 Good morning and welcome. Thank you all for joining us in these very eventful, highly charged times. We have the honor today, this is a special honor, of having joined us, Professor Randall from the University of Dayton School of Law, a noted author, and one of the leading experts on racism and the law, which is central to what we're going to talk about today. We have Ben Davis, recently retired Professor Emeritus of the University of Toledo School of Law, Jim Alpini, Professor and Dean Emeritus of Northern Illinois and South Texas. Now there's a combination for you. And to make sure that the communications exceed all expectations and bounds, First Amendment expert Jeff Fortnoy, one of our most respected attorneys, litigators, and who has recently managed to successfully get court approval to get access to State Department of Education records that may give us the first good look at what really goes on in there in decision making. Maybe ever. Way too many, way too many academics on this program today. It's hard enough, it's hard enough when they're just two, and now you've added a third eminent professor. I'm completely outweighed out person, you name it. Look, I want to tell you that my emeritus is still up in the air, you know, if this was what, nine days later, you wouldn't have a professor here. Well, if it helps, you can think of me as a nurse because I was a nurse for 20 years. There you go. I'm glad. So how did, Professor, how did that lead you into the law and particularly the study of racism in the law? Well, I grew up doing Jim Crow, and I grew up seeing my racial discrimination in health care. My mother was in a cancer ward for black women in Philadelphia in the 50s. And so, so I, first of all, I grew up seeing that so that's what led me into health. And then I grew up in, in the, in the 70s, I was in Alaska doing public health nurse, and I wanted to go into the commissioner's office and as a black woman nurse, I ended up having three stereotypes against me, because I was not being very intelligent, woman, black, and a nurse. And so I decided to go to law school as a way to say, Hey, I'm smart. You know, so that's the truth of the matter. Now, it is a useful degree. It really has helped me work on racial discrimination in health care. So with the new leadership on your wish list. Revising the anti discrimination law for the 21st century getting making the most people think that discrimination is racial discrimination is illegal in the United States and it's not. You can discriminate as long as it's not intentional. We need to have a law that recognizes negligent discrimination, strict liability discrimination and reckless discrimination, like we do in torts and criminal law, and that would be at the top of my list. I want to ask the professor this, when you have a Senate which has a more than just a few Republican senators who have very strong views on religious freedom. And you have a Supreme Court, which clearly now has a majority in support of religious freedom, maybe over discrimination. How do you see the next couple of years playing out, particularly in the courts. The same way it's played out for the last 50 years, nothing. I mean, and it's not just the Republicans, the Democrats have been just as unwilling to do something to fix the discrimination law I mean if you look back and I'm kind of forgetting the name, but the Supreme Court case. Andrew versus Sandoval I may have that right so don't quote me, but it basically 2020 25 years ago, it blocked access to the court for disparate impact discrimination and no administration has been willing to fix it. So, frankly, I don't see it happening you asked me my wish list, not my, you know, what do I think is possible this. So let me ask this question, Professor real quickly, just to follow on that. Would you be comfortable with strict liability for racial discrimination. Yeah, I definitely would. I mean, not in every single instance it would be like strict liability and criminal law and strict liability in tort law, where you say things happen. We're not going to get it all into your state of mind. And what that would be in terms of racial discrimination would be something we would need to work out and think about, but I think it's possible to say, Dr are police, if you shoot an unarmed man. You know, we're going to hold you strictly liable for it. You know, something like that but I don't want to go into specifics of what be strict liability. I'm just saying that discrimination law should be structured like tort and criminal. But I want to get back to this distinction between racial discrimination and religious discrimination. And what we've seen in the K case what we're seeing more and more, where more conservative jurists are leaning towards upholding the rights of individuals to pursue their religious beliefs, even when it impacts racial discrimination and I'm just wondering whether you see the possibility of that trend reversing under the next four years. No, no, not at all. I mean, the courts are not going to reverse. I mean, the only thing is, if, if Biden and the Democrats feel up the lower courts district and circuit courts with progressive judges in some jurisdictions that could happen, the Supreme Court, they could step in and slap that down, but not with the Supreme Court destruction. They got rid of filibustering and put three or four more judges on the Supreme Court. Yeah, could be gotten rid of. So this reminds me of the UN Convention on the elimination of racial discrimination as a treaty obligation the United States has signed on to does speak about first the definition of racial discrimination that's really much broader than our law, and then purpose and effect. That's the, that's the magic words and also for discrimination against women and other setting. They focus on both purpose and effect and basically the US is a now over now version of intent within the purpose branch and leaves a lot of space for Now, as to the religious thing I think it was a descent of Justice Ginsburg in the hobby lobby, where she went back through the cases where people said their religious beliefs were the basis for which they were doing racial discrimination, you know that they learned in their way. And since courts are not going to really get into the, the nature of your belief, or the, you know, question the belief, you know, it's kind of a wide open road in and Ginsburg warned about that back in her descent, you know, didn't work but that's where I just would like to say, please. I want us to go ahead and convince in this after this impeachment. Okay, I just want that I want them to go through and have to convince. Okay, post After leaving office. It is possible under the Constitution to do this. And it is an important thing to disqualify as the person if they decided to do it from ever pursuing future office of public trust. And I think that that is important to have that happen have that vote and watch and watch I mean I'm like, I'm thinking to myself. If you, if I was sitting in the Capitol on that day as a representative or Senator, and that happened to me. Well as people come in looking for me and you know looking like someone wanted to kill me or something like that. And they wanted to kill you. Yes, even say I want to kill me, you know, whatever my political thing, just me and the person you know saying, what? Hell no, you know, hell no. Oh, Ben, Ben, you're going down off of that. And I'm going to just high level analysis. Okay, I'm going to disagree with you. This is the first time for everything. I think going through with the impeachment is a very poor political decision. First of all, he's not going to get convicted. There are not 17 Republicans who are going to vote to convict. Secondly, you could argue, I think persuasively that all this is is an effort to embarrass 50 Republican voters, forcing them to vote up or down on impeachment at the same time, you need some of their votes to pass the progressive legislation that we have been waiting for for four years. I think this is a terrible political issue. There is nothing to be gained. Donald Trump's reputation is tarnished, ruined, etc. Either he runs again or not is up to the voters and I think when you need Republican votes to force them to vote up or down on this is a very poor political decision with little to be gained, if anything. Okay, Jeff, you're going to find this surprising, but I disagree with you. I think what gives me hope here is the charging document, the way the impeachment article was written. They're not charging him with insurrection, or even incitement. All they're saying is that he, let me say I wrote it down, he willfully made statements that encouraged lawless action. I think you can get 17 Republicans to agree that a reasonable person would believe that he willfully made statements that encouraged lawless action. I don't think that's too high a standard. And the reason I think that we should be doing it is that if we say we live in a rule of law democracy, then officials, particularly the highest officials, have to be held accountable. And the only way to really hold him accountable for what he's done is as they've done already is to impeach and convict him. Here's my position. I'm going to just say this and then I'm going to shut up because I got three professors and I'll never, never be able to out to date them. If he engaged in conduct, which is criminal and inciting a riot is criminal in most jurisdictions, then let the DC authorities and the US attorney charge him criminally and keep it out of the political arena. That's my position. I defer to all three of you. I mean, as a matter, I would like, I would not be upset if he got impeached, but what concerns me about going down about not impeach he's already been impeached, I would convict it. I am concerned that if it doesn't happen quickly, it'll get in the way of things that are more important to me than being done. And I think it's important to send a message. I kind of think it's like disciplining your child. If you got more than one child, you need to discipline that when one of them is behaving, you need to discipline that child in front of all the others so that they will know that that's not what to do. So to some extent, I can understand that we need to discipline Trump so that future presidents know what not to do. But I'm concerned that if it takes up time and energy and ability that we will do that at the expense of pest passing legislation and getting things done that helps people have a better life. So let me pose a question. Let me pose a question for you folks, because I think you've hit on something that has critical importance that we haven't yet articulated and that is one of the ways that Trump was able to manipulate everybody, including crude politicians like McConnell and others is he controlled the money and the donors for four years and he controlled the narrative, which the media let him do and help. If there is a process including possible conviction or 14th amendment that can quickly and cleanly sever him from the money and donors. But McConnell's already come out in favor of that. He's not only leaked that he feels those were impeachable offenses, but that Trump lied to the people and cited the invasion. He sent the signal to his people, not only it's okay. I'm on the record twice in favor of conviction. He knows that's the only way they're going to get back control of the money. If there is a possibility that Trump can run again in 2024. He is going to hold tightly onto that extremely wealthy role supported evangelical supported far right wing, often violent component that is also connected to some funds, some of the funders have backed off some have left, some have put it on hold. But I think what we're seeing is something needs to happen to prevent that kind of control of the money the donors in the narrative. I think a conviction will mean nothing to those people. Just look at the polls in the last few days about how many Republicans still believe the election was a fraud. Trump still support Trump, his support dropped 15% from 85 to 70 70% still believe Trump won the election. You think convicting him is going to change very many of their votes. I think it goes the other way. I think they find it to be something that gives them more reason to support Donald Trump assuming he ever gets off the golf course and gets out of Mar-a-Lago which I think it's very unlikely. But the conviction could, the conviction would be more than just a conviction. It would be a conviction on his ability to run because that's what they can do. Right. They said outlaw his ability to run. And I tend to think that if they go down that road, they might get 17 votes, but because there might be 17 people in the election in 2024. Right. They want that money. There may be, there may be 17 people that want his money in their primaries or to keep him from supporting an opponent in the primary. That would be my fear. I got a fear of Donald Trump running again. My fear is if I vote to convict Donald Trump will do what he can to get back at me when I run again in 22 or 24, either by supporting a primary opponent in a Republican primary in which I might well lose or otherwise. So, I, you know, that's just my view on it. I just think. Go ahead, Ben. I have a spirit of compromise here. No compromise. Compromise yet in the Senate, which is that on the day of the vote X number of Republicans have urgent family matters. Right. And as a consequence, it's only a vote of two thirds of the members present. So, you know, I had to take my kid to ballet lessons. I don't know what it is, you know, 33 of them. Yeah, I would have voted but you know I had to take care of my kid, you know I had had some shopping to do with Kroger, you know it's terrible I couldn't be there so it's a typical academic response. Thank you very much. My staff are tested positive I've been quarantine. There we go that's I'm in quarantine. And Chuck and Chuck for you to you for you to rely on Mitch McConnell is quite. Oh yeah. Guys, I thought, you know, lizards have various colors and can regenerate a tail but Mitch McConnell is, he's probably exhibit a of what a politician really is. No question. Lizards have more spine than McConnell. And Graham put together. I'm just in South Carolina by the way I just came back from being in South Carolina for 10 days and you know, Lindsey Graham country boy what a joke. Yeah. Okay Jim you've been strangely quiet. He's embarrassed. He's embarrassed about his position on impeachment. Actually, I'd like to defer to one of our, to our newest colleague and play to her strength here and her expertise and ask her what she foresees in terms of the Biden administration, moving forward on health care. Do you think there's going to be some significant positive steps there. Well, first of all, thank you for that. Thank you. First of all, I, I never liked Obamacare and so it's not I was been hoping that it would go under so that some so that when the Democrats got in power they could replace it with a good health care system. Unfortunately, I kind of think that I think the Democrats will protect Obamacare strengthen it to the extent they cover. But we have a bad health care system and it that does all that does is give insurance to people without really fixing the health care system. But don't you don't you think we're learning something with the way the vaccinations are going. I mean my God in some states they haven't even budged the vaccines are getting out there, but they're so disorganized. Isn't this can't we ease much more easily make the case for a national health care system. Yeah, I'm saying that it I do not believe that the Democrats want a national health care system. So I don't think any evidence put front in front of them is going to convince them to move to a national health care system. I think that they're quite happy with the system we have the way it is and they'll tinker around the edges on different things that need that come up and so that you know, but then I don't think that they'll use this to show because in my mind, this would have been a perfect time to do national health care as even if it was just in response to the pandemic. To say we have all these people out of work. We have all these people those that don't have good health care. We have what we're going to do is for the duration of the pandemic we're going to give Medicare for all this so that everybody will have access to health care. But they don't, but I don't believe the Democrats want that I think the Democrats have what they want, which is a Republican like medical plan, health care plan. Well, I don't think they have 50 votes for a national health plan, the Democrats, they're going to lose 578 votes at least on that and I don't think I don't think there's 58 Republicans I mean, you know there's this euphoria today. I'm not suggesting our group has this euphoria but there's this euphoria today that the world has changed 180 degrees. There are political worlds and all you have to do is start seeing what happened this morning in some Republicans reactions to some of the executive orders to know that we may have moved 30%, you know, not 180% and so those folks who think the world is going to be different in 100 days. I think they're going to be disappointed. Yeah. Well, a former president of France had a great line which was that a politician's promises only buying those who believe. Okay. That has always helped me with thinking you know I just I kind of watch and see what's done you know what I mean, because, but yeah, you know I hear you but executive orders are one thing. Let's see what happens with this 1.9. What is it? Trillion dollar whatever it is package. That is the first and most important, you know piece of legislation. See how far that gets in the next two weeks. Well, I mean, I would agree that Joe Biden, in retrospect, was among the least progressive of the Democratic candidates. He was not progress. And yeah, I think that's fair statement. On the other hand, there are some commitments he's made. I think he could be very aggressive on the environment and he's already started that. I think I agree with Professor Randall that he, you know, he's sort of committed to Obamacare because of his, his vice presidency and his involvement with that. But he's also made commitments to environmental actions, and he started it by getting rid of the Canadian pipeline, getting us back into the Paris Accord. I think he could really begin a Green New Deal. He's an old man that's looking that my, my son used to say to my kids about my grandkids about how not my grandkids, you know, like how that is so nice. My son that's an old woman trying to get in the heaven. He wasn't like that with us. And, you know, there's some truth in that and who knows what Biden is with his he's our age or older. And he's like, he wants to build a legacy so there's a lot of things he might do just for his legacy sake. And that's a really good point we're in our last minute. Any last words. Thank you, Professor Randall. I agree with you. Welcome aboard, Professor Randall. You know, if anything could liven up these three elder men. Thank you, Professor. I took a tour yesterday an African American tour by myself in Charleston which was fabulous which I'm not going to get into but the driver said you know I'm going to be 70 and he said look to me and he said how old are you 45. Are you kidding me, you've made my life. Thank you. All I can say is that guy knows a big tipper when he sees. Lady gentlemen. Thank you so much. We will see you again in two weeks. Come back folks. If you like this one. You're going to love the next one. Thanks Chuck. Don't make promises. Don't make promises you can't keep Chuck.