from westminster, london, this is about 50 minutes. [cheers and applause] god bless the pope! [fanfare] it is my honor to introduce his holiness pope benedict xvi to westminster hall, and through this fine location, to the palace of westminster as a whole. it is the first time that the pontiff has visited this place, a fact that he alone invests today with deep historical significance. it is a measure of the distance we have come and of the dialogue which we have created over the past few decades. in years gone by, it would have been inconceivable, but it can occur in seem entirely natural. this is the oldest structure of its kind in europe in the home of many memories. it is inevitably associated with trials and condemnation to death, as was the fate of sir thomas more, one of my 156th predecessors as speaker of the house of commons. and of king charles i, long after considered a martyr by many anglicans. yet it would be a mistake to think of westminster
career began with a federal court clerkship and was in a private practice with swain and more. the second speaker is roger clegg from the center of equal opportunity think tank devoted exclusively to promoting colorblind equal opportunity and ritual and before his work he had opportunity and a number of positions with the u.s. department of justice and putting assistant to the supreme court cases he was the number two man at the civil rights division at the department justice and the environment division and he also served as vice president and general counsel to the center for public policy where he batted it and wrote a variety of publications and legal issues of interest to business and he s contributing editor to among other things national review online and writes frequently for usa today, the weekly standard, and several other periodic journals. finally, professor james patterson is the fourth foundation professor of history emeritus at browne university. he is a grad
it is an issue that leads to a lot of disparities in the criminal justice system as well as violence against people. many of the issues we ll talk about the day also had that effect. the group has conducted a series of hearings across the country to gather testimony from communities across the country. we will be issuing a report on september 27. that will be followed by a congressional briefing on september 30. we welcome you to attend. i will do a quick introduction of the people here. there bios are much longer than what i am going to read to you, but we do want to get to the heart of the issue of violence, crack cocaine disparities, all the things we know that have led to a disproportionate number of low-income prisoners in our criminal justice system. i am it will go down the list as quickly as i can. this lady works on issues like the odor disenfranchisement and other issues. she is the senior adviser to the commission on civil rights. next to her is the president and e