the convention, which can propose amendments and would be voted on by the states. That could be a profound change to how we conduct business in the United States. It is worth some study. I think you should go for the 19th amendment they womens suffrage amendment. The anniversary is coming up pretty soon. Not 2018 but soon after bird there is a lot to talk about. That is my two sense. He stole my thunder regarding the 19th amendment. I would have as a backup, the 25th amendment which is the amendment on the removal of the president due to disability. Includes ot that it was drafted with a physical disability in mind i have not asked this whether or psychological or emotional disability is covered . In all seriousness, the 25th amendment. I might do the first one. I think were going to have more free speech issues about what is free speech. I think there is a great deal of confusion about that. We have seen attacks on the press and nbc, just yesterday. I wonder if a discussion about in thee amendment means 21st century might not be worthwhile. I like the idea of the first amendment. It offers a wide range of opportunities but you heard what i said last night. I was being a little funny but not. That amendment around which the greatest number of myths have gathered and around which there could be affective debunking. I would also like to know more about the second amendment. I feel it is something that people on one side of the issue feel strongly about an seem knowledgeable about but i do not know. I am not. People on the other side to not want to talk about it. That could be a good, lively discussion, whether here or somewhere else. Amendment. Nd are we allowed to bring firearms . My marshals will be here too. [laughter] we are a private institution. There is a question. I appreciate everything you i appreciate everything you have done about history and tying it into Voting Rights. Assist in making that a broader right . I am pessimistic about the Supreme Court over the next 510 years about being the leader in protecting Voting Rights and i think this will be a battle that will have to be bought state i state. Be be thought state by state. Sometimes that means using state constitutions which has proven schools there. The gardeners, the barbers, the dry cleaner, everybody has an existence tangential to the prison. No one is looking at the prisoners as far as their interest go. The politicians is not representing the interests of those in prison. It goes back to the 3 5 rule. Theyre using the bodies of the prisoners to count the population and have more state and local federal funding and political power grid those people are not going to be inclined to change the criminal justice laws because they are benefiting in new york state, the legislature is apportioned on the population but the prison population cant you declare that unconstitutional . I could. It is too beneficial for people to lose and it is another. Art the last part we have to look at is what we can do, going back to that question. What we can do regarding felony disenfranchisement. That means we have to say, this is not what we want. We do believe that the people who have their rights back. There are only seven countries where a persons rights are taken away for life a son a on a felony conviction. I would like to make an observation. I find it interesting that, as we have an increased Movement Towards sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, the notion that perhaps the equivalent of personal liberty laws which were in place before the civil war and served as the bulwark to some extent for chief Justice Taney to get out of his way in according freedom and protections to individuals, you might find in the near future, that some of those federalist protections and some of those powers accorded to the states might serve to protect against some of the concerns that people who are engaged in politics might have. Be careful about vastly moving to limit the power of states to take different positions from federal government. It may have implications. The progressives find they do not like in the near future. We have time for one more question. Are there any practical remaining variances between states and the ability of serving military to vote . Can we have that again . I am asking whether, in the present day, are there any important variances in the serving military to cast their votes . There is federal legislation that protects overseas military voters. In all elections . In federal elections. It was the last bipartisan tookg action that congress. I think it was Chuck Schumer behind that. I am thinking maybe 10 years ago came into play. Overseas military voters have tremendous hurdles and now, the hurdles are going to be even greater because there is concern about using email and the internet as a means of transmitting your vote. People out in the battlefield have logistical issues, aside from the other issues they face. This time, asake we wrap up, to thank the panel members. I should say the roundtable participants for your continued sharing of your knowledge and wisdom, with all of us. I want to thank also the and im for being here isto turn it over ne i echo those words of thanks, both to our scholars who spent your day and expertise with us and to all of you for being a part of this symposium. Those of you who are familiar with the university, no the expression that once something happens here, it is a scandal. If it happens twice, it is a tradition. This is the Second Annual symposium. We have made the transition from the scandalous to the traditional and i hope this means we will have a chance to gather again along this time next year, to pick one of those amendments and to continue the discussion at the same high level of engagement that you have given one another and all of us. Please join me in thanking our scholars today. [applause] i believe, we are adjourned. Thank you all for coming. This weekend, on American History tv on cspan3, today at 6 p. M. Eastern, civil war, generals we love to hate. Argue thats critics his timidity with the enemy and his combativeness with the government made him a contracting factor in confederate defeat. To these critics johnston was the real mcclellan of the west. Will who lacked the moral to commit troops to the battle. Sunday at four p. M. Eastern on real america, the white house naval photographic unit reports on lyndon johnson. The president s oldest john that oldest daughter president oldest daughter historically it was the First White House wedding in 53 years. On american artifacts the 200 year history of the Willard Hotel in washington dc, whose guests include abraham lincoln, world war ii soldiers, and the to theapanese delegation u. S. In 1950. The First White House levy was not held at the white house that the wood hotel. American history tv, all weekend every weekend only on cspan3. And 1777 there were two battles fought here near saratoga. They turned out to be the turning point of the revolutionary war. We talk with eric schmidt scare here at the historicio