 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever you are. This is Think Tech Hawaii. Rule of law in the new abnormal. Whatever that may be. And we have the great pleasure and honor of having with us today, Professor Vanalia Randall, who is currently in Florida. Professor Emerita from University of Dayton School of Law. We have Sina Patterson up north in Germantown, Maryland, right? Mediator and arbitrator par excellence. We have Professor Emeritus getting the gender right. Ben Davis from the University of Toledo School of Law and balancing out us non-academics. Jeff Portnoy, all the way from Beverly Hills, our leading post amendment and constitutional lawyer with his Hawaii lava hat out by the pool in Beverly Hills. We're getting a little feedback from okay well yeah he's out of the pool so there's probably people talking. Okay so I was going to tell that Jeff since Jeff's in Beverly Hills I was going to tell the famous Beverly Hills joke which is the producer meeting with the other producer for lunch and one producer talks about himself for like two hours and looks at his watch and says oh heaven I've been talking about myself for two hours. Let's talk about you. Tell me what do you think of me? I have to admit I don't get the joke. Okay but then I don't get a lot of jokes so I have to I'm constantly telling my son I don't get it. All right okay fair enough it's like it's all about him. Everybody in Iowa it's all about themselves. Okay got it. We get that. Okay so that's a good a good segue a good transition we have four right inquiring critical thinking minds here. What is it about right now that's on your mind? Professor Randall what's getting your attention these days in what's going on? The open air prison in Gaza the open prayer prison called Gaza is on my mind. The lack of movement on on uh voting rights and the lack of movement on police reform and Biden's reneging on the student loan forgiveness are the things on my mind. Okay that gives us what's on other people's minds. Okay Tina what about you? What's on my mind? Voting rights and how it's being presented in the media and the lack of coordinated effort the lack of info or true information about the impact regarding the ID requirements. Maryland is moving to going without mask starting on Monday the 31st of May. What impact will that be? We still have a population that isn't vaccinated and there is a subset of that population that will never be vaccinated for whatever reasons. I spent a part of my morning hearing a presentation regarding allowing alcohol in the parks when we know that right now is probably one of the most tenuous times for us as a region but also as a society. COVID has for better for worse brought forward some of the more dangerous aspects of mental health but also some of our coping skills and mechanisms and for some of us we've reached our breaking point so um knowing that there are people who are suffering from depression other forms of mental illness and not necessarily addressing that especially in our minority and color communities of color. And the third and it's more of a personal sticking point for me is the conversations that I'm hearing from people who are saying that they're concerned that they're their children and I'm talking specifically about people who would be identified as white saying our schools schools don't want my boy don't want my girl in their school any longer. Those those places are being taken by African American students or Asian students or other students of color to which I would say that's utter poppycock. I have another word I'd use offline but it it shapes me that we're still having this conversation because someone you know the the response has been well you know we have affirmative action that should be enough. Folks it's this is not about affirmative action we are in the midst of societal change and if this is bothering you imagine what it's been like for people like Professor Davis or Professor Randall for me who have been challenged at some point or another regarding our access to education and why we were present where we were. So those are the things that are on my mind probably more than you wanted to hear but those were the first things that came forth. No it's absolutely wonderful and it brings to mind a friend asked the other day he said you think there's any other country in the world who where the law is restricting open carry of alcohol are more strict than the laws about open carry of guns. Okay brother Ben what's on your mind. Here at least last night on Rachel Maddow talking more about civil or criminal action at the federal level with regard to the Arizona product that's going on and that's trying to be replicated across the country. I'm like this should have happened a month two months ago when this stuff started because I considered election interference and I'm just happy to hear that there is some murmuring but there's no doing yet but there needs to be some doing because this is clearly a new game of our old game of trying to do election interference coupled with all the 400 bills to suppress the vote. I am also concerned about the fact that you got to have the mother of this officer sickening got to walk around on Capitol Hill and Senator's offices for the Republicans to tell them you got it was horrible that day and my son died and you need to vote for what we're talking about and the fact that this this person is getting this kind of message which is Mark and go into but we're not going to do it tells me that it really is like that Hollywood joke I was thinking about it's all about me there is nothing going on in these people's heads except what just anything about an angle on themselves and I really it's a it's a tragedy and I don't know what literally the absence of anything that could be even called seems appalling the other thing that's on my mind is I just read a piece about the military commission down in Guantanamo and it was interesting is that the judge in one of these cases had said that if the defense can prove this person was tortured then we'll reduce the sentence for if we end up getting it to that point and now there's a agreement that's basically being done to get that decision vacated as part of a of a puny deal for the guy to get less years in other words the CIA doesn't want anything to come out about how they tortured this guy and other guys and they're willing to give the guy fewer years so they can basically walk off the signal there for 12 years if they can get this decision vacated that the that the military judge did it's an abomination that we are at this point this far along that the the truth about all that no one's been prosecuted it's you know I was thinking today well now maybe there's something more I can do on this but it's off um beyond that and Guantanamo beyond that it's uh just the various types of I think good laws that are being proposed that have passed the house that are sitting in the Senate under McConnell who by the way is a descendant of a slave owner and he acts like a descendant of a slave owner in the way that he's operating on this thing they really don't care about people and it just it's awful it's awful that's what I'm thinking about okay hey brother Jeff can you unmute and share what's on your mind I think the country is as divided as it's ever been since the civil war I think the issue of racism has completely divided the country as never before at least in the last century the bills that are passing in so many states to forbid the teaching of racism is to me the most profound impact on where society in this country is in maybe the last 150 years when you can't get agreement on a commission to investigate the storming of the capital you know that this country is so bitterly divided between old white men and women all of the new emerging strong will uh other ethnic and other groups of people as white people become petrified that they're going to quote lose control of their country and you can criticize the senate all you want but what you have to remember is they are representing those 50 republicans are representing 40 percent of the country and that's the scary part and what's happening in state legislatures makes what's happening in washington almost insignificant so that's what's bothering me when you can no longer teach and I think it's six states and I expect it'll be a lot more than that before it's over the principles of racism you know this country is at a crossroads and what's been so discouraging about all of the discussion about eliminating racism is that they have used a concept that doesn't at all do what they say it does to and to scare people because critical race theory and I was teaching when the concepts of critical race theory was developed in legal education and it developed as a legal concept of understanding how race impacts the law and the interpretation of law and it has it the idea that it's taught in schools is beyond my mind I wish it was you know but critical race theory is not even taught in law schools where for the most part and so it is worse than a strong person to put up critical race theory it's a lie to the public to to rile up races who are scared and don't understand well if I can jump in with regard to those fearful white people out there one of the things that I want to say is I just found this last week this is a hot off the hot off the news I finally got a translation of a papal letter from 1478 that has been argued to be the the place where the idea of white supremacy was initiated it was basically the one that started the Spanish Inquisition distinguishing Jews and the Africa and the way they were going to be treated and all that and so um particular papal bull and there's other ones that are related to it anyway I wrote a piece on this up on SSRN but the the translation into English of it for the first time happened last week by a guy at the Library of Congress named Andrew Gadio who's my co-author and it's worth the read from 1478 to see how little we have progressed as people in the 550 I have years since then the other thing I wanted to say about that is when I sent this to a guy he sent me court decisions or an article where he cited to pre-civil war court decisions where there was all kind of stuff about the natural state of blasphemy you know the religious heathen thing all that were in court decisions so how can you have six states that have law school where people will study law and they'll do pre-civil war law and there are cases which speak about this and you're not supposed to say something I mean well you can't talk about red dot well you can't talk about anything you know what I mean it's just but the thing that I think my understanding I've been following is this the the thing my understanding and I haven't actually read the laws so I'm speaking off the top of my head but my understanding is those laws are misconstrued because they're focused on stopping the teaching of race and racism in K through 12 am I wrong on that yeah well it's designed to stop teaching that one race has been less than friendly to other races I'll put it that way but 12 it's it's about it's about maintaining ignorance of everyone by by doing a K through 12 and then you get you get these people who spent their whole life which it's interesting to me because during my teaching of race and racism in the law what I found is it wasn't being taught so it wasn't like I was getting students K coming to law school who understood the racial history of America no they didn't understand they didn't understand the racial history of their own group and they had little understanding of the racial history of their own group legal racial history of their own group and no understanding of anyone else so this issue of teach not teaching race and racism I think it's it's like to hammer people over the head to give them a stick when they win because when someone feels bad about having something done in a in an elementary of school I it doesn't seem to be focused at this stage on colleges and law school okay well then what it is is it's threatening teachers at the you know the teachers who speak to these things to get them fired that's one thing the other thing is you know I went to fifth grade and sixth grade we learned about Columbus we learned about Vasco the Gama going around Africa we learned about all those people but what we didn't learn about was that the issue was that the Mediterranean trade groups were dominated by Muslims and so the Europeans are trying to find a way around and that's what was prompting a lot of that stuff we heard just generally that let's go west to go east and a thing of Columbus but what we didn't learn about were things like the kinds of things that you read about in these uh in the in the particular letters that place popes did like in the mid 15th century where there's a pope who left for the Portuguese and the Spanish the perpetual enslavement of Africans but the most profound the most profound problem is the increasing trend of state legislatures trying to impose on the educational system what can be taught and what can't be taught it's more than just the race issue which is now the prominent issue 10 years ago it was religion five years from now it'll be women's rights and frankly frankly I think you know this may sound a little bit weird but in my view we're back in the reconstruction era yeah we are back in reconstruction well I think we're not back in reconstruction we're where reconstruction would would would be a decent time it's back after reconstruction but the thing is my my okay redemption okay case books are limited size what can be taught is limited in content in Texas has always used their power to control as in my lifetime Texas has always used that it's not it this it's focused on race now but it's and it's our has been focused on race even if I can remember instances throughout my career where Texas objected to something being taught a certain way and the case book authors saying okay we'll take it out the case book the extension now is to put liability on teachers who are are going to develop their own because there's all develop their own materials to develop their own lesson plans and so they're saying oh wait a minute it's not enough not to have it in the case book because teachers can go outside and get still already developed so we're going to make it uh uh uh make it where if they bring race into the classroom uh racism in the classroom and so they they're controlling more than the case book now and I think that year is something new it's it's going to be a fascinating court battle as it works its way to the supreme court is whether a state can pass a law limiting teachers free speech rights as it relates to political social and moral issues absolutely academic freedom and also here's the thing the kids in the classroom guess what they'll bring it up the kids will bring it up what's the teacher supposed to do in response but I don't really think this is an as much as I wish it was an academic freedom issue I don't think it's an academic freedom issue either well we can argue about that but I just think it's an academic freedom in terms of what a teacher does in their classroom I know that their restrictions when it's under case uh 12 uh k-12 and the k-12 if you think about colleges in law school as a law professor who tried to teach race and racism and was punished for teaching race and racism in a law school and was told that it was not an academic freedom issue the the whole point of academic freedom isn't that you get unlimited I don't agree okay let me I am articulating what was told to me and how it's used academic freedom that there is a limit to what what you can do in a classroom based on what your school kind of says is academic freedom and if the school is not saying it's academic freedom if they're saying is something else like we've got to manage uh how all the teachers are teaching the same thing we have to manage that we are sure that the students are getting through that as if they can articulate a strong enough reason that courts will buy I think that that that it should be an academic freedom issue but I'm not so sure that it will be Tina you were saying you agree I did I I I agreed with you saying that it this is not reconstruction this is post reconstruction because during the reconstruction reconstruction period we actually saw African Americans holding office the number of African Americans and states that traditionally or now we think of as um being very conservative and um racist in many ways actually had representatives Mississippi Louisiana for example Texas but also the argument that we're having now we I remember when I lived in Texas the schools were being told to not talk about reproduction human reproduction and that the only thing that should be presented was abstinence and if a student asked a question they were supposed to repeat the mantra that abstinence was and what did we have high school students getting pregnant um so it's very similar I'm sorry go ahead then Tina I'm gonna I'm gonna check uh second what you just said but I'm gonna go farther yes to professor Randall that's what they said to you and to Tina the Patterson that's what they said to you too but it's still an academic freedom issue they're just trying to tell us a point of view about what they can consider to be academic freedom that they think can run before court okay but I'm going to say that it is an academic freedom as to what a teacher can teach in a classroom whether it's first grade or 12th grade or senior year in college or in graduate school in terms of the content of the course that they're teaching and that the school will have certain things that it wants to have covered is one thing but that the teacher doesn't is allowed to be is required to be intellectually bankrupt in the terms of how they teach because of some strictures and I think in real impingement on the role of teacher that uh that uh should be visually rejected as a uh as a uh as a limit on what is academic freedom in its true sense not in sort of the corporate vision kind of sense that I'm hearing here of trying to essentially restrict what we think my problems with academic freedom is I can very easily imagine a white supremacist teaching white supremacy in the classroom with my with my son in the classroom and then claiming academic freedom I I mean it's it is not I think that to say that it's all up to teacher to decide what content is to be taught is really problematic uh academic freedom issue is a left and a right issue as we all know so I don't want to limit it to what I really said earlier that you know I just think and to clarify my reconstruction thought what I was meaning was a period of time where laws were being passed only because of their racial impact yes back then it was whites giving blacks additional freedoms or powers quote unquote and then of course what happened after reconstruction seems now we're in a period of time where state legislatures are passing laws driven by race the other way so that that's what I meant yeah but you know what I what I just want to point out and have us talk about is we've talked about this for months of what would happen when Biden got elected and what the country turned and where the divisions get minimized frankly I think the divisions now are as bad if not worse and do any of you see any hope in the immediate two years up to the 2022 election that any of these divisions are going to be compromised in the right way yet or how about the left wing how about the democrat don't click me because the democrats just as uh uh they are problematic in here in a different way yeah you know because they you know they they have to do all the things that they need to do but they're trying to protect bipartisan I don't you said in the next two years I don't see in the rest of my lifetime so I don't we're out of time that is hang on man that's that's a that's a very optimistic way to end the show I like it is it is we're out of time for today but we've gone beyond just voter repression educational repression we're literally talking about not just expression repression but thought repression yeah and we're talking about racially based caste based bias based thought repression it's overt it's violent and it's unapologetic yeah hold that thought for a couple of weeks come back well you have to bring us back to that because if you start off by asking us what's on in mind this ain't gonna be what's on my mind it's gonna be whatever happened in the last two weeks I concur yes remember when Frederick Douglass disappeared in Boston so did a truth stood up and said to Frederick Douglass he's glad everybody said no and he had hope to keep on that's what's over the truth is brother Ben on that note of hope will conclude for today remember folks please support think text yearly fundraising drive come back and see us in two weeks send us your questions send us your thoughts and we will come back to this we will not forget take good care hello thank you so much