 Hello, everyone. My name is Professor Vanille Urandall. I'm a professor emeritus of law from the University of Dayton School of Law. And I wanted to do a short video. There was a, I woke up about two days ago to a video from my sister asking me if the video was correct. And it was so wrong that I felt moved to have to do something because I think one of the things we really need to be careful about is really making our arguments based on facts and making sure that we communicate those facts in a way that other people won't misunderstand what we're trying to say. And I felt like the video that I had seen really had misconstrued the law. So here's what I want to do. I'm going to show the video, just a small part of it. It's a three minute video, but I only plan to show the first 30 seconds because most of it is just the person making her arguments as to the condition of black Americans. The second thing I'm going to do is talk about Dred Scott's because I know that everybody doesn't. Everybody kind of knows about Dred Scott. And some people know the name. Some people know the law. Some people have a really good understanding. So what I want to do is give an overview of Dred Scott. Then I want to talk about the structure of law and the role of law. And then I want to put the anti-black racism in the context of this structure. I feel like a lot probably will be more than 15 minutes. And then we can have a discussion about what this means and where to go from there. And so I'm going to share my screen with you and start the slide presentation. Everybody's been muted. Once I get through the slide presentation, I encourage people, let's just have a discussion. Okay, so I'm going to go from here. Okay. So the basic thesis of the video that I want to show you is that the reason we are in such horrible trouble is because this case, Dred Scott says that we're not citizens. And so because we're not citizens, we don't have to be treated as citizens. So I'm going to play a small part of the video right now. Okay, my beautiful black people. I want to show you something. This is how the lawyers are getting these white people off on charges after they kill us. Okay. This is from the Supreme Court of the United States. And basically this is from the Dred Scott case versus John F.A. Sanford. And if you take a look down here, it tells you that this is how they're getting white people off for killing us. Persons of African descent cannot be nor were ever intended to be citizens of the United States. This is in the Constitution. Now I've been trying to teach people this for the longest time. So first thing, it is not in the Constitution. It's a case that presents that interprets the Constitution. And what she read from was the interpretation of the case by the Supreme Court in 19, excuse me, 1857. Okay, so I'm going to move on. I don't really want to go further into that. I don't know who I don't know the person who present this I don't know who put it out who gave the person it was sent to me sort of just kind of here is this right. Before I discuss why it's not right, I really want us to make sure that everybody understand what Dred Scott was about the decision. And this is in fact a picture of Dred Scott. The black race has for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect. Dred Scott's image was that individual who was denied his freedom, that individual who was treated poorly by the courts, that individual whose case the nation had lost. This is a case that split the United States into it could never really be healed through conventional means. Dred Scott was born into slavery in Virginia. His long struggle for freedom was one link in a chain of events that would eventually free more than 4 million enslaved people. Purchased in a Missouri slave market by Army Dr. John Emerson, Scott was brought to Fort Snelling in 1836 by way of Fort Armstrong in Illinois. When the frontier moved west, Fort Armstrong was no longer needed, so the entire infantry, including Dr. Emerson, was transferred to Fort Snelling. The slaves in Minnesota were different than the slaves in the south. They made the beds, they made the food, and did the things that the people who were officers couldn't do for themselves. I think we see Dred Scott more as a personal manservant or like a butler or steward. Anything that Dr. Emerson needed, Dred is going to be taking care of that. But it is a very different culture than Virginia. He may have seen this as the less of two evils. And when he came to Fort Snelling, there was already a young girl slave, Harriet, owned, if she could be owned, in free territory by Major Lawrence Tolliver. Major Tolliver was leaving for the winter and he wasn't going to take Harriet with him. And the way to leave her there was to leave her married to somebody who was going to be within the protection of the Fort's walls. Scott and his wife Harriet remained at Fort Snelling until 1840. They first sued for their freedom six years later. There were one of at least 300 slaves who had sued for freedom in the St. Louis courts before. The majority of them won because they, like the Scots, had lived in free territory. In the midst of dramatic national events, the Missouri State Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision granting Dred and Harriet their freedom. The case came to the United States Supreme Court after 11 years of litigation. 11 years, the Scots were in limbo. The Scots based their United States Supreme Court case on their residence in lands that were part of the Old Northwest Territory and the 1820 Missouri Compromise, territory where slavery was prohibited. In their landmark 1857 decision, the court declared that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in passing those enactments. Consider the extent of that. The United States Supreme Court declared that the freedom provision under the Northwest Ordinance was unconstitutional. The Scots would have no basis to claim their freedom under that. Further, on a technical matter, in order to get a case into federal court, you had to be a citizen of one of the states. The court, in a 7-to-2 decision, declared that the Scots were not citizens of any state. Not only did Dred and Harriet lose their slavery being maintained, the secondary dimension of this was that no persons of color, free persons of color as well, were deemed to have any rights that white men were deemed to respect. We have watched with increasing anxiety the progress of the opinions of the United States Court on the Dred Scott case, till it has finally reached a conclusion, literally making slave holding legal throughout all the northern states. The antipathy that was directed at the United States Supreme Court by newspapers was extraordinarily strong. The self-satisfaction that Southern newspapers reported was equally strong. It is one of the most atrocious law opinions that has ever disgraced the history of the country. At a single blow, it shatters and destroys the platform of the Republican Party. Five of the Supreme Court's nine silk gowns are worn by slaveholders. Dred Scott decision will bring the enemies of the South face-to-face with the constitution of their country. We can but foresee that this decision will create everywhere a profound sensation. This very attempt to blot out forever the hopes of an enslaved people may be one necessary link in the chain of events, preparatory to the downfall and complete overthrow of the whole slave system. After the court case, they were still illegally considered slaves. Dred and Harriet eventually did acquire their freedom. Dred died as a free man. I'm not sure that the Dred Scott case itself would have caused the Civil War if South Carolina hadn't been primed to secede. Their decision was in part based on Northern reaction to Dred Scott. It couldn't be a legislative compromise because the Supreme Court decision took away congressional power to eliminate slavery. There was no political future short of Civil War. Today, Minnesotans can get a glimpse of Fort Snelling as Dred and Harriet Scott experienced it more than 150 years ago. You've just come into a place where two of the most famous people who have ever been here at the Fort lived, Dred and Harriet Scott. Dred's role is one of an agent of change. He didn't accept his circumstance nor did his wife. They sought change not only for themselves but for their future generations. Okay, so basically I mean I really like this film and I used it because it gives a good short overview. Dred Scott had two daughters. They got their freedom because the person who owned them at the time was married a man who didn't believe in slavery. And so she ended up giving them back to their first owner and the first owner ended up buying their freedom and giving them their freedom. So their whole family ended up free. But the question becomes, are Americans citizens because clearly the Supreme Court case says the 1857 Supreme Court says that black people have no rights with white people, which white people have to respect. In order to put this into context, I want to show you an overview of the authority is what we called it of the law. That is the higher up the law, the more authority it has and it governs everything. And we have two tracks. We have the federal track and we have the state track. Not withstanding statues or laws. Regulations are law. And so are cases. And people often argue, oh, well, courts shouldn't make law, but absolutely courts make law. They make law through interpretation, because no law is ever spelled out and enough detail. So the Court of Appeals and the District Court holds cases, but they report to the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of the United States, interprets the law in light of the United States Constitution. So if there's not a United States constitutional issue, the state Supreme Court ends up interpreting the state law through the state constitution. And I put treaties out to the side. Because while the Supreme Court can interpret it treaties under the Constitution, treaties have the force of law that is supposed to be over statues and regulations and cases so that you have Constitution and then treaties that the state enters into. So then the question becomes, so why isn't this good law if the Supreme Court of the United States said it? And the answer is it was overturned. It was overturned by constitutional amendments. And I'm going to go into those constitutional amendments. But I just quickly want to show you that I went into Westlaw and I found 29 cases that site red Scott negatively, plenty of them noting that the case was superseded by the constitutional amendment and of course that's based on my other slide. The Constitution supersedes any case. Okay, even a Supreme Court case. So, so if you make a constitutional amendment, no matter what the Supreme Court has said in the past, it is no longer true. Okay, and the second and going forward, the Supreme Court has to interpret the law in the context of the Constitution that was made. So, the two constitutional amendments that came about the 13th amendment, which we all know said neither slavly nor involuntary civil to accept this punishment for crimes for a party that has been convicted shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. I think I'm not going to get into this if people want me to I can get into it later but there's a whole issue of whether prison labor and that's why I put up all these pictures is current prison labors is a form of slavery. But the 13th amendment by itself did not provide citizenship. The third, all the 13th amendment did is said that people wouldn't be enslaved. And that's why the 14th amendment had to be in that the 14th amendment says and and all persons born are naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction are citizens of the United States. That is as clear as you can get if you were born in this country. You are a citizen. And it was done this way for a very specific reason. It was the only way to give citizenship to the formerly enslaved people, because the Supreme Court of the United States had already determined that they want citizens. And so it on once the Supreme Court makes a determination of something, unless you can find a way to an end and that's the law that correct whatever the problem is. The only other way to fix the problem is by giving a constitutional amendment and that is what's happened. The 14th amendment says all persons born and nationalized are citizens. If others than that it says that states cannot make or enforce the law that gets in the right that abridges the privileges or immunities of citizens. So, the states cannot make a law that gets in the way of the citizens exercising their rights. And then the other part of the causes we've come to know as due process clause and equal protection clause. Now, United States legal system out and I'm going to get into this. So, so, so what we have here is dread Scott the case. Yes, said that in 1857. No black person had any rights that any white man had to respect. But the 14th amendment 1868 said all persons born in this country are naturalized in this country is citizens, and that no large shall be enforced that gets in the way of them exercising your citizenship right. Oh, then this comes down to the distinction that I think the young lady didn't make. There is no doubt that anti black racism, starting since before this country was formed is embedded deep into the social norms and the cultural norms. And because it's been deep into the social norms and cultural norms, it gets interpreted laws and things get interpreted in a way in that doesn't provide us the fullest legal protection. But it is not correct to say we are not citizens. We are in fact citizens. The problem is that racial discrimination in this country has been so narrowly defined. And that's that's the problem that only intentional discrimination is illegal. So if you want to say that it is legal to discriminate in this country that would be a correct statement. It is legal to discriminate in this country based on race. So long as you don't do it intentionally. So if you do it recklessly or negligently. That's fine. But the legal norms, but the citizenship norm we, I think we have to make a distinction between social norms and cultural norms, and how they impact legal norms. And to say something is the law. Then we have to look to the law as it stated and are citizens of the United States. We don't get the citizenship rights are not fully it's exercise in our favor and have never been. But that's another discussion. That's part of the discussion we can have now. I just want to end quickly by saying that if you have a question about race and racism and the law that you'd like me to do a short video on please post it on Patreon or on Facebook. The slides from this presentation will be available on my Patreon site. The video I'm not I haven't decided where I'm going to place the video. I'm going to stop now and talk.