northwestern university. he taught with elena kagan and president obama at the university of chicago. thanks to all of you for coming n i want to pick your brain on what she s like, what she s all b josh, let me start with you. you worked with her in the clinton white house. what s she like? smart as a whip. fair. aggressive. and, you know, we worked closely together on tobacco and tobacco legislation. how to keep it out of the hands of kids and standing up against hate crimes. she is incredibly fair and at harvard where she was my dean, continued to show can you build consensus and do the right thing. you mean a liberal? no, i would say on a whole host of issues. professor stone, you were with her at the university of chicago. what impressed you? well, elena is smart. she is tough minded,
law and administrative law. he taught, president obama taught constitutional law as well. is that right? that s correct. so was it exactly the same subject or different aspects of constitutional law? well, i think elena specialized more in the first amendment and president obama taught a separate he taught the basic constitutional law course and also taught a course on race in the law. josh, when you worked with her at the white house for president clinton, she was not a lawyer. she worked in domestic policy. she was also a lawyer earlier. earlier she was an associate counsel and legal office. but when you worked with her, she was a policy adviser? exactly. she focused on policy making and helping advise the president on very important issues like hate crimes and obviously a breadth of issues. was she forceful, meek, behind the scenes, out front? talk a little bit about her style. she is really a consensus builder and pragmatist. it s exactly what i saw when i