Is not my first trip to newport. When the synagogue asked me too come. We just let everybody know this any other religious affiliations you want to invite me too newport im good with that this is such a beautiful campus for the more i learned about the university in the days and weeks leading up to this event, the more impressed be here and to be with people who, as the president said are deeply committed to Public Service of various kinds. So thank you very much for giving me the chance for a quick thank you very much for being here. Were thrilled to have you here. Most of the folks here are graduates, a lot of time to do events like this at law schools. It is been a while since i was in a college or speaking to non law students. If i ever start may being too in the weeds. You will just tell me. Your reluctance might be but not here. Wonder if we could take you back to your life as an undergraduate at the university. What kind of student were you. I was a good student. Have activities re involved in . I like to think is a good said i majored in history. Before i came here i was at a lunch with 15 or so of your students. The professor there was a history professor. He seemed quite wonderful. But it was reminding me a little bit about studying history as an undergraduate. And so i did that. I loved doing that. I decided at some point my senior year i was thinking maybe i would go on, get a phd. Become a history professor. During my senior year i did a thesis which had me spending many, many hours. That this might be a little bit lonely for me. So i made a switch. But i continue to read a lot about history. It was my first love and a continuing one. In terms of Extracurricular Activities i was on the school paper. And eventually i was called the editorial chairman. Which meant iran editorial page. I was thinking is doing what i was still doing, is writing opinions. They were about very Different Things. They were about the cafeteria hours or Something Like that. But that is what i did in college. Was at princeton or elsewhere . Did you have mentors and all models that helped you along the way . I have more mentors than i could count. I dont think anybody gets anywhere without people along the way who have helped to get there and provided advice, wisdom, help, and just a model. I was very lucky. I have had quite a number at princeton. One of my professor was also my senior thesis advisor really taught me how to write. Thats a pretty important thing in my job. One of two people who were incredibly important in that respect. The other being my mother. The other mentors which i will make a point i clerked for two wonderful judges when no one has heard of, the only place the last public event i did was in chicago. I used that line and everyone said of course we have heard of you. The first judge i clerked for was a man named abner. The second will help everyone does know about is marshall. They were two people, both i would say help me enormously. Probably extended a helping hand other jobs later and light my career where than any other Single Person in my life. But also people who just provided a model of what it was that you could be deeply proud of. Also how you could be a great human being and a great lawyer both. And i dont come anywhere near anything that they showed me in that regard. But it was an incredible model for a young lawyer. Okelly ran through your biography. In the white House Counsel also the Deputy Director of public policy, domestic policy. The service that you did and law school. I am just curious, on the judicial side but also on the policy side. I am law and politics. I hear knowing laughter in our system there many subject matters the present policy but also have legal issues. That legal issue should be understood in very distinct from the policy issues. Constitutional law is constitutional is not permitted by the constitution. Or, you can think something is really bad policy but it is permitted by the constitution. If congress happens to disagree with you on good policy, a judge has to know her place. I come from the world of law schools there are plenty of people who say politics. I think nothing could be further from the truth. Think its important theres a divide between the two. I think the court does best when it keeps to the legal issues. When it does not allow personal political views. Personal policy views to affect or in fact its judging. In the worst moments for the court have been times when judges have allowed that to happen. The very worst moments have been times when judges have reflected on one parties or when ideologies a set of views. In their legal decision. That cant and should not happen. There has to be a strong distinction between the two. The judges have to know their own rules. [applause] clicks you are confirmed by the senate with a vote of 61 31. No Supreme Court justice since has received 54 affirmative votes in the United States senate. What do these bruising confirmation battles due to the ports the court . They certainly do not help that much. I will save just give me a little more credit than i deserve. I had received more votes than some of my successors. I think thats probably of the more lopsided sentence. I too get there many crossover votes. That has been the recent history. Passover meaning when a president of one party points you how many in recent years both when democratic have been appointed as my successors by a republican president. For good reasons nobody quite deserves 100 votes. Sometimes the peers in congress. The public thinking the court with the non partisan institution. I will say how people of the court is how the court itself does its business. Its not every few years confirmation hearing or battle if it comes to that. Does the court every day go about its business . And i think the thing that built up reservoirs and Public Confidence record acting like a court and not acting in the court does not always do things that are popular. They are supposed to do things regardless of whether any particular decision which is not the question, the question is just whether there is some deeper wealth spring of confidence. That comes from people saying the court is acting like a court. The court is performing its proper role. The court is not just imposing its own political views on society. You think about your service do you have particular judicial year old or role models that you think about is you were doing your job now . I think the first has to be the justice i work for. Not so much as what he did as a justice, one of the only justices may be the only justice is more known, more important, more revered what he did before he became a justice than after. Thats Thurgood Marshall who has a battle to eradicate jim crow segregation. Winning lawyer in the brown the case. And had a whole series of Supreme Court decisions leading up to that. Brown the board was very much a culmination of a longer Legal Process in which jim crow segregation was eliminated. He was also a person he not only argued in the Supreme Court, he argued in lots of Little Country courthouses all through the south. Often doing criminal cases trying to get innocent black attendants exonerated. Even though that juries were all white and not inclined to do so. He pretty did everything there is to do in the law to achieve racial equality. And in my year with him on the court is among many other accomplishments best storyteller i ever met in my life. He spent at the naacp defensive fund doing this kind of work. It really was he would make you laugh, he would make you cry. He would do impressions of people. He would do thousands of voices. He had 1000 facial expressions. It was quite an extraordinary thing. But you could not come away without having a very serious purpose. The serious purpose he cared as much as anybody i ever met the vision of racial equality in our society. And he reinforced every day the importance of that constitutional commitment. Second judicial hero goes further back. Occupied the same seat that i do at the court. Seat number one, seat number two. Wish justices down through history have occupied that. If you go back three justices sperm me too get to the justices conserve a long as pipette suggests. [laughter] early of the 20th century in a man name louis. He was the first jew to occupied the Supreme Court seat. He was confirmed only after a quite Vicious Campaign against him. But the reason he is my hero is because of what he did on the bench. Im going to give you all a homework assignment. Can i do this . Here are students. I will tell you i did this two weeks ago a place where pretty much everybody was over 50. I said im giving you a homework assignment. They said homework . [laughter] they were far away from home. Heres your homework assignment is my favorite opinion ever. It is a concurring opinion but its really defensive position explained quite a majority was all wrong presented freespeech case. Whether a statute was being used prosecute communists and other various leftwing people was unconstitutional. In justice brandeis, the case is whitney beat california. The brandeis opinion is the greatest defense of free speech that everyone has ever written. Everybody sort of knows about. If you are a lawyer you think marketplace of ideas. In truth this opinion is the greatest freespeech ever written. Talk about free speech as a critical part of a democracy. Just central to the working and the flourishing of a democracy. As a poor component of what it means to be a paris, courageous and democratic people. It is quite beautiful prep not only tie the reason, im going to tell you to read it out loud. It is like poetry. I could not do it justice. Brought my favorite opinion but its part of a broader lifes work. Which is that he had a very deep belief in ensuring that the constitution was appropriate for this of the constitution does. It assists us in creating and maintaining a flourishing and working democracy but i think that is how he would have described his own lifes a project. A pretty glorious one. So he is a traditional hero of mine. Project is relevant today as well. If opinion pages of the United States right now are filled with mornings the american democracy is imperiled. What do you see the threat of american democracy today . What is the role of the courts in preserving it . Not going to be a political pundit commenting the different threats to democracy and how each one fits. But it is not as impossible as any citizen cannot look around the this country faces challenges. Not least of which is the fact the country is so divided. In the question of how we work ourselves through that. Not just as judges of the work themselves that is an important one. As judges, the Principal Task is to ensure the constitutions own commitment to democracy. Not just the constitution which are meant to protect equal citizenship, to ensure every citizen of the 14th and 15th amendment by the statutes passed under it. And so the most direct way in which it protects democracy. I will be honest with you, i have been an dissent on a number of the courts most recent democracy voting cases. Its a sentiment comfortably Voting Rights act. Cases that have determined what role courts have to play with respect to gerry man during. Ive been on dissent on these cases but i will be honest and i do not think the court has done its job particularly well. As might defense makes quite clear. They actually get clearer and stronger terms. At is the courts most direct goal in that field. So it related to this in june to harvard law professors bite nicholas and published an essay in the atlantic, arguing judicial supremacy was the cause of americas divisive politics. That was not a symptom that was a cause. Instead of looking to the courts to sell these big political issues that responsibility really ought to lie with congress. You think thats the right interpretation . Ive not read the article. My judicial supremacy i take it they mean the power which is the power courts in the United States have had ever since the very early years of the 19th century. That is the first decision. Power courts have had to overrule legislation. Whether its enacted by congress, or enacted by state legislatures on the ground that that legislation is unconstitutional. That usually power of judicial review. I would say i do not agree that should be scrapped. Although it is not mentioned in the constitution, it has been a part of our constitution for almost as long as this country has existed. In the constitution is understood and interpreted by the courts. And is understood by the people too. I do think that power needs to be exercised with a great deal of immodesty and restraint. I sort of understanding of how this would work is almost a third of the court should get back to your last question protects the sphere of democracy. The First Amendment is one of those things. Ensuring that everybody has a political speech opportunities. The 14th and 15th amendment ensuring everybody has the Voting Rights the constitution and congress is given. That when those areas court needs to operate in a way that will make the democratic system worker. Now once the democratic system is working, once the rules are in place to ensure the democratic system is working then usually, not always. But often i mean usually the court can allow that democratic system to operate. Should it be to because the democratic system has worked. So as to produce outcomes that you would think are themselves legitimate. Sometimes thats not the case. Sometimes a piece of legislation the constitutional boundary. The court has to act. The court should think twice and maybe think twice again before doing so. And in particular the court should not be wandering around inserting itself into every hot button issue in america. He should not be doing that in a way that reflects one ideology or one set of political views over another. [applause] aware met here on the campus. Our students are steeped which challenges all of us to step into other peoples lives, other peoples perspectives. And to lead with empathy. I am curious if there is a world for that kind of empathy and the workings of the Supreme Court . An in law in general . Up empathy can mean Different Things to different people. Sometimes when it is used to refer to law it does need to be different. I will say one thing that would not be appropriate. And yes then whats appropriate but my gosh, shouldnt we do that in every area of life . The one thing thats not appropriate the rule of law said we should achieve results expert points to a certain result. And then we say sentiment, empathy, sympathy, whatever word you want to use is going to make us not do that. No, you cannot do that and law. The rule of law is the rule of law. You cant just sit doesnt feel good today and i feel really bad for this person. Okay. As i understand it, that is not the way youre using the term. When you said it was like it sort of putting your self and other peoples shoes. It is being able to see the world through eyes that are not your own. And in that sense, my gosh empathy is critical to everything we do in life. Including lawyering judging. So a time of lawyering, putting judging aside for a moment, its a bit problemsolving. Lawyers are the best problem solvers. You cannot solve a problem and the life or very rarely without being able to see the world through another persons eyes without being able to say what does the world look like to him . Then i can figure out how it is that he is going to agree to something. The greatest negotiators are also the people with the greatest ability to step into another persons shoes and see the world from that persons point of view. And in judging i would say that is true too. When it comes to the collaborative work of a multi court which is the court i fit on is the ability to say how does that look to another judge . Why does it look that way . It is everybody is doing that, that provides the greatest chance for the court to come together. To reach principal compromises. To reach consensus. To operate across whatever lines exist between or among judges. That is critical. One of the things i have heard from people getting ready for today perhaps the most opaque cspan cameras are not in the courtroom. There is not been eight drama about everyone can plug into and they know their favorite characters precook the variable rent i think. [laughter] can you take us insight and help us understand how does the court actually operate . How does the court operate. We hear arguments in cases, we presumably have done all of our homework. We have homework to beforehand. We read the briefs, we talk about it may be with our clerks. Maybe we talk about it even at the early stage with other justices on an informal basis. We go into the courtroom. We hear arguments. Our arguments are relatively short. It is usually an hour. It might begin hour and half or two hours at an extreme. We think about it. We take it back with us for a couple of days and then we have what is called a conference. We go around the table pretty start to the chief justice and a cousin seniority order. We do a lot by seniority. Each express his or her preliminary views of the case and how it should come out. And then there is a rule no one can talk twice before everyone talks once. So everybody gets a chance to do that. Sometimes that will be it. If nine people said it should be affirmed we can go on to the next case. But other times that will be the preface to a longer conversation where we are trying to convince each other we are trying to find some common ground. And so it can go on for a time. And then the senior justice in the majority that will most often be the chief justice. But sometimes if the chief justice is in dissent it is somebody else. We will assign the case to one of the justices. You take that home comment to your chambers, you produce eventually a draft opinion. Everybody gets a chance to vote on it. People might ask you, often do ask you to make. Changes so that they can vote on it. If it is a divided opinion there will also be a dissent assigned. And then the dissent in the majority on their will produce drafts that respond to each other. On this issue of transparency, do you think American Life would be enriched to people had greater