>> Good afternoon everyone. [NOISE] I'm Kim Goff Crews and I'm secretary and vice president for Student Life. And it is my distinct pleasure to welcome all of you here in Woolsey Hall and, and some of you who are in Battell chapel, to this very very special event. A couple of housekeeping items. First we want to make sure that everybody's in their seats here in Battell chapel as well as, would you please make sure that you turn off your cell phones, anything that beeps rings or vibrates. It would be helpful if you'd turn it off. And, also, if you could refrain from taking photos or videos during the presentation, that would be helpful. Today we are privileged to welcome back to Yale, Supreme Court Justice and Author Sonia Sotomayor, who will discuss her path from childhood to the Supreme Court. With Yale's own Professor Judith Resnik. Justice Sotomayor is, is something of a rock star. I hear that some of you have, been in line since eleven o'clock to get into the, to Woolsey Hall today. And so we've had an incredible response from all of Yale and all of New Haven when the tickets became available. So we're grateful to all of you for being here despite the weather condition. And so I know that you're going to help me give a very wel, warm welcome to Justice Sotomayor and Professor Judith Resnik as they now take the stage. >> [APPLAUSE]. >> Wow. >> That was a really warm welcome, so sharing personal stories and professional stories is certainly powerful. And so when we allow ourselves to open and know each others stories, we deepen our connections and strengthen our community. Justice Sotomayor says she decided to share her story through her memoir, My Beloved World because quote, people who live in difficult circumstances need to know the happy, that happy endings are possible. In her book, we learn among other things, that excellence certainly is not without considerable effort. And that resilience and resolve, are two crucial character traits that contribute to happiness and success in life. But we also learned that conversations and connection, help us learn about ourselves and the world around us. There are many descriptions in this book about parties, and dinners. Moments at the Gypsy Bar, where she served as the bouncer and bartender. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. And certainly conversations over dinner with friends. So today we are very fortunate to listen in on a conversation between two friends about life, personal and professional, with a few hundred people just to keep it interesting. [LAUGH] So Professor Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches about federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship. She also has testified before Congress, before the rule making committees of the federal judiciary, and before the House of Commons of Canada. She has held leadership positions in national legal associations, and also here at Yale. She is a distinguished scholar, award-winning author, and an occasional litigator. In fact, she has also successfully argued two cases decided by the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor and Professor Resnick, have several notable connections, which you'll learn about later. One of which is when Professor Resnik was two years out of law school, she came to Yale as what she calls, an extremely junior member of the faculty. Because she was practically the same age as all the students, and at that time Justice Sotomayor was also a student. And another connection was when she argued the case Mohawk Industries Inc versus Carpenter, which is the first case for which the justice wrote the opinion. So, you see, relationships and connections you make at Yale last for a lifetime. So we want to thank Professor Resnick as she guides this conversation. And before I turn the stage over to her, I want to ask all of you if you remain in your seats at the end of this conversation until the Justice and Professor Resnick depart from the stage. All right, and with that I want to thank you. And now I'll turn the program over to Professor Resnick. >> Thank you. We're delighted to be here. And of course we need to thank all the people in the administration, who made our being here possible. Reference was made to the U.S. Supreme case I argued a few years ago. Which was the occasion for the first opinion for the court for Justice Sotomayor. That opinion is dear to my heart, not only 'because I had a little role in it, but really because it was the first time in the history of the United States Supreme Court that, in the court's opinion, it used the phrase, you used the phrase, undocumented immigrant. To refer to people who some people say instead are unlawful aliens or undocumented aliens or even illegals. Justice Sotomayor's path-breaking choice of words was echoed just a month ago when the Supreme Court of the State of California determined that a man named Sergio Garcia, who the court also described as an undocumented immigrant could be admitted to the bar of the state of California to practice law. While that court unanimously agreed that he was qualified and should become a member of the California lawyering community, a justice wrote to object to the court's use of the term undocumented immigrant. And said that, actually, California courts had used the word unlawful alien. But when the rest of the court resisted that, the Chief Justice of the State of California, a woman named Tani Cantil-Sakauye, explained in her opinion. That the phrase Undocumented Immigrant was the appropriate one because quote, it avoided the potentially problematic connotations of other terms. And to cite the importance of using it, she cited your opinion for the proposition. This is a small example of the many major ways in which Justice Sotomayor. In small voices and large voices, vividly in terms of the book that she wrote. And in many, many opinions informs us all, leads us all, clarifies the stakes, the issues, and engages in problems affecting individual's lives and the country and the body politic. Per jurisprudence, we could spend the next several hours describing her intellectual leadership. Her engagement. For those of us who are particularly concerned about access to courts and criminal justice system. The fact that she's a former prosecutor and former trial judge illuminates her understanding of the nuances and the burdens of the criminal justice system and, counter some stereotypes of prosecutors. She is a leading voice concerned about the rights of all participants in the courtroom, criminal defendants included. There's a symposium going on literally at this moment at the Yale law school, with many, many papers about the Justice. But it is my task actually to resist my own temptation to sing her praises. And not to talk about her, but to give us an opportunity to talk with her. And with that I will shorten all the introductory marks and all the readings I did in advance to get to the subject matter, which is that in addition to being a remarkable Justice, she's a remarkable person and a remarkable author. And I have the hard copy version, copy of the book, which I now happily read more than once. And it is the prompt for a conversation about her understandings of what her work is now. I think is the right way I'd want to put it. And I wanted to welcome you back to this snowy somewhat dramatic New England day. Wanted to ask you how, since you lived from 1976 to 79 in an apartment on Whitney Avenue, how it feels to be back? And of course you saw from welcome, we're all delighted you're here. >> I have to say that there's always a flood of memories when I come back. Obviously none of them included being on the stage before 13 or 1400 people, okay. >> [LAUGH] >> And I do thank, I echo your thanks, to all of the university people who made this day possible. But today was reminding me of one of my favorite, favorite memories. When you live in New York City and it snows, even when they shut things down. There's still cars in the street. There's always a lot of people walking around. My first snowstorm at Yale, they shut the city down completely. And there was an entire line of cars going north towards Hartford on Whitney Avenue. That's, we're at a standstill for hours and hours and hours. And my then husband and I had a dog. And we went and gave a lot of the drivers coffee that day. I had just learned how to make it not so long before. >> [LAUGH] >> I don't think they were that grateful. >> [LAUGH]. >> But after the hours and hours we went back out and the city was still. And it was a very fond, fond memory for me. But Yale was a very different place back then. it, there really, was dangerous, especially if you were a woman. To walk outside of the Yale campus. The idea of the stores and the hotels and the things you see on Chapel Street. I don't think I ever went on Chapel Street. Today it's a normal shopping area. The same thing with Elm Street. That's where the bookstore use to be. Yeah you walked during the day back and forth but you never went there by yourself at night. The city was really deteriorating, and fast. It was already, had an enormous amount of crime. One of the things I made a mistake about while I was here was not exploring the campus more. And some of that was the danger that was present. I would encourage the students who are here to take advantage of some of the great offerings that the university has. Not just plays, but movies, speakers, and other activities. It's too easy for lawyers, for example, to stay stuck at the law school. [COUGH] and not venture into the larger community. That's true for graduate students in other areas. Take advantage, this is a wonderful university with a lot of resources and a lot of activities that are interesting and engaging. I didn't do it back then and it's one of my regrets and what I would do over if I came back. >> Well, when in your book you write that you grew up and went to the Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, with a good Bronx contingent here as well. >> Mm-hm. >> With the same Kelly Street beginnings. And you were admitted to Princeton, Yale, and the Radcliffe Harvard. So the first, second question then, in addition to feeling back, is how did you come to apply to those schools? >> Was a friend, the first friend that got into Princeton from my, our high school. He was one of the first people to attend an Ivy League school. Certainly the first person of color to attend one. He was Asian American. And when he was here he called me in the fall of my senior year at high school and said to me, Sonia you have to apply to the Ivy Leagues. And my first questions is, was, of him, what's that? He then explained what the Ivy Leagues were and I had seen or heard of Harvard, through a movie, love story. >> [LAUGH] >> Which in preparing my book, I learnt was filmed at Fordham University in the Bronx and not at Harvard. >> [LAUGH] >> If I had known that at the time, I probably would've stayed in the Bronx. So it was a good thing perhaps that I ventured further. But that is how uninformed I was because I really had no one in my life to guide my college choices. My grandmother, once I got into the schools I did and was making my choices. Asked me why I wasn't doing like my other cousins who were applying to City University in New York and staying home. It was hard to explain to her why I would leave home, and what opportunities I hoped I would have in this new environment. I don't think she ever fully understood, but she supported me because she loved me. But I don't know that she actually understood. >> The book describes your going to visit these schools when you got in. >> And I was struck by your description. >> Oh. >> And how you picked among them. >> [SOUND] The first school I went to was Harvard, or Radcliffe, back then. And I got there on a rainy day. And I'm on their metro system or their tram, whatever, their comparable subway system. And it's wet and it's as bad as New York City, if not worse. And I walk on to this beautiful campus in to this collegiate, gothic building. And I wait in the outside office. And I'm invited in by the person who's going to talk to me. And I don't know if she was an admissions officer or just someone that they had talking to prospective students. But here I walk into this office that leaves me in a state of shock. There's this woman of more senior age perfectly coiffured in a black dress silver hair pearls. And there's an oriental rug on the floor, and there's a white couch. And all of a sudden. I see, or I hear something yapping. And I look down and there are white and black poodles. >> [LAUGH] >> And I look at the scene, and I am so dumbstruck. It was something that I had never, ever experienced in my life. And I'm often not short for words. It's the first time I ever clammed up. If this interview lasted 15 minutes, it was a lie. Because all of the questions that I have been prepared to ask just flew right out of my head. I just kept looking at this woman and thinking to myself, I don't belong here. And, it's the first and I think the last time, that I have fled from something. I literally fled out of her office, went up to the assistant who was at the desk in the front and explained, please tell the students that were supposed to meet me at the end of the interview, that I had something come up and I had to leave. And I went straight back home. And when I walked into the door, my mother asked me, why are you here? What are you doing back so soon? You were supposed to stay overnight. And my response was, Mom, I don't belong there. So Harvard went out on that. >> So picking between Princeton and Yale. >> I go to Yale, all right? I go to Yale, I get met at the station at by a bunch of students from the people of color groups. And I get meet, met by Latinos. And they tell me that they're going to go to a protest in the middle of campus. >> [LAUGH] >> And. >> [APPLAUSE]. >> Would I like to join them? >> [LAUGH]. >> And I did this and said, you know, I think I should prepare for my interview. >> [LAUGH]. >> Why don't you show me where I'm staying and I'll, meet up with you later? So they did that. They went off to their interview. I had an interview there. I didn't flee as fast. The students came back and this is the age of, the war had just ended that year. And there were still demonstrations going on on campuses. And I think this may have been more like the fall before the war actually ended. Because I remember many of my classmates being worried about being drafted, and it wasn't until later in the year that the war actually ended and we were relieved that they wouldn't go into the service. At any rate the kids spent the night talking about revolution. The Cuban revolution had happened a while before, but they were still talking about it. I knew Fidel Castro because I had read it in newspapers, but who Che Guevera was, I had no idea. They were also mentioning other leaders in the civil rights movement, other activities. You have to remember, I'm a Catholic girl from the Bronx in a Catholic school with a Monseigneur who was a great supporter of the war. Listening to the talk about revolution and down with whiteys, I was then dating and that was serious about someone who wasn't a person of color and I thought to myself, I'm not going to feel comfortable here. I don't think this is the right place for me. This is too progressive for me. >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, strange right? [LAUGH] >> because then I go to Princeton. [LAUGH] >> Right. >> Little did I know. You guys have to remember this is the day before the Internet. And what you got from schools was a little fancy glossy book with pictures and some writings about the school. But there wasn't really a way, unless you went and did things I didn't do, which was visit classes. And actually see what they were doing in the classes. It's not like today, where you can go on the internet, and talk to people there, and they'll describe their experiences for you. Or you'll actually see some of the classes online. That wasn't the kind of research we could do back then. It was word of mouth, but I had nobody to word of mouth with because the only person I knew who had gone to an ivy league school was my friend Ken. And I think him being at Princeton probably made a difference. I know it did. Because he picked me up at the bus station. He showed me around and introduced me to his friends, all of whom were as offbeat as he was. And so, it was a more comfortable visit for me. And the professor was in a cramped little office, who interviewed me. >> Without dogs? >> I'm sorry, what? >> No dogs? >> No dog, no dogs. But he had the corduroys and the tweed jacket with the patch on it. And I had seen one of those on love story, so I figured okay. This was at least familiar, you know? This is the de jour dress of this place. Okay? And I ended up in Princeton, I think, just because I was able to find people who I felt more of an affinity for. >> And yet you also write that when you got there quote, classmates seemed to come from another planet. And that impression was sometimes you've said, reciprocated. That you felt they also were from somewhere else. So you've talked about arriving and feeling out of place. How did you navigate that sense of out of place and develop the strengths. If we fast forward, just remember one of the punchlines is Sum Cum Laude graduate of the Princeton University, so we have to move back and forth in time. >> You know, I did it both at Princeton and Yale, Judith. I gravitated to making friends in my Latino community as my closest friends in both institutions. At Yale there weren't many Latinos. So my five closest friends were people of color, all of them male. because we were a very small class of women. One was Mexican-American, one Puerto Rican, one Black, and one Native American, and we were not the three musketeers, but the five musketeers. Okay? At Princeton, most of my friends, not exclusively, were a part of the third world center. And back there, there was one center area. >> For everybody. >> With groups. With all of the groups. That's how small the Princeton Contingent was. Okay? I connected with the experiences of many of the people there. Although I, for the first time in my life, met people of color who were better off social, socio economically than I was. I had a dear dear friend at Princeton, whose father was a doctor for the military. And in one bus ride back to New York, he had a problem because all of his uncles were in the mili, were not in the military but were doctors as well. And they made more money than his family. And he felt as if they looked down on him. And I listened to this the entire ride. And at the end of it and I got off the train and I said his name and I said, when you're talking about you being poor, you have to understand that my mother raised us on $5,000 a year. That ended that conversation. But it was knowing him and meeting some of my other classmates and understanding the circumstances of their life, led me to understand that it was a bigger world than the one I was accustomed to. Or the one that I knew. And I used both my experience at Princeton and at Yale to venture out of the community that I had. And to go out and enter the larger community, and be active in it. Because, I understood that if my education was to have a value for me, it was to learn how to navigate those worlds. And I used the word, use it as a safety net in your communities. The people that you're comfortable with. But don't let them anchor you in place. Use it as a way of, you know, sort of being a bird. Going out and exploring your surroundings. Go and land over here and land over there, taste and experience, learn what the world has to offer. And come back to the nest when you need a little bit of comfort. Because that, at least for me, has been the way I've navigated, the unusual. And I've been in a lot of those circumstances. >> So it was interesting to me. In the book, there is a light motif, that you embrace your roots. At the Yale Law School, your student note at the law school was called Statehood and the Equal Footing Rights: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights. >> Judith just read the article. [LAUGH] >> I did, indeed. And it's very good, and makes a good legal argument about states on equal footing. You studied Puerto Rican History when you, and Latin American History when you were at Princeton. And upon graduation and as a lawyer in New York, you were very active in what was then called the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. PRLDEF is now called LatinoJustice. Did you ever have an impulse instead of embracing to try to distance yourself from and, push away some of that? >> You know, when I inch, when the President called me to tell me he had selected me as his nominee for the Supreme Court, he asked two things of me. One of the two, was to stay connected to my community. And my response on that one was, Mr. President I don't know how to do anything else. it, it, and I don't. Because I was rooted to family, in a way that was all encompassing. My cousins were my closest friends when I was a child. I spent every weekend with my grandmother, and she spoke no English, and she didn't cook anything but Puerto Rican food. They were great lovers of music and poetry. And so I became steeped in a culture that really got into my bones. But as I said, I understood even when I was in private practice that staying connected was important. But I did other things. I did the State of New York Mortgage Agency. And I was asked by the governor at that time what agency I wanted to go to, and they were offering me things like the Department of Corrections. They were slotting me a little bit for the things that they think people of color should go into, criminal law, I was a prosecutor. And I said to the governor, I don't want to. I think what my community needs is more people involved in economic development. Put me in the urban fund, or put me in the state of New York Mortgage Agency. And I had a role to play in getting that agency to give out mortgages to low income families. And, I then joined the New York City campaign finance board and I did that because I understood money was important in politics and the campaign fund gave out money. But in all of those roles I was really the only latina playing a role, in the policies and conversations of those groups. But I also knew that they were important instruments of change, and that I had to become comfortable in those places of power, that I had to know how to navigate them. Now what you haven't asked, and I'll answer. [LAUGH] Sometimes I do feel like I'm not part of either world completely. You know there are moments when I got back to my old neighborhoods. I describe one of them in the book where I was in a project when I was a prosecutor. And I was sitting on a couch. And the apartment was beautifully kept. And, there was a standing lamp next to me. And there was a cockroach walking up the lamp. You'll learn in the book that I really don't like roaches at all. There's a reason for it. I fled from that apartment. Despite my lifetime of living in those conditions, I had been removed enough after about nine or ten years that I, there I fled the apartment. And there are other moments like that, where my life has changed so much that going back I don't feel completely like I'm a part of the conversation. But I feel that way as well in the worlds I travel in now, even though I'm as much a part of them as I am of any, as is anyone else. But, you know, I, I sit and listen to my colleagues talking about all the operas they go to. They can name every opera singer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that she's ever heard. What performance and where. I can't do that. They're, when you move from one world to a next. You can sometimes feel alien from all. And I guess the thing that I do that helps me is to try to hold onto the positive of every world I'm in. sort of understand that each world. That I navigate. That I'm in that's a part of the circles of my life. They overlap because people have common emotions. People give common things. Caring and love. And people are the ones who share experiences with you and create memories. And so, as long as I keep focused on that, and less on the differences, then I find myself thriving and staying connected. >> Your, book is rich with understanding and discussing your experiences as both a student and a teacher. And, of others through the book, there are many students here, and of course I sit here as a teacher. I was struck both by the role that professors as undergraduates played for you. >> You want to [LAUGH]. >> I also though, [LAUGH] as you said in your book, that you waited, that it wasn't until you were a third-year law student that you volunteered to speak in class. And then it was, kind of, like you couldn't help yourself because the professor was making a mistake that you saw so clearly. And you were right. But, the idea of being reticent to speak in class, this goes back to the feeling, not quite fully of the world that you're in. How did you come to gain the strength in these worlds because you didn't just manage them. You thrived and were a spectacular student and a spectacular success in these environments. That you felt not fully a part of? >> If some of you read my book you'll learn two fundamental things about me. I am really competitive. >> [LAUGH] >> All right? I, I, I compete. But I don't compete against other people. I compete against myself. At each institution, whether it was at Princeton, or here at Yale. At Princeton I needed to learn how to write because I got a C on my first paper. And the I went, it was from the chairperson of the History Department. And I get a C, it's the department I go into okay. And she tells me first that my paper was not organized around a theme. And she explained that. And secondly, that I wasn't writing in complete sentences. And I didn't, I understood the first, but I didn't fully understand the second. In retrospect, I understand that in my high school most of the exams were multiple choice or very short essays. And I always knew the information and I always had insights into what I was reading. So I would just throw it down and I got good grades. Probably because I could at least express ideas or have new ideas or creative ideas about what I was reading. But I didn't understand why I couldn't write well. And it took a professor, one of those mentors you talked about, in a Latin American course. because, it was the area I was interested in, who took my first paper. And I still remember the circles in the paper. He had chosen to circle every noun and adjective in the paper. There are many, many adjectives in Spanish which precede a verb. But most commonly, the vo, a adjective is introduced with the of word. So you don't say cotton shirt, you say short of cotton in Spanish. And he said to me that that was passive voice, not active voice. And he said, you're thinking in Spanish, Sonia. And translating. Think in English and write. And I took the paper and I went back. And I corrected each of the adjectives and made them adjectives and adverbs. And I took more courses with him. And in each one, he would circle something else, my verb tenses, my singular and plural uses in a sentence. He took each paper to teach me a different error in my writing. And then that summer. I went out to Barnes & Noble, the original. On fifth lower, on Fifth Avenue and Lower Manhattan. And I bought grammar books from first grade to twelfth grade. And I spent the summer reading the grammar books. The competition wasn't with the kids in my dorm who were getting A's or who were doing better than I. Or my roommate who would stay up the night before and do a paper that got a A minus. I'd have to prepare a paper for weeks on end. Because it was hard work for me. I just wanted to learn how to write, and write better. And I started with three Bs, what with all Bs my first semester, and the second semester I got three Bs and an A minus. The second year I got two Bs and two As. And then you can imagine by the end of my junior and senior year I had gotten all As. But I wasn't, when I was told I got Summa Cum Laude, I didn't even know what it was. I had to go to the dictionary to get a definition. The book 'll tell you, I didn't know why Phi Beta Kappa was. And if it hadn't been for a friend, I thought it was crazy that someone would invite you to join them, and make you pay for a key. >> [LAUGH] >> Seemed ridiculous to me. Okay? But I did the same at Yale. I understood that I was having difficulty with legal analysis. And I understood that I needed, at Yale, to pay attention to writing, but legal work, not the art of writing anymore. And that's why I wrote a note. And that's why I became managing editor of the International Law Journal, because it gave me more experience in an area of weakness that I had. So it, I, I started by saying it's that competitive spirit to improve myself step by step. I don't take big gulps and, and expect to change or to improve things automatically. And I think people get frustrated when they embark on a new adventure. Because they keep thinking they should really be good at this faster. And maybe because I often have less confidence in myself. I sort of take it for granted that I'm just going to have to work at it for a while, till I get it, and I get it well. I have felt that way on the court. That's how I make my insecurities work out. I figured I may not be the smartest judge on the Court, but I'm going to be a competent Justice. I'm going to try to be the best I can. And each year I think my opinions have been getting better. They've been getting, for sure, a little shorter. [LAUGH] I've been working at that. And I'm working at finding my voice a little bit. >> One of the interesting things you've just mentioned, referenced now and comes up several times in the book, is you explain. As you just did in summa cum laude, what did that mean, you explained that you don't know what something means. So it's interesting in the book is then that one of my favorite examples is someone says, doesn't this feel like Alice in Wonderland? >> Oh. >> And you say, Alice who? >> Yeah. >> So, but I'm interested no, that you make a point of telling us. What you didn't know. And I want to ask you why you make the point of helping us know what you didn't know rather than embracing now all that you do know? >> because it wasn't about telling you what I didn't know. It was about showing you how to learn. And showing people, I hope particularly students, that, you know, there's an old saying that many teachers use, there's no stupid question. It's really true. What there is is ignorance. And ignorance is something you can correct, not stupidity. Ignorance is what you don't know. Because you've not had experience with it, because you've not heard of it before, because you haven't been exposed to it. And the purpose in doing it is because I think it is true. In particular, for people who come from different cultures. That there's a lot that goes on around them that they don't understand. And, you can stand there mute and let it go over your head. Or you can, quietly and in your own way, go back and ask someone who have trust in to explain it to you. And I would always try to find people who I thought were kindly. Mean it was a friend who explained. >> Yes. >> Phi Beta Kappa to me, okay? Who explained to me what the Klein Prize was. You can navigate the world if you're willing, and not embarrassed by your ignorance. And it holds me in good stead today. My first year on the bench. And for those of you who don't know much about the Supreme Court. During the week of argument, on Wednesday, If we had an argument on Monday. If we had arguments Tuesday and Wednesday or just Tuesday or Friday. The Justices talk about their votes in cases and we go around the room. The Chief starts and then in descending order of seniority each Justice expresses his or her vote. Often during my first couple of years a colleague would say something that I knew had. Just gone over my head. It was no where in the papers. It was not an argument that I was familiar with. It was a reference to something that I didn't even think was within the complex of the case. And I would lean over to Justice Stevens, who was the second senior Judge and right next to me. And I would say, John, what's he talking about? >> [LAUGH] >> And Justice Stevens would say, read this case. He's been on that horse for a long time. >> [LAUGH]. >> All right. Or, sometimes if I didn't want to interrupt because I was paying more attention at the break when we took a coffee break. I would go to someone else and say, You know, Justice so and so was just talking about this. Could you explain to me what is moving him or her? And they would, because that first year on the bench, I was walking in to a continuing conversation. I didn't realize it immediately, but remember that most of these justices have been there for years together, and they've had disagreements. On issues over all of that time. And at case after case, they've moved the law forward or in the wrong direction, according to them or whatever. Okay? But every new case that comes up, they're continuing the talk. And if I had been unwilling to just show my ignorance and say please explain. I think I would have felt lost longer. Now I'm a part of that continuing conversation. Now there cases that I've authored that people are arguing about in front of me. It's a really strange feeling. [LAUGH]. >> The book also mentions several times that when some wonderful things happen to you. Like getting admitted to Princeton or when you were being interviewed by a major law firm here. A person would question your credentials in some way, and basically raise the topic of affirmative action. And so in the book you talk some about how you've handled and what you seen have been the utilities for you of affirmative action, and since here we sit in the university, and hence this conversation is with us today, I thought it would be helpful for you to speak to that. >> All right, i start this conversation by saying that we're not talking about a particular affirmative action plan. >> Talking about you- >> And to the one that I was subjected to back then. And the law has changed dramatically since I was in school. But most of you need to understand how Affirmative Action came about. Especially in university settings. When the Civil Rights Movement started, it was clear to universities that they lacked diversity completely. Most universities, this one included, Princeton for sure, Harvard, but most of the elite universities and even not the most elite universities tended to recruit from schools where they knew the teachers and where they knew the students were capable of doing the work in college. And it becomes an insiders' admission process. Not just the children of alumni, but the children from the prep schools that these schools felt comfortable with. There's a reason for that. You take a risk when you invite students whose schools you know nothing about. You take a risk that those students won't be able to manage the work here or in your institution. My friend Ken, the Asian-American I spoke about, was the first in, to come to Princeton and the reason he did is because he had a math teacher at Spellman who thought Ken was brilliant and really lobbied the school to accept Ken. Ken did well at Princeton, and they admitted me. I did well at Princeton, and the number of kids from my high school grew exponentially, who went on to Ivy League schools. What the civil rights movement started as, what it was at the early parts of his life, were opportunity door opening instruments. They were instruments by which schools were saying, we're not diverse. We're not giving opportunity to people from different backgrounds. That's important for the society. It's the message of the Civil Rights movement. Give us a chance. And so these schools began to look more widely, to search in untraditional places for capable students, even though they might be from different backgrounds. And they took Ken, an Asian-American, and Sonia, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, but they, that opened the doors not just to minorities from Spellman, but from kids who weren't people of color. Because we prove the quality of the school. I use a line that's among one of my favorite lines, which is, without affirmative action, I couldn't even have participated in the race of a good education. Because I didn't even know that there was a race being run. You can't get to the starting line, to a place like Princeton, unless you know it's here. And unless you know what it requires, you can't prepare yourself for it. And it's one of the reasons I spend so much time, I talk to kids in inner-city schools. I encourage every institution that I've been a part of. I've been on the Board of Trustees of Princeton. And I worked with the admissions office in encouraging them to visit high schools. And to meet with freshmen, not juniors and seniors, to talk them about Princeton and what they needed to do to get in. That activity takes my attention because I know that without the opportunities I was given, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today. Certainly being a graduate of Princeton and Yale was a big factor in my being nominated to the Court. >> I am sitting here in the extremely awkward position of having many questions that I want to ask, let alone getting the vibes of others that are here. But being told by the authorities that our time is running out. So I actually want to indulge in one last question. Which is to sa, say that you speak in the preface of the book about how you are writing with a great deal of candor. And some of it not always usual for justices or others in your, these facets and places in the world. And I wondered, as you're looking back on the book, whether you wish you had said more, or said differently, or said less. Or perhaps I'm also asking, I hope you'll be writing the next book. >> Mm-hm. >> As well. But to reflect a little bit on either what's there that you might want to take back, or wish you would have wished you'd explained a bit more, as our last question. >> I talked a lot in the book about the thi, the, the, the life coping mechanisms that were successful for me. I, I think that if I were redoing the book I would talk about the, the things that I watched others do more, that weren't successful. So I think I might have done a little bit more of that. And in fact I've, I've given some speeches to various groups about those lessons just to change up my book talk, okay? I was apprehensive when I wrote the book because I was sharing private details that most people keep private. And I was really worried about how it would be received by my colleagues and by the public. I got really worried a month before the book actually was released, because a reporter broke the unofficial embargo on the book and wrote about the book. Basically picking the most sensational stories in the book, and just laying them out there, without the background. And I started worrying that that's all the public would concentrate on. You know, the fact that my husband and I got Quaaludes as a wedding gift from one of his friends, okay? >> Flushed down the toilet. >> Flushed down the toilet. But, but, there was a purpose for that story, which is, was to talk about the worlds we both inhabited. It, you know, today you're worried about cocaine and crack and other drugs. For us, it was Quaaludes back then. You know, it was a different time, but with still some of the same choices. And so that's why I mentioned the story, but there were other stories of that ilk that the article wrote about, and didn't put it either in context or discuss the book as a whole. And I began to worry that that is what people would fixate on. Thankfully my worry was misplaced, because the first things that came out on the book when they ca, ultimately came out, really got its message. And that was important to me, and I learned another very valuable thing. By being even more open about myself, I've learned things about friends I never knew. Almost all of my friends have shared details of their lives that they had kept very private from most other people. And that, I think, has been one of the greatest benefits of the book. It's not only brought me closer to strangers, but it's brought me closer to friends, in a way I had not anticipated in writing it. So, a second book, do you know how much work that book took? [LAUGH] It's going to be a long time. I'm taking a vacation for few years, you know. I'm the craziest person I know. There was a reason for writing the book my first, starting my first summer. I had not had a vacation the preceding summer. If you'll recall, I got nominated at the end of May of 2009. I went through the hearings and I started my job in August. And the first week of September I heard my first argument. Citizens United. If you don't know how much reading I did for that case, you have no idea. At any rate, I had no vacation. I take my first summer and I take the writing of the book as a work project. I took the weekend off between the end of the term, Monday morning I went to my office in New York, I turned on a dictaphone and I spent the whole summer telling my stories, just recounting them into a dictaphone. And, after I did that, I had, I had people typing out the stories. And I ultimately asked them to put the stories on a separate piece of paper. And I had a stack like this. And memory was such, that I would tell the story on day one, and be thinking about the story, over time. And in the third or fourth week, I would find another detail. So I got them all in piles. This is how I used to write my papers when I was in college. And so that all of the stories were a cohesive whole from the sort of disorganization of my mind. Then I had a friend read the transcripts, and she came back with about 25 follow-up questions of things she was just interested in, after reading the stories individually. And that set off two more months of dictaphone. 25 questions, two more months of memories, and I was telling Judith that, and a group of people I was with last night, that on the train here, I remembered another story about Yale. It's really amazing how the mind works. But I spent the next three summers on that bloody book, I'm taking a vacation now. [LAUGH]. >> What I think we see is that we're actually all the wonderfully lucky beneficiaries of institutions like this opening their doors more widely than they have in the past. So I want to thank you so much for giving us so much. >> Thank you for being with me, Judith. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
