Why stop at 1965?
Here is a lesson for High School children today.
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your question what's your name okay thank you my name is Maya cook um good evening Senator Cruz thank you
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so much for coming to Yale this evening and I think in the spirit of the Buckley program celebration of intellectual
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diversity I wanted to take a moment to celebrate our newest addition to the Supreme Court of the US who I know we've
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already talked about Justice Jackson since you're here tonight though in the name of fostering intellectual diversity
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and academic spaces it would appear to me that you already recognize the importance of New Perspectives and as a young woman seeing Justice Jackson on
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the Supreme Court is invigorating truly and on Tuesday it baffled me that you would ask such flagrantly racist
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questions um to this exceedingly well-qualified candidate your colleagues in the GOP promised a
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respectful and dignified hearing for justice Jackson and to me you did not uphold this
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so today I wanted to create a space where you might be able to challenge your own thinking as prudent Scholars
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often do so I'm here to ask you what are two nice comments you can give about recent
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nominee Justice Jackson's judicial experience besides from she has an easy smile
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yeah you racist what's the comment [Applause]
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well let me start by thanking you for being here and thank you for asking a
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substantive uh important question thank you for engaging in a conversation I think we
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all would be better off if we engage in substantive conversations there's a lot to praise uh about Judge
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Jackson she is very very bright she is very very accomplished
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she is very talented uh she has an impressive and inspiring
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personal story I I will say sitting listening to her opening remarks where
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she described her personal story she described her parents Journey you had to be dead
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not to be inspired by that Journey and and and listen I will say more broadly if you look at the history of
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our country if you look at at the history of our country on race it is absolutely inspiring to see an
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African-American woman serving on the Supreme Court I will also point out that when it comes
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to issues of race I think both the Press and the modern left
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are hypocritical on this question that they only Define someone as black
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or they only Define someone as Hispanic if they agree with them ideological
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so Clarence Thomas has been on the court for decades Clarence Thomas is a black man
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the left hates him they despise Clarence Thomas and I'll tell you by the way the treatment of
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Clarence Thomas on the left is markedly different than say Antonin Scalia
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Antonin Scalia was brilliant he and Justice Thomas were every bit as conservative
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and yet the vitriol that was heaped on Clarence Thomas
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um nasty racist language from the left there was one magazine cover that that
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that showed Clarence Thomas as an Uncle Tom sitting at scalia's feet
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I think was racist and disgusting and and listen I will say this as an Hispanic man as an Hispanic man Jorge
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Ramos went on on television in Spanish and described me as a traitor to my race
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for daring okay look that says something about the
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view of the left that they're telling you you have one way to to view things in
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one way only and if you don't we'll demonize and attack you so look and by the way in terms of
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having the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court there was an
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opportunity for this to happen 20 years ago there's a judge named Janice Rogers Brown Janice Rogers Brown was a Supreme
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Court Justice of the California Supreme Court George W bush nominated Janice Rogers
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Brown to the D.C circuit at the beginning of the beginning of his presidency he nominated Judge Brown to
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the D.C circuit the Democrats filibuster Judge Brown
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that filibuster was led by a guy named Joe Biden it also included people like Chuck
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Schumer it included Pat Leah he included Dianne Feinstein they fill up the reason they
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filibustered judge Janet Janice Rogers Brown is because she was a black woman
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but she was also conservative and they did not want her to go to the Supreme Court and they succeeded in filibusting
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her they delayed her nomination for a couple of years until it finally went through she finally went to the D.C
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circuit now everyone who was harumping in the media
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that if you oppose an African-American woman who's a qualified judge you're a
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racist precisely zero of them thought it was racist
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to for Democrats including Joe Biden to filibuster Janice Rogers Brown by the
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way there was another nominee that bush put forward a guy named Miguel Estrada Miguel is an incredibly qualified
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Supreme Court advocate he was nominated the D.C circuit as well the Democrats filibustered him
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if you read the memos that were leaked from Ted Kennedy's lawyers here's what
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Ted Kennedy's lawyer said about Miguel Estrada they said we must stop him quote
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because he is Hispanic that's what Ted Kennedy's lawyers said
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in writing now I'm going to suggest to you if you oppose somebody because of
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their race that is the definition of racist and look I'll point out in your question
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you said that my questioning of Judge Jackson was you use the term racist
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listen racism is a horrific evil in this country it is also an insult that the left
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tosses around casually I would welcome if you look at the questions I asked judge Jackson
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every single question I asked her concerned her record either her record record as a judge
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sentencing defendants before her or her record writing academic materials and law
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reviews or her record-giving speeches to law schools all of that is the job of the senate in
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in the advice and consent process and so respectfully
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I could not disagree more deeply when you say it is racist to examine a judge
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based on their record if the Democrats wanted to oppose Janice Rogers Brown
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because they oppose conservatives you know do you think the Democrats were
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all sexist when they voted Party Line against Amy Coney Barrett I'm willing to bet you don't
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because she's not a liberal woman so you can't have it both ways which is
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that when a democratic nominee has a certain characteristic anyone who opposes them as racist or sexist or what
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have you but when a republican nominee has those characteristic it's open season and you
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can go after them full force and and the left is righteous in doing so it it the
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standard should be the same and I'm going to suggest what the standard should be
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is we should examine People based on their actual record and whether and to what extent that
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record demonstrates they will defend the constitutional rights of all Americans I think that's what people care about
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[Applause] [Music] thank you
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Mika Mika I do want to add one thing as a young professional woman similar to you I I do want to say and I often get
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called a young professional woman every day however you identify um I do think it's important to look at
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exactly what happened with katanji brown Jackson as it relates to the progress that women have made in our country and
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by that I mean how Joe Biden has taken us backwards in the progress that we have made moving away from sexism
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because when conservatives say that katanji brown Jackson was nominated by Joe Biden because of her race and
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because of her gender we're not inferring that Joe Biden said that himself he said he was going to nominate
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someone because she was a woman and because she was a black woman and as women ourselves as minorities this
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should be extremely insulting to us it reduces us to tokens it it is tokenism
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it's racial tokenism and it's it's sexism and this is this is the
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fundamental problem with the idea of equity right it leaves women wondering did I get the job based on my
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qualifications and my resume or did I get the job because I am part of a gender quota because I have been reduced
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to my genitalia and so I I would challenge young women to reject what Joe
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Biden has done I would challenge young women to acknowledge that this is actually racial discrimination and
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gender discrimination and the people who lose the most are women who not only are
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they left to wonder about themselves their co-workers and their colleagues are also left to wonder did this woman
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did this black woman achieve what she achieved based on her merits or because of the color of her
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skin or her gender