>> i want to thank all the university staff who have been involved with this. princeton class of 1981 has had a distinguished career of preffesor of law at the university of chicago and harvard and as council and domestic policy advisor to president clinton and solicitor germ of the united states under president obama. she has seved as dean of harvard law school from 2003 to 2009 where she was a bridge builder in that institution. during her four years on the supreme court, she has emerged as the court's more liberal wing and continued her efforts as a consensus builder and her hunting trips with justice scalia. they shoot skeet and other things -- [laughter] >> as former vice president cheney been involved in any of these? if he is, stay hained him. [laughter] >> it has been said that the role of the supreme court of the united states is to speak on behalf of justice for the american people. constitutional self-government written by a princeton vice president. he is a authority on constitutionalism and the supreme court. constitution and the court and justice in america than the two people to my right, princeton president and associate justice of the united states supreme court elena kagan. [cheers and applause] >> good to be herement >> let me start off by thanking you to have you here. by the extraordinary audience to welcome you back. thank you for making time. >> i was thinking the last time i was back and it was my 25th reunion and i spent a little part of the afternoon walking around princeton and seeing all the new thing on campus and it looks fantastic. >> woodrow wilson came back when he was in the white house. and might give them them butterflies. any time we get you back. steve wanted to hear us talk about the court and the constitution. i want to give an opportunity these rumors about these hunting trips with justice scalia. >> it is a pretty funny story. i grew up in new york city. and i did not hunting. you have to do these courtesy visits, the hearings you see on tv. the tip of the iceberg and you have to talk to all the senators. i did 82 of them. and what was striking is how many of them both republicans and democrats wanted to talk to me about guns. as a kind of -- there are rules about what you can ask at these kind of sit-downs and what i could say and they couldn't ask me direct questions about what i thought about particular issues. the proxies were along the lines of do you hunt? and i went through the views. and it was -- and my answers were pathetic. no. do you know anybody who hunts? not really. i was sitting with one of the senators from a senator from idaho and he was telling me how important it was to many of his constituents and i totally understand why and why many senators would want to know these kinds of things. and it was late in the day my 93rd interview and i say said, if you would like me to hunt, i would be glad to come. and this look of abject horror passed over his face. i said senator i didn't mean to invite myself to your ranch, but i will tell you that if i'm lucky enough to be confirmed i will ask justice scalia to take me hunting. i group up in new york and i understand why this matters to you and i would commit to do that for you. and when i got to the court, i went over to justice scalia's chambers this story and he thought it was hilarious and i said this is the single promise i made in 82 office sbrouse. he said i will have to let you fulfill that promise. and he started with skeet shooting and we went and did the real thing and couple of times a year we go out and shoot quail and pheasant and once went out top wyoming where i shot a deer. >> you enjoy it? >> i do like it. i'm a little bit of a competitive person you know. [laughter] >> you put a gun in my hand and you said the gun is an object, let's do it. >> long before you were a supreme court justice or a hunter, you were a student on this campus. how do you remember princeton? >> i love princeton. all of you folks who go to princeton are incredibly lucky. i suspect it's better. but i was a history major. i had fantastic professors. how many of the faculty were so generous with their time, whether in out of office conversations. i saw think these is adviser a little bit before this and i'm a little bith nervous he is in the audience, i think he is going to take out his red opinion pen. >> don't worry about it. we repealed the grading policy. >> he edited my these is four times over and i learned it here. i have friends who will be my friends until the day i die. i did activities that were important to me. i spent time fee "daily prince tonian." and i feel warmly about it. and what it did for me. >> did you occur that you wanted to be a supreme court justice? >> i never had that thought. i did an event earlier with some students and a woman asked me, did you know you wanted to be a lawyer and i had to admit to her that i didn't. the law did seem all that interesting or exciting to me. my dad was a lawyer and i look at what he did and i understand why it was deeply meaningful to him. he was not a courtroom lawyer. as a kid i didn't get what was interesting or exciting about it. and i went to law school for the wrong reasons. and the kind of -- i don't know what else to do and i want to keep my options open reasons. and i got there and loved it. and i was glad i made that decision. life takes you on different paths. honestly, i had come back -- my 25th reunion, eight years ago, if you said what are you going to be doing with the rest of your life, i said i was going to be cries iseberger and thought i was going to be a university president. flukey way life works. and takes twists and turns and don't know where you are going to end up. >> are you enjoying it? >> it's a good gig. as much as i say all of that, if you had said to me in law school you have a chance to be a supreme court justice i would have said yes. >> you did clerk for two extraordinary judges. can you say a bit about how those experiences shaped you? >> the person i am and the lawyer i have been not just like in the last five years, i started thinking about those two men. they have had a long-lasting impact on my life. the judge, next week is getting the national medal of freedom, and that will be just wonderful. had this really interesting career. he ended up serving in all three branches of our government. he was a congressman from illinois for a lot of years before he became a judge and left the bench and went into the clinton white house and how i got into the clinton white house and he said come work for me again and a lot of my life has been shaped by that experience. but he knew all kinds of things about how law worked and government worked. and he was also the world's most decent human being and i learned about that, too. justice marshall. there your 27 years old and kind of experience jerblely, as you know, you clerked on the supreme court, too. you are young and there you are in this institution where all the cases are being decided and kind of a trip, but then in addition to that, there you are in thurgood marshall's office, the person i think was the greatest 20th century lawyer and he was a story teller. and he was nearing the end of his life. he turned 80, the year i clerked for him. and kind of old 80. he was looking back on his life and however much a story teller he had been, he became more so and more so and we walked into his chambers and talked about the cases and do all our work and at a certain point, he talked about stories about the extraordinary career lawyering, at the trial level, a.m. at level, constitutional cases being this the fofere front of everything that was most important in the second half or actually in a significant period of time eradicating jim crow. and he was funny. but he also told the stories to have a point and we got that. and if you wanted to spend a year at a relatively young age, talking to somebody who could tell you something about justice, that was the man to do it with. i will be very grateful for that experience. >> let me fast forward from your time as a law clerk to arrival at the supreme court as a new justice. were you welcomed, were you hayesed or looking at things that were new or familiar? >> little bit of both. >> did they hayes you? >> ok. i tell you how they hayesed me. this is true. they said, very particular rule for the junior justice, junior justice is the junior justice and they refer to the junior justice as the junior justice. you have specific jobs. they put you on the cafeteria committee. it's not a very good cafeteria. they hayes you all the time you actually. the food isn't very good. >> ok. that counts. >> when we go into conference, it's just the nine of us, we don't bring in any clerks, any assistants. only the nine of us. so somebody has to do two things, the first is that somebody has to take notes so you can go out and tell people what just happened. and i take notes. that is the junior justice's job. and you have to answer the door when there is a knock on the door. literally, if there is a knock on the door than i don't hear it, there will not be a single other person who will move. they will stare at me and i figure out oh, somebody knocked on the door. these two jobs, the note taking and the door opening you can see how they can get in the way of each other. >> even one sounds like a lot. >> and some of my colleagues, you say what doll people knock on the door for? knock. knock. i'm not going to name names. knock, no, ma'am someone forgot their gases. knock. knock. justice forget their coffee. all that said, all that said, the warmth with which i was greeted by all my colleagues was striking to me and here's the first indication of that. my confirmation vote happened in the middle of the afternoon here in the united states in july. and i say in the united states the chief justice was in australia was at the time. it was 3:00 in the morning there. and literally, the moment that that vote occurred and i watched it in the solicitor germ's office with all my colleagues and one of the assistants came into the room and said the chief justice is on the line for you. it was like, and he said, i want you to be the first to welcome you on board and congratulate you and he said you know, i guess we are going to spending the next 25 years together. [laughter] >> which is a little bit scary really. but i said, really, only 25? really? but he and everybody else has been warm and welcoming from the start and in ap way that is to a great credit of the institution and it is a great institution. what did it seem like when i got back how lit will it changed. i clerked there about 25 years earlier. but it was still like remarkably the same institution, using the same procedures, almost a little bit laughbly. in those 25 years, it has been a communication revolution, but seemed to have passed the supreme coordinate by a little bit. but in great ways, that the institution operates ellie efficiently and college yachtly. the first day on the job. the chief justice took me all around to the different offices in the court, the clerk's office the library, the publications office and every single place i went into, somebody said, i remember you from when you were a clerk. it is a great place to work. little bit nervous about that, too. what was i like that back then. so it didn't seem surprising in the way it operated and just warm and welcoming. >> let me ask you about how it is that you interact with the justices your colleagues outside of conference when you are not having to take notes and open the door and the communications revolution. when you have a legal issue or a concern about a particular spin that has been circulated, how do you talk to your fellow justice eggs, are you walking down the hall and shooting emails or different from that? >> often you write and that is write rather than talk. especially if you are commenting on or criticizing a written piece of work or an opinion, you know, it often takes a writing to explain what you mean and why you think something needs to be fixed. and the precision that you can get through a written memo is actually a good deal higher than if you just walked in and put your feet in and say here is what i'm thinking about your opinion. once an opinion has come in, is in writing. people will say, i really hope to join you, but there is this aspect of the opinion that i don't quite agree with and here's a way that would make me feel comfortable. and literally we send these memos -- somebody from the chamber whose job is to walk them around the building. >> they are being walked around the building. >> yes email has not yet hit the united states supreme court. >> i find that astonishing, they have a set of lawyers interacting with colleagues. >> it is an aattachment to tradition, it encourages -- there has been a lot of emails that i have sent and i don't know about you that i just pushed the send button. >> i try not to do that. >> do you do a memo and write it and look it at again when someone brings it into you to sign and worst case scenario you have the opportunity to say no way, stop. so that's part of the way we communicate. but, different ones of us talk more or less. i'm a schmoozer. i do. i wander around and talk to people. sometimes it's about opinions and sometimes it's just about life. but, you know, i'll go into you said steve breyer, we are on one end of the court and the carpet might be getting worn between our two offices. we go back and forth and talk br things that strike us in cases. >> that's reassuring in a way. i want to turn now to ask you some questions about how you decide cases. before doing that and in 30 minutes or so, we will have time to have people from the audience to ask questions but begin by asking you, what sorts of topics you think are fair game in scenarios like this. david suiter was was unwilling where black honmon was telling tales. what is your bouppedry? >> we speak best when we speak through our opinions. so it tends not to -- nime not going to talk about any peppeding cases or any case that might come before me as i look down the road. but i tend to think that we put our opinions out there the whole idea of the way we operate, we give reasons the way we make a decision and those reasons are the best statement we could come up what of why we have done a certain thing and unlikely to be improved upon as you do the lecture circuit. doesn't mean i don't talk about some past opinions that i have been a part of. bru i tend to like a bit more talk about the institution and how it operates as opposed to opinions. >> are you interpreting a statute. might have one set of things to say how one should interpret statutes, are you interpreting the constitution. so what do you want to hear about? >> i would like to hear about the constitution and like to hear about the equal protection clause and due process clause. when you get these grand abstract clauses how do you approach those? >> this is hard. when i think about a stute the first thing and the absolute most important thing is to look at the text of that statute, trumps everything that the text is clear. when you go to the constitution and think about those kinds of clauses and those kinds of clauses speak in abstract even vague terms, not all the constitution does this. if the constitution says you can't be president unless you are 35, you know what that means. but when the constitution says you are entitled to due process of law and equal protection of law, trying to give that content meaning, it can't be done by just staring at the words. how do you it? one possibility is you try to figure out what the drafters thought that it meant and what it would have meant living in that time and for the constitution it is 1789 and you come up with a list of practices, here's what they thought that this prohibited and here's what they thought did not prohibit. i think that's not a good way of going about the enterprise. and one way you know that, it leads to results that are simply untenable. what do the framers think that equal protection meant or not meant to desegregate schools or massogony laws. we know those things. and any things that get you to results that get untenable can't be a good medthod. but one of the reasons why some people are attracted to that and this is really important, is that did they think it provides a way of discipline for judges. they say i think this and it's my personal values and personal prempses. there have to be ways of confining the inquiry and it's not going to be that, it will be something else. what are those things? you start with the original meaning. there is in some sense we are all organizationalists. it is important to what the history over time has been. it's not the history over a particular moment but the history of our republic in a certain sense. we had not these clauses but an interesting case involving the president's recess appointment power. and justice breyer's opinion was how much does it look at the broad sweep and how this clause has worked in our country for two-plus centuries. that's important. and i myself, am a big precedent person. some people call it a common-law constitutionist. but i think hard about the way the law of interpreting the due process clause or equal protection clause has developed over time in case after case after case after case and try to think about the principles that have emerged in all of those cases. and that is not departing from precedent where it's set, but partly trying to understand what has underlay all of that precedent and how the principles that have emerged over many, many decades thinking about these provisions, apply in a particular case. >> another phrase that gets thrown around when people talk about judicial philosophy and that is judicial restraint. do you consider yourself an advocate for judicial restraint and what does that concept mean to you? >> yes sometimes but no, other times. this is one of the hardest things about being a judge, you have to know what judges should not be getting into. you have to say i have my job and it's not this it's not a legislative job, not an executive job and to let those institutions do what they are supposed to do and what they do a whole lot better, you have to let them operate in their sfeers, where they have confidence and legitimacy. a very significant part of any judge's role, especially at the highest court is to decide when a particular act a legislative act or executive act goes too far goes beyond the boundries where the law has been set where in the law or the constitution and you can't abdicate that rule. it is an important part of why you are up there. when a legislature dose something that violates the best understanding, as it's emerged over many decades of say, the equal protection clause you have to say sorry, you went too far and that's part of my job and that will involve invalidating a piece of legislation. but it's appropriate for me to do so. >> let me ask you a more specific question about how it is you that consider that justices can consider the relationship between the court and the political branches. suggestions have been made that supreme court justices ought to think about the political reaction or the backlack that a particular decision might generate and arguments that justice ginsburg published, the supreme court moved too fast when it decided roe versus wade or the court's use of the all deliberate speed formula in brown versus education. there was an article published by david cole urging the court in gay marriage cases not to move too fast. is that something that justice may think about and should in these cases? >> i don't want to talk about it in any particular issue, but i will say this. it's super rare that the justice do or that they shoud. you have to apply the law as best you can. and probably in most cases, these issues don't come up at all or if they come up it's not worth thinking about. if you said to me, is it ever worth thinking about some of these things, i don't think i would say no to that. it simes to me at least some part of being a judge -- you say what makes a great judge there is something about sort of wisdom and wisdom might say something about the kinds of issues that you are talking about. but i don't want to -- i think for the most part, when we think about the sort of questions you are talking about, aren't fettered any way, and you have to have a lot of humility about your ability to know about any of these kinds of predictions this is the way it will turn out that's the way it will turn out. and you know, we have one job to do, which is to apply the law as best we can. that job is really hard. there is going to be differences of what it means in a given case. but it's differences in the realm of legal interpretation. and i think -- i think we should be wary of going beyond that. >> a lot of people today when they look at the court, see a court that seems more polarized among liberal-conservative fault lines than in the times we clerked do you agree with that judgment about the court and if so, should we be concerned about it? >> so, i think people overstate it. and one think to think about this how much we agree on, we actually agree an incredible amount of the time. hard to get nine people to get agree on anything. last year, all nine of us agreed 60% of the time, which is quite something because we only decide the hardest cases. almost all of our cases are ones that have produced splits in the lower courts and notwithstanding that, all nine of us unanimously decided on the right answer. and add to that, you have a lot of a-1's and 7-2's. but not divided along the step yeoh typical lines. but all of that said, it is absolutely true that in some number of cases every year and we do about 80 cases a year and let's call it about 10 cases and often these are the 10 cases that are the most profile and no getting around that, that we are going to split on pretty predictable lines. four of us who think one thing and tour of us who think the other thing and we wait and see what justice kennedy does. [laughter] >> it's unfortunate now. there has been that kind of split for a long time that people have not been able to say has anything to do with republicans and democrats, bus folks like your boss, the person you clerked for, justice steffens was appointed by a republican president. now people can talk about it as though it has something to do with democrats and republicans. i don't think there is a single one of us that experiences law in that way and experiences what we are doing. it doesn't have to deal with politics in the way you would find across the street and in congress. but it has to do with the kind of issues we were talking about more judicial med the thod dolly and how you read some of these very abstract provisions in the constitution. and and there is no getting around the fact that we are split in that way in some of those cases. they tend for that reason not to be the cases that i most enjoy. but i love it when he were -- when we are really all in there trying to persuade each other and you know that persuasion is possible and that you know that that kind of stereotypical split is not going to happen. that's like the most fun part of the job. >> a lot of people would think the marquee cases are the most fun part of the job. >> my first conference, and walked in and there were two cases on the agenda and one was a high-profile case, won you knew was going to be on the front page of the "new york times" once we decided it and the other was a dinky procedural case. some are important this one was dinky. [laughter] >> and the high-profile case and it was a 5-4. the way we operate is we -- it starts with the chief justice and he goes first and reminds us all what the case is about and gives us his views and he says i vote to reverse or affirm and goes around in seniority order. there is a rule that says that nobody can speak twice before anybody speaks once, which is a very good rule, but -- and then after that, we can, if we want all break out in conversation together and it's not stylized and just kind of all talking together. this high-profile case came in and everyone wept around the table and said his or her bees and got to me and i said my piece and the chief justice who runs these things incredibly well said, ok, i support this and he wept onto the next case. and the next case, we did the same thing, went around the table. everybody had like somewhat different views and it wasn't clear where we were agreeing or disagreeing. but at any rate, the first case took us no more than 10 minutes, the next case took us 40 and i walked out and i thought, if they were a fly on the wall, they would say what is going on with these people, 10 minutes on this and 40 minutes on that. but as i now have been there, it makes all the sense in the world, that there are the occasional case where you kind of know that there is not going to be a lot of persuading done in the room. everybody walks in and has a certain view, experienced people they have seen the problem more of before and you say what you think but if you keep say on what you think it's going to annoy and it's important that we don't annoy each other. but when there's real persuasion that can be done, everybody really pitches in and tries to do it. as i said before, that's the most fun part to me. >> let me ask you one question and prepare the audience, we will be going out to you for questions. so here's the last one, a week ago, paul krug map wrote a "new york times" piece accusing the court of being corrupt because of its willingness to take cases that attack affordable care act. how americans should respond to that ack sayings. any reason to worry about corruption at the supreme court? >> no. [laughter] >> there is not a day in my job that i have ever thought that anybody was not doing everything that they do in utter, complete good faith. and you can disagree with people and you will disagree with people. but everybody is trying to get it right. and everybody is incomplete good failingt and that is ridiculous language, honestly. when i was solicitor general, i would argue with the court every sit-in, but i would go and watch the court whenever the people in my office argued. i just sort of watched about 70% of the cases. and i used to think, man, this is how an institution of government should operate. and people saw it. day in and day out. all these people who are coming to the bench ultraprepared, really having thought through things really understanding the issues and the arguments. and asking really penetrating, excellent questions and just trying to -- trying to persuade each other as we sit on the bench, but also trying to get it right. it's an institution of government that really works. and i could not disagree more. >> i'm very glad to hear you say that. i have studied this institution for most of my life and i have often disagreed with it and with particular justices on it, but i believed all cases are decideing on good faith. justice kagan has been great. and i want to remind folks that what should be coming from the floor are questions, questions and with a question mark sometimes the raising of a voice are typically shorter than the answers that you expect to hear from justice kagan. with that sort of reminder or warning, i don't know if we have someone at the top. i will say one of the things about this stage, there are prite lights. back row all the way at the top. introduce yourselveses. >> i'm a freshman. my question is, should, in your opinion, fosh or international decisions have bearing on any kind of rulings on the supreme court? should you cite these international decisions? >> this is the kind of -- this issue is a lot more heat than light. there are a lot of people who feel strongly about this and i don't understand why. sometimes everybody agrees that we should look to international law, foreign law in deciding particular case. if you deciding case about a treaty it's important to look to international law and to look to foreign law about how that treaty operates. i take it nobody would disagree with that. and what some instead think is that one should never look to foreign law with respect to peculiarly domestic issues. and you know, on the one hand, i kind of think -- the way i see some of my colleagues do that, i don't quite -- i think it's kind of mischaracterized that nobody in our court would use those decisions as binding or that they are precedent or anything like that. but they are more using those decisions in a way you might cite a law review article like, here's what somebody thinks and yownime going to tell you whether i agree with that or not. so i think on the one hand that people get a little bit spun up about this more than they should. but i will say on the other side this, is that, you know, i don't think i have actually cited one. and there are times when i had the opportunity to do so when, you know, maybe some other person who was writing the decision might have. and i think the reason for me is, i think we have -- we are trying to interpret our own constitution and our own laws. and we have a very rich constitutional tradition and also in some ways a distinct construtional tradition. if you can't find grounding for what you do in our own laws, you shouldn't be doing it. and the foreign sources come in, just to guild the lilly, if you will. and i guess my choice has been not to use them that way, not to use them at all, but to use my best judgment about what our constitutional tradition and what our constitutional cases indicate. and unlike lots of countries -- there are new countries that look to older countries' laws, but we have a pretty long tradition. for me, that's kind of enough. and i tend not to, and i'm pretty sure will continue not to except for when there is an obvious reason because of the law or case involved some question of international or foreign law. >> let me say there is a hand in the middle here of this section, can we get a microphone there? >> it blinds you. >> introduce yourself please. >> my name is katherine. and actually, i'm a huge fan of notorious r.b.g. if anybody heard the phrase before is ruth bader ginsburg. >> i'm a huge fan of her, too. >> i was watching an interview the other day where she was commenting on the hobby lobby ruling and she said that she thinks that historically, the supreme court has had a blind spot when it comes to women. and i would like to know what your reaction of is to the gender politics and do you think it is stabilizing, progressing, what are your thoughts? >> you are putting me in a tough position there? i had to choose between one colleague and some other colleagues. i don't think i quite want to do that. and i'm trying -- you know, it's a good question when i need to figure out what i'm going to say. look, i think -- you know that's a case in which there are -- i mean, it's actually a perfect example of the way even when the divide in this kind of 5-4ish way that we did in that case, that it is important to understand that there are strong arguments on both sides of the issue. so i myself, do not think are you with wim or not with wim kind of case. the question of how far religious liberty extends there, it was under a statute rather than under the constitution the question is under the statute and when people should be able to opt out of general commitments is one of the most dim cases -- difficult areas of constitutional law and one where people spoke pation naturally on both sides and have a right to talk passionately on both sides. i don't say blind spot or not blind spot. i look at a case like that and say, this is what makes constitutional law so hard, is there are clash in values and principles at work. and in that case is a perfect example of it. >> why don't we go down here to avoid blind spots in our own eyes. >> talking about blind spots -- [laughter] >> i'm a sophomore. you are often in the dissent on a lot of critical opinions. do you have the frustration of not getting your way and the majority, is that jouth weighed of writing the dissent and ruled into the majority like fleesy versus furnishing uson? professor robert george said who got an a in constitutional law is sitting on the supreme court. >> >> i can guarantee you it's not true. [cheers and applause] >> but your question, is it hard to lose, is that what your question is? of course it's hard to lose. i just told you i'm a competitive person. i like going out shooting things. i was recently -- there was a big convention, a convention of all the a.m. at judges and someone asked me what is your best time and what is the worst thing. and i thought what is the worst thing, coming back from conference and not being in the majority on an issue that you think is important and you have strong views about. and the days i come back from conference in that position, you know, sometimes i could punch a hole through the wall. so is it mitigated? is it sort of mitigated by your opportunity to raise a fierce dissent, not really. [laughter] >> but i enjoy writing dissents, except for the fact that they are in dissent, which is annoying. i like writing them for different reasons. different kind of dissents and the ones in the important cases where you do feel in the way that you said, i'm writing for the future, that i hope that this issue will remain on our legal agenda, so that some years down the road, people will come back to it, and if not, overrule this case, you know go in a different direction with respect to with respect to constitutional position it. when you are writing a dissent like that, you know, you do feel -- a little bit of a sense of responsibility. i want to make the best case i can. so our audience in the current state understands what's wrong with this opinion and also to some future audience understands what is wrong that opinion and maybe that will include five members of the supreme court. and, you know, and i do think about those things, how do i convey to people what's so wrong about what my colleagues have done, how do i convey in a way that suggests what the options are for the future. >> look at top we have -- couple of them here, but a person who has a grayish-greenish shirt. i'm making things difficult for our runners. >> i'm a law professor at the university of iowa and a member of the institute of the advanced studies. >> you are a ringer. >> you look very young. >> the chief justice has said some things fairly dramatically about the role of scholarship in his decision-making in references to approaches to 18th century bulgaria and so forth and i would like to ask you what you think about the conversation between the legal academy in general and the court? do you read things that academics write about the laws, do they influence your decision-making process? >> i think he is right as to one thing, that there are just many things that law professors write about that aren't particularly relevant to us. that's ok. we aren't the only audience for law professors. law professors should not think of themselves as supreme court clerks. often, law professors are speaking to legislators to real-life practicing lawyers. law professors are speaking to other communities within a university you want the legal historian to be speaking to the other legal historian. there are a whole range of audiences ear than the supreme court. and that's not only inevitable and that's how it should be. it would be a much narrower conversation in our law schools if the law now, so -- that's the fact of the matter that for many law professors there is no dialogue, but that's ok with me and it should be ok with them i guess. there are people who do really engage with what we do. and i often find things that are coming from the law professor world, whether an article or you see people blogging about these kinds of things and not writing full length articles but going on a whole number of sites and talking about the kind of cases we get in the issues we see. i sometimes think that what is written there is very useful and very interesting that leads me to ask questions and elites meet said he thinks through i have not thought about. -- leads me to think about things i have not thought about. i suggest some other things are at issue in a way that i think is valuable. i think it's a pretty happy story actually that law professors are not just focusing on us to the next and that they focus on us. i think they are contributing to the dialogue. >> down here, if there is a question in the front row behind the camera? >> hi, i am kennedy and i am a freshman. my question is two parts. what was the toughest decision you have been a part of? which decisions are you most proud of? >> i will tell you the toughest one, it was earlier in the day and it was a case about violent video games. i will preface by saying i am usually pretty good at decision-making. i work hard and i read a lot and i think through things i hold and i talked to my clerks and other justices. it is not as though i may snap decisions for i am not usually an appetizer. i get on the information i think i need and make a decision. -- agonizer. i do not a lot of hamlets. [applause] but, this one case i did, i was all over the map on. everyday i looked up and thought , i would do a different angle or i was in the wrong place. it was a case about whether kids could buy violent video games without their parents permission. which everybody things, not easy because kids can not going to violent movements. the movie system is a private system and not a government system. california had passed a law that says kids can buy violent video games. it do not defined violence all that well which was a problem. even if he had, there might be other problems, first amendment problems. i have to say everything -- it should be that you should not be able, if a parent doesn't want her kids to buy violent video games, attribute the apparent -- it should be -- it should be the parent -- efficiently that this law is ok. i cannot figure how to make the first amendment to make this ok. the distinction, that's usually a higher subject to stricter scrutiny within a very good evidence not of the kind no one would normally need that the viewing or playing a violent video games was harmful. and so i cannot make it work under the first amendment doctrine that we have and have had for a long time. i kept going back and forth and we ended up being sort of 5-4 on that important issue. i was in the five that said that the law should be invalidated. that is the one case where i think i'm just to not know. i just don't know if it's right. what did you say? proudest of? i don't -- i'm not -- like which of your children do you like vasquez were erected these opinion -- of your children do you like best? you write to these opinions and you are proud of. i am not going to give a talk one. >> right in the very front here. >> i'm a freshman. after here to talk about the respectful of different opinions that you guys take pride in on the court, i was wondering how you think you can apply it to the political sphere of spreading respectful disagreement? >> i would not presume to say. [applause] i am like into this little institution it may be it is better because it is a small institution, very personal institution, only nine of us and we know each other super well. and -- i -- i -- you wish that all of government -- what i really experience this institution today and there are great friendships and that there is an enormous amount of respect even in the face of disagreement. you wish that were so in all parts of our government and honestly you got me at how to make it happen. >> let me look up, my eyes have recovered enough from the light. a head right back there under the bright light again. there we go. >> i didn't even see these. >> my name is isaac. i am wondering how the court thinks about presidents -- precedence. >> i do not know what policies the ability so i will save my answer for precedent. we taken really seriously. precedent predictability is an important value of the law. people should be able to rely on the law should not feel as if he keeps changing depending all gets to the particular court is a moment in time. part of the way to prevent the court's politicization. and finally, it is part of what i view as a kind of judicial humility which is important that even if you think something at one moment in time, the facts that others that have gone before you thought something different should be a constraint on your. you may not be right they might have been right. and so i think, it's important for that reason, too karen -- too. it cannot be the only question that you asked when it comes to reverse a decision was not a good decision or a bad decision? if that was the case then the doctrine of precedentce would have no real force. it has to overrule precedent and there has to be something more than that it is wrong. next to the a variety of things. if you believe that the doctrine all around the president has changed over time and the precedent is out of whack with the rest of the legal universe. it could mean that the world has changed in some fundamental way that makes this precedent work differently than anybody ever thought it would. it could be because the precedent is unworkable in the sense of administering that you lay out a rule and expect judges to follow. and it turns out it is a very hard line that you have strong the judges -- drawn and judges are all over the place. it can be any of those things were more. there has to be some really good reason beyond the fact that i think they got it wrong that would lead you to overturn something career i am sure there are times in the years i served as a judge where i will vote to overturn a decision, but i hope it happens pretty rarely. >> yes? >> hi. i'm a freshman here. you spoke about one justice has -- ivy league institution. when loretto lynch was nominated for attorney general, i began to wonder where she graduated from. i looked it up and she has not one but two degrees from harvard. what did you think this says about the accessibility of education institutions of graduate students who attend elite colleges? is it fair to students who do not graduate from these elite schools that this type of essex facility is not available to them? thank you. >> i am a little bit of partisan all harvard law school. [applause] when loretta lynch was nominated i thought, ok another one. [applause] but, that said, you raise a serious question. is there are asked -- there are aspects that everybody focuses on with all of our institutions, people always think about racial and economic diversity in people always think about gender diversity and sometimes people talk in the court of our religious diversity as well. but there is this a way in which the court is an incredibly un-diverse concert -- courts. one way has to do with where we all went to law school which is even more than you say. 1/5 of us went to harvard and five of those graduated from harvard in one graduated from columbia. and three -- privileged everybody is a harvard/yale person. and just as real is extremely coastal court. if you count up the number of hours, the number of life years we have all spent on the -- it is superhigh. [laughter] a couple of people from california, justice kennedy is from california and justice breyer grew up there. and then a lot for easterners, a lot of new yorkers specifically. justice thomas from georgia and justice -- and achieve justice is from the mid-debt and achieve justice and is from the midwest and spent much of his life -- eddie cheever justice is from the midwest. -- and the chief justices from the midwest. i got a lot of law schools. not just the harvard once. [laughter] if people ask me about this all of the time and you can get people think well, how about us? shouldn't we have access to this institution and should we feel as though this institution is seeking -- speaking to us? i think that is important. i do not think any of these metrics of diversity have all that much to deal with how we decide cases. i think it's pretty rare that they do. the face who present to the world, i think people should think about how their government institutions a look to the world and whether they reflect the diversity of our country and diversity of our citizenry. this is one way in which this court clearly does not. and you would -- i think hope for it to be different from i am putting together funny story. i hope senator reed was not mind my telling you this. when i got nominated, you go through and they are ordered in this rant kind of way. never written the first person i spoke to was senator reid and the majority leader of the senate. i walked into his office and he said to me, "delighted to meet you." i told the president "i need two things in a supreme court justice. you are one of them." i said all, hope that isn't all that important. i said what are the two things. the first when he said we have to have somebody was never in a court of appeals judge. i was not a court of appeals judge. check your -- check. he said, i told the president will do have any more harvard or yale people. i definitely do not make that one. [laughter] >> you didn't say i am a christian person? -- a princeton person? right into the center. >> last one. make a. -- make it a good. >> i am a masters student. i want to go back to the issue of health care for a minute and just ask you about the process around it. there were so many different opinions, different source of coalitions and justices joining can you talk about the roles that justices, a will or in dealer within the court of informing these coalitions and how it works? >> i was not talk about that case. -- will not talk about that is. but often, things and do not break down neatly. sometimes, as i said a lot of the times, we all agree. but when we do not agree sometimes it breaks down easily and sometimes it don't. sometimes it breaks down particular issues. sometimes we fracture so there is no -- we try very hard not to have that happen because when that happens, we do not spend good a coherent signals to lower courts about what they should be doing. there is a lot of trying to prevent that sort of fracturing. if the chief justice is exceptionally good actually to figure out when we are not altogether and trying to figure out how to get five people to say something so we can actually speak coherently in a case and the judges dependent on our guidance. but, that's sometimes hard. offered in these cases have a lot issues into them. often people things different things -- think different things about different issues. trying to figure that out does take work. it is work that we engage in in conference and out of conference as well. sort of trying to guess to at least a majority. >> i speak for everyone here is that we have high expectations for this event if you waited better than we expected and we hope you return frequently and we welcome you back with open arms. >> it feels absolutely wonderful to be here. >> great to have you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> new year's day on the c-span networks, some of our featured programs and 10:00 eastern washington idea forum

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Australia , Idaho , Wyoming , Iowa , Illinois , California , Essex , Bulgaria , Georgia , Washington , District Of Columbia , Chicago , Reunion , Americans , America , American , Eddie Cheever , Loretto Lynch , Paul Krug , Robert George , Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Woodrow Wilson , Loretta Lynch , Harvard Yale , Steve Breyer , Elena Kagan , David Cole ,