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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 of UNLV and the Boyd School of Law.
Unknown Speaker 0:07
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald.
Unknown Speaker 0:08
I'm a third year law student and welcome to social justice, social justice to conversation conversations.
Unknown Speaker 0:18
Hi, this is Charles Stanton. Good evening, and welcome to social justice, a conversation. And my colleague, whiner whether evolved is going to lead off today with something that she wants to get off her chest, so to speak.
Unknown Speaker 0:35
So many of you may know that Nicholas Cruz was sentenced. And it was sort of a conversation about whether or not he was facing life in prison or the death penalty. Obviously, his guilt was not in question he had faced at trial. And this was just his sentencing. And sort of shockingly, he was not sentenced to the death penalty. Nicholas Cruz was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. And, you know, normally, people that espouse similar beliefs to what I believe are not proponents of the death penalty are not proponents of capital punishment. I am I am actually, a you don't want to say a fan of the death penalty, right? It's never nice when someone commits a crime. So God awfully heinous, that they would be subjected to put to death. And then that with the loss of human life is always frightening, no matter how we how we spin it. However, there are certain people if we to if we do truly believe that the prison system is reformative. And we truly believe that people are capable of rehabilitation. I think we need to look at the kind of people that we are then sending to life life sentences, right is Nicholas Cruz somebody that's capable of rehabilitation is Nicholas Cruz, someone that we actually believe could be reformed? My guess is if you're capable of shooting 18 Little children that know that you're not. So I don't, I don't know how to reckon with this, right? Because you do value human life and you you do want people to be capable of rehabilitating themselves. But at the end of the day, this just seems wrong. I don't believe this guy should be walking our earth, nor do I believe he should be a burden on our taxpayers for the next 60 to 70 years. I mean, granted, he could get Donald, you know, I don't want to be crass about it, he could get killed in prison, it wouldn't surprise me if he did. But the reality of it is, is he should not be a burden on the state. Obviously, there's a whole other discussion that then can come out about, well, these people sitting on death row cost, sometimes more than typical prisoners. So I don't I don't know how to wrestle with this. I just think that the decision was wrong. And that, yeah, we put him on death row when he may cost us more. But at the end of the day, this guy is not worthy of saving. He's not worthy of our tax dollars. He's not worthy of breathing human error as far as I'm concerned. So I don't know. I wish this came out differently.
Unknown Speaker 2:47
Yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. You know, a lot of times we we look at these, we look at these cases, and we would become so desensitized to violence, especially gun violence. And we have an epidemic of of these these events, almost seemingly day after day. And we just, we're just numb from it. But amidst that, is the families and the loved ones of the people who have been killed? And, you know, it is it is it is easy to say sometimes, well, you know, that nobody should ever get the death penalty. But you don't know how you would feel if something like that happened to you? And I think that's one of the things that we overlook a lot of times when we when we look at these cases. And of course, you know, the reaction of the families that were in the court that day, were you No, absolutely. They were absolutely in shock that someone could have that someone could have done this. You know, I think that I think that there are times in society, because I'm not I'm not a death penalty proponents. I'm not for the most part. But I think there are sometimes exceptional situations where a person does something so heinous and so evil that society is forced to make as forced to, to issue a statement about what actually is beyond the pale and what actually has to be treated with in the most in the most severe manner.
Unknown Speaker 4:36
Yeah, I mean, I just I don't know when you have that level of carnage. And when you're talking about small children and that level of carnage, I just firmly believe he needs to be put put down like the donkey is there's just no reason that he needs to be walking this earth.
Unknown Speaker 4:52
Well, that that of course. Is not allegiance too much, so much to our next door. but a different kind of a different kind of ability, I guess you could say. Last year, there was a major investigation of insider trading people who were in the, actually in the court system, the federal judiciary, a large number of judges who were had financial stakes in cases that they were hearing. So, so that was so that was the judiciary part of it. That was followed by the revelation, that a large number of people who were in the in the Congress are also doing the same thing. And that story was followed by the revelation that a large number of people who were in the executive branch, were also having insider information when they made the stock trades, and were in position to pass laws that were possibly going to regulate these companies. So the cake has been baked, as we would say, and now the icing on the cake has been provided by the investigation of the Federal Trade Commission, where basically, they were doing the same thing as all the different branches of government they were supposed to regulate. So when we wonder why do people in our society, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, have a lack of belief in our institutions, that there's a perfect example of it, that basically these people who are supposed to represent us have, in many ways abandoned that duty. And it is, it is something to behold that these these behaviors are so widespread. I mean, I'm, you know, speaking as an attorney, I'm not saying that every, every judge is beyond reproach, or even every lawyer is beyond reproach. But the the breadth of this whole thing is kind of mind boggling. And, and it was really interesting, that apparently, the House of Representatives is going to pass a bill or trying to pass a bill to regulate, you know, what Congress people can do visa vie, you know, selling stock and buying stock and everything. But it always seems to be postponed and never really seems to get to the point why the law was actually passed. So it's something to it's something to, you know, ponder about. And that was, I was like to get a lot of speaking of, you know, corporate malfeasance or nonfeasance wanted to talk talk with Lana a little bit about the Kroger Albertsons mergency. What are your thoughts on that,
Unknown Speaker 7:49
for those of you that don't know Kroger has sort of acquired it and it's been called a merger but at the end of the day, this is more of an acquisition type situation. Just about every grocery store you can think of, you know, there's there's still some major players in this game. I'm not going to act like every grocery store. No belongs to Kroger, but a huge slate of grocery stores. So locally in Vegas, we're talking Vons, we're talking SMIS. If you're out in the Midwest, like where I'm from, we're talking jewel Osco. These are places that normally keep low prices are sometimes located in lower income neighborhoods sometimes are more affordable and accessible to people that otherwise could not afford fresh produce or afford things like that. And now they're all going to be under the same umbrella, the same house Kroger's gonna own them all. And when you think about just the sheer amount of control that then is given to price setting, in the amount of control that's given to the, you know, probably 10 Guys Named Kroger's boardroom is sort of mind boggling. And you would think that this isn't any trust issue, but it's not. So I think you should watch and we have to hope that players like Target and players like Walmart and Costco, massive, massive conglomerates, right, are not Swated by these sorts of things to then up their prices in congruence with what I'm sure is going to happen with Kroger. But But if not, you know, we could see inflation, especially where groceries are concerned beyond what we have been seeing now. And like I say, just the fact that this is not an any trust issue. Shocking, to say the least.
Unknown Speaker 9:23
Yeah, I think I think that's one of the interesting things that's happened as the law has evolved. When I was going to law school, basically, in the media, you weren't basically allowed to have a newspaper, a major newspaper, or television and radio station in the same market. And now all those all those regulations have all gone by the boards. And there doesn't seem to be any force in the government or the Congress, whether it's Republican or Democratic, to basically rein that in, and you have you have media companies, with movie studios with with a chain of radio stations with chain television stations. And the danger of that, of course, is that you have a reduction in the amount of opinions that you that people want to express. I think one of the interesting things about about Fox News, and the growth of Fox News was that, in many ways, Fox News was a reaction to the fact that there were not that many conservative radio or television outlets in the country. Before Fox News came on board, you had ABC, you had CBS, and you and NBC. And all those three, those three networks were basically liberal. And, of course, CNN, CNN, as well. But Murdoch obviously realized that there was a major market for conservative conservative talk and conservative news. Ideally, ideally, the news should not be conservative or liberal. Be the news, it should be exactly it should be the News, the news, the fact whatever, whatever the facts are. But I think that's one of the things that's happened in our country, that there's two versions of the news, there's two versions of truth. And of course, obviously, there's only one truth, but I think we're seeing it, we're seeing it and in our politics. And later on in the show, we can talk about that. And, of course, so now that we're mentioned politics, we're gonna bring up hopefully, for the last time Herschel Walker. And just a very interesting, just a very interesting article having to do with the gentleman who was running against Herschel Walker, and the Republican primary, and he had met with the wife of our social workers, I guess, ex wife, who apparently had been threatened by Herschel Walker, that he was going to shoot her and everything like that. And they she gave it they did a video on everything. And he had gone to the, the, I guess, the organizing committee of the Republican Party, to people who are managing, you know, what the cat how the how the candidates will be, you know, supported, and nobody wanted to see his video. And I think that's kind of I think that's kind of sad, because the voters should know, as much as possible about the character of the people that they're going to that are going to run for office. And it's not, it's not just Herschel Walker, it's anybody that runs. I think that, you know, too often we, we have been, we have the bad habit in our country of, you know, talking about Republican or Democrat, it's not a Republican or Democratic issue. The truth is really not a Republican or Democratic issue. These are issues that people should all be able to get together on, and come to a consensus as to, you know, what, what really is? What really are objective facts? You know, and there are some objective facts. And we, you know, one of the things that happened this past week was the revelation that Stanford University had a long, long history of anti semitism regarding which applicants could gain admittance to Stanford University. And this had gone on for a number of years, and was actually only discovered by accident by one of the fellows who was doing like a research project. And he, he, you know, sort of opened up the can of worms. And, you know, it's interesting, you know, we're doing this show, we think in a lot of ways that you know, things have have radically changed, hopefully, for the better. But but that's not always the case a lot of the time,
Unknown Speaker 14:15
you know, it seems like we have one of these cases and Stanford is just this years every year, where a university sometimes several universities are found to have nefarious admittance policies and practices. What bothers me is there, a lot of these admissions committees are massive, and a lot of these admissions committees or people that are appointed or a lot of these admissions committees have been people that have tenured faculty sitting there for the fact that it doesn't usually that's not the source, right? It's not people on the admissions committee that are blowing the whistle and saying, This is what's going on here. I am so disgusted that these are these quotes. I mean, they are not disgusted at all. They're the ones pushing these numbers through and signing the and these I want you to consider if you're in college right now or if you're in university, if you're law student, dental student doctor, whatever. Think about who is on your admissions committees, right? These are your professors. These are the people in your administration. These are your Dean's, there's usually a dean of admissions that maybe might even teach a class or two at your institution. These are the people when you never you're caught in some sort of admission scandal that are making these choices, and they are approving these choices. So I, you know, I don't want to cause some sort of grief or cause sort of trepidation towards administration or admissions committees writ large. But there is something to be said about how these universities admit people, I don't think the practices are uniform across the board, nor do I think they are proper across the board. Nor do I think they are fair to socioeconomic status, gender, race, wealth, anything across the board. So I just think some food for thought think about and if you're, you know, tempted Google who's on your admissions committee for whatever university you're enrolled in and think about those things. And Stanford in particular, it might be interesting to look what kind of scholars and what kind of, you know, academic superstars are sitting on that committee and getting away with those kinds of things.
Unknown Speaker 16:03
I think, you know, what you said is very interesting, because they had a analysis, which they have every year that they picked the top 100, universities, a top 150 universities. And I always, I always laugh when I when I, when I think about that I went to school in New York, in New York City, I went to NYU. And you know, it has a reputation of like, all these places have a reputation. But I always look, I always look at when I look at the statistics for the universities. And you have the usual I call them the usual suspects, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, you know, at MIT, I look at the diversity statistics, I look at the diversity statistics, I look at the diversity statistics, because hopefully, diversity is what an ideal college university community should be that we, we have people from all different ethnicities, all different races, all different religions. And that makes the that makes the University more vibrant, more interesting, more, more, more in tune with the America of today. And what was always interesting to me was Yale, Harvard, all these places, they were eons behind UNLV. And I'm saying to myself, That's kind of crazy. They have 1000 times our money, they have 1000 times our land, they have 1000 times our connections, they have 1000 times everything that we have. But somehow, in the diversity area, they fell way behind us. And I think that a lot of these universities, there's a mythology about them,
Unknown Speaker 18:06
that really mythology, nepotism, professors.
Unknown Speaker 18:09
Nepotism, well, what it is what it is, of course in, I can only speak to, you know, a lot of the Ivy League schools, that if you have your father, your mom went to the university, you have a big, you have a big fall up the ladder to being admitted. I also find I also find that I also find it interesting when people just as an aside, when people talk about diversity, and you know that we have a changing demographic in our country, and we have more people of color and all the rest of that those things, diversity, diversity made our country diversity made America what it is today, with all its faults, the people coming from all these different nations who came to for news for a new start a new chance. And and it's interesting how now, all of a sudden, people are saying, you know that when you hear the phrase that there are people not like us, they're different than us. But a lot of those same people were saying that their ancestors came from Europe, their ancestors came from different places, and faced a lot of discrimination when they came here. And there's a movie called The gangs in New York, that talks about the Irish experience coming to the United States. The Chinese experience early in the 20th century in San Francisco, the Jewish experience in New York City. We're all basically immigrants except for of course the, you know, the American Indians, and of course the the African Americans who were brought here in bondage. So we need to think a little bit more about that. I think we're there's a like a, like a, just like a real action to the fact that people, you know, come here, and we sort of look down upon them. And in many ways, in many ways people coming here should be viewed as a compliment. Because this is a place that people all over the world see as a place of opportunity, you know, so so we're gonna get, we're also going to get into today, the upcoming election, which is going to be I think, one of the most tumultuous elections that's ever been held in our country. It's very interesting that there's a, there's an enormous divide between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, not just as to validating the 2020 election, but also but also as to whether the upcoming elections are going to be considered valid. And you have a number of candidates who basically have have come out and said that if they, they are not victorious, that they're going to challenge the election, etc. And I think we're seeing something very, very interesting. And I think Lana can also, you know, give her perspective on it. I think that we started out with gerrymandering. And gerrymandering was one of the ways basically, that in some aspects, people of color their power of the vote was going to be was going to be reduced. And then we went from from from gerrymandering to trying to restrict voting. And I've spoken about this before that the you know, after the election of 2020, we would think that the idea would be to make the ability to vote even greater, but that hasn't been a reaction. And now we have basically, the actual investigation on more than just limiting people with voters, tricking people to vote, but on the night of the election, you know, massive inspection of the votes while they're actually being counted. Now, I in a former iteration had worked in the Board of Elections in New York City. And I think I've said it previously that there was there was, oh, there's always fraud and elections. There's never an election without some fraud. But the fraud that they're talking about now, I've never seen it
Unknown Speaker 22:26
well, or any substantive proof of any of this fraud that they're claiming occurred. They have a lot of claims, none of them backed up by anything verifiable. And yeah, like you say, you know, do I think somebody who may have may have died that week their ballot got counted? Sure. Do I think there might have been some lost or misplaced? Sure. I think that happens in every election, but to claim mass scale fraud and have no evidence to support mass fraud. Just shut it just bizarre. It just had a very core level. It's bizarre, but I think here, I think here's what the Republicans are trying to do. And I could be completely off base here. If the entire idea is well, you can come out and vote. But guess what, we're not going to accept the results. Even if we do lose, even if we don't win. It's the idea that then your vote becomes futile if it wasn't before. And it certainly might be now. And I don't want to say that there's sort of the idea of Word, stoking the fire and you don't matter kind of thing. But that's almost what this rhetoric seems like, well, we don't care what you vote, I'm winning anyway. So it almost seems like they're, it's a fear tactic used to me, I genuinely believe make certain groups feel like their vote will not be heard no matter what it is they do whether you show up at the polls or stay home. It's futile voting is futile, I think is the message that they're trying to espouse in some way, shape or form by denying the efficacy of our elections.
Unknown Speaker 23:46
I think I think it's it's really interesting. And I say this, as I say this as I hoped, I hope that I can always be be fair minded in the way I look at these things. The show that we do together is not a polemic against any group of people. That's not why we're that's not why we're sitting here. But I will say this. I believe in evidence, and I believe I believe in, I believe in our system of justice, as flawed as it is. When the 2020 election was contested. It went over 70 courts, those courts were composed of not just democratic judges, but Republican judges as well. And also judges that were appointed by by the previous president. And one and also, of course, a number of times. They were brought before the Supreme Court. In all of those cases, in all of those cases, every single case. It was found that there was no voter fraud in the state. State of Georgia for instance, just as one example. They did a hand recount to prove that there was not fraud. A hand recount is prodigious ly expensive. They they hand counted literally millions of ballots. They couldn't find any vote fraud. And I'm the first one, if there were if there was if there was voter fraud, I would say certainly, that I would say that the election was illegitimate. But there has to be, there has to be, there has to be there has to be factual proof. I reminded me, you know, we have such division in our country. When we had when we had the catastrophe of the Civil War, I wanted to read something that Lincoln said and Lincoln said, he said, We are not enemies. But friends, we must not be enemies, though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The Mystic cords a memory stretching from every Battlefield, and Patriot grave, to every living heart and Hearthstone, all over this broad land, when against such as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. And I think that's where we need to go. I think it's where that's where we need to be. I think that's where our country needs to be. Where we need to put aside, we need to put aside our our prejudices, that seems to have an infected and been inflicted on every part of our body politic, and really try to converse with one another, about the whole sanctity of voting, and the importance of voting because without it, we don't have a democracy.
Unknown Speaker 26:52
Right. And I think my little spiel about how I believe, you know, the Republican agenda here is to force people into thinking that voting is futile, it isn't right, you do still need to get out there and vote and don't, don't become part of the problem right now, your vote will still count, we do need to support the legitimacy and the efficacy of our elections by showing up mail in ballots are just as effective as showing up in person, make sure that you are double checking that your mail in ballot was received, if you are doing the mail in ballot system, midterm elections, you know, they may not seem important to everybody, but especially in this climate, they are exceedingly important to us. So make sure you're getting out and voting.
Unknown Speaker 27:30
No, absolutely. I think that's that's however you vote whoever you vote for. That's the most important thing. Because we will always feel that we're part of the process that we're part of our democracy. When we stop feeling that way, and we start feeling that our voters irrelevant, then we have a danger that people will resort to other means those who love our country, I
Unknown Speaker 27:53
think very simply, democracy is being undermined at every turn, and everywhere we look. And the one thing you can keep constant is that you have a voice and you have a vote. So as democracy is being undermined, everywhere, make sure you're not part of the undermining of that democracy. One more further thing, sort of a call to action for everybody, the Federal Application for student loan forgiveness is now open. You know, I think maybe there is some hope that people would not want to go fill out that application thinking it's lengthy, you thinking you need to be YouTube thinking you need this is a short, quick, it should not take you longer than a minute or two to get it filled out. Make sure you're getting your money. You know, if you're making less than 125,000, and you have at least 10k in student loan debt, if not a little less, make sure your balances are getting wiped, there's there's no reason to do not fill out this one minute little questionnaire and get your money. Pell Grant recipients receive $20,000 If you're a Pell Grant recipient, I would urge you to get that filled out as early as possible and make sure you're receiving your funds. I actually know just personally and anecdotally that some people who have applied already have already received forgiveness for those loans. So that this if this money is being distributed quick. So make sure you are online and doing that. It should be through the same website that most students fill out their FAFSA, so student aid.gov
Unknown Speaker 29:04
Yeah, I think that I think that's something positive that the President has tried to do. And I think that he has, he has done something that will help a lot of people. And he's been he's, he's a man who seems to be besieged many times. But I think I think in all fairness to him, there are some some things that have been brought to his table that were not cooked and prepared by him that go beyond just our politics and our own conscience and foreign relations and our relationships with the oil producing countries and a lot of other things, that there is a limitation on whoever would be the president so it's to fix it.
Unknown Speaker 29:52
And with that, I think we are going to close out our show we thank you as always for listening. If you would like to send us an email of course our email is w e t h e l one@unlv.nevada.edu. We're happy to take any questions that you may have about the show or any topics you may like to hear us discuss. Thank you again for listening and Happy Thursday.
Unknown Speaker 30:09
Happy Thursday. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 30:11
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 CNX time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai