Elena kagan speaks about the american legal system, her life and career and the polarization of the confirmation process for Supreme Court justices. From George Mason University earlier this month this portion is just over an hour. Students guests, president helton, Justice Kagan, friends and family of Roger Wilkins. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Second AnnualRoger Wilkins lecture. Which this year takes the form of a conversation of Supreme Court justice elina kagan. My name is matt shearer im associate professor of policy and government in this our school and director of the undergraduate program and philosophy and politics and economics the eb for short at george mason. The program is honored to be theinstitutional sponsor and host of the Roger Wilkins lecture. We are grateful for the trust and support place in us by the university andby the friends and family of Roger Wilkins. Whats the connection between our pbe program and these lectures . Im glad you asked. I spent a fair amount of time explaining what pbe is and what makes Masons Program unique. I can go onbut today im going to go straight to the ttbottom line. Our program exists to serve highly motivated to who want to help create Better Solutions for the difficult and pressing problems arise in the public life of a complex society. The problems that arise in different emsit in what Roger Wilkins in the first chapter of his autobiography calls with immense understatement obligated times such as our own today. It offers a foundation for students to build meaningful careers in civil service, journalism, business and the law and other socially engaged fields of endeavor. In this regard its my hope that generations of student will set their sights on the example set by Roger Wilkins. We couldnt be prouder of our association of this legacy. I have three brief Program Notes to make before turning over the podium. The first is youre going to be able to find an archive of this event as well as past lectures in the future wilkins lectures and more information about our program and our website is ppe. Gmu. Edu. During the event dont take pictures or videos out of consideration for those around you and on the state. Third and final note, at the conclusion of the event im going to ask you to hold your seats and allow Justice Kagan to leave first and we will follow after area without further ado its my pleasure to introduce the president of George Mason University, president and holden. [applause] thank you professor sheridan. Its a delight to see you all here today but you to join me in extending a warm welcome to Justice Kagan area Justice Kagan, we are thrilled to have you here to this bastion of access to excellent. Were proud of george mason and one of the things were proud of is that we can offer our students opportunities like this to hear from you. We are here for the Second Annual roger dwilkins lecture. We like to think that Roger Wilkins had a lot of Important Roles in his life, but we like to think is most Important Role was is 19 years of service here at George Mason University. Mentoring and fostering the growth of young minds and lives as a robinson professor of American History and culture. Robinson Professor Program is one that others are most distinguished professors and i believe we have another of robinson professors in theroom , if you could give us a way, thank you for beinghere. He did do a few other things in his life. He was the first africanamerican in a leadership role at the department of justice in the 1960s. Where he helped president kennedy and thenpresident johnson asked the amazing important of that era. He was the Washington Post and then in New York Times and editorial roles Washington Post during the watergate era and wrote some of the important editorials been were shared in the Pulitzer Prize most is the one for that work. Were excited to honor him today through this continuing lecture series and we are so excited to have Justice Kagan herewith us today. She and i have a number of things in common you may not know. We shared our undergraduate and graduate liners for princeton undergrads and she wrote the daily prince tony roin which i read. At harvard she was on the long review which i didnt read. And then we went on to have a significant overlap in our professional lives as well area i was a judge on the juvenile and domestic jrelations District Court for the city of richmond, literally the baby court in every way and she as you know is a justice on the highest court in the land. Even though those ports are quite different, there are some significant overlap and they are both all about the rule of. And the judges get all excited about the rule of law and not everybody quite understands that all the time but the fundamental part, the fundamental essence of the rule of law is the principle that all, that the rules apply equally to everybody so is fundamentally about the quality and when you travel in other countries as ive had occasion to do where the rule of law doesnt apply, where courts, where there isnt an independent functioning judiciary area where people are in certain parties or groups dont have to ycomply with the rules that others have to comply with. You remember what this, what the importance of this thing that we take for granted in our system, the rule of law. One of the consequences of having an judiciary system as we do is that judges cant always, they cant speak freely to defend their positions and they sometimes have to take unpopular positions because the rule of law so dictates. And yet i can only speak through their opinions. Therefore it makes it extra special to have an opportunity to hear from Justice Kagan here in an academic setting we can hear le more about how the whole system works so im very, very excited to hear her conversation today area before i turn the mic over want to knowledge we have professor wilkins wife patricia here with us who is retired i believe from her role as professor at Georgetown Law School and has served in olany, many other Important Roles as well. His daughter amy is with us. Also a great advocate, especially an advocate for children and families in all kinds of important opportunities and most especially im delighted we are near, we have a chance to welcome his daughter elizabeth who will be following me onstage in just a minute area elizabeth is the senior counsel to the dc attorney general carl racine. She is a yale or we will forgive her undergrad and law grad but most important way your today she had an opportunity to clerk for Merrick Garland on the dc court of appeals and then for Justice Kagan at the courts and for those of you who have any inkling of that, law clerk judge relationship is a very important one. Partly because judges are so isolated. Your clerks are your family, they are your window into the world and i know that elizabeth is thrilled to be here with Justice Kagan and vice versa and with that ill hand off to Elizabeth Wilkins area. [applause] good afternoon. Thank you president or that introduction. It is a real pleasure to be here today speaking at the lecture that honors our dad. And also introducing my former boss and mentor. It feels fitting to me that we are in a sense bringing together these two intellectual giants who have gdedicated their careers to public service. Above all else are dad talk to us to his students and really to anyone that would listen or read that we each have a fundamental civic duty rmake our country better. He brought all of his considerable talents ugand intellectual firepower to bear on ager questions of justice in his lifetime area using ever position or power he had in the service of those who had less. He did that most elegantly with his 10, writing time and again pauls arms against the evils he saw around him. Justice kagan in her term spent a career putting her enormous talents to work in nterms of the public good and expects the same of others. I can tell you i remember when i was interviewing to clerk with her she noted that administration. R the obama my time when i was not much older and many of thepeople in this room. And she asked me one with a question about the experience. What was the most important thing that you did for your country . To be clear i was like 24 at the time i was working in the Obama Administration so i felt overwhelmed by trying to answer this question but that Justice Kagan. She has high expectations. There are in her court no wallflowers, no waiting around. Better be showing up and getting things done no matter what your position is that certainly has been estes kagans and overlap her career. Born and raised your Justice Kagan attended princeton, oxford and harvard law before starting her career as a law clerk to judgment that on the dc circuit and then you Justice Thurgood marshall. She stopped briefly aloft before moving back to as a professor of the university of chicago. She then was asked to come into the Clinton Administration for its associate white House Counsel and as a domestic policy advisor and went back to harvard law as a professor but became dean where shes widely credited for crucial institutional reforms. President obama appointed Justice Kagan be the first solicitor general of the United States and quickly followed up pointing her to the Supreme Court. Do less well known but nevertheless are important achievements, Justice Kagan was the dean will brought three coffee to harvard law and was also the justice frozen yogurt to the Supreme Court which i appreciated very much. Urin all seriousness, i was extremely fortunate to have aclerk for a person like Justice Kagan. Our father taught me how to be passionatelydedicated to service , Justice Kagans chambers taught me the diligence, tenacity and commitment to excellence necessary to get your absolute all area i will not soon forget work before 5 am when the moon was still high when working on an opinion i also will never forget what it means to take your responsibility so seriously, to turn over every stone and pursue every line until you are sure you have gotten things right. Like our dad Justice Kagan is known for the power of her pen and watching her wrestle every sentence, every word into place to construct the most succinct argument possible was astounding to see. Her commitment to writing accessible, forceful and exceedingly well reasoned opinions for the parties in the case and the court and the development of our lives is unparalleled and we areall lucky to have her. This afternoon Justice Kagan will be in conversation with steve perlstein, the driving force behind these lectures honoring our dad. Like my dad he was, he is a robinson professor at george mason and like our dad, he is a semireformed journalist. Originally from massachusetts he started out as a tv reporter and even started his taown political using before coming here towork at the Washington Post. His in his own turn one a pulitzer for his reporting onthe financial crisis. Before starting at gm you are his dedication tostudents and the institution and to learning is evident and i look forward to a great conversation. Thank you. [applause] good afternoon. I dont know whether any of you saw this but elizabeth has bright red shoes. Next year im going towear my red shoes. Thank you all for being here and thanks to you Justice Kagan. Its an honor, it reallyis an honor. First off i do everything that elizabeth asks me to do or tells me to do, but this one was a really special and treat us because i never had the opportunity to meet Roger Wilkins. S. I feel as though i know him some through his daughter and his wife. And he was just such a super educator and journalist and lawyer and most of all Public Servant and its great to see you carry on his legacy, elizabeth and its great to be here for this. So there are a lot of undergraduates here, theres some law students here. This is a very diverse campus. People from all sorts of countries, all walks of life but they all have one thingin common. They are all ate massive anxiety about their careers. Chillout. So lets talk about careers, particularly yours. Harvard law school, to clerkships, law professor, white house aide. Solicitor general. Was there a grand plan mark if you plan thing . It was all written down. Thats a joke area. When you were in high school appeared in your High School Yearbook wearing a gown and holding a gap gavel, was that just coincidence but mark. It was a coincidence area a bunch of us and rated the costume was at the Drama Department and thats how i ended up but i have no idea i was going even to go to law school before basically the year before i went to law school. And i guess my view of the way things have turned out is that most of it was stserendipity. And unplanned. And people at this age, law students , they can plan too much and the best advice you can give people is you know, timing is good and important but its really just to keep you guys open to opportunities that just might pop up. Because i think most of life happens that way you just things balance that you never nwouldve expected and the only thing you have to know how to do is how to grab those opportunities when they arrive. And figure out the good one from the not so good ones. You had some setbacks at one point, you were nominated to the dc circuit by president clinton and as sometimes happens you didnt really get a hearing or a vote. One point you were a candidate for president of harvard. Tell us about how those disappointments, if you have got those jobs you might not be sitting heretoday. So how should we think about this . Those are high classes to a point. [laughter] also had some less highclass appointments area the funny thing about somebody like both in a resume and it has all these jobs on it and it doesnt have all the jobs you didnt get right so there were plenty of jobs i didnt schedule on the way that i fall i wanted i think what i can to discover and the example that you gave about my dc circuit judge its a pretty good example of that is that when the door closes someplace, a window open and that might be magical thinking but it happened to me often enough that i believe it and sometimes are really the things that ever happened or could ever have you that was example of the judgeship. I was nominated for the i was 39 so i would have been very young and i would have really my entire life on the court and i love the work i do. But when i look back on it, i think you know, he said i had a decade where i did many other things where i developed what the different sorts of skill. I am a judge so i get that you read so it was really good thing i think happened that i had an opportunity to explore something i never would have had the chance to. Come about and the way i thought i wanted to. And you convince yourself of that time is it hard to convince her so . Its hard time if something happens, and it worked out all right area i think it was, i went back to teach and i love teaching. Ive always loved it. And then just a few years after that, i had the opportunity to become the of harvard and i learned so much in that role. I learned howto do so many things. I never would have, but i never, it requires you to be a person that i didnt really expect myself to be. And to develop all kinds of different skills and it was really a very steep learning curve which is the job that i like are the jobs that require youto learn all kinds of new things. And so it was a great decade that before i got to where i am now. Talk about the law. What did you learn about the law and about judging from Justice Marshall and i should say that you are one of Justice Marshalls last looks Roger Wilkins was one of i think his first job out of law school was working for Thurgood Marshall before he was a justice. He was at the Legal Defense fund so the line goes from roger to, from marshall to roger toyou too elizabeth. And i hope beyond. So what did you learn from Justice Marshall about the law and about judging mark. Mostly what you learn from Justice Marshall was how people eacan advance justice. And i dont think anybodys ever done so much of it. As he has. I