for while. i want to place, i still don't know where the location was and is taken by people in plain clothes. at the time you don't know who was interrogating you. i realized at a certain point this dvd a half in the car and they need to get rid of it. i made my way to the car. at one point i excuse myself to the bathroom, tried to destroy the dvd by breaking it apart. i don't know if you've ever tried to break apart a dvd but it is quite hard. and so i shoved it down the drain. went back into the interrogation room feeling confident that i've gotten rid of evidence that could possibly keep me there for longer than i wanted to be. and about five minutes later a guy came in about them, comes in with a piece of the dvd in his hand. >> more with jehane noujaim, director of "the square" tonight at eight on c-span's q&a. >> alan dershowitz talks with the coming a lawyer and in many cases he's handled over the past 50 years. this hour-long program is next on booktv. >> welcome everybody. it's delight full -- it's delightful to see you all. and remarkable in a funny way for the two of us to be here. i feel as if you ought to be tutoring me for one of our final exams, which you used to do. we've known each other for over 50 years as you've just heard, and i don't know how that came to be, but you say in your book that you're a dreadful student until you went to college, during elementary school and secondary school you were a disaster. what turned it around? >> i don't know. i wish i knew. in elementary school and high school i was a c. and d. student. i have in my book an actual photograph of my senior semester report card with 60 in physics, red circle around it. 60 in math, red circle around. 65 in history, and i managed to squeeze out and ate in english. so i had a 67 average and i was actually suspended from the varsity basketball team not for athletic deficiencies but for academic deficiencies. and i went to a jewish parochial school, and my principal who iss an orthodox rabbi called me in and said dershowitz, you've got a big mouth but not much of a brain. usage of to figure out something you can do with your life where you talk about what you don't have to think a lot. he said you could be a conservative rabbi, or you could be a lawyer. i wasn't smart enough to be a rabbi so i became a lawyer. and so at age 16 and have i was a failure, and by age 17 and a half, i was at the top of my class in brooklyn college with a straight face. i never got a b. i think the reason was i didn't change as much as the school change. i went to a college where anything went. you could ask any question. you could raise any issue, whereas the high school i went to you were punished essentially for raising questions that were critical. i do think that brooklyn college sydney. if i'd better grades in high school you and i would've been classmates because i would've tried to get into columbia. >> i was turned down by columbia based on my grades and as a likely that brooklyn college which a preschool and had an exam you could take to get in. him. i think that's what turned me around. one person told me i was smart. a camp counselor who i have a lot of respect for told i was more. i said no, no, no. i just have a good memory. he said you are smart. that's something and gave me confidence. >> you once told me you had two feet for your legal work. outrageous every. tell us about one in each category. >> i do have of my cases for free. i represented lots and lots of people. for example, i represent soldiers, and first responders and police officers, people who in my view or for any numbers public service but are underpaid. and so i have a policy of representing them free. in my book, "taking the stand" i talk about representing the hero of "black hawk down" in mogadishu when he was being investigated for creating an atmosphere around which some of his soldiers may have acted irresponsibly. i represented in the free and we got the charges dropped. i represented a woman some years ago was locked in a mental hospital, and it was a case where her family was trying to be rid of a nuisance rather than a true case of mental illness. just the other day i was thinking about that and she came up to me at a book signing and reminded me that i had quote saved her life. two young boys on death row who were innocent. their father had committed the murders for which they were sentenced to death. i represented them. that case took me nine years, and someone once asked me what my biggest fear was, and i said sharansky. they said we did know he had any money. and i said he didn't, but when i was able to help him get free and returned to his wife and family and he whispered in my ear the hebrew blessing, blessed are those who help free the imprisoned, that was the biggest the i will ever get. entrance of the outrageous fees, if i'm representing billionaires, why not charge what the going rate is? i use my billion a cases defined my poor cases, and it works out. >> you said that the greatest legal wonder if of the 20th century was committed by president clinton's lawyer in the paula jones case. roderic lyne. could you explain that although the? >> i just to the state cannot imagine why the president of the united states who had his choice of any lawyer in the country would take a lawyer who didn't tell him that he had the option not to have to testify about his sex life in the paula jones case. albeit to do, just go to the clerk's office, had his lawyer, deposit the check for $750,000 which was the amount of a lawsuit, the case is over. but he never told the president he had that option. gilad told him he could either settle the case, the other side did want to settle on positive terms, or he would have to litigate. when i told the president that come he was shocked that he did know he had this option. so i called robert bennett on the phone. i said, is a tree didn't have the president of his third option? he said absolutely, it's true. i said why not? he said would've been a stupid idea for him to default the case. isn't that his decision to make, not yours? well, that's what robert bennett didn't tell the president. i think that was the greatest legal blunder. it got the president impeached, almost argument guided and the idea that a president had to testify about his sex life is so beneath the dignity of the presidency, doesn't mean the president should have done it, he would not try to testify, but if he didn't testify and simply said that the dignity of the presidency does not permit me to talk about anything private, i think he would have survived. but that's his decision to make. and laura's job is to tell the client what the options are. >> and taking the stand, your new book, you talk about the only crimes you ever committed. do want to tell that story? >> well actually, since i wrote that book i may have committed another one. so let me be very clear. they both involve my son. my son was 10 years old, and he had a very serious brain surgery, very strict brain surgery when he was 10, and he recovered very well and went back to work. it always works on newspapers at harvard square. monday to folks came and beat them up, much enforcement. $3 or $5 that he had. beat him in the and knocked two teeth out. and then -- they were arrested, and when they met in court again for some of the time the tickets came over to my son and said, unless you drop the charge, next up will you in front of the train. and so i saw these kids and i walked up to them and i mentioned the name of the man i was representing at the time. i was representing him only on a marijuana charge, but he was a notorious hitman for the mob. and he killed his clients in a particularly brutal way, and all it did was mentioned the name of my client and tell these kids how much my client admired me, and made it clear to them that if they touched my son again, my client would find out about it. these kids that down on their hands and knees and begged me not to do it. i probably committed a crime, but the next one was just recently, a few much ago. my son again have a problem, went to the hospital, and when he got out he was opening a cab door. i was with him, and a woman was sitting in the cab and she dropped her bottle of wine and it broke, and my son in italy said, let me pay for the. i apologize. but in the end came around and started to punch my son. and here i am, the 75 year old guy, and i reared back and i punched him in the jaw, knocked his glasses off and he ran away. and probably that was assault. not with a different weapon but a salt. and i would do it again in a minute, anybody attacks my children, my loved ones, no matter how old i am. i'm going to respond. >> i grew up in brooklyn. we restricted. we learned how to fight back. >> what has been the single funniest moment you've had in court? >> i won the case was by telling a joke. i was representing the movie i am curious yellow. remember that? you probably watched it on general television today, probably get maybe an r. rating, maybe a gp rating. advantage gp rating. advantage of that film was sentenced to a year in jail for showing and obscene film. i made the argument for the first time that it never been made before. and ultimately succeed in front of at least this judge that what went inside the movie did was utterly irrelevant. that the government had no stake in the inside of a theater. they only had rights to protect the public about what was outside the theater where you have no choice but to see it. the judge didn't seem to be getting the argument. and i said, in chambers we had a little conference and i said, maybe this will make the point. reminded him the star of a jewish man was walking in a small town in eastern europe and his watch broke, and he saw a stastore with watches and clockn the window and he said, went to the store and said can you fix her watch? finance and fix your watch? i don't fix watches. i perform circumcisions. perform circumcisions? then why do you have watches and clocks and you wind up with a guy said what should you want i should put in my window? [laughter] i told the joke, the judge laughed and he got it. it depends on what's in the window. and ruled in our favor. that was a strange moment. >> you also once told an historic about your your father. the argument you made that your father had learned something from seeing the film. >> it's funny because generally when a represent a film, i've represent my share of them, nudity, upside down to be, every single kind of nudity. generally i don't watch the film. for example, i didn't come after i am curious yellow i watched, i represent the film deep throat and the represented the actor, to this day. i've not seen the film because i want to make the point to judge this is not about the film. this is about choice. i've never seen an abortion. i favor a woman's right to choose abortion that i've never witnessed gay sex. i favor the right of gay people in every other people to do what they want in the privacy of their home. i don't have to see something to think that the state has no right to control it. so i've never seen the film deep throat and have no interest in seeing the film. i've interest in making sure that you don't have to see it if you don't want to come but you can see it if you choose to. so that's the argument i make when it comes to films. maybe somebody will learn something from the film, maybe they will learn the wrong thing but you can learn the wrong thing from reading marks or reading the bible. that's not the limits on the first amendment that you might learn the wrong thing. >> you're a young man and -- >> compared to you. i think it's six months on a. >> i do. after only 50 years of teaching at harvard law school, this is your last semester. >> right. >> what does your future hold? >> who knows, who knows? i don't think of it as retirement but as a career change. i've had the same job 50 years. you've been president of a great university for 20 years. that may be a world record considering presidency. by the way, steve's new book on presidencies is a brilliant book and it's not only about presidency, it's about leadership, philly, successes. it's a great book. i think when you get to be our age, you do think about what you would like to do you haven't done. people ask all the time to is there anything have it done? if there hasn't, i want to do. haida want to make anything am going to write more books, litigate more cases. don't think i'm not going to do is teach. i thought 10,000 students, and they've arranged from ted cruz on the right to eliot spitzer. don't blame me for -- out take responsibility for eliot spitzer. i'll tell you why. because he worked for me as a research assistant and you vote for the best research assistants i ever had any worked so hard. one day i said, you're working so hard, go out and have fun cao something. well, i don't know whether that was -- [laughter] but i take no responsibility for ted cruz and his political views. my job as a professor is not to turn conservatives into liberals are liberals into conservatives. it's to make them better analytical thinkers. if you came into my class conservatives i want you to leave as a smart conservative. same true with a liberal. >> your introduction in the book sets the scene with the autobiography as presented as a witness taking a stand to extend this metaphor a bit, who do you see as the judge and who do see as the jury? >> it's a great question, and in america of course the ultimate jury i is a the american people. our legal system is determined more about what the american people think than what nine judges think. no matter what the supreme court has said about obscenity, clearly torn on your cable television, go to any video store, go on the internet and we see that the public has prevailed. you can see anything. you can watch anything. obviously, hopefully not child pornography because that's a child rape that exploits young children. that's an ongoing crime. but when we did with adults, anything goes. the people govern in the end. my ultimate jury are the people. the judges, maybe my students, particularly law students. i want law students to read this book for i want them to learn about not only the law but how to live the passion of your time, how not to compromise. how not to look back after the end of your career and say, i missed this, i miss that, i miss all the other thing to offer when homes arch people to live the passion of the times. i tried to do that and want to convey those lessons to my judge and jury. >> if i were running a screenplay to your memoir one thing i would have to establish is the critical moment in which he became infatuated with the law. you don't mention that in the book. is there such a moment? >> no. that's why i don't mention it. i never ever thought of doing anything but being a criminal lawyer. all of my life i knew i wanted to argue with people. i wanted to be contentious and wanted to be confrontational. in your face. that's who i was. i think the secret of success, if is any, is to know what you are, not what you want to be or what somebody wants to make you. the difference between my two clerkships is justice goldberg was a great man, supreme court justice, wanted to remake me in his image. he wanted me to be a supreme court justice. i had no interest. judge david babylon want me to be myself. being myself was always been contentious, confrontational. and as you remember from reading the book, i said there are really two characters. there's the durst character, the one you see on television pointing his finger and over talking the next to an always on if the last and then the real alan who never went an argument with his family, who is a complete and total push over. who hates confrontation at home or with my friends, and i try to live a life that balance is the dersh character in the real alan. "the new york times" reviewer generally gave the book quite a good review, said that she wishes more of the book had been written by the real alan rather than the dersh character. that's an actual fairpoint. i think mostly the dersh character wrote the book. the dersh character is a much more interesting than but if you want to read a book, you really don't want to read about boring at all whose wife tells him what to do and whose children awesome record you are really much preferred to read about the dersh character. i'm even much more interesting guy. >> on a related note -- >> do i sound awful schizophrenic? >> i do know. you briefly considered by jews are over representing in fields like law. one theory you're probably acquainted with is that jews face the pervasiveness discrimination for many years. and a good knowledge of legal minutia was immense to protecting themselves. in following this there you mentioned that your grandfather contrived affidavit when he married his eldest, trapped in germany. could you expand on that? >> i don't think so much that jews are up for -- as they are underrepresented in professional football and professional basketball. when i was 15 or 16 i much prefer to have been point guard for the new york knicks or the shortstop for the brooklyn dodgers, but nature didn't pointing in that direction. so jews have dominated in many parts of the world at least numerically the legal profession, touring england, france, in north africa. it was true in the former soviet union. it's certainly been true in the united states. i think part of the reason is jews are always on trial but we've always been accused. you killed jesus. you are at fault in the inquisition. the dreyfus affair. you name it, jews have been on trial. we have needed lawyers. abraham argued with god about saddam. i don't think it's in our nature. i think is partly in the religion. half of jewish law tells you what you can't get any other half figures out what you can get around your just like the irs code. i think it's quite natural. that there are a lot of jewish lawyers. i think that's going to change. i noticed now among my classes that some of the more dominant lawyers to represent racial minorities. first of all women of cores are becoming dominant figures in the law, asian-americans, african-americans, latino americans. i think to everything there is a season. i don't know whether it's a season of jewish influence in the law will continue as it has in the past. >> why had he chosen to write this book that? >> well, 75 years old, 50 years of teaching, my 30th book. who knows what the future holds? i had a lot to say about. 500 pages. i could've written 5000 i only deal with maybe 5% of my cases. i wanted to write about the first amendment and my views on national security being alice. became at a perfect time because i really anticipate the nsa problems, balancing national security with privacy, balancing censorship with national security. i wanted to write about how science imposes the law. -- influences the law. i've added 36 cases dealing with death, homicide, attempted homicide, all of those kind of cases. in most of them i avoid them by science. i'll give you one quick example to many of you know, o.j. simpson to come this is the last well-known case. represent a woman named sandy murphy allegedly killed her boyfriend, much older, rich man, she allegedly had another younger boyfriend. allegedly killed her older boyfriend by compressing his chest so that his lungs couldn't expand and he couldn't breathe. and the proof was that there was a button marked on his body that corresponded to the button on his shirt exciting is in place, seem like very compelling evidence. the jury convicted. when i got the case on appeal, i looked at the picture and i saw something suspicious and i had it blown up many, many times the size. i showed it to the chief dermatologist at mass. general hospital and sure enough he concluded but a very careful look at the structure of the veins and others in the alleged bruise that wasn't a bruce bechtol. it was a benign tumor that had existed well before this incident and, therefore, it proved nothing. we won the case. we got it reversed. she had a neutral. she won her a quick. she is now living happily with her two children and running an art gallery. i want to write about cases like that. i want to write about cases involving a conflict between science on the one hand and public perception. everybody thought she was gilded. after all, she's the woman with the boyfriend. he's the older guy. you know, you think you know it into your look at the science. the science sometimes can upset some of the most fundamental feeds that people have based on what they think is commonsense. >> how would you characterize the relationship between lawyers and judges? any particular examples you want to talk to? >> this water, judges are often contentious relationship. there's the joke about the angel gabriel calls sigmund freud and said, we need a consult. god's having delusions of grandeur. he thinks he's a federal judge. when you'd appear before as many judges as i have, the arrogance that some of them have, some of them don't get some of them are very humble. jack weinstein, phenomenal, doesn't like to wear robes. you have these pompous judges who think the about everything d you think they're supposed to control the legal system, and they are not the best and brightest often, even the supreme court of the united states today i think is mediocre supreme court. it doesn't have very many really, really first rate lawyers on a. the chief justice was a first rate appellate lawyer. he certainly is qualified. but many of the others are perforce sensorial and they are good professors but when you see some of the opinions coming down the road lacked practical insight as to what happens in the courtroom. this supreme court needs a few real practicing lawyers, particularly practicing criminal lawyers, some who've worked on the defense but there are several former prosecutors, but the judges often are arrogant, they irrigated to themselves what juries should to comment and i think it's an unsettling relationship. they should be a contentious relationship between judges and lawyers. lawyers have to defend their clients, and i don't like what i called sarah lee bush. nobody doesn't like sara lee. i'm not terribly. a lot of people don't like me. including some judges. i think it's good that would. >> let me dig into some controversial -- less controversial areas. do you have any thoughts about the situation at issue in? >> really noncontroversial, thank you for that one. idea. i think there are three options with iran, or four options. one option is iran gets a nuclear bomb. that is a horrible option to consider. they already have the delivery system that can deliver nuclear bombs to southern europe. those and have delivery systems that can deliver nuclear bombs to the united states. they are potentially a suicide mission. one of their leaders, the liberal leader said look, if israel were to drop a bomb -- if iran were to drop a bomb on tel aviv and kill two or 3 million jews, israel would retaliate by dropping a bomb on tehran telling 10 to 20 million muslims, and he said a trade off would be worth it because that would wipe out the jewish state and islam would still survive. people to elect or appoint leaders like that cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. look, the second worst thing that could happen would be a military attack on a rain. the second worst thing. the worst thing is for iran to develop nuclear weapons. the second worst thing that could've happened in the 1930s would have been for england and france to attack nazi germany in 1936. the first thing was not to attack them and allow them to develop the most hostile melter in the world with tens of mensa people who could have been saved, having been killed. so short of those two extremes, there are two other options. one, diplomacy. i would stay with diplomacy. i wanted to diplomacy tried but diplomacy will only work if the sanctions are maintained. so the options include keeping the sanctions. i do not understand the american position. that said, let's weaken the sanctions, let's eliminate some sanctions in exchange for the iranians are doing what? nothing. so the iranians are saying we won't continue to develop nuclear weapons. we will have extensive action for you eliminating the sanctions. it's a dumb negotiating position. we are then put i in the positin of negotiating from a position of weakness, not strength but i do not want to see a military attack on iran but i do not want to see war. the best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to make sure the sanctions are kept in place for a -- or increase while we are negotiating. if you can negotiate a good deal, they can give up their nuke program, eliminate the sanctions but nobody wants to see a necessary sanctions but don't reduce the sanctions until there's a commitment to eliminate their nuclear program. right now we are in a disastrous course, disastrous for america, disastrous for the world. french recognize that. the israelis recognize that. many in our state department recognized that the many in a treasury department recognize that. i hope the president and the second estate both of whom are friends of mine, both of whom i have tremendous admiration for personally get to understand that if you want to stop war, you have to negotiate from a position of strength. to keep the sanctions. don't limit them now. >> what can be done to advance israel's space and will? >> israel should be actively engaged in peacemaking with the palestinians. they should not be expanding settlement building. i think that a two-state solution is the only reasonable solution in the middle east. it has to involve sacrifices on both sides. the end of any right of return for palestinians pay with blood israel with people who don't approve of there being a nationstate for the jewish people. eventually there has to be land compromise whereby israel maintains its boundaries at the security border now that -- but exchangexchanges land for land i think everybody knows what a solution will look like. what we need is the will to bring it about. i think there has to be greater will on all sides, trying to really on the part of visual, on the part of the palestinians and the united states. i'm optimistic. i think it's a good time for a compromise resolution so that the world can focus on the real problem of the middle east, which is iran. >> let me bring it back home. how do we balance our first amendment rights when it comes to issues of national security? >> adlai. we don't do a very good job. we overclassify enormously -- badly. if you look at everything that is classified today, i think you would come to the conclusion 90% of it is designed to protect the reputations of incoming administrators rather than to protect the national interest of our country, the legitimate secret interest. that's what inspires people like snowden and manning and ellsberg, namely to engage in acts of civil disobedience. we have to start declassifying. we have to keep your secrets. went to make sure that the real secrets, the names of spies, the locations of safe houses, the important codes to our weapons and to our satellites are kept secret. it should be a crime to reveal that information, but the way the espionage laws are written today, anything is a secret and everything that's disclosed is a growing. it's technically a crime today for "the new york times" to publish classified information, even though they say they some classified sources we are telling you the following. they boast about it, bragged about it because we have a policy of not going after "the new york times" but the statute permits you. we have to rewrite the national security laws. where to strike a better balance, abolish the fisa court. fisa court is a disaster but it's not a real court. nothing should ever be called the court when both sides do not have an opportunity to appear in front of the. if you want to have a real court, you have to have a group of lawyers have security clearance to present the devil's advocate point of view on every national security warrant. is a privacy interest trough, political, the right of people have to come. you have to both sides presented and then you can have a balanced judgment by a real court. we don't have a real adversarial process. >> talk a little more on snowden and the country's handling of the issue. >> i understand the argument that snowden committed a crime. he took an oath that he would not reveal classified material. he did. they were published to the great embarrassment perhaps to some loss of our national security. he may be a hero but if he is a hero might be is yet to come back to the united states can stand talking make his defense in the court of public opinion and the court of law, and take the consequences of civil disobedience the way martin luther king did and the way others who have been great civil disobedience starting with john peter zenger. but to reveal the information in violation of the law and then run away to me as not a true sign of header was and. i understand what he's doing i think would be better for everybody if he came back and stood trial spent why getting people to talk about the oj case? >> it was not important in and of law but it was in the racial divide. in the united states. it revealed the racial divide that we thought we had put behind us. people to decide, like in the trayvon martin case. they didn't get with the facts were. they took sides. i think that's why people to ask me about it. when it comes to places like this, often people come over and i think we're related, we have a cousin in common. was doing the oj simpson case even my mother denied in related to me. [laughter] it was really, really a cause of unpopularity. people hated me. they didn't hate me during the trial. they said he is giving a guilty defendant is due process rights. they hated me when he was acquitted. when he was acquitted, he won that case? how could you have done that? we didn't win that case. the secret is the prosecution lost it. they did everything wrong. they tried on the glove. without knowing that under california what you could've tried the club on outside the presence of the jury first to see if it fit, then decide whether to do it in front of the jury. chris darden didn't do that. it was done for the first time in front of the jury. whether or not it didn't fit our oj didn't make it fit, region build people disagree but that but you don't to an extent like that unless you've tried it first. is like a dove as the quite alleged you know the answer. you don't try on the glove and let you know it's going to fit. >> people still talk about and utility answers. but ask a different totally different question. how pressure level of religious observance changed over the years? >> quite dramatically. when i grow up i would struggling orthodox, strictly kosher. i never even ate a cookie that didn't have a little circle around it that represented the certification. and something that the dean of the harvard law school kept me kosher when i was about 25, starting a teaching he invited me and all the women in the first your class to dinner, 13 or 14 of them, and after going around the table asking all of the women why they were taking the place of real men lloyd when i just want to come here to meet and marry harvard man, that was the old days, let me actually how a harvard professor changed history for get back to your answer. so one day this is a name dropping alert, name dropping store, so my wife and i have my wife issued today, we invited bill and hillary clinton to come to synagogue with us on martha's vineyard the second year of his presidency. he came and hillary came, and we had dinner together afterward and asked hillary why she hadn't gone to harvard law school. she said, harvard money. they turned it down? no. they accepted me but when i went to a lincoln christmas dance i had letters from harvard and john mack and i shall do a professor and said where should i go? he said went about as many women as we meet at harvard. llama is more suited to the feminine mentality. you ought to go to yale. as a result she went to you my. she met bill clinton. hatch not done that he never would've been president. this professor changed history. [laughter] harvard was loaded in those days with sexist professors who didn't think that women were able to think like lawyers. so when i went to dinner at the dean's house, it came to me afterwards into how committed and the my wife's roast beef? didn't you like it? she was upset. i said i'm kosher. he said you're still kosher? even the catholics have given this stuff about getting up meet on friday but don't you think you have your people change? i that he was joking but i said i'll talk to my people. [laughter] about a week later i saw them in all and i said i spoke to my people and they said, we been doing it for 3000, maybe a few more years but i think that kept me kosher for an additional four or five years. eventually my religious observance changed into political support for soviet jewry, for israel, you can see with some of its policies, and i became less absorbent. still go to synagogue from time to time, mostly because i enjoy the singing and the nostalgia. but i am not -- i have discovered once why that i was not a theological person. i was on an airplane taking my son to college. i write about in my book, and the appointed to make a crash landing, a serious problem on the plane and we did know whether we would survive or not. get 55 minutes before we could unload all of the fuel. in those 55 minutes never once did i think about god. that i make a deal with god. i discovered, i didn't decide, i discovered i was not a theological person. i discovered that god did not play a role in my life. and people say they can't be atheist or agnostic's in the fossil. it was one agnostic. i'm not an atheist but am an agnostic. i don't know. i write in my book about a per i wrote when i was 12 years old, the traditional hebrew wrestling -- i wrote i don't know. i'm not sure. why not try? so i was a data. i was a skeptic from the time i was a kid, and i didn't want to inflict my parents religion on my children. and so instead i inflicted my skepticism on my children, and none of us know what we believe about anything. >> how has the crime rate changed? >> the most dramatic change of any crime probably in modern history, when i started teaching and practicing criminal law, the rape laws were scandal. women could not get anything right, a fair shot the personal, he had to have corroboration. the only crime you need corroboration, a woman's word was not enough, absurd. basically the lawsuit everyone is a liar. and second, you needed, there was no rape shield law so women were questioned about their sexual history. it was a terrible. a man could rape his wife with impunity. and now everything has changed. it's far easier to prosecute real rapists and the amount of rate has gone down medically, particularly date rape. when i'm starting to teach college, date rape was almost acceptable on some campuses. in her 30s, among teams, much of me would brag about the conquest. today you don't find that on colleges. i think colleges and universities get a tremendous amount of credit for having taken this issue very socially. they haven't solved the problem but they've addressed it and they've improved the situation dramatically. >> thank you. i think got to try and bring the audience in to the conversation. >> sure. >> hard questions first. >> there you go. >> let's go directly to the second question. come on up. asked the second question that it's hard to get the first question but the second question easy. go ahead. >> i want to ask you more about your opinion in supreme court cases. as a disenfranchised american citizen from puerto rico, subject to mean injustices for being a second class citizen, among them not being able to vote for president or members of congress, do you think it is time for the supreme court to revisit the insular cases and revoke the antiquated plessy v. ferguson decision that were made based on speed i don't know if you noticed but i brought that case of years ago in a case called -- >> i was not. >> we try to get the supreme court to rethink that i represented a woman who was a u.s. citizen, born, however, in puerto rico and, therefore, subject to having her citizenship revoked by congress. she was not a constitutional system. she was a statutory citizen, and the supreme court has not going to take the case. i think you're 100% right. i think there is an equal protection problem, and i think that if we're going to be in control of whatever it is of puerto rico or any other territories, we have to have complete rights for all citizens, that includes the right for citizenship, the right to run for president and every other right that a citizen board on mainland of the united states or hawaii and alaska. so i'm with you 100%. >> thank you. i enjoyed your presentation. as an advocate of free speech, i wonder what you think about whether money is free speech. >> what a hard question. spin whether corporations have the same rights as you or i do. just as an aside, my namesake was twice as big as me, was a great card for the new york giants. >> no, no. the absurd notion that corporations are people for purposes of free speech, only a lower come up with that one. our robots also going of the right of free speech? look, when we have mouthwash movement particularly in the south, kautz entries had more influence than voters in some parts of the country. so of course corporations ought not to have the right to free speech. free speech is for individuals, for people. yes, money influences politics and the thing citizens united was a very close and difficult case. the aclu which is generally a left winning -- left-leaning workstation was on the side of citizens united and on the side of money being speech. i think reasonable people could disagree about that. what i don't like and i write about, jeffrey toobin reports, he's a good reporter, that john roberts, former student at harvard law school said to somebody that he was voting in citizens united in a way that he hoped would help the republican party. when justices vote party lines as they did in bush v. gore and his jeff toobin reports, lease one of them did in citizens united, that really puts the court into disrepute. at the into my book i predict, but focus about 100 years, 50 years pass, 50 years future, i talk about what i think is going to happen to the supreme court over the next 50 years and i think will diminish in its influence as it becomes more and more partisan. >> as long as passionate as 110,000 students, i just want to say hello. i remember, the late 80s, early 90s when used to loving term of henry. i want to ask about something else. i look back at my three years at harvard law school, your clasp stands at the foot of the most hospitable to conservative viewpoint. rehnquist and henry i felt comfortable talking in your class. i felt counsel and talking in a class but i got booed a lot and i don't get the sense that tolerance at harvard law school has improved even since then. i'm sort of a contemporary of the current president is a very -- i've hospitable place for concerts. i don't get a sense that his chain and i think that academia in general but even harvard law school is inhospitable to jewish students were a lot of jews now, fewer numbers and a lot of these places. if you want to advocate against gay marriage, for example, you're a racist but everything you get labeled, put as an outcast. that was true then and i think it's worse to spin it it's bettr in some ways, worse than others. today of course there are many articulate and brilliant conservatives who are prepared to speak out. when i first started teaching, those views were not expressed. i had to play the devil's advocate. although i'm a lifelong opponent to the death don't come in my class i make the case for the death penalty if nobody else will. i make the case for positions i don't believe in because somebody has to make that argument. i think the position of conservatives have strengthened at harvard law school with federal society and other groups like that. on the issue of juice i don't think it's hard to be a jew and universities today. at you for strong supports israel. if you are labeled a sinus and it's interesting i write about this in the book, i'm a liberal. gay marriage, a rights for women to choose, free speech but because of generous support israel i'm labeled as a conservative on that issue. expected. i support israel from a liberal perspective because i think that no country in history of the world ever faced with comparable threats to its existence has ever had a better record on human rights. and when you get an immediate like the current foreign minister of south africa, who recently said that the paragon of human rights is iran and that the pariah of human rights is israel, when you have a foreign minister of the country making an absurd and stupid and bigoted comment like that, you realize the world has become passively topsy-turvy. she would be welcomed in some universities if she made that statement, but, in fact, there is a great cartoon consistent with steve's book, a great cartoon when larry summers lost his job at harvard there was a cartoon of him saying to the people who fired him, you misunderstood what i said but i didn't say that women are not qualified to be brilliant at math. i said israel is the worst human rights record in the world. now can i have my job back? that would've been an acceptable thing to say. so i think that it is hard, harder to be a jew who openly supports israel on college campuses, but in general, particularly at harvard, if you have all of it of a thick skin and you're prepared to stand up and defend your views, you will never be center. you will never be shut down. i tell a story in the book when yasser arafat died a group of students came to me and asked me to represent them in the effort to fly the palestinian flag in the harvard yard. i said i'll represent you because i think you're right, you should be able to, but of going to have that leaflets calling yasser arafat's death and untimely death because if it only died for your target maybe they would get in peace at camp david and yasser arafat was a horrible, horrible mass murder of americans and jews and others, and you will him again and they said fine, and that was the first and then at its best to the flag goes up, my leaflets go out, everybody can present their point of view. some people feel uncomfortable. that's life. nobody of said the first amendment would make you comfortable. >> another one of your former students from the late 70s. >> great. >> i did not do very well in your course but -- >> i don't know that. >> -- the patty hearst trial. one of my questions is, i've been all sorts of law but one of the things i've done is become more of a commute organizer and one of the things i've seen -- >> there's a future in that. there was a guy named barack obama who started out that way. >> i have a son who is a laborer, one difficulty with lawyers and the law independent of the supreme court and the courts is you become distance from the people who are really concerned. i did a lot of litigation in the d.c. jail, and i say if i'd spent my time organizing the relatives i would have more effect on the city government. i guess if you have any comment on sort of role employers changing things. >> look, voters can change the world. a lot of my students come and harvard want to change the world. by the time they get out they don't $300,000 only way to pay off is to go to work for corporations and help the rich become superrich and the superrich become a mega rich and the megarich become outlandishly rich. not enough students i really permitted to follow their dreams because of the way the legal profession is structured. harvard has a very good program of forgiveness of loans if you go into the public interest. public interest is not defined as right left but anything that serves the public interest. i encourage my students, i tell my students, pay attention. statistically more of you will become criminal defendants than criminal lawyers. so pay good attention. that probably has been attacked of use and the like to see more of my students do what you're doing so i think you are a role model. >> one last comment. i was one of the great courses, precise because you talk or contradictory, you know, to what the students were normally -- >> thank you. i appreciate that. [inaudible] >> i'm not one of your -- >> it's not too late. i still have one more semester. >> i'm reading your book. you note in the book that is going to be a lot of gay rights and litigation. i wonder what you think about those suits for conversion, if you know anything. >> those are such hard cases. on the issue of gay rights generally, my grandchildren's generation don't even understand issue. why would anybody care? of course gay people should have complete equal rights whatever else. that's one of these issues that i think 30 years from now will be regarded as the same as -- when i was going up it was a crime in virginia for black men to marry out white woman or vice versa. i think gay rights will be thought of in that way but this one is a hard case. that is, can a state prohibit doctors, therapists, ministers, ordinary people from trying to convert a people and make them heterosexual, something which i think is obnoxious and despicable, but probably comes with some protection from the first amendment. that's the real lesson that i try very hard to teach in my book. why would i stand up and support nazis marching through skokie, illinois? i would hope they would slip on a banana peel and end, but i don't want the state to be doing it for us. i want everything to be free. free speech is not free. free speech is very expensive. all the bill of rights come with enormous costs attached to them. we have to strike the balance. we strike and promote justice system, we strike it hopefully in the first amendment area, better 10 things that should not have been allowed to be spoken gets spoken rather than one bd wrote in slate since it. have to strike balances in favor of liberty but do it with some degree of common sense and proportionality. we are a great country. we will survive nazis marching

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