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Social Justice - A Conversation
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College at UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.
Unknown Speaker 0:06
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald. I'm a third year law student and welcome to social justice, social
Unknown Speaker 0:11
justice to conversation conversations.
Unknown Speaker 0:17
Good evening, everybody. And Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you're having a wonderful evening with your family and that you're cozied up by the fire. And if not watching football, that you're interested in having a half hour conversation with us tonight. We're going to open tonight with some news again, horrible news out of Colorado. So there it was a horrific shooting in Colorado Springs at a club predominantly catering to LGBTQ and LGBTQ members of the community where five people were brutally shot. Obviously, you know, this is one of several many reoccurring stories that we hear on this country constantly. But it hits a little closer to home when it's a member of a marginalized community that are members of a marginalized community like was in this case? So I'm going to have the professor open up with a little bit of sentiments about what happened in Colorado. Thank
Unknown Speaker 1:02
you. Yes. Well, this is not as my partner and co host said something new, it is a problem. You will you have two problems basically coalescing. One problem is the prejudice against the LGBT community, which unfortunately, many times manifests itself in violence. And then you also have the question of weaponry, and how people who in many cases are mentally disturbed, still have weaponry that the police and law enforcement know about, but for whatever reason, decide not to enforce the red flag laws in various states. It's clearly it's clearly apparent to me that going beyond the question of, of LGBT rights, and you know, this particular case, that there needs to be a reappraisal of gun ownership rights, and the ability, the kinds of weapons that people can possess in this country, I think that the idea that people can walk around with high powered weapons is an idea that's that is very harmful to our society, it's led to 1000s and 1000s of innocent people being killed. And I think there is a safe, sane, gun possession approach that could be reached, if people have the willingness to engage in those conversations. I think that the mistake that's been made, and I think it's been the mistake of many decades, is the way the people who are against gun misuse drafted their campaign. And they've created, in some sense, a idea that it's take your guns away, and you can't have a gun and all the rest of this stuff. And it feeds on a kind of hysteria, when actually, what really needs to be done is to basically set out of foundation as to what, what weapons would be feasible and proper for people to have, and what weapons would be societally harmful, and you can't have them. And I think there needs to be, you know, nationwide background checks. There's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done. But I think it's also it's also an issue on a state level, like in the state of Texas where someone cannot buy a handgun until they're 21. But they can buy an assault weapon when they're 18. So these are, these are legislative matters. And as long as the Congress seems to be controlled by the gun lobby, it doesn't seem that much is happening or will happen.
Unknown Speaker 3:40
I wouldn't say that the professor and I disagree on this issue. But I believe that the real reason that this shooting occurred, because of the vitriol and sort of the rhetoric and sort of the increase in anti LGBTQ sentiment that has been espoused by the Republican Party in particular lately, it seems like that has become more and more of a sticking point of a talking point of a sort of a fear stoking tactic coming out of a, you know, the right wing side is your kids are going to be taken by these drag queens and they're going to be taken in mating to be homosexuals and what they're teaching your kids to be these scary little girls. Yeah, they're gonna transform your kids into these like nefarious characters. And that very much is the sentiment surrounding a lot of a lot of gay people right now. And sick as it is, I believe that this attack would have happened somewhere else in some other way. In some other form. This attack on gay people would have happened, you know, regardless of the guns do you know? So obviously, you know, I agree with the professor in that gun control is necessary, and if not the most important legislative issue our country is facing today, one of the most important legislative issues our country is facing today. However, this particular incident, you know, the fact that it was in a gay club, and they were all gay people, you know, lesbian or gay, identifying victims. It shows you what this was about, you know, I think that this was a direct result of the kind of rhetoric that has been espoused daily by the right where gay people are concerned. And I think so much of this could be solved by just you know, one leader, the Republican party saying that I don't believe that this is what's really going on in the gay community. I don't believe the LGBTQ folks are out to, you know, come in, you saddle up your children and make them all gay. But alas, that's not you know, so I think so much of this, obviously, is the guns but is still the rhetoric to Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 5:21
think Well, I think certainly, the Republican Party has made this a major issue, right?
Unknown Speaker 5:26
It's drag queen Story Hour, do you want your kids to have drag queen story hour instead of the Hungry Caterpillar? It's like, none of this is real. None of this is happening. This is not just Philly.
Unknown Speaker 5:36
Yeah. And of course, the thing is now where a lot of the people who believe this have taken over school boards, yes, in various states. So it's very hard if you're put in the position of a teacher or an academic, trying to teach children in a responsible way. And of course, that also ties into critical race theory. It's a whole as a whole bunch of issues that they're running on. But the main focus of their, their campaign is basically to keep people ignorant. That's pretty much at the heart of it. I think that it is Lana said, you know, it is kind of astounding that there's like very few voices in a party that had the log cabin society. You don't hear from any of these people. I don't, I don't get it except to say that they have they have a willing audience. Yep. They have a bunch of people who believe in a whole range of ideas across the board,
Unknown Speaker 6:40
right? They see society changing, and the Republican Party is willing and able to provide the Stoke to the fire of fear. And if you know, they are willing to put the onus on drag queens for causing change within society or at you know, at other racial or socio economic or whatever it may be not just LGBTQ rhetoric to sort of stoke fear, they will do that. And that's why the world is changing. Nevermind, it's bad, you know, bad policy. No, no, no, it's the others. It's other people. It's yeah, instead of looking at the own politicians that are causing the strife, it's to look at your neighbors, which is just sad.
Unknown Speaker 7:17
Yeah, no, it is sad. I think somebody said the other day that the two most important principles are institutions that a society needs to have to be democratic, is one the right to vote. And then secondly, that the institutions of Justice, the courts are perceived by people to be to be fair. So that segues into the new scandal, if you want to use that word, with the Supreme Court, where basically, a man who was involved in a litigation who was a member of the it was a minister actually disclosed that the Hobby Lobby case which which involved the Supreme Court saying that religious institutions did not have to provide insurance for contraception that the decision was leaked. And that more than more than just the more than just the decision was leaked, but that the conservative, religious right had a whole game plan as to how to influence judges, to vote their way, including and by including intermingling with the judges at dinner, inviting them to their homes, doing all kinds of stuff that really stretched the boundaries of what is acceptable, and should be seen by judges, who supposedly one of them avoid any sign of impropriety. Very serious. And what's interesting about the Supreme Court in particular, is that it doesn't seem to have any ethical rules, unlike the rest of the federal courts. So you have people basically, who in numerous cases, are hearing cases where family members actually may be involved or litigants, and they're going right ahead and hearing the case. Carmen's Thomas's wife by one of them, yeah, being one of them. And apparently, from what the minister said, This is not an uncommon thing. So when you have when you have judges who are going to different institutions, like the Federalist Society and places like that, and making speeches, it obviously weakens the belief that people have that the court even though we all have our private prejudices, approaches some of these major issues in an impartial I try to be impartial way, because stuff like that you really can't be doing. It's really interesting. You know, I was thinking about University of Notre Dame, how they have had so many speaking appearances from the most right conservative justices, but they never seem to get around to talking to Eleanor Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor. They never seem to be on the on the speaker's list. And I think I think that's I think that's disturbing and a problem. And I think it's also disturbing that, you know, in the case of Clarence Thomas and his wife that you wouldn't inherently if you if your husband or wife is the case, we will run the court that you will not be getting involved in any issues regarding, you know, whether the election was a hoax or only arrested stuff for for rather obvious ethical reason, ethical reasons, you know, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 10:28
no, I agree wholeheartedly. Yeah, the Supreme Court deciding that contraception is not a family when corporations are required, you know, to provide insurance for something like that. I want to be very, very clear about what what position needs to be taken here and what's right and what's wrong here. The right for a woman to treat her endometriosis the right for a woman to save her life in regards to you know, beyond reproductive justice, into quite frankly, her own health at birth control is beyond a contraceptive birth control is women's health, birth control is is taking care of issues and has taken care of issues beyond just contraception. I think that needs to be perfectly clear, that has nothing to do with religion, keeping women out of the hospital keeping women from having ruptured ovarian cysts, keeping women from having horrible complications with future or past but you know, pregnancies that's that's nothing to do with religious rights and everything to do with with health within, in keeping women alive. And I just, it's just a dark day, it's just a dark day to be a woman in America. And if the Dobbs decision wasn't enough, you know, here's some more for you.
Unknown Speaker 11:30
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I've said before, you know, many times, as far as the abortion issue was concerned that it's the woman's right to choose because it's the woman's body, she has to decide, she has to decide what she wants to do with her life.
Unknown Speaker 11:50
Yeah. And I think I think you know, it should even be careful because contraception is should be kept so separate and away from the abortion conversation, because contraception is life saving for a lot of women. I mean, if a lot of women suffer from severe endometriosis, revere ovarian cysts or have severe periods that are rehabilitating birth control is a life saving option and has nothing to do with pregnancy and has nothing to do with you know, the right to choose or the right to life or choosing life. It has nothing to do with that and everything to do with health. So I think it is important to keep those compact with those conversations separate and distinct, because contraception goes goes way beyond just the right to choose and goes wavy. I mean, that is a fundamental necessity to keep many women alive, you know, separate and away from a baby.
Unknown Speaker 12:32
Well, and then of course, the other issue is the right to privacy, yes, seems to be being eradicated too. And it's interesting because with you have the contrast on the one hand with with social media and the internet, where there seems to be very little privacy for anybody, and yet on this most important personal choices, intimate decision that a person has to make, we're gonna regulate that. But let everybody else do whatever they want. And one of the other issues and basically tell, you know, 53% of the pot 53% of the population. What is permissible? I think that the I think that the elections proved that the majority of the people in the country don't believe that I think the majority of the country believes that. It is a personal decision. And I think that one of the dangers we're seeing with the court is the court seems to be out of step with what most people want to do. And that's that's dangerous, because at a certain point, and affects not just the credibility of the court, but just hope people's whole view of what the law was and how the law is administered, you know? Absolutely. So so so we can bounce off from that to talking about the news, Special Counsel for the investigation of the ex president has a sterling resume, both as a litigator and also as a person who has been involved in prosecuting more criminals in The Hague for a number of years. I find it interesting, of course, that regardless of his his many talents, and he seems to be a person of integrity, I could say nothing else from what I know about him. But that with all the people that work for the Justice Department throughout the country that 1000s and 1000s that they have to bring somebody in from overseas to do this investigation. And I we've seen this pattern happen before. Where because of politics, the incestuous nature of politics in our country, that in the, you know, investigation of women's soccer where they had to get Sally Yates and when they had the investigation of the NFL when the Ray Rice assaulted the woman in the elevator, you know, it really it really is kind of it's really it's kind of sad that we don't have a neutral
Unknown Speaker 14:58
third party and mutual
Unknown Speaker 15:00
therapy. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 15:01
I think I'm hard to explain. You know, I know plenty of people that work within the DOJ. And there's just the there's no way to avoid watercooler, there is no way to avoid this sort of gossip that's inherent to holding a position even at the lowest level in the Department of Justice. Everybody's got an opinion. And I think it's hard with what has been going on in the past, we'll go six to seven years, you know, on the ground in the Department of Justice, I think it's hard to not have an opinion about any of it, and to hold any sort of bias at all, I think would be natural in the kind of situations where you're seeing unprecedented things. So I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised that Jack Smith, you know, was bought, I do agree with you that it's sad in some way. But at the end of the day, I think what was going on for so long was just so sort of inconceivable. And with the DOJ and the decisions that people and higher up levels of the Department of Justice had to make I think was so inconceivable that there was nobody that you know, even at the lowest level, you could bring in and trust wholeheartedly, so I don't I don't hate it.
Unknown Speaker 15:53
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think he I think he, from his background, he seems to be a person who will have integrity of integrity. He will do what he thinks is right. But I think it is a I think it was it is a case that he's one of the most important cases that possibly has ever been brought before the Department of Justice, you know, and listening to neocon HLS, Friday night. And also listening to Andrew Weissman today, both of whom have long backgrounds in the Justice Department, the credibility, the credibility of our system of justice, which is already pretty shaky with racism, sexism, and a whole bunch of other things is really in a precarious state, especially especially in a case of the documents at Mar a Lago where basically every single person who was involved in a similar situation received received substantial jail time. And it was basically open and shut cases. One woman actually who was sentenced to a number of years in prison for having one document in her house, and you have a situation here where you have literally documents all over the house, and in the desk everywhere, and then not just not just where a person could be under a mistaken assumption that they could have them. When there were repeated attempts, attempts from the the, the the archives, and all these people to get to get the stuff returned. And it wasn't returned. And then, you know, I mean, at a certain point, at a certain point, you have to have some accountability here, especially in something where some of these documents may involve secrets that are that are harmful to our country, certainly, and instead of, you know, basically saying, well, everybody does it, or these things happen, say, Well, you know, a person who takes the oath of office, their job is to uphold the laws of the country, ultimately, that's their ultimate job. And if if you make a joke out of it, or you say, Well, it's, it's, you know, the people are persecuting me or everything, the law in this case is very clear. There's no, there's no ambiguity in it. There's no ambiguity in it. You know, you're going to you're going to talk a little bit about we converse previously about the brutality case in Georgia. Which,
Unknown Speaker 18:28
yeah, you know, when we have C, prison assaults generally are you see sort of guards taking advantage or you see sort of just in this is something that's on the ground all across America, right. So Jared Hobbs, a particular case I'm talking about in Georgia is just a I think an encapsulation or a microcosm of a much larger issue right on the ground in America, the prison systems tend to fail and been are incapable of rehabilitating in the ways we would hope. So it sort of calls into question, you know, what, what are we doing here? If this is a cyclical problem that we've been experiencing on the ground and American prisons, corporate owned or non corporate owned for many, many years, what do we do? How do we stop this and I think professor and I are just talking about perhaps there just comes a point where we, we have to understand that this is the nature of what we're doing when you put human beings in cages, and there's always going to be a power structure or an inherent hierarchy of power to those things and to prison systems. So you know, I was remarking to the professor how even the most successful or you know, most rehabilitative or proven to be the most rehabilitative prison centers in the world. So these are facilities in the Netherlands season sweet in some more developed European countries you can imagine that there's still a level of power disparity there there's still a level of understanding that the prisoners are the people that are held there are beneath whether that be even the clinical psychologist or the guards or the check in or the right there's there's a level of power disparity, no matter how fancy of the cage is no matter how nice the people running the kgr the cages the cage, so I think you know, We're always going to see prisoners let's we are always going to see brutality and misdeeds and nefarious characters and power wielded, unfortunately, or power wielded in a way that is, you know, completely inappropriate so long as we are putting other humans in cages. And you know what, my solution isn't a better one I say if the crime serious enough shoot them, and if not, you got to send them to therapy. I don't think that's exactly agreeable solution to the rest of the world is shooting more therapy. But I mean, the prison system has proven time and time again, that it doesn't really work. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 20:31
yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, you know, as I was, as I was watching this on Sunday, I was thinking of one of the films that we had been discussing Fruitvale Station. And what's interesting to me is, you know, just like the overall response of, of the prison guards and and then, of course, fulfill station police violating really all the basic principles of law enforcement, where you just use necessary force. And it's interesting how this excessive force, why is the excessive force? Why is deadly force, always the option that they use?
Unknown Speaker 21:15
You know, you know, I don't have a very favorable view of the vast majority of those that are involved in law enforcement, because I believe that their core, they are not people that are there to serve and protect, they are there to, you know, commission, their positions of power against those that they believe to be weaker than them. And that's, I think, just the fundamental problem is, we don't have a police force full of really well educated well to do going to, I'm going to try to mince words here, I'm going to try to you know, keep it careful. But I do not believe our police force is filled with the best and brightest that this country has to offer, nor has it ever been. So of course, when they're finally a lot of these men, I'm gonna go vast majority men, but women to women are involved in you know, police brutality, in prison brutality, and you know, position to power abuses as well. But the vast majority are men, you're just getting these prison guards, these police officers, these men in positions of power, the green light, they have always wanted to put themselves above others, because in the vast majority of their situations in life prior to that they were not in a position where they were above others. These were not the top of the class, these were not the people that were super popular in high school, these were not the people that you would want, you know, running your football team running your company or running your household. These were losers, vast majority again. But let me just let me be very clear about what's in your average American police force. It's not, you know, not in my opinion, a bunch of winners.
Unknown Speaker 22:28
I don't, you know, I had to, I had police in my family. My dad's my dad's father was a police officer, and my uncle was was Assistant Director of correction in New York State, I can see I can see, to be a police officer, I will say this is a very difficult job, it might be one of the most difficult jobs that anybody could undertake. I can say from some experience, and from some observation, a lot of the time, police come into very difficult situations, one of which is one of the most dangerous situations police officers can come into is domestic abuse where you arrive at the house. And you know, you don't actually know what's really going on. And you have to try to get a grip on it. And I think there are a lot of I think, you know, I've known some really good police officers, that people were really, really good people. I think that I think that certainly, that training needs to be addressed. Certainly, I think that what needs to be addressed also is basically how you select the police officers, where do they come from? What kind of, you know, vetting you do of a person before they get on the force? I think that's important. And I think too, that there are a lot of problems with brutality in the police department. But if that be so then a lot of a lot of the fault of the blame also has to do with society. Because if those things are all happening, then society, all of us need to be much more aggressive and trying to get that stopped. But, you know, a lot of what we our attitudes are basically is the police are there. They keep they keep the law, so to speak, they keep things from getting out of control. We don't really want to know about what they do. As long as you know, it doesn't bother me and I can walk around and nobody's gonna jump me or beat me or shoot me. That's all I want to know. There was a guy who was a La Cava. His name was Joe sandbar, and he wrote a book called The New centurions, and it was all about these two men who were police officers in LA and they were they ride around in the car, and all the stuff that they encounter. under. I think one of the things that could be done though, and I've said this repeatedly, is I think you need to have presuming that people's presuming that people's intentions are good and fair, you need to have a lot more community policing.
Unknown Speaker 25:15
Yeah, I agree with that.
Unknown Speaker 25:16
I think that's one of the things you know,
Unknown Speaker 25:18
I agree. But I don't really necessarily believe it's like a violence in the community type problem or a violence in society type of problem because you don't see this level of violence among other jobs with physicality, right, your average gym teacher isn't getting physical with all the kids, even though they're in a position of physical power, your average karate instructor isn't beating the crap out of people because they're in a position of physical power. This is a problem with the police. This is a problem with cops wielding their physical power inappropriately, there are plenty of people that have jobs of physical power over people that they do not wield as inappropriately as the police. So I think you know, it's easy to say it's a societal problem with violence, but the violence is a lot more acute where the cops are concerned. It's
Unknown Speaker 25:54
societal, it societal in the sense that there's a tolerance of what's going on. That's the problem. See, the problem is when you have George Floyd or you have Eric Garner, you have all these cases or, or Oscar Grant, right, that there doesn't seem to be any impetus to make the changes that needs to be done in law enforcement, because it doesn't evolve involve people personally. So they can see a person of color be attacked or beaten or whatever it is. And inherently you feel badly about that, because the person did response was completely out of whack. But then it sort of fades out of it. And then you go back to doing what you're doing. I think one of the one of the sad things about that is that we've had so many cases like this, but we need to become more involved as as as as a societal group, everybody working together to make change in that area.
Unknown Speaker 26:58
Well, and we hate to end your thanksgiving on such a you know, such a morose note here I hate Yeah, I hate to end the to your Thanksgiving dinner on such a sad note. But call to action is always kind of a way to be grateful that we can even talk on the radio and have these conversations. So if nothing else, I'm thankful for the professor and thankful that we can have these conversations and thankful to K you and visa. We hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope you tune in next week. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 27:22
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening.
Unknown Speaker 27:24
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at weather one that's w e t h e l one@nevada.unlv.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton, contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton, s t a n t o n@unlv.edu. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai