 This is the state of the state of Hawaii show and I'm your host Stephanie stole Dalton. Our topic today is the historic nomination of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court of the US refer to often as SCOTUS. Our guest is here to discuss the promise of the nominee judge Jackson, and her. She is Dr. Sue Klein, who works in Washington DC on equity and gender issues. She is the education equity director for the feminist majority foundation. So Sue, welcome for bringing your expertise to think tech Hawaii for this discussion about the US judicial or portion of the US judicial system. Thank you, I'm delighted to join you Stephanie. So good to see you and appreciate your time very much. Tell us Sue, can you please speak about your work with the feminist majority foundation and how you promote and disseminate information about critical equity issues for women and others. Sure. I worked in the US Department of Education for about 36 years. And when I retired, I joined the feminist majority foundation around 2003 or four. And as their education direct equity director and have stayed there ever since one of my first major accomplishments was developing the handbook for achieving gender equity through education. The second edition of the handbook that we put out and we reviewed the research and all kinds of areas about sex equity or gender equity as it's generally called now. And what I've done at the feminist majority foundation is education advocacy work, primarily related to implementing title nine of the education amendments of 1972 title nine as many of your listeners probably know for a habit. There's a lot of discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Some of the work that is done is to support the government and officials in the government on these issues of gender and equity did you say that it's commonly referred to now as equity or gender issues. And so, okay, so you're so that the, the, can you talk to us about then how your organization and your work combines with your other role as co president right as with the clearing house on women's issues. Right, the clearing house on women's issues is an old organization. About 40 some years old, and it talks and helps them interested people that started out pretty much in the DC area, but now with the pandemic, we've gone to zoom. So we have clearing house members all over the US and participants in our meetings from all over the world. So, we've, in a sense, benefited from the zoom meetings to expand our coverage on gender equity issues and all the areas, including the area. Laws and legislation and minority women's rights and things like that. Can I think I heard you also mentioned that title nine isn't a big portion of of your portfolio right that the the law on on title nine issues that prohibit gender discrimination in education. And is that that's a big portion of the portfolio isn't it, especially if my portfolio at the feminist majority foundation where I'm the education equity director. Okay, well, then you recently had one of those zooms which was that that focused on the, the nominee for SCOTUS right. So, can you talk a little bit about what the meaningfulness of that clearing house was as far as its timing, and then also what what it's about on March 22. We had our monthly meeting for to celebrate women's history on the US judiciary and the role of the women in the US judiciary. We selected this topic way back last summer. Before we know, knew that we would have a major event and celebration of judge Katanti Brown Jackson nomination to the Supreme Court and justice priors retirement. But we knew even then that the Supreme Court was going to play a major role in women's rights issues. As you all know it does so in the reproductive rights area, and we're very much afraid that with the unbalance in the court now. There's going to be bad decisions about the abortion rights. So with with judge Katanti Brown Jackson being the nominee did do the discussion and that that presentation and in in your work there. What influence she especially brings to her role in on the court given that it's a conservatively dominated court but what what's the view on her, her impact, potentially. We, we don't know too much about the specifics of her views on things like reproductive rights and even the equal rights amendment, but we do know that she is very highly qualified. And the reason we had the clearinghouse meeting was because there are other things that need to be improved with the courts, various kinds of court reform with the judiciary act. As you know, things like increasing the numbers of the Supreme Court members to four and changing their terms from lifetimes terms to 18 years or so have been proposed. So we, we wanted, even last summer to try to learn more about what we do to protect women's rights in particular and minority rights, and everyone's right in general by making improvements in the Supreme Court and we wanted our feminist community to be aware of these issues. So Sue that's that's interesting that your agenda is a powerful one and can make a big difference, but how do you all decide on the agenda do you pull your community. I mean, the name of your group is the feminist majority. So how do you actually scan and monitor for input from the community or what's the network that who are the stakeholders there that have some voice and making up the agenda for your organization. So we welcome suggestions from our members, but actually most of the work is done by the clearinghouse board of directors, we have vice presidents that have expertise in various areas. We have a former official from the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, we have an expert in international gender equity issues. Experts in management, all kinds of things so that we, and they're all feminist so we combine our insights to topics and encourage others to suggest topics of interest. Well, I, I believe you have Senator Hirono in your network of stakeholders. Yes. Can you tell us about why she's involved with your organization. Senator Hirono is fantastic. And I've mainly worked with Senator Hirono, as she was the chief developer and sponsor of the Gender Equity Education Act. That we now have in Congress waiting for more sponsors, by the way, and I thought we would discuss that more at the end of the meeting. But the other thing, getting back to the main topic of this meeting on Judge Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court is we're very delighted that Senator Hirono is on the Judiciary Committee. Oh, that's right. So our Hawaii Senator is very active these years, I mean, especially in legislative because this is recently she's done other bills and having to do with hate and like that. But anyway, so, yes, so tell us about what that means to you all and in your communication. All that. What that means is that we were able to watch her deliver her testimony on Judge Jackson. And from what I watched of her testimony, what she did was an excellent job of counteracting many of the Republican senators who went before her comments where they were trying to bring Judge Jackson down and attack her in various ways. Senator Hirono came in with the evidence to show how they were wrong. Those who didn't see that here it's can you can you tell me more details about what she had to present to show how misguided were their comments. I don't remember exactly what she said but one of the comments that gotten a lot of press attention as your listeners probably know is they've criticized judge Jackson for her decisions being light on sentencing people for possessing pornography, child pornography. And what the evidence shows is that Judge Jackson sentences within the norm of what other judges do and she had very good reasons particularly for a case that was brought up in that area. One of the advantages for living in Washington, perhaps you didn't see this in your Hawaii papers. The Washington Post even interviewed the person that was the subject of this case that was sentenced by judge Jackson to what the Republican said was lighter sentence. And one of the things that this young man said was he was at that time thought that it was heavy a sentence. Because of course he had to go to jail for certain amount of time. But no. So he thought it wasn't that what he thought his sentence was too light. What, what, what did you say he thought about this. He thought it was too heavy. He was only 17 when he committed the crime because he was gay. So that was another reason where judge Jackson showed her compassion and fairness and not ripping this young man's life with a very long jail sentence. Interesting. Yeah. Education credentials are far higher than most other judges in the Supreme Court. She went to an Ivy League law school. She's done Supreme Court clerking. She's been her judicial qualifications. She went to Harvard for education. Which is as everybody knows hard to get into and to succeed in. But her judicial qualifications are as high as her education qualifications. She did Supreme Court clerking. She's been a public defender. That was a point that came out and a lot of the testimony. She served a great role in the sentencing commission. And she's also been the district judge. And most recently that's pointed to the DC court of appeals. So we're really grateful that she's even more qualified. This article points out a great chart. Lines are often shows her qualifications compared to all of the other Supreme Court justices. And she comes out higher than any. That's interesting. Thank you for sharing those specifics. I haven't seen them elsewhere. I've seen them listed so clearly like you did. So there's much to learn from this nomination process. And even though we have the other side saying things as she said trying to what you said was bring her down or show how she's not a match for the work. So your organization offers information on this to your constituency, which is all women and more people than that. Because what do we learn from this? What are you all also holding out as the learning opportunity of this process and that you're wanting to disseminate and encourage people to see it? What are those principles you're looking for us to learn? Listening to the testimony was a great way for people to learn about how Supreme Court justices work. Judge Jackson was very clear in discussing her methodology for judging and for writing up her opinions. For example, she said that she writes very detailed opinions that are very helpful that describe the evidence that linked and the laws that she's following to make her judgment about compliance or non-compliance with the judicial principles. So that was very good. Another point that I learned from listening to the hearing was how she makes decisions on things that didn't exist at the time the Constitution was written. For example, she is asked to make decisions about privacy related to cell phones. Okay, so you're going back to the history of the Constitution, right? And what did she point out about that? What did you understand better about that? One of the other things that she pointed out, of course, was that Judge Kalia was an originalist who tried as much as possible to have the interpretations of the Constitution. The interpretations that the forefathers who wrote the Constitution would agree with. Judge Jackson pointed out to my surprise that he has had a great influence on the court and that a lot of people stick with the originalist ideas when making their decisions. I didn't realize that. I would have thought that she would be more of a contextualist modernist approach whenever she could, but she seemed to think that that was best possible and didn't object to that. Well, is that the same position that Breyer, the justice that she's going to be, that she could replace if she's voted in? Is that the same position that he had or was he more contemporary? I haven't seen that discussion. That's a really good question, Stephanie. I don't know the answer. Well, what about, that is amazing, isn't it, that she turns out to be proponent or... Respectful of precedent. Oh, respectful of the precedent, but not specifically an originalist like Judge Justice Kalia. How does that apply to so many of our issues now and that your organization, I think, is very involved with, which is abortion and the issues of schooling, too. Yeah, I mean, how does that square with that? What is it likely she'll be able to bring to the court when it has to deal with those really huge issues of that row versus way? I think you'll have to ask some of our lawyers more to talk about those difficulties, but I'm hoping at least that her views of following court precedent will help with Roe v. Wade decisions. Well, how do you think her views will, I mean, are you seeing her strength as being influential in the context of a conservative court? Is she going in there to what was that with the pet poncho and the tilting at the windmills, or do you think she can be influential in the court, given its constitution right now? Yes, I think she'll be influential, at least to the extent that Justice Breyer has been influential, but we need a lot more people of her types of judicial fairness to be on the court along with her. I think there's such a conservative overbalance, shall we say, in the court now. In the ways of finding out about your organization, have we been showing your URL or your, let's see. Oh, there it is. Okay, so the feminist.org they can get there. Is there also a URL? There we go. The Clearinghouse. There we go. Thank you. And so people can go there to find out what is the agenda currently and how your organization is working to influence minds and thinking and laws and policy towards those agenda items? As a matter of fact, in our April newsletter, the Clearinghouse on Women's Issues will give a link to the whole talk that we had at our meeting on March 22nd. So you'll be able to do that. And also in our newsletter, we'll be preparing a summary of the highlights of that meeting. We'll also be announcing our next meeting and your viewers are welcome to attend our meeting. All they have to do to find out about the meeting and to sign up and register is go to our Clearinghouse link that I believe you have women's clearinghouse.org. Very good. Very good. Yes, that's very good. Can you tell us a little bit more about the position you've told us about the position of your organization? But what is being done to accommodate the opposition? Are you having to fund a lot of, a lot more ways of trying to, I don't know if combat is the right word, but how do you attempt to clarify or override or, you know, dilute all of the vitriol and the other kinds of misinformation that's pouring out? Well, sometimes we confront it directly, depending on what the meeting topic is, but we often plan our meetings to understand more about the problems of women and men related to gender equity and go into depth on legislation and other actions that people can help to prevent inequities. Okay. Well, can you please, we're getting close to closing time. So if there's anything else you'd like to say about your work in the, in your organization. So people know what, what, what are the, what's the bigger picture in DC for your, your organization. In addition to the nomination of Judge Katani Brown Jackson, what are the other big issues you're really working hard on? Well, one of the things I've been working hard on is getting back to gender equity and education, because this year, June 23 will be the fifth anniversary of Title IX. Wow. Prevented sex discrimination. And one of the areas of Title IX that I'm very interested in helping people learn about and what to do more about is the appointment of Title IX coordinators who have roles and responsibilities to implement Title IX in all of their education institutions. So And for Hawaii, this is another place to, to bump up that the Title IX coordinators role and outreach, right? Because did you say they're supposed to be out there, even in the, at the school level, trying to implement the provisions of Title IX? That's right. And Hawaii has even been sued at various times for not doing their job as far as implementing Title IX. The whole State Department of Education was seen probably about 10 years ago for lack of implementation. Wow. Oh, interesting. They can provide a lot more guidance and support Title IX coordinators. We hope to eventually have all Title IX coordinators in all public schools. They don't have to be full-time, but they have to be people who are interested in informed enforcing Title IX and making sure that people know what their roles and responsibilities are to prevent sex discrimination. And this is increasing even as we learned that Title IX covers LGBT students. Yeah, really. Very good. And, you know, we have had the Wahinis out there with the champions, you know, in women's volleyball. So I mean, we certainly do have some models of success and something to really build on. So it's been very informative hearing about your work and that of your organization and to have a little closer look at Judge Jackson's promise offered to the Supreme Court if she is voted in and hopefully she will. And these gender issues for all can become more of a reality and make a difference for everybody as they fulfill their potential and work for democracy in this country. Thank you so much, Dr. Sue Klein, for joining Think Tech Hawaii on this program, State of the State. I'm your host, Stephanie Stull Dalton, and we'll be back in two weeks. And I look forward to seeing you then. Mahalo for your viewership and aloha everyone. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.