four years she becomes the dean of the harvard law school, first woman dean of harvard law school. six years after that president obama invites her to become solicitor general. first woman solicitor general that we have ever had. and then only one year after that justice stephens retires and president obama names justice kagan to the supreme court. she's now going into her tenth term here and we're very privileged to have her as the host of this evening. justice kagan? [ applause ] >> thank you, jerry, so much. as you can tell from that introduction before coming here i couldn't keep a job. jerry, thank you for everything you do, for the supreme court historical society and everything that the supreme court historical society does for the supreme court. the historical society does extremely important work this reminding people of the importance of our constitution and our judicial system and its history. we're deeply appreciative. this evening marks the second of the society's 2019 leon silverman lecture series which is devoted this year to dissents and the supreme court. on my way

in a statement, harvard divinity school thanking dr. west for his enormous contribution to issues of racial justice, saying they'd hoped to retain him on our faculty for many years to come. your departure was devastating to a number of students. many saying that you were the first black professor they had ever had. did you owe it to some of those students, though, to somehow because of your impact? >> i did. i mean, i stayed to fight. harvard offered me more money. they'd offered me big chairs. and i said, it's not about that. if you can't even undergo a tenure process, you can't negotiate. you can't negotiate respect in that regard. >> reporter: three months after that public tenure dispute, "new york times" magazine journalist nicole henna jones announced she was turning down a night chair position at her alma mater, university of north carolina chapel hill, after it didn't initially offer her tenure for a role that had always come with tenure. >> i think it showed that there is not a respect for what black faculty go through on campu

. >> and just like that, harvard. and for that matter, reese witherspoon would never be the same. >> best submission video ever. >> legally blond just turned 20 years own and our own elle wood super fan, emphasis on super fan, will ganss is here with more. >> i object. >> when the movie hit theaters in july 2001, it was only expected to take in $12 million opening weekend and now $141 million later, it is safe to say it is a box office bombshell and an all time fan favorite. >> it has been 20 years since elle wood got into harvard law school. >> you got into harvard law? >> what? >> two decades since she talked cameron diaz out of buying the pink sweater. >> pend and snap. >> that was a full sequence that we ended up cutting out of the movie. we filmed that for a month. >> reese witherspoon and the cast looking back on the iconic film. >> this character literally changed my life. it changed my whole career. it opened me up to so many people in the world who come up to me every week or every month, literally, and say,

and whew i went to harvard is because it's harvard. and i knew that lots of people who were able to do things who were, you know, i saw government officials. harvard is a place that really prizes public service. a lot of my colleagues and people who were on the faculty before were people who went back and forth the between government -- forth between government and academia. i practiced three years at cahill, gordon and liebell which is a wall street law firm. then i was counsel to a small city agency called the board of corrections which is the oversight agency to the department of correction, the agency that runs the jails. and my job or our job was to right minimum standards for the jails on rikers to make sure that those minimum standards were followed. not a prisoners' rights organization, but it had that bent. it was like a tiny agency that had a huge mandate and no money to carry it out, but we did the best that we could do. so i did, i practiced for about seven years either in private practice but in government practice as well

they took up money to go his first year, but not to harvard. they could accept him as a black man but not as a premier student. so instead, he went to two years to fisk university in tennessee. he'd never been down south. and in the early years there became just very important to him. he left and went to university of memphis, livingston hall, the main campus. they could never go into the dorm -- and fisk became famous for jubilee singers. the jubilee singers, as we talked before, were the modern version of the negro spirituals. and, in fact, the choir traveled throughout the world and sang many, many songs. now, we'll come back to it in a moment, but at fisk he learned something that he had not seen before. he went down south and went to other parts of tennessee, and there for the first time he saw poverty, the poverty of -- he saw blacks who couldn't read and write, people who walked around -- he saw people who had to wash their clothes outside. he felt experience of people, none who'd ever gone to school. and you read about a young girl name

university and found of the harvard diversity project, a pipeline program of the harvard debate council. for three consecutive years since the programs inception in 2017 every cohort trained by fleming has one harvard international summer debate competition. i am very pleased to turn things over to our speakers, the digital podium is yours, brandon and nic. >> that might've been mistake, nell but it's okay. >> nic stone. >> oh, my god. so first of all, brandon, this took me out. i'm just going to put it out there. we got to kick it on tuesday because you had like like e party for the book, book came out to see. congratulations by the way. it is a huge deal to have this beautiful -- hardcover, like, talk about how you wouldn't do it again at a disagree with that and will continue to disagree with that because you do come of such a way with words. the first question i have for you, "miseducated" is a book, it's a memoir but it's a book that i've never really seen anything like it. with regard to the way you express yourself with regard to the things you're willing to just kind of put out

he was the editor when he went to harvard law school of the harvard law review. you know who else held that job? president obama. and there are rumors afoot, i have seen it on the television and heard people talking about it, that he might be interested in president obama's other job. and he did a better job as a harvard raw -- harvard law leader and i bet he could do a better job at the other should he become interested in that one. we have to have a little fun when we have people in town to do this. i don't know the secretary well personally, but i want to give some insight from the time i had a privilege -- i was at the white house and president trump, a fairly independent guy, but he did take advice from a couple of people. i'm not going to out this person and say who they were, but he stepped out of the room. we were having a discussion about policy and he said, sorry that was a call and i was talking with mike pompeo. i said isn't he the director of the cia? it was completely off-topic, completely something different. he said we have learned in this town it

it's because it is harvard. and i knew lots of people who could do things or government officials, harvard is a place that appreciates public service so a lot of my colleagues were people who went back between government and academia. i practiced for three years at a wall street law firm then i was counsel to a small city agency called the board of corrections which is the oversight agency to the department of correction that runs the jails in our job was to write minimum standards for the jails on rikers to make sure they were followed not a prisoners rights organization but it hadad that that the tiny agency that had a huge mandate and no money to carry it out but we did the best that we could do. i practiced for about seven years in private or government in new york. >> you are known as a historian and history professor. but did you me a new york supreme court justice at harvard law school? >> i did. robert reed, my husband, we iamet at the picnic the first week. a good-looking guy and we were in the same dor

university and founder of the nationally acclaimed harvard debate council diversity project . in 2020, fleming was recognized by forms on their 3030 list and by the root as one of the root 100 most influential african-americans in 2020. nick stone was born and raised in atlanta georgia and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about .

. >> next book tvs monthly in-depth program of best-selling author harvard university professor and historian annette gordon read her books include the pulitzer prize in national book award of monticello and on juneteenth. host: annette gordon-reed on the 240 for the anniversary of 1776, are we the exceptional nation that we ought to tell herself that we are were here? >> we are certainly trying to be. host: in what way. guest: there is a number of people in society who are working to make the idea of the declaration a reality in the ideals about quality into the happiness, i think we have the idea and were trying to reach that potential. host: with the founders recognize who we are today? guest: of course not. some aspects they would but most of it women in politics and blacks participating in politics, all of those kinds of things would've been foreign to them and the power of the united states. at the time that we are talking about 1776, this was a 13 colony when the middle of nowhere they don't have the power in their leaving an empire and we become tan empire. . . . seen all that would w

so you applied to harvard business school. did they accept you? leonard: i got turned down flat, which was a rather shock for me. however, i made lemonade out of lemons. i applied for the u.s. navy officer candidate school. i was accepted there and that was the beginning of my phd in leadership. and it is the best thing i ever did. david: have you ever thought how much more successful your life could have been had you gotten into harvard business school? leonard: [laughs] i wish some people at harvard would know, i would like to send them a thank you note for what they did to me. david: so you go into the u.s. navy. were there are lots of young, jewish boys from the university of pennsylvania with you? leonard: when i went to the navy, my father said, you know, there are no jews in the navy. i said, ok. i know that, too. but that was good. that was the way the united states was. jews were in the minority. everyone was a minority then, but it was fascinating because i grew up, in my view, at the right time to grow up and learn. you don't grow up --

in harvard square washington's headquarters were about a block and a half away on brattle street. he had phyllis wheatley brought to his headquarters just so he could see an african who had written a book of to see there's not to see this new thing, right? yeah to see this this phenomenon, you know, like talking animal, um in effect. so i'm i'm sorry. i lost our training were you talking about lincoln's meeting? oh, yeah, so then news of this, of course hits the black community frederick douglas douglas goes nice, you know because douglas and said no one of his arguments with henry highland garnett was no this is our home. we are not africans anymore. we're not going to liberia. we're not going to see early which had been set up for free africans and either capture by the british on ships after the same as band. the safe trade to the british colonies abandoned in 1807 into the united states in 1808 and liberia, of course, which set up by the american colonization society. and 1826 for freed, um african-american to quote unquote go back go back and it wasn't in go back. you know, t

may be at our next harvard bookstore event. i wanted to do the best to bring all that together to try to create something that almost wasn't defined by genre or confined by genre, and that attempted to sort of break it apart, and break the pieces of each genre that i love and then put it together to create this different sort of literary and historical collage, and make it feel like the reader was on this journey with me, that they weren't being talked at or preached to, or this was in a didactic or jargony historical text. i wanted it to be a history book that read like a novel and that's what i tried to. >> i was wondering if you wouldn't mind rating us this last paragraph to close us out. we haven't discussed your focus on education. you started out this project because you are a teacher, you are concerned about your students, but also you are a student. i think that you are clearly a lifelong learner as well as an artist. this one paragraph on page 293, the last paragraph, was so beautiful and i wanted to share it because i

i pachinko from harvard bookstore and by pachinko from harvard books here, too. yeah, you're gonna need your postal. oh, everybody gosh. thank you. have a good night. here's a look at some of the best-selling nonfiction books according to the new york times topping. the list is bill o'reilly and martin dugard's history of organized crime in america killing the mob followed by bestselling author malcolm gladwell's examination of the development of precision bombing during world war ii in the bomber mafia after that two memoirs actor matthew mcconaughey's green lights and activist glennon doyle's untamed and wrapping up our look at some of the best-selling nonfiction books according to the new york times is pulitzer prize-winning author isabel wilkerson's look at what she calls a hidden cast system in the united states some of these authors have appeared on book tv. you can watch their programs anytime at booktv.org. weekends on c-span 2 are an intellectual feast every saturday you'll find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv on s

jeremy and jay knowles professor of history at harvard university. she is director of the joint center the history and economics at cambridge. her books include economic sentiments, and the enlightenment published by harvard in 2001 and more recently an infinite history the story of a family over three centuries published by princeton just this year. now a word from our sponsors. today's event is presented by the chicago center for contemporary theory at the university of chicago and cosponsored by the joint center of the economics at harvard university as well as the seminary bookstore and the letters and society program at the university of chicago. to all of the sponsors of today's event we give our thanks. finally, a brief remark about fallout. professor rothschild will open in a comment on john's book to which john will respond in turn and the idea is the conversation would unfold from there. as moderator i will be taking questions from our large audience which you can post in the box i believe on the platform. and i plan to inject some of these

with a harvard degree, oxford degree, yale law school degree, you could have gone anywhere. why did you go back to rhode island? not that it is not a great place. many people go to new york, washington, los angeles. what propelled you to go back to rhode island? sec. raimondo: because i loved it. i loved the place. i felt i owed something to the community. and there is something special about building businesses in the community where you are from, and seeing them flourish in a community you care about. david: so, you ran initially for the secretary of treasurer position for rhode island. why did you want to be treasurer of rhode island? people wouldn't say harvard, oxford, yale law school, that person should be treasurer of rhode island. sec. raimondo: you know, it's funny. when i ran, that was the reaction i received. i called my parents to say i was doing this, and they said, but gina, you have such a good job. my mother started to cry. "politics is such a dirty business." i just -- i believe in service. i believe in public service. and i was qualified for the job. i actu

with harvard law professor and author randall kennedy. afterwards is a weekly interview program with relevant guests host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. >> i look forward very much to our discussion of yourbook , red white and black, rescuing american history from revisionist and hustlers. why don't we begin by your telling the audience what you are offering in this book and why they should wanted. >> we were, we wrote this in response to the new york

with a harvard degree, oxford degree, yale law school degree, you could have gone anywhere. why did you go back to rhode island? not that it is not a great place. many people go to new york, washington, los angeles. what propelled you to go back to rhode island? sec. raimondo: because i loved it. i loved the place. i felt i owed something to the community. and there is something special about building businesses in the community where you are from and seeing them flourish in a community you care about. david: so you ran initially for the secretary of treasurer position for rhode island. why did you want to be treasurer of rhode island? people wouldn't say harvard, oxford, yale law school, people wouldn't think you'd be a treasurer of rhode island. sec. raimondo: it's funny. when i ran, that was the reaction i received. i called my parents to say i was doing this, and they said, but gina, you have such a good job. my mother started to cry. "politics is such a dirty business." i just -- i believe in service. i believe in public service. and i was qualified for the job. i actua

may be at our next harvard bookstore event. i wanted to do the best to bring all that together to try to create something that almost wasn't defined by genre or confined by genre, and that attempted to sort of break it apart, and break the pieces of each genre that i love and then put it together to create this different sort of literary and historical collage, and make it feel like the reader was on this journey with me, that they weren't being talked at or preached to, or this was in a didactic or jargony historical text. i wanted it to be a history book that read like a novel and that's what i tried to. >> i was wondering if you wouldn't mind reading us this last paragraph to close us out. one of the pieces we haven't discussed is your focus on education. you started out this project because you are a teacher, you are concerned about your students, but also you are a student. i think that you are clearly a lifelong learner as well as an artist. this one paragraph on page 293, the last paragraph, was so beautiful and i wanted

lauder: i wish the people of harvard would know. i would like to send them a thank you note for what they did to me. dave: do you go into the u.s. navy. where there a lot of young jewish boys from the university of pennsylvania in the navy? mr. lauder: when i went to the navy, my father said there are no jews in the navy. i said ok. i know that. that was good. that was the way the united states was. just were in the minority. everyone was i minority. it was fascinating. it i grew up in my view at the right time to grow up and learn. if you grow up in prosperity, you don't understand -- it dave: one of your activities is running the commissary of the boat you are on or a ship you are on. how did you manage to make that a profitable business and you realize you were a good businessperson as a result. mr. lauder: i became the officer aboard an aircraft carrier. we had 3000 men appear to i had to get everything they needed and then some. i started to fight perfume they could send out as gifts to their girlfriends. wristwatches, toothpas

roll the clip. >> race was a huge issue in the harvard law review, as it was everywhere else in society. and everybody understood that this was going to be a huge symbol. >> i think it is a good sign. i think it is a sign of progress. although i'm honored, i think people can say that my election symbolizes some progress, at least within the small confines of the legal community i think it is real important to keep the focus on the broader world out there will and see that for a lot of kids, the doors that have been opened to me aren't open to them. >> professor, making thisfilm, what did you learn about this man's journey, nearly 15 years after he became an historic figure? >> you know, what's fascinating about him is how much you can see the seeds of the person who came to flourish in american public life, and so even then when you look at the harvard law review and the way he navigated that, one of the things that we don't realize was that, you know, harvard was in the midst of a great deal of turmoil about diversity and representation at that point in time. as a matter of fact, the l

i pachinko from harvard bookstore and by pachinko from harvard books here, too. yeah, you're gonna need your postal. oh, everybody gosh. thank you. have a good night. here's a look at some of the best selling nonfiction books according to the new york times topping. the list is bill o'reilly and martin dugard's history of organized crime in america killing the mob followed by bestselling author malcolm gladwell's examination of the development of precision bombing during world war ii in the bomber mafia after that two memoirs actor matthew mcconaughey's green lights and activist glennon doyle's untamed and wrapping up our look at some of the best-selling nonfiction books according to the new york times is pulitzer prize-winning author isabel wilkerson's look at what she calls a hidden cast system in the united states some of these authors have appeared on book tv. you can watch their programs anytime at booktv.org. weekends on c-span 2 are an intellectual feast every saturday you'll find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv on s

from harvard law school. welcome, ms. braceras. elia diaz-yaeger is the president of the hispanic national bar association. she is a frequent speaker and field presenter and serves as a diversity as a diversity facilitator for the louisiana state bar association. ms. diaz-yaeger is also a shareholder in the insurance section, where her primary areas, where her primary areas of practice include industrial employment, insurance defense and coverage, environmental law, commercial litigation, and board governance and cybersecurity. ms. diaz-yaeger also serves as the secretary of the board of directors of on path federal credit union, whose mission is to strengthen the financial health of underserved communities through financial service and education. in addition, she has cofounded and volunteered and many other community organizations such as the a/d crossman esperance of library project. ms. diaz-yaeger received her bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and her masters in size from university of southwestern louisiana, and her j. d.

we went to harvard and to harvard for law school as well. clerk for judge walled on the d.c. circuit and then was in solicitor's office when drew days was solicitor general. pardon me. and then was in private practice before going on the bench. and professor randall kennedy, in the middle to my left who was a road scholar, a graduate of the yale law school, click for judge kelly right on the d.c. circuit. join the harvard faculty in 1984 and has been a very productive, prolific author of books, i think remarkably if some of his colleagues have written articles, he is writing books. i thought of particular interest, grandiose number of the american academy of arts and sciences and the american association of fissile philosophical ideas. so we have an array of three martial clerks, for marshall clerks with myself. i was there myself from 74 to 75 for d.c. circuit clerks. and all of us, like virtually all of our other alumni, justice marshals chambers were very much affected in our careers and in our lives by the experience of having been in his chambers and close contact with h

. -- two -- to yale and harvard. i will be the first to say that these are great law schools, but diversity and conclusion cannot rely simply on the diploma from a particular school. it requires us to reach out proactively and invite more people to the table. why are the traditional pathways not working, and what are they? one of the first pathways is judicial clerkships, and many of my colleagues began their career as a judicial clerk. it is a job that opens doors. when it comes to the hiring of clerks, local law schools and regional law schools are often overlooked in favor of the top ranked schools. it has been the schools that we find that are much more accessible to a diverse group of students. students caring for an aging parent, students who were first in their family to navigate higher education, minority students, students who had to hold real jobs to survive while they went to school. i have had clerks from top schools and i've had clerks from local law schools. they are equal in their excellence. i think s

almost every lawyer in the room went to yale or harvard. i will be the first to say that these are great law schools, but diversity and inclusion cannot rely simply on the pedigree of a diploma from a particular school. it requires us to reach out proactively and invite more people to the table. why are the traditional pathways not working, and what are they? one of the first pathways is judicial clerkships, and many of my colleagues, and if you look, most of the justices on the supreme court, began their career as a judicial clerk. it is a job that opens doors. when it comes to the hiring of clerks, local law schools and regional law schools are often overlooked in favor of the top ranked schools. it has been these schools that we find that are much more accessible to a diverse group of students. students from rural communities, working moms and dads, students caring for an aging parent, students who were first in their family to navigate higher education, minority students, and students who had to hold real jobs to survive while they went

he went to harvard and to harvard for law school as well. clerked for judge walled on the d.c. circuit and then was in the solicitor's office when drew days was solicitor general. and then was in private practice before going on the bench. and professor randall kennedy in the middle to my left who was a rhodes scholar, a graduate at the neil law school, clerked for judge scully wright on the d.c. circuit, joined the harvard faculty in 1984 and has been a very productive prolific author of books, i think remarkably when most people of his colleagues are writing law review articles he's writing books. i thought of particular interest randy is a member of not just the american law institute but the american academy of arts and sciences and the american philosophical association. so we have an array of three marshall clerks -- four marshall clerks with myself, i was there as well '74 to '75, four d.c. circuit clerks and all of us like virtually all of our other alumni of justice marshall's chambers i think were very much affected in our careers and in our lives by the experience of

professor rothschild is the professor of history at harvard university. she is director of a joint center for history and economics and professor at paris. her books include economic sentiments, adam smith in the enlightenment published by harvard in 2001. most recently an infinite history, the story of a family in france published by princeton just this year. now a word from our sponsors. today's event is presented by the chicago contemporary theory of the average chicago and cosponsored by the joint center for history and economics at harvard university as well as seminary co-op bookstore and the law letters and society program at the university of chicago. to all of those sponsors of today's event we give our thanks. finally, a brief remark. professor rothschild will offer her comments on jon's book to which jon will respond in turn, and the idea is the conversation will unfold from there. as moderator i will be taking questions from our large audience which you can post in the queue with a box i believe on the zoom platform. i plan to inject some of t

judge paul engle myer went to harvard. and harvard for law school as he will about. clerked for judge wald on the d.c. circuit and was in the solicitor's office when drew days was slitter general. then was in private practice before going on the bench. and professional randall kennedy n the it'll middle, to my left who was a rhodes scholar a graduate of the yale law school, clerked for judge scully wright on the d.c. circuit. joined the faculty in 1984 and has been a protective prolific author of books. most of his colleagues are writing law review articles. he is writing books. and a member of the american act me of arts and sciences and the american philosophical association. we have an array of three marshall clerks -- four with myself, i was there as well in '74 to '75, four d.c. circuit clerks, and all of us, like virtually all of our other alumni of justice marshall's chambers we were affected in our careers and in our lives of the experience having been in his chambers and in close contact with him for a year. we are going to reminisce a little bit if that's o