And is a professor at Harvard Law School. [applause] thank you for joining us. I am going to leave the hardcore legal questions to my colleague, so i start with the news as a journalist. I think a lot of us are still trying to get our heads around the ideas that are right, that existed for 50 years, can evaporate. I wonder if you would just start off by taking us inside the deliberations around the Dobbs Decision and particularly how you tried to persuade your fellow justices to maybe take a different course. It does not mean you do not feel the emotion and all of them. What judge wisdom told me years ago, he was one of the circuit, you ought to read about their story. My god, they really segregated the south. Wisdom, it was he was a great judge. He said, were you angry when you are angry at the majority, here is what you do. You write an opinion and say how awful they are. Really just no holds barred. When you finish that, you read it and you throw it in the wastebasket. Once again, you write your dissent. You see where this is leading up to . There is no inside story, at least one i am going to tell you about. [laughter] do you want to know what i think, there is a dissent in the dobbs opinion and it explains pretty well elaborates on the kinds of points you have begun to make. Can i ask about the outside story, the joint dissent you authored which was one of your last author dissents on the court, you wrote today, the proclivities of individuals rule, the court departs from its obligation to face and impartially imply the law. When i found striking is in your final authored this end, you quote from Justice Thurgood marshalls dissent in 1931, where he said power, not reason is the new currency of this courts decision making. I do not know what judge wisdom would have thought about that. I got nervous about that one. [laughter] nonetheless, if you compare it to other dissents, the three of us, for me and Justice Kagan and joes justice so my aura i withdrew that conclusion from some of the language in it. What is more important is the reasoning and the reasoning in that dissent goes in great length into why it is a mistake under the law to depart from 50 years of precedent. There are other parts, the human resolve and so forth. I think that legal part is an important part. The majority spent some time trying to say, but there are lots of instances in which the court has not followed an earlier case and is overruled in an earlier case, which is true. So, i spent in my and my poor law clerk spent i love it [laughter] they spent a considerable time looking up every one of those cases and, what did i do, i did what frankford used to do, which got him nowhere. We wrote in appendix. You can read it if you have Nothing Better to do. It has every single case they refer to. We talk about those three in the body of the opinion, they were very important cases. So we tried to say, if the child of two bothers to read this appendix, he will see how right i am. I just do not use the words, how right i am. I try not to. That has sometimes worked well, and sometimes has not. You also wrote that the right roe and casey recognized does not stand alone. Im wondering as you watch this play out, how much faith you have in assurances like things like Marriage Equality are safe from this. The majority said look, the majority is a reasoning majority. I do not think you never know , but the reasoning of the majority is that, well, i will not talk about the majority. I will talk about my own view, which i put in an imaginary opponent of my view. Ok. I wrote an opinion on abortion and i started the opinion by saying, many people in this country and it is certainly true, many people in this country believe that killing a fetus is like murdering an innocent human being. That is what it is. Therefore, they think abortion is a kind of terrible murder. There are other people, millions of them, who think that if you tell a woman that she cannot have an abortion, you will see what will happen. Many women will in fact coat hangers and so forth, you will kill them. I said, those are very strong views, and opposite views. I said our problem is not to decide who is right. Our problem is, what kind of rules should you have in a country where there are millions of people who believe opposites there, both things . So i write, obviously, give the woman her choice. That way, she does not have to have the abortion, but she can. I thought that was great. Ok, ha. What does the imaginary opponent of my view what words do i put in that persons thoughts . I am not saying what he thinks, i do not know. I am saying, what do i think he could think . There breyer goes again, he thinks he is such a giant a genius. Think about it, lets think about it. Hmm. He thinks, give the woman her choice. Give a woman a choice to murder the first person who walks through the door. That is what those people believe you have done, prior breyer, they think you are on track of allowing murders of innocent people. That is the imaginary persons response to what i thought was so great. Ok. But, if you read the opinion that way, i am not saying you should you might also think what they are saying is, where you have a country where people believe both, it should not be decided who is going to prevail either through breyers system, which is give the woman her choice which i think is great. I said, let the court decide. We should decide at the pallet box. Ok. If the imaginary person, i am being complicated but i do not want you to get the idea i am quoting one of my colleagues are thinking about or thinking about what they are saying, can you see why i am doing that. If you think, that is the approach of the majority it has very little to do, very little to do, with marriage and the cases you are thinking of and contraception and gay rights it so forth. We both have a theory that puts them over here and says, this case does not have much to do with them. We have a writing in the majority in this case which says this case does not stand for anything outside of the area of abortion. Is that an answer to what you have said . I hope to be so complicated no one can understand whether i have answered the question. [laughter] i went to ask you about the approach. The Senate Majority takes, the approach it is taking again and again and in some ways is striking against the methodology they are dominant on the Supreme Court over the course of your time on the court. Originalism has taken center stage. To drill down concretely on what that means in the context of jobs and row dobbs and roe, 1868 is the ceiling of what our conceptions of equality, liberty can look like. It is an approach to the constitution says you have to put blinders on, you cannot think of the modernday consequences of the understandings of the constitution you are this is what over and over again in oral arguments and separate writings and his sense, to say, we have to think about the consequences, the gun rights case. It says, we have to look to the atrocities of gun violence in america, we cannot say the states are prohibited from thinking about those in locations in designing a Constitutional Order and implement thanks a Constitutional Order on the court. What do we make about that change in methodology, which is now quite stark and developed across a series of cases . Look, several possible answers. If you want to read no, you cannot. Normally, i aim at 10 pages. Ok . I probably hit 15, or sometimes 20. Unfortunately, from the point of view my dissent in the gun case, which is where the originalism question comes up, is more than 40 pages. That is aimed at the child of i believe no one could read those 40 pages without thinking originalism is going to get us nowhere. I cannot predict that of the future. I am sitting in my wonderful office at the Harvard Law School , and each day, i tried to write three or four pages. Some of you had to do that, you have to do it more quickly or you will not get your raise. I am sitting there and i am writing. What i am trying to do is explain what i think originalism is in a sense related to something called textualism. Textualism is, read the text of the statute or the text of the constitution and from that, you will get the answer. Nobody does that 100 . The person who has followed it closely is clarence thomas. He is strict in the way he does it. Nina scalia who talked about it, we debate they have never seen a Supreme Court justice on a football field. They saw the results of that that we disagreed, namely he would say, i think you shouldnt look beyond the text. You should look at purpose. I said, i have seven opinions where you did look at purpose. What is the purpose of this statute, what is the value that underlies this constitutional provision . How it will work out as related to that. He says, i do sometimes. Of course he does, sometimes. Nobody can resist that, in my opinion. They can try, but it isnt true the whole Court Follows that approach. Some justices do, and justices have different approaches but sometimes, it depends on what case you are thinking of. Am i explaining myself . The manner of being a judge is complicated. The cases that come up are different one from the other. Even in the Supreme Court, you have a case in front of you and you have a particular issue and you better get into that into some depth because it will affect people. It isnt just a general philosophy of law, it is applying how you see the law as giving you answers to difficult, legal questions to this particular case. Where i started and where i will end up, i explained in those 40 pages where i think people who look at justice as the text. They say that, but i do not think they always do that. That would be close to impossible. Some do not say it. They say, we sometimes do and look at other things, too, which is important. When it comes to the constitution, the constitution they have my microphone in here. You take this document and one thing better than listening to me for an hour, you read this argument. Fabulous. Fabulous document. It is filled with words like liberty, love, freedom of speech, justice black used to say Congress Shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. No law means no law, we will look at the text. Justices goldberg said, that answered the problem, no law. The problem is, the freedom of speech. Just what does that cover . This document does not tell you that. So, we are going to have a tough cases. They agree that words like that, you cannot just read them seven times and figure out what they mean. Originalism i think is what the is a way of applying Something Like that still is him textualism to a constitutional case. This looks to see what an ordinary person would have thought the words meant in 1789. Do i think that will work, no. If you want to know why, you could read the 40 pages. If you really have nothing to do, you could wait until i finish this book. I am on manuscript page 135 at the moment. Then, you will really know. I cannot prove i am right, but i am going to write a few pages in an effort to show how, in my experience, taking a bunch of cases i do not know this world of a theory of what you apply better than 19 professors at the Harvard Law School and many other law schools. I know one thing i do not know it, but it is something, i have to apply it. What i want to do is, i want to take how i have worked out the particular cases using the opinions and then say to people, you decide. You tell me. Which is the better way, there is no magic way, but which is the better way of interpreting this document or the statutes that Congress Enacts under its power given by this document . When john roberts became chief justice in 2005 and since then, it seems like a core of his mission was to preserve, protect and defend, but the court itself as an institution. Right now, you have seen it 25 of people approve of the court. Has he failed . No. We do not know what will happen. No i used to work with senator mccain paid one of the things he liked to say, the country those like this. It goes like this. There have been terrible situations in the United States of america. I mean, this congress that everybody criticizes at the moment. Remember, bully brooks beating up senator sumter from this state, the abolitionist. That is just on the floor of the congress. We have gone through slave labor, jim crow, all kinds of things. You, you are not old enough to remember what this was like in vietnam, this place here. If we were back when i was starting to teach, i probably wouldnt have been allowed to speak here because the building wasnt built yet. [laughter] in any case, there were all kinds of things going on and they were not all good. We had archie cox, do you mind if i digress . I do nothing but that to avoid your entertaining questions. Archie cox and i spent the night at the library, the students were going to burn it down at as a protest against vietnam. I said, i did not start the vietnam war, i was teaching as an assistant professor. Moreover, i do not even like the vietnam war. I think it is terrible. That makes no difference. They didnt burn down instead, do you understand what i am saying . I am saying we have gone through a lot of difficult periods and despite the difficulties, the country has emerged. Naturally, i think it will emerge. What i have seen for the last 30 years and more than that because it is true of the first circuit, this document does help to hold people together. It does. Millions of people have no idea what is in it, but they do know it helps hold us together. 331 Million People. My mother used to say that in san francisco, she said there is every race, religion, every point of view. There is no point of view so crazy that there isnt somebody in this country that holds it she said, they all live in los angeles, do not worry about it. [laughter] what is the most amazing thing to me, day one in that court, the last in front of this court, people of all different points of view have come together to try to resolve their disputes under law. Maybe that doesnt move you as much as it moves me, but it moves me and lot. I have a question, because it moves me but it worries me. The context of, the authority of the court and the applet politics. I wanted to push you a bit on how to think about that. The way we use politics when we talk about the court. One way we could think about it as a partisan institution, you have said, it is not partisan in the way we do its work. Another way to think about it, it has become more politically ideological in a way that is more open to flouting precedent. In that sense, is a threat to some rule of law values that have gained legitimacy in the first place. But, it has become less representative in part because of the appointments dynamics of the past in ways that have entrenched or exacerbated counter majoritarian tendencies, already built in the system. As a result, it has created conservative super majority on the court today that does not have the fine consensus, it does not have to find narrow or more moderate steps to take incrementally in the law. If we think about the idea of a Political Institution more expensively to cover those sorts of worries, should we be worried about where the court has taken the law today . I wrote quite a few to since last year, so obviously, i was worried dissents last year, so i was worried. I gave a lecture and wrote it into a short book about the court, i did that a year and a half ago. I was reflecting the first 27 years. I was reflecting last year, because it had not happened yet. I wanted people to know that at least my view of how to use this word, politics, and respect to the court. I wrote about five pages on that, doing it again, i would write 15 pages. I can summarize what i said. Did i see there politics, i did work for senator kennedy, i did work for the staff of the senate. To me, politics suppose the mayor of wister calls senator kennedy. Same time, secretary of defense. Which call will he take first . The mayor of wister, that is his constituents. My job as a chief counsel was try to get the republicans and democrats at the executive sessions so we could get work done. Are you a democrat, or a republican . Is what you are going to do popular . If you go this way or say this, will it make you more popular or less popular . There is a one there is a young woman in my office going through my papers. She said, i am a law student. She says, i wanted to see what you do. Annoyed me a little bit. My papers are private. I thought before i got to annoyed and expressed my annoyance at this person, i would remember she might be a constituent. Ah. That is politics. Do i see that in the Supreme Court . No. I hate to say zero, but pretty close. There is a different thing, two different things. Three, maybe, that people confuse with that. That is there all the time. What is your basic view, what are your basic views about how to interpret this document or how to interpret a statute . Are you more thinking the text might go beyond that, or are you thinking of purposes and consequences are important . That does divide people. Go beyond that. Say, well, what do you think this country is about . When you answer that question, where were you born . San francisco. Where did you go to high school . High school. What has your life been like . Do you think that information is relevant, when they deal with life, liberty sure they are. By the time youre 50 years old, you will have use. On your profession, on your lives, on your country, you will have use. Maybe you will not articulate them, but they will be there and they will reflect in part your own background and your own life and your own family and your own friends. And, do they from persontoperson . Yes, they do. Is that a bad thing . No, i do not think it is at all. This is a big country and you cannot jump out of your own skin and your own life. When you think about the United States of america, of course you are going to see through that kind of lens. Does that kind of thing affect the way people interpret those things, liberty . Yes, i think it does. For a couple of years, i thought, my god, how terrible, why doesnt everyone agree with me . After a while, i begin to think, it is a big country. It is not so terrible to have some members of the Court Appointed who do not agree with me. Not too many, please. But, nonetheless. It is a big country. People do think a lot of different things. We have to get along because there isnt much choice. This helps us. That is all i have by the rule of all. It helps us. It helps. So, i see all of that. If you want your politics, what was the case . That came up to the Supreme Court after brown. Frankfurter said, do not decide it now and we are having enough trouble, havent you seen those war signs throughout the south . Dont you know the governor said he is not going to integrate Central High Schools . Dont you understand that before you can get that brown case implemented, you have got to persuade millions of people who are not lawyers . A lot went into that contrary to popular belief, 330 million of our 331 Million People are not lawyers. They are the ones that have to be persuaded. Sometimes, not always when you do not agree with the result of the court, which is going to infect you affect you, indeed , and you think it is wrong, and all right. Nonetheless, a rule of law is perhaps better than the alternative. That is why i said, sanford. When i taught those students at stanford and said, even when bush i was in dissent. Ok. I said, even there, i did not agree but i said, i know when i tell you that i heard senator reid, who i did hear say, in the court then a remarkable thing about that case is that people did not throw stones, they did not sit down and shoot each other. I know 20 of you in the audience when i say, because it was unpopular with half the country and sometimes it is more than half nonetheless, before you decide that you are sorry there were not riots in the streets, you look in the Television Set and see what happens. See what happens in countries that decide their difficulties that way. Who did i explain all of this to about the cherokee indian case, where in fact, the court said in the 1840s or 1830s, northern georgia where they just found gold belongs to the cherokee indians, it does not belong to the georgians, who just grabbed it. That is the case of andrew jackson, president of the United States and john marshall, the chief justice has made his decision and i will let him enforce it. He sent troops to northern georgia. To enforce his decision, he evicted the indians who went on the trail of tears. To oklahoma, where they live to this day. Stories, marshall exchange, letters and stories of i give up. Say you are worried about 20 , what about fine. But, the chief of that indian tribe, he was a great man. He led them on that march, his wife died on the way. It was called the trail of tears. His wife is buried. The only discovery i have made in my life is that she is buried one mile from Central High School in little rock. That is, to me, those little rock nine. That is a symbol of something, that is a symbol of a country making a great effort, not just the lawyers, not just the judges. They tried to close the schools. Too late. That was the time of art in luther king, the freedom Martin Luther king, the freedom riders, the country had begun to understand what jim crow was about. It took time. Those little rock nine, they came to Harvard Law School once a few years ago. There were too many people in that audience who did not know who they were. I did not like that. The country has the power, it has the capacity, it has the ability to get together and not be so difficult and maybe that is the dream i have. I do not know. If you saw this constitution being implemented every day from where i sat in that court for 28 years, maybe you would say there is something to be a bit optimistic about the people who live in the United States. We want to open the floor up to students. As you make your way to the microphones, i have a last question about the rule of law and the questions that we seem to be wrestling with about whether anyone is in fact above the law. Judge cannon and her judgments about the maralago search, talked about a president being a heightened, reputational risk. If he is not above the law, he seems to be orbiting somewhere adjacent to it. I am wondering how you think we should be thinking about clinton b jones, explicitly, no one is above the law. That is true. Different ways, different situations. That is true, no one is above the law. [laughter] ok. There we are. You want me to talk about the maralago case, no, i am not going to talk about the maralago case. [laughter] let me ask the students to identify your name and University Affiliation and make sure you ask a brief question out of courtesy to others who want to ask questions, as well. Questions end in a question mark. There are four mics here. Thank you for coming today, my name is sarah and i am a graduate student at harvard vanity school. My question is, what is your proudest accomplishment on the Supreme Court . Thank you. True answer is, i do not know. That has more to it then you think. I think what you do, and as a judge whether you are on the Supreme Court or not, you try to decide the case as best you can and you try to write your reasons as fast you can. Then, you think this case, my god, i have done a great job. This case, maybe not so much. We do not know. It is you, my friend, and your children and your grandchildren who will decide what lasts and what does not. You do not think really as a judge, keep yourself under control and try to keep that enemy of mankind, the human ego, under wraps as best you can. Others will say in the future what helped and what did not help. That is something for you to decide. Good question. Thank you for coming here. My name is jonathan lott, a master of Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy school. My question regards the legitimacy of the court. Do you believe there should be judicial reform with regard to how justices are appointed and with regard to how long they serve . I said that before, i dont see a real problem there has to be a very long term. There wouldnt be a lot of angst. 20 years, Something Like that. Fine. It has to be long, you do not want someone in that job to be thinking about, what is my next job . If you have a long, definite term like most countries have, it would be fine. That would be fine as far as im concerned. I have said that many times. Looks like theyve got a student up there. My name is george, a first year at the college. With all the discussion of Public Opinion and the Supreme Court, how often, if ever, do you think Supreme Court justices are swayed whether they realize it or not, by Public Opinion . That is a very good question, i think that is what is lurking beneath what you are asking. There is a flip answer, which is a little bit to flip. Then, there is an answer i do not quite know. He flip answer is to say, of course, do not look at Public Opinion. You do not want a judge if you are a defendant in a criminal case, you do not want a judge who is thinking, is this popular or not popular . Absolutely not. Why do i say, but . There is a deeper answer. If you look at the history of the court, overlong periods, i think you discover that they do not get into their individual cases not all that have some political resonance or the people are really interested in the result. They do not get too far away from Public Opinion. Now, what do i mean by that . If you go back to the cases that people think were terrible, like lochner, taft had been president of the United States. That court probably put great emphasis on two words in the constitution, one was property and the other was contract. He said, why did they do that . One possible reason an interesting book was written on the economy of the United States after the civil war. What his theory was, which probably was tafts theory, before the civil war, putting slavery to the side, this was a very poor country. There are a few books i could give you on that, very poor. Suddenly after the civil war, we have energy, railroads, telegraphs, you name it. We also had changes in the way of financing things. Maybe they were not good people, i had no idea on that. They did produce some things that spread the wealth pretty quickly compared to many countries, around this country. That is what taft is thinking. He is thinking the progressives are going to kill the goose that had the golden egg. By the time he had the new deal, we had appointments. When i grow up, every single Supreme Court justice had been appointed by a democrat. I thought they were supposed to be democrats. That is not how it works. People who believe in true laissezfaire was a new deal and courts. There were 25 unemployment, it was terrible, the depression. Of course if they thought the taft court, no. The nature of the court changed. It changed. You suddenly saw the new deal court, you saw the agencies, the Central Government gaining power. Once again, though it is harder to pin down the theory, what did the court do . The theory of the earlier court was judicial restraint. The warren court came after world war ii, we had fought world war ii and we had ended world war ii with a agreement among the nations who had won and more than that that we will emphasize democracy, human rights, rule of law, more freetrade and together dealing with multinational groups with problems. Those were the kind of ideals. Worn new perfectly well that all likelihood what ken burns said the other night on television in a documentary about the treatment of the jews, that hitlers said hitler said in the 1930s, americans are complaining about the way we treat the jews . Has anyone toward the south of the United States and seen how they treat black people . Huh. Well, the world knew that. People around the country began to know that, they understood that. You see it shift. My explanation in part, for a shift in the nature of the court not to relieve judicial restraint, but emphasizing basic human rights, emphasizing the need for a degree, perhaps more, of equality. Now, the question is, you put it well. You have no appointments and is there going to be another what i call, a paradigm shift. I think the truthful answer, in my mind, as to whether there is going to be a big paradigm shift is, i do not know. Some favorite, some are against it. You are there on that court for a while. The first five years you think, how am i going to do this . Jesus, it is one thing to be on the court want to be on the court, and then be on it. After a while, you adjust. You say, i do my best and that is about it. Do real perk on being on the court, you have to do your best the real perk of being on the court, you have to do your best. They will see over time, there are a lot of unwrittens about how you work unwritten rules about how you work as a justice. The way we analyze on this case does not affect the next case. There are laws. I think they will see, like everybody sees, that no absolute theory absolutely works. You are there as a justice, you were appointed but you are there as a justice. When you are there as a justice, you are there for everybody. That is what you try, you are there for everybody. Everybody has to think, you are doing your best to be fair. A little corny to say, but they are there. We will see over time. No guarantees. No guarantees in this world, but we will see. I say, there are certain features i have described vaguely which i think will go against what you might call as a pure, politicallybased approach which, as you can see, i do not think is the right description anyway. We will have to see. I will put a question mark. Good question, i cannot easily answer it. I believe no one, including the individuals involved, can easily answer it now. Hello, thank you for joining us today. My name is keira, i am a first year at the college. A lot of americans see the Supreme Court as a beacon of the idea that there can be Justice Without the idea of politicization. The last couple of years, there has been a political asian of the process of politicalization of the process. My question is, within your 30 years of service, have you noticed changes in the personal dynamics of the Supreme Court and how justice is usually respect each other while they are not necessarily in front of the American People . There are three parts to your question. The last part i would say, not too much. Personally people get on. They get on. I liked it when Sandra Oconnor was there, i liked it when david souter was there. They meshed. Everybody got on with everybody, i remember one day i was at lunch. We had lunch together usually. We had just disagreed about cases in the conference. I said, it is amazing, we are here having a agreeable conversation. We get on perfectly well. Just a half hour ago, we were down in that room, he says, i know. And half the court but the other half was out of their minds. That is true, that can happen. We get on fairly well personally. As far as the appointments process is concerned, in that conference room, i never heard a voice raised in anger. Some getting fairly close a couple, but. Not going to get you anywhere, do not do it. Do not do it. It does not, people try to get on and they do get on personally fairly well. Appointments process, u. S. Me about the appointments and confirmation process is like asking the recipe for chicken a la king from the point of view of the chicken. [laughter] that is true. I did work into senate. I would say judging on the basis of that experience in what i know about the congress, the questions that will be asked and the actions that will be taken by a senator are very much influenced i what he thinks his constituents are telling him. When i talk at sanford, i say, there is a lot you can do. The people to be convinced are not senators and congressmen, they are the americans who elected them. You say, can i persuade them . I say, i worked for senator and i loved that job. He told us a couple of things, one of them, he said the enemy of the best is the enemy of the good. If you are trying to get something through, take 30 rather than 0 and be a hero to those that normally like you. Forget the heroism, just try to get what you can. If you get something positive, take it as opposed to nothing. He would also say, credit, credit is a weapon. Forget about it. Credit, if you get the thing through, there will be plenty of credit to go around. If you do not get it through, who once the credit . What he meant by that, which is good advice, here is what you do. When you have people who disagree with you and disagree a lot, you sit down and talk to them. Now, what does talking to the mean . It means, get them to talk, not you. Listen to what they say. If they talk long enough, they will Say Something you agree with. When they do, you say, lets work with that. Lets work with that. Then, you try to build on that and get your 30 or 40 or 50 . That is what you try to do. I saw him do that a lot. Im not saying he was totally uninterested in credit. He had to get elected. Compare to what people think a lot less. Get them to talk. If you work it out and i saw him do this a lot, then, there is the press conference. At that press conference, he says, senator do not talk to me. Senator hatch was so helpful on this. He deserves a lot of the credit for his ability to bring people good. Then, senator hatch is remembered time. You know . I was lucky enough to work at their work there at that time. I thought that was good advice. You listen, find out what people are thinking, see what you can work with and have we not just had covid . In cambridge, while we are having covid, we have groups of people going around to old people saying they have something to eat and seeing they are ok. I saw that happening on my street. Ok, that didnt just happen in cambridge mass, that happened in san diego, that happened in st. Louis, that happened in boise, all over this country. That is why, corny but true. I think one of the characteristics of the United States of america is she had four kids working on something about san francisco, they get one grade. If they are going to get one grade, they better work together. Ok. We knew how to do that. We learned how to do it. We are not too bad at it. Think about that, i think, sure. We can. We can. We can talk to each other. So, there we are. That is what i learned from senator kennedy about the nomination process, that is what i learned about all your questions. A long answer. [laughter] we have time for one last question. I see a lot of the waiting, apologies for those who didnt get a chance to ask. My name is clive, i am a sophomore at the college. Spending time engaging with the various constitutional interpretations, i find your approach to pragmatism most closely aligns to what i would consider on the Supreme Court. I give you credit. How much pragmatism is involved since you sat on the bench . Have any decisions or trends caused you to moderate your approach . It is pragmatism in a certain sense. Some of you might have majored in philosophy, i do not know. If you did, you probably read purse, james, willard van armen quine, their idea about pragmatism is not exactly, do whatever it is good. It is, remember the institutions involved in this. A lot of them stare decisis is one. There are different parts to law. That is one that is why they have lost school, at least a few years. It is seen as a whole, it should work out better. It should. It doesnt always, but you try. Ok. I will look to see what they do in england, i just heard talk at st. Thomas equine did this. They said this in france, the civil code he said when the text is clear, follow the text. The text is never clear, at least in the Supreme Court. What do you do . If it is a statute, this statute was designed to try to stop. Look to the consequences. Consequences related to that statute. Look to, you name it. I read the legislative history. That can help. Depends on the case. Look to the values that are basically in that american constitution, which came from scotland and france, initially. The enlightenment. Then, you have material that you can use to try and help deal with a difficult case, which that material will not qed logically compel a result. That is what judges are supposed to be. The interesting thing about a judge, if you try to complement a judge, do not say she is a brilliant judge. Do not say that. It is a professor you want to say that. You want to complement a judge, his or her decisions are sound. That is the complement for the judge she is a sound judge. What does it mean . Nobody knows, exactly. [laughter] they sort of understand it when they see it. There you are, with your instincts and abilities. So far, they are there, and your weaknesses and ego, unfortunately. A lot of different tools you have, you have your law clerks to help and you do your best. Corny, but true. Justice breyer, thank you for your time this evening, your service, for returning to harvard and giving us so much to think about and be hopeful about at a time where that can sometimes be in short supply. Thank you from all of us. [applause] [indiscernible conversations]