Overcoming Division: Can Civics Help Unite America? (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 11/8/2022)

ladies and gentlemen good morning please continue to to get the food and the breakfast that you need over here we’re delighted to have you with us this morning my name is Stan swim I’m the chief program officer for the Bill of Rights Institute and it’s my honor and privilege to welcome each of you to this morning’s event we recognize that we have some distinguished speakers who will be participating as part of today’s program and will introduce them individually as the program unfolds at the outset we acknowledge the generosity of dick and ethi Hayworth whose sponsorship has made today’s event possible I also want to thank Kevin Hart Bri’s director of communications here in the back who has planned this event and done so much to make everything come together so well we know there’s a little something going on out in the world and that you all probably have lots of things to do today so we’re very grateful and honored that you would choose to spend the beginning of your election day here with us we thank our speakers who have taken time to prepare for the conversation today as always at these things we do have a couple of housekeeping items first our program will continue through breakfast we invite you to to get up and refresh a drink or get seconds if you want feel free to do that at any point during the program you don’t need to stay seated restrooms are located behind you with the men on this side and the women on this side if you parked in the western Commerce ramp we have validations for you at the registration table so please remember to pick those up before you leave today’s program is off the Record we want speakers and you as guests to be able to speak and interact freely and we will be using a tool called slido to invite your questions and bring them to our speakers so you have instructions for that on your program there’s a little QR code and you can use your mobile phone to submit questions that will then be posed to the speakers at the Bill of Rights Institute we teach Civics we prepare and equip students and teachers to live the ideals of a free and just Society we provide materials and training to teachers in every state in America including more than thirteen hundred teachers here in the state of Michigan who actively use our materials on a regular basis that’s about one in four of all high school and middle school history and Civics teachers here in your state American Civics needs to be citizen centered not government-centered and that isn’t a minor point it’s fundamental what do we mean when we use the word citizen to give you an example of the difference from another setting in the German language the word for citizen is mitberger which means literally with the castle as in that’s where someone looks for

their rights and and because I’m with the castle instead of with the castle We the People United to create a government not to provide our rights but to protect them as our delegates as our Representatives and of course today is an election day so government is very much on our mind but today is only one decision that will shape what we do tomorrow and what tomorrow becomes is dependent on us more than we realize so our Civics is first about Who We Are and second about the systems and institutions we use to govern ourselves it’s why at the Bill of Rights We Begin Bill of Rights Institute We Begin civic education with basic virtues individual rights and responsibilities and you have we’ve provided at your tables a two-sided handout that shows you the framework that we use to teach students basic Civic virtues and the principle structure that underlies our nation’s remarkable experiment and democracy we work from there toward things like the branches and governments sort of the standard test and trivia questions that everybody’s familiar with but that isn’t where we start and that’s by Design we as Citizens really are the ones who are in charge and we often don’t feel United we argue a lot we always have as a nation but from the outset our nation has depended on conversation to raise ideas to articulate principles to reach agreements and especially to work through our disagreements it means that we should always be engaged in listening learning and persuasion and today we want to explore how we can do that together and do it better we can build a more perfect union with each other as neighbors and fellow citizens it’s fitting that we meet here in what now is called the lit but has been the ladies literary Club something that began as a history class and evolved into a hub of learning and Association throughout the last century we’re joined by an outstanding group of speakers our first certainly needs no introduction here but his work deserves it he’s one of America’s most influential Business Leaders and philanthropists currently serves as the co-chair of the board of directors for Amway the world’s largest direct selling company a company that helped many Americans learn how to seize their own opportunities including my parents as it turns out he’s the co-founder of the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation which is committed to helping youth families in the community and in greater Grand Rapids obtain the resources and tools to achieve their full potential the

foundation has helped Advance critical work promoting education homeownership for lower income families and support for victims of domestic abuse our first speaker is also passionate about Civics education and Civic engagement through his believe podcast he brings together thought leaders for engaging discussions on some of the most challenging issues facing America today please join me in welcoming to the podium a businessman a philanthropist and an exemplary leader Mr Doug DeVos very kind well thanks everybody good morning it’s an honor to have you here and it’s a thrill to be able to spend some time together uh talking about these issues that are so important especially when it’s election day and I’m going to guess that in this room we probably have a variety of different rooms different ideas about the election or different expectations or hopes for the outcomes but yet we’re all here we all came together in a place where we can gather and talk and learn together meet new people refresh relationships with older friends and just be neighbors and that’s what our country is all about and in many times as we ask the question are we too divided to come together I’d say we can always come together we should always be finding ways of coming together and we need to talk about it more often than the people who want to try to take us apart there’s a big rift generationally about how people feel about our country where older Generations tend to feel more positive about our country younger Generations tend to feel more skeptical about our country we may take that as a slice today I’m guessing that was probably somewhat similar and polls that were taken in years past and that’s okay to me that shows a a demonstration of a curiosity of a desire to understand why I want to be an American why this country is special or different or unique help them understand help all of us understand at every age what are the principles what are the ideas that make America different and why does that matter to all of us and that’s what we’re going to have a chance today to do and we talk about Free Speech we talk about civil dot discourse we talk about in a way to talk with one another to reason together to overcome differences and gain understanding maybe not to talk you into a different position but at least you’ll have a different

understanding a few years ago we had an event in Grand Rapids Jeffrey Rosen moderated a panel we were talking about voting we were talking about uh the the electoral college versus a nationwide vote and we had experts up there and and Jeff as he normally does and I’m sure he’ll talk about as well in his in his presentation we’ll talk to he said okay how many people believe one way and some hands went up how many people believe the other way some hands went up so okay let’s have the discussion they had the discussion at the end he says okay how many people have changed their minds very few hands went up not many people change their mind he said how many people have a better understanding of the other position everyone’s hand went up everyone had a better understanding no fights broke out everybody left probably a little more curious about the other side maybe curious about what they believed in the first place because they had learned something different they had put it into context in a new way and that’s what we’re going to try to hope to do today and we’re going to talk about the the principles that bring our country together founding principles that have stood the test of time in our business we talk about that all the time in our business we call them the founders fundamentals my father and jave and Handel has a set of ideas when they started our company that we talk about today with people all over the world that those ideas stand the test of time and they reach across cultures and they connect across Generations because people all over are still interested in these ideas of freedom family hope and reward that’s what it was for us at Amway I’m not going to try to articulate them for our Scholars who are going to come here and do that for our country and talk about the things that they have here but this set of principles that are ours at the national Constitution Center and the wall of the facility it starts with we the people this is our country what are we going to do with it how do we feel about it how are we going to talk about it how are we going to get our conversation to a place where we bring people together so everybody feels they have a sense of belonging that they’re connected to Who We Are and what we can achieve and that we have hopes for the future so we want to encourage you all as we as we do this to kind of let’s spend a little time getting our minds in the right frame just this mindset a Civics mindset just trying to understand each other trying to have a better idea of why some of these things we talk about are important what they really are how they came to be

and why they’re important for us today and for our future so these are important things for us to think about and to work through and while we’re going to have amazing Scholars and and leaders who are incredibly thoughtful and studied in this I want to remind all of us it’s uh up to us not just them they play a role they play a role to help us understand but it’s up to us to have the conversations wherever we go after this whether you’re going home going to work going to school whatever the case may be wherever you go talk to somebody about what you learned today Express a thought of you or something new that was different something that challenged you something that might be a little different than what you thought coming in here and maybe you don’t change your mind about it yet but you at least explore another position another view and that’s what these principles all talk about so that’s the work of the Bill of Rights Institute and that’s the work that we do with the national Constitution Center to help people take a step in their own Journey at being an American what do these ideas mean and how do they bring us together from all these different backgrounds from all the things that could divide us and in some cases do if we let them but what are the ideas around which we can start to build a sense and momentum of agreement say okay I believe with you on that one I may disagree on this or that but okay I’m with you 10 20 50 percent and we can start creating a pool of shared understanding of shared meaning and we can find a way to be together and then we can find a way to work together and we can find a way to be a better Community a better state and a better country and ultimately have an opportunity to be better citizens so that’s what this is about that’s the framework that is in my mind as we as we do this as you’re here I’m grateful that you’re here and this is the way to do it just coming together doesn’t need to be big stadiums small groups even smaller hopefully in the holidays you can have good conversations without people storming out of the room that was our conversation at church last Sunday was about how to deal with family drama coming up over the holidays so politics might be part of it but doesn’t have to be can we find a way to address issues that we may feel differently about but still find enough common understanding to bring us together that’s what our country’s about that’s what we need that’s what we can achieve

so with that I’m going to uh just for that framework hope invite you to enjoy uh the conversations that we’re going to have and just open your mind enjoy take it all in uh and I trust you’ll find this to be a good experience then I’ll have a few comments as we wrap up so Stan back to you thank you thank you Doug it’s now my pleasure to introduce our first panel to discuss free speech in Civil Society to do this we’re joined by two long-term leaders in the field David Bob and Greg lucianov David Bob joined the Bill of Rights Institute as president in 2013 and has worked for 20 years at the intersection of Civic engagement and education reform having taught courses in American politics and public policy in the history and political science Departments of Boston College and Hillsdale College he was also the founding director of a national civic education program for high school teachers at Hillsdale as well as the Allen P Kirby Center for citizenship and constitutional studies in Washington D.C David has designed online educational programs used by more than half a million participants and is a nationally recognized proponent of civic education that changes and engages the hearts and minds of students he’s the author of humility an unlikely biography of America’s greatest virtue and has written for Wall Street Journal and Fast Company among many other Publications he earned his PhD in political science from Boston College where he received fellowships from the Pew Earhart and Bradley foundations Greg lucianov currently serves as the president of the foundation for individual rights and expression fire for short Fire’s mission is to defend and sustain individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought the most essential ingredients of Liberty since its founding fire has done remarkable work protecting and expanding speech freedoms for students and has recently announced a major expansion of its vital work now going well beyond the campus he’s the co-author of the coddling of the American mind how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure the book was a New York Times bestseller and was named one of Bloomberg’s best books of 2018. you may have read his work in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or seen his appearances on the CBS Evening News The Today Show and even Dr Phil he has received degrees from American University and Stanford University it’s hard to imagine a person better suited to lead an organization devoted to the preservation of each person’s right to speak and express themselves please join me in welcoming to the stage the president of the Bill of Rights Institute David Bob and the president of the foundation for individual rights and expression Mr Greg lucianov foreign

yes please well thank you Stan and thank you so much Doug for that great framing of our conversation today we are so delighted to uh to have this conversation with you all you know it’s election day but this is not a political event we’re here to talk about Civics we’re here to talk about some of the core elements that make up a strong civic education when you cast your ballot you’ll see a lot of titles you’ll see a lot of offices we think of even though it’s an off-cycle election the president of the United States as lofty a title as we might ever conceive of in this country but you know there’s a Higher One that’s citizen and we’re here to celebrate and Mark that and reflect on that how is it that we can come together and build a strong Civil Society we’re in a building right now the ladies literary Society that had its purpose to talk about ideas you know some book clubs today start off with the premise that it ought to be people that already agree talking about a book and they just confirm each other’s biases what if we had literary societies organizations at the heart of our civil society where people actually disagreed with one another and did that so as to sharpen each other today I’m so glad to be joined by you Greg because what you’re leading I think is one of the most important efforts in America that is the Revival the focus on our ability As Americans not to eliminate disagreement but to manage those disagreements that we have you’ll hear from others shortly who will join me about their work and I’m excited for this conversation let’s dig in though Greg and I’d like to just ask you first off what is the greatest threat right now to free expression in the United States uh well first of all uh thanks so much for having me Grand Rapids um I think great to see Doug again a huge fan of the bill Rights Institute National Constitution Center Jeff Rosen is here so um it’s great to be among friends and people I have tremendous respect for um the greatest threat to free speech uh is always government period you know our government other people’s governments um that’s always the greatest threat to three speech but uh currently I would say the something it interrelates with government is uh what is sometimes called cancel culture I think right now after frankly a very long and intentional project particularly on campuses there has been a switch in valence of freedom of speech where one

Once Upon a Time for most of the time I was coming up freedom of speech was seen as the quintessential value of people on the left or people who call themselves liberals now that that flip has happened and you can see this in polling and we talk about it in coddling of the American mind um we’re in a fairly precarious place I am worried that if you’re raised hearing that free speech is exclusively the argument of what I call the Three B’s the bully the bigot and the robber baron you’re going to grow Apostle to it now of course whenever I speak at high schools I’m like no no that’s nonsense the Robert Barons rich people always rich and Powerful tend to do well in most societies and in a democracy you only need freedom of speech to protect minority opinions and they’re never taught this this is this doesn’t come up uh sufficiently unless they’re taking your classes or using fire material as well in in K-12 so I I think that the erosion and misrepresentation of freedom of speech to young people is one of the biggest long-term threats I’ve seen in my career and we but by the way we all saw this coming in the 90s um when I was in law school it was I call it the slow motion train wreck that somehow we couldn’t quite stop yeah Greg you mentioned a book uh the coddling of the American mind I’d highly recommend it to all of you if you haven’t had a chance to read it what in a nutshell uh I know the title wasn’t of your of your own devising right but what what is it that that taught you and your co-author Jonathan height were getting at with the idea behind the coddling you eluded it uh a minute to a minute ago but maybe just to elaborate on that if you would oh absolutely yeah and what David is referring to is I have never liked the title because I think it will prevent people who really need to read it from from reading it they’ll just say all we’re saying is you’re just a bunch of spoiled brats that is absolutely not what we’re saying I wanted to call it disempowered because what I think that um we should understand is that older people are teaching the younger generation the habits of anxious and depressed people the the modes of thought of anxious and depressed people and we saw this coming I actually saw this coming way back in 2008 when you saw administrators um sort of mimicking uh ideas that I’d learned from my own struggles with anxiety and depression that are called cognitive distortion kind of the kind of thoughts that if they’re too loud in your head they will make you depressed they will make you anxious and these include things like catastrophizing like binary thinking everything is either good or evil um fortune telling the idea that you know exactly how things are going to pan out but back in 2008 I I said to myself well thank goodness the students aren’t listening uh the administrators are selling this distorted way of thinking but students are ignoring it and then right at the end of 2013 and through 2014 like lightning hit and I think overwhelmingly coming through K-12 Schools students started showing up on campus who not only were more hostile to freedom of speech when they would talk about why they were more hostile to freedom of speech they would give medicalized rationales for it that as

someone who is a free speech Defender and you know someone who struggled with anxiety and depression themselves I was like not only will this be a disaster for freedom of speech this is going to be a disaster for mental health among these very same young people if they actually believe that they’re fragile that they’re easily harmed that oh words can actually permanently damage them you’re setting them up for failure as the the second half the title says so we predicted this back in 2014 height and I wrote the original article in 2015 in the Atlantic and we were kind of expecting maybe a you know we knew things were going to be worse for freedom of speech and they certainly have been um but when it comes to uh how it worked out for mental health we were expecting like a little scholarly you know six percent decrease in um uh in mental health among uh younger people and instead it was a hockey stick like the the amount of uh anxiety and depression mood disorders they doubled uh for for young women for example from 2008 to 2017. the number of suicides also doubled around that same time all and and it’s really we are I I always hesitate to use word crisis but we are facing a mental health crisis on campus partially because I believe we shouldn’t be surprised because we’re teaching young people again the habits of anxious and depressed people yeah that’s a remarkable thing that we’re all living right now Greg you have taken that uh that picture and you have provided an antidote in the in the book what in short is the best way to redress that problem you pointed to cognitive behavioral therapy that’s a big part of it but what are some of the Practical things we have some high school students that are joining us today that one can do if you’re if you’re trying to uh guard against this kind of Temptation yeah well I wish there was some short easy answer and we talk about a lot of potential Solutions at the end of coddling of the American mind I do think uh teaching people about CBT really early on is helpful but when it comes to simple things that I think need to be introduced to students much earlier on yes they need to learn Civics absolutely they also need to learn that if someone is telling you that you are fragile and you will be permanently damaged by words don’t listen to them that the research there is uh is very clear people aren’t fragile particularly young people they’re resilient and someone who’s actually telling you that you should Prime yourself to assume you’re fragile that’s the only way you actually be self-fragilize yourself so I and that’s why I wanted to call it disempowered is uh because I do think that we’re doing something really even though we a lot of the people who who espouse these ideas of care they’re doing something that frankly I think is quite cruel it’s the equivalent of whispering into your child’s ear constantly as they’re growing up um you know be careful because you can’t really handle life on your own that you will be permanently harmed that you aren’t powerful and then being surprised that they don’t feel powerful

one of the things that that uh Doug DeVos mentioned in his opening remarks is that Civics needs to become more of a mindset you pointed Greg to the essential quality of civics and what we see at the Bill of Rights Institute is that it’s not just a course some of you in the audience today may have had a course in high school that bore that name civics when you take it as a mindset what you’re really doing is an anti-a a kind of habit habituation towards the the mindset that that you’re resilient that you should have conversation with people you should invite in fact not be afraid of views that are different than yours and in that sense it can’t be if we are to develop the habits of heart and mind that are necessary to regain what it means to be an American we’re going to have to regain that ability to to to want uh people to disagree with you can you talk a little bit about that and and maybe give us a taste of of something to come yeah uh which is that your next book will be talking about the canceling of the American mind yes so we’ve moved from a certain coddling to now a full-on canceling what’s at work with that and again how do we what are some of the things that we can do to to to build up that resiliency against this kind of encroaching culture absolutely and I did want to give a shout out again to your book humility because this is a very um underappreciated aspect of American Liberty is how much it’s based on you know the only fancy word I I use all the time which is epistemic humility by which I mean intellectual slash knowledge about what you can know but one thing that I feel very lucky of a million different reasons why I feel very lucky to be an American why my parents came to the country um uh in the um in the first place is that our founding fathers were actually surprisingly good actually amazingly good social psychologists um just like my my co-author Jonathan height and they understood that in the grand scheme of things approaching that you can’t live in a successful Democratic Society where everybody is so arrogant to assume that they are always right being part of democracy you have to take seriously the fact that you might be wrong and actually to be honest we’re wrong all the time so I do think that the humility is a it is is a very very um you know important part of the story so canceling of the American mind which makes my heart jump a little bit because I’m supposed to hand the book in um in January but it’s it’s going really well uh believe it or not I’m co-authoring it with a 22 year old um a genius named Ricky schlot she writes for the New York Post I met her when she was 20. she dropped out of school after reading coddling the American mind and she found me in height to tell her to tell us that everything you say in this book is completely correct and um you know what what can I do to help I wouldn’t have expected to co-author a book with her until I found out that I could throw her even my most

uh my most intellectual stuff I could send her 20 articles I’m like okay we’ll summarize this accurately and to my great embarrassment she would come back with a with a summary of it that was uh exactly what I was saying just in fewer words so amazingly impressed so canceling um of the American mind I was originally planning to write something that was much more expansive as a follow-up to coddling in the American mind much more based on psychology Heights writing the forward to this forthcoming book but when it comes to cancel culture the idea that I still have people who are trying to tell me that cancel culture particularly on Twitter doesn’t even exist is outrageous and I wanted to put all the data in one place to point out that it’s not just it not only does it exist it exists at such a scale we’re going to be studying this stuff in 50 to 100 years so I try to put this in historical perspective we’ve dug really hard into McCarthyism 1947-1957 roughly and the number of professors who were fired for being pro-communist it works out that the reliable numbers are between 100 and 130 um and I and meanwhile cancel culture even though we’re not facing a national security threat even though American and British spies didn’t just give Stalin the bomb which I can understand why the country was a little freaked out um that we’re seeing numbers way past that at this point uh it’s we are at about 800 attempts to get professors fired or suspended um when it comes to step down or or fired there’s about uh 250 of them fired but an even larger number of those professors are either suspended or censored or required to go through ideological training so we’re really trying to put the argument um in one place that this is really happening and the second one that you’ll you’ll definitely appreciate is that we argue in a terrible way we argue like grade schoolers we do a lot of uh it and I think that’s not a coincidence it’s partially because we’ve literally adopted some of the habits that people have in eighth grade and transported them on the uh into cancel culture because they work really well at quote unquote winning arguments without actually winning arguments so one thing that we’re really going to point to which is which is much simpler to fix is we don’t have to argue like this anymore yeah that’s really profound I’m going to give you a question here that’s from our audience Aiden asks a great question and uh framing this I I’d like uh just to note that you know if we see disempowerment as that first thing that kind of coddling we also see the cancellation there’s there’s another sea at work here and that’s the the chilling or chilled expression right so when we work with teenagers at the Bill of Rights Institute what they often tell us is that they feel nervous almost like they’re walking on eggshells to talk about things that are controversial particularly in class but also just with their friends uh you know Doug you talked about um

here we have the holidays coming up they say at Thanksgiving you shouldn’t talk about religion and politics right but what else really I mean is is more fun to talk about than those things after all oh comic books and sure that’s that’s important too and and you know but for young people there’s this this dread sense that we see reported on over and over again and we see it at lots of other age uh demographics in our country too where we’re just seeing a diminution of those conversations that really matter and we have chilled speech and we say we’re not gonna We’re not gonna do it so the thing that kids worry about often times when it comes to negative polarization is can I talk and keep my friendships if I bring up these tough subjects and so Aiden asks what does this look like in a conversation where one member of a friend group has differing ideas yeah from the others maybe you could take us to a really concrete place where how can you do this in a way where those friendships are are held intact and you still build in those tough conversations yeah I I mean I wish I could once again offer a simple solution but this is something that’s badly underappreciated is the extent to which social media has undermined interpersonal trust now what do I mean by that um and we see story after Story like this um uh fire interns are the the kind of Interest we have at fire are absolutely amazing truly gifted exceptional kids and they also tend to have a bit of optimism about them but I remember talking to them as a group last summer um and it was all you know great and positive and then I asked them about what the environment was for cancel culture in in K-12 and all of them start looking very grave and they start talking about you know friends that they had friends that other friends had where they they think they were just talking within a group but what happened um and just you know among each other that one of their friends would run off when their friends would run off and if they um heard something that you said they’d interpret it in the most uncharitable way and then get status points essentially for themselves by reporting on you telling their friends you know like I’m so much more moral I’m so much more moral than this person because can you believe that they said this thing oftentimes it’s not even what the person actually said and sometimes it’s just you know I can you imagine being held to account for every dumb thing you said in K-12 um so I do think that that higher that um cancel culture is really undermined interpersonal trust now how can you do start to work and gain that back and what’s funny is um I get asked by conservatives a lot about to talk about safe spaces on campus and I always ask I asked Neil deGrasse Tyson this it’s like well what which of the eight different definitions of safe spaces do you mean because some of them are just Affinity groups where you agree with each other other times it’s like when my friend Nicholas christakis got in trouble at Yale they were using uh what we say is safe spaces is a sword to say that he him and his wife Erica didn’t belong at Yale because they were challenging uh you know challenging students to what they think um but meanwhile I always give a defense of what safe spaces meant when I was

coming up and it’s very simple it meant a place where it was safe to actually be yourself and that people wouldn’t go nark on you it was a place to it was safe to actually talk about difficult things where someone isn’t going to run out um and try to get you canceled so I do think that having conversations like the importance of having off the record conversations where people can be honest oh but I did want to add one other thing about chilled speech which is really important uh really important to understand right now people are falsifying their preferences as Timmer Quran who’s on our Board of advisors would say people are pretending to believe things that they don’t because they’re too afraid of getting canceled for saying the wrong thing and this leads to what’s called a pluralistic ignorance also known as the emperor’s close Paradox but I think Todd Rose Has it the best a collective illusion that when you pull people individually people are much more moderate and much more heterodox than what they think but when you pull them based on what they think other people think it’s it’s much more polarized so we do currently have a situation where people aren’t being honest with each other partially because they’re terrified of being canceled by in some cases even their own friends so this leads us to having identified some major problems here Greg you pointed us to a few solutions could you just say a little bit about the expansion you’re leading at fire because I think this is so vital for everyone to understand that there is an organization dedicated to not just doing this on America’s college campuses where the need is so critical but now in this enlarged purview that you all are taking you’re going to be looking at the question of individual rights and expression across the whole of our society what’s that going to entail what are some of the things that you see as as uh first first things that you need to to tackle in this new new work absolutely and great question uh we were actually planning to announce that we are expanding off campus on April 18th of next year but things got so bad in the larger society that we decided to just go for it even though we weren’t fully staffed up yet to announce that we were becoming we were moving from being the individual uh the foundation for individual rights and ex in education to the foundation for individual rights and expression on June 6th of this year uh because the the need was just so dire and the three ways in which we’re growing first because for most of our existence it was just higher education now people have been approaching us from and right left and Center asking us to be uh to take the role as the national defender of freedom of speech uh for as long back as I can remember but campuses are too important um would be my answer that focusing on campuses was too important but we needed to be at a level but I did leave out the possibility that if we could get to a level of coverage on campus where I felt like we were sufficiently covering the problem on campus where we were producing great data about what schools you should and shouldn’t go to and we do a very rigorous Free Speech ranking of schools which I encourage everybody in this room to look at it’s multifactorial before you go to particular colleges you know like don’t go to Syracuse for

example um you know you might want to reconsider Yale that they’re um and University of Chicago does actually poll as well as you would think but once we have that level of coverage um it seemed that we were destined to be the group and that’s I know that sounds grandiose but within fire we’re all True Believers of free speech we are genuinely politically diverse but we we wanted to expand this to the rest of the country so we’re expanding first in three ways um the research department is growing and that that’s directly under me and that’s partially so that we can have um good data and then figure out how we can actually use that in our education efforts in things like coddling the American mind canceling the American mind scholarly articles we are tripling the size of our litigation and now we’re taking uh litigation department and we’re taking cases off campus but the single most important part of it is recruiting our one million strong Free Speech Army what do we mean by that what we mean there is that if we really do want to be uh Defenders of not just free speech in terms of the First Amendment but free speech culture which is one of the things that makes us different we’re going to be taking on for example uh big corporations like PayPal that is actually trying to clamp down on speech on the basis of viewpoint we can we’re not going to win a litigation in that but we but we know that people will actually be angry when they find out what’s going on but it won’t matter that much unless you have you know enough emails unless you have enough Twitter followers unless you have enough Facebook followers and so we wanted to build that one million man army over the course of the next three years uh and I’ve got really good news for you um the we were about we had about 30 000 email addresses from Fire’s entire career around this time last year which I which I thought was actually pretty good we now have 260 000 um just in the past year we have blown way past our goals on on social media where you can reach younger people on Tick Tock Instagram in particular Instagram game is super strong I’m excited about that and that’s not me that’s the younger people at fire uh you know who are good at it and and so I think we’re going to blow way past the 1 million people that we’re trying to add um and that’s been thanks so much to you know Partners including people like Doug who have been so supportive of us the goal was to raise 7 25 million dollars over the next three years and we only started this around this time last year we’re already at 40 million but we still got a ways to go of course you know looking at that other 35 when I feel like we’re just about to head into possibly a you know recession uh has me a little bit anxious but but I really do believe we’ll get there great that’s really exciting I’m going to ask a few questions from uh slido and please uh um if you have others uh keep them coming Chris asks this how does the decline of a productive political discourse impact the ability for the rest of us to engage meaningfully raises the question of the causal area Arrow you know are we influenced um is it kind of Downstream from from political discourse yeah you’ve seen these problems or what is the relationship

Greg well like a lot of things particularly in social science um it’s a feedback loop that essentially when uh people realize that you that it’s much easier to get um uh media covered for saying oversimplified outrageous or outrage producing things they tend to gravitate more that way and when then when people hear that being as the majority um the discussion is covered by the media it leads them to believe that we don’t really talk about serious things within the uh within politics so it reinforces this really low quality of debate and discussion and I have to say the media plays a huge role in that I’ve been so painfully disappointed at some of some of the media institutions that I used to really I used to really trust that’s one of the reasons why I’m excited about lots of experimentation also in the media space where they’re trying to actually get out of the way of themselves and report news as factually accurately as possible without actually showing their hats about kind of like what what the particular journalist feels about that that news which shouldn’t really matter all that much uh all that much anyway so I do think that um we we are seeing a negative feedback loop that greatly lowers the production uh the the productivity of our overall National dialogue and that’s both reflected by and reinforces our politics unfortunately great uh John asks this to be able to argue well what’s the best form of Education classical maybe since it emphasizes rhetoric yep well what’s the best form of education for arguing well um you know I’m a big believer in um having one area in which you’re super deep so my my area that I spent a lot of my my time cultivating of course is first amendment constitutional law but I’m also you know a a nerd who when I was in high school very much hid the fact that I was a big defensive tackle who would sneak down to the Danbury public library every Sunday to go read microfilms and and read books down there because I didn’t want anybody to know I was one of those people who who read for uh you know who read for fun I think having a deep knowledge in one area go really deep with the thing that you and and I want to be clear here this this sounds like a silly advice on unserious advice go deep with the thing that you actually love um like I tell I tell people about this when they’re going to college study the thing that you would study even if you weren’t getting a degree in it because you will always be better in that topic than anyone else because you love it but then start expanding out and I do think that some of the most interesting ways to argue right now they’re not just legal arguments they’re arguments that actually just like the founding fathers did they Incorporated science they Incorporated psychology they Incorporated history and ancient wisdom so it’s that multi-disciplinary way of arguing that I actually think makes the best arguers but I do want to say one thing that has been a genuine surprise in my own career because I wouldn’t have necessarily seen this coming yes debate is great I love debate it’s important if I could wave a magic wand I would

require every Junior in America to do a do a debate where they had to take the other side from what they actually believe because I think once you take the other side it’s very hard to dismiss your opponents as simply being stupid or evil which is what we do way too much so I do believe very much in debate but I’ve really come around to some of these listening projects some of these projects where you have people who are from very different walks of life they get to know each other and it’s not not and you’re not trying to correct them you’re trying to really genuinely figure out where they’re coming from there have been projects for example that have taken people from rural Kentucky and brought them to the to high schools in the Bronx and they will have two people talk to each other with the idea that by the end of the day that you can describe yourself you can describe the other person as if they were yourself that the person from Kentucky you know will explain what it’s like to be that one individual that they met from the Bronx and vice versa it’s it’s moving but it also creates a sense of empathy which is sorely lacking in our politics today so I really do love listening projects as well yeah that is so important I found that to be true when I was in the classroom that to be able to ask students to take that role very different than their own represented in a way that would be recognizable that that builds such strong uh connective tissue and trust it builds trust and it ties in Greg to the last question that I want to ask you in this way we are here in America on Election Day you cite an interesting and one might say even unusual Source in your book The coddling of the American mind you go to Alexander solzenitsyn and you say this in quoting solzene the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being our tendency especially here on Election Day is to be us versus them can you talk just a little bit as you wrap please what does that word from sultanits and mean to us today and what charge would you give us as we go forward Soldier nietzsin is especially dear to my heart because I often point out my my grandfather not my great great grandfather my grandfather fought in the bolshk revolution and I hate to break it to you but we lost and we are what would later be called culex we were people who were serfs uh you know uh surfs who made good um and so that you know he the experience of Soviet Russia and then the horrors of that is something that every every young person uh you know must learn um but what does it mean today is that one thing that I was very proud of is someone who used to write fiction um someone who’s very has wide ranging interests I was impressed that our art um as a country was becoming more sophisticated we started watching shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad and all these kind of things were the main character is not a paragon a virtue partially because we were starting to

understand that there’s you know goodness uh as my father would say that there’s Beauty and ugliness in everybody and it’s important to actually understand where people people come from so I felt like as far as like being a folk behavioral psychologist we were becoming more and more sophisticated as uh as the years went by and unfortunately we’ve gone right back to what we call the third grade untruth um in coddling the American mind that it’s just life is just a battle between good people and evil people that’s it I think we can find our way back to a situation when we know that when we’re arguing with someone that we can understand just like my father would say that there’s something ugly of course which is not the in their beliefs but there’s also something beautiful that it’s not as simple as good versus evil and if we’re going to have that epistemic humility that makes democracy work we must look for the best of others um and and and try to explain and try to question the the the problems within ourselves Greg Luciano thank you very much thank you that’s great [Applause] thank you Greg and David for that enlightening discussion I’ll again remind you please please do feel free to get up and move about if you need to get a drink whatever will help you feel comfortable and enjoy the balance of our time this morning our second panel is going to focus on civil discourse in civic education the thing that Bri does all day every day the Practical reality and tremendous significance of these skills as you just heard from Greg cannot be overestimated to discuss that we are grateful to be joined by Nichelle Pinkney Michelle comes to us with 17 years of experience as a social studies educator working as a teacher coach curriculum writer and professional development trainer she currently works as the social studies instructional officer for the Klein Independent School District a district of more than 50 000 students located outside of Houston Texas she is the co-author of the just released book civil discourse classroom conversations for stronger communities which is published by Corwin press earlier this year and with her co-author who is one of our staff at the Bill of Rights Institute we’re delighted and pleased to have that book out and and contributing to the conversation in classrooms hear from your local Grand Valley State University the social studies Professor there Dr Annie Whitlock says that Michelle’s Book quote lays a foundation for how to have civil discourse in all classrooms not just social studies ones this book highlights civil discourse as a life skill joining Nichelle and David we’re delighted to have with us Jeff Rosen who is the president of the national

Constitution Center a renowned legal scholar on constitutional issues he leads the national Constitution Center located in Philadelphia heard referenced a couple of times already today which has engaged with millions of citizens on a non-partisan basis providing resources for constitutional understanding in Civics education he also serves as a professor of law at the George Washington University law school and a contrib and as a contributing editor for the Atlantic he’s written multiple books including books on Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Louis Brandeis as well as President William Howard Taft to join David Bob for a conversation about civil discourse and civic education please join me in welcoming to the platform Michelle Pinckney and Jeff Rosen [Applause] thank you so much Michelle Jeff so glad that we can jump in and continue this this robust conversation shell I’m going to start with a question for you you have a lot of experience in the classroom tell us like uh what it what what what what’s happening now to be an American uh classroom teacher in social studies talking about things that are controversial well so I would hope let’s say what I would hope so today I hope that everyone is having conversations and everyone is telling students how it’s their parents rights it’s their rights if they’re 18 or older to be voting but in some communities I know that that’s not the case I have teachers who are even afraid to even cover the election which is almost more of a disservice than covering it to me um because it’s the foundation of what America was built upon I used to tell students all the time that we wouldn’t have America if students like them did not stand up and so because of that I think in our country similar to what Greg just said that we are at a point where it’s either black or white and there’s no in between and black and white meets at one point and it creates other colors and other Shades that we like to express and look at and so in America’s schools today we need to embrace that in the middle and be able to understand that it’s okay because all can exist at one time that’s a beautiful message and you know I’d like to stop and just reiterate something that Stan said at the beginning of this program which is that the work that we’re doing as an organization in this state in Michigan is made possible by dick and at the Hayworth I’m really grateful they couldn’t be with us today but I’m really grateful for what they’ve

done because we saw an example of what you just spoke about last month in Detroit we had since the pandemic uh hit our country the largest gathering of teachers when we do professional development programs 35 teachers gathered and talked about what it means to be an American they addressed all of the hot button issues that you could imagine and that concern that you just expressed was top of mind for them it is it is nearly impossible given the fact that principles in our buildings superintendents and the number one challenge is parents who say avoid those topics because of well there’s a multitude of reasons you’ve written a book though that addresses these things and helps Empower teachers citizens really any American to engage in the art of civil discourse I’d recommend it to all of you it’s a great read it’s very practical but I wonder Michelle if you could just tell us why did you write this book with Joe Schmidt so this is going to sound cliche coming from a teacher but it’s the honest to God church it was because of the students in my class even when I came in today I was drawn to the students that were here I was like hi how are y’all doing I’m gonna introduced myself to almost half of them because I wanted my students to understand I grew up in a community that a marginalized Community people did not vote they do they complain um everything is against them and so when I started teaching I went back home to teach and it was really weird because I went back home to teach because I was a broke college student but um I did not realize that when I went back I was um doing something that most people looked at as a good thing like they were like you came back and so I came back to the community that I grew up in that I was privileged enough to go away to college from and came back and that was what I taught my students that we are a marginalized Community by choice and they would ask what does that mean and I would say we don’t vote so we have no voices and to do that we have to be educated and so educating my students then educating them meant they educated their parents in the book I actually talk about in my acknowledgments I acknowledge that I wouldn’t have been able to write this because if it wasn’t for those thousands of students that I was able to do all of this with teaching them how we all have different views making my students um debate the topics that they didn’t want to debate from the sides that they completely and utterly disagree with but it was to build a foundation for them to understand another side so I wrote this book for the students of those communities that felt like they didn’t have a voice and what that looks like

and then working with Joe was just like that balance of two different places and coming together at one point to see something beautiful we wrote this during the pandemic um via social media and the world around us was it was different um for all people but the most joyous thing to me was seeing people come together and say enough is enough I want to return in a minute to empathy which Greg lucianov mentioned and you’ve thought a lot about and it’s a one of the core building blocks of of your program really for civil discourse but Jeffrey Rosen you’re one of America’s leading legal Scholars you’ve been a defender of the first amendment in all of its facets for a good deal of time sometimes we get the impression that those who defend the First Amendment must somehow stand uh alienated from civil discourse because it allows all of those things that are the the farthest thing from civil there must be something problematic about the First Amendment could you try to explain how it is that you can be a robust offender of the First Amendment and yet be in favor of civil discourse uh I can’t explain it better than Greg that was a wonderful vision of exactly why uh it’s necessary to defend free speech and have epidemic humility in order to change your mind and live freely but I think what you what what do you want to say to people is defending the speech of of those we hate as Holmes said is not the end of the discussion it’s the beginning of it it’s because we don’t trust the government or trust our fellow citizens to decide in advance who can speak and who can be heard that we have to draw such a firm line and Greg and fire uh are so heroic in reminding America that the core of the Free Speech tradition is in America you can only ban speech if it’s intended to and likely to cause imminent violence that’s how high the bar is go shoot Jeff now I’m it’s at this point in the breakfast I’m tired I want to go home you know kill him now that could be banned definitely but short of that no uh and and that makes us the most speech protective country in the world no other country no other Western democracy sets such a high bar and it’s dramatically under threat but that’s not the um end of the discussion it’s the beginning it’s only because we allow the speech we hate that we can take the time to listen to each other and have

confidence that truth will emerge from the marketplace of ideas so take the debate about Twitter I I thought that uh Elon Musk was right the Twitter shouldn’t moderate as as the leading speech platform in America uh Twitter should I thought voluntarily Embrace First Amendment standards and not be in the business of content moderation but that doesn’t mean that Twitter is going to be a productive place for discussion not that it was before Elon Musk but uh to to allow uh raucous thoughtless impetuous tweets is the antithesis of the thoughtful deliberation that Michelle is describing so movingly and that all of us are in the business of creating so to have a real conversation you have to bring together people who disagree and you have to take time to listen to each other as we’re doing here in this literary Society this Temple of reason I love the the Greek uh and Roman classical images and what a reminder that in Michigan in the 19th century people thought it was important to build a space of reason I mean it’s so beautiful and devoted to the idea of of learning and listening from each other so all that’s why it’s I think it’s very maybe it’s a really good question David to ask so we have to do at least two things as Defenders of speech and Liberty and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution uh first say here’s how little speech can be regulated but seconds say well then let’s make an extra effort to make sure that the conversations are thoughtful are are moderated or are civil people take the time to listen to each other and then as Doug said if we don’t change our minds and we really do at least we’ll be open to the arguments on the other side Jeff you lead the national Constitution Center among the programs that you have done and I think uh have have helped blaze a trail as a constitutional conversations in which some of those things that Greg talked about are built into young people in high school talking to one another could you talk just a little bit about that program and what fruits you’ve seen come from it and what promise you see for those kind of listening exchanges in the future it is such an inspiring model uh Greg had mentioned bringing rural and urban kids or adults together to talk and we tried it before coven on Zoom uniting classrooms in Philadelphia and Florida and trying to get Geographic and other diversity and we’d set for these students a common question and there were Ground rules for the conversation uh at the beginning we asked people to separate their political from their constitutional views asking not what the government should do but

what the Constitution allowed or forbade it from doing and then we ask that they listened to arguments on both sides of the Constitutional question before making up their own minds so for example a good place to begin with kids is often the fourth amendment can the government search your backpack or more saliently can Google follow you around 24 7 and use your cell phone data to reconstruct your movements in public a great question it’s kind of open before The Supreme Court and it obviously affects all of our lives so we set a question like that for the kids and bring out the arguments on each side and they had to read the text of the Fourth Amendment and listen to the leading case law about it including the story of John Wilkes in England who criticized King George and uh then we’d listen to what Scholars on either side had said about it and then they would vote before and after and it was marvelous to see kids from very different backgrounds talking about it and of course it didn’t line up in any predictable ways people within each classroom and between them had different views it tended to break party boundaries and everyone learned something so that’s a that’s a wonderful model um now after covet hit of course you couldn’t bring together people live in classrooms so we just started teaching on Zoom one-on-one I uh taught some classes in my great colleague Curry sautner taught classes and took questions in the zoom chat that was wonderful my favorite moment there was I always insisted uh I want you to read the majority opinions and the dissents before making up your mind and one kid texted in the zoom chat I’m Sam I’m eight I’m not sure I can read the descents I don’t know I know you can do it Sam and they can and people it’s amazing kids in middle school rise to the challenge because if you just take time and give people the confidence to um know all the power that all of us have in us to focus and and open our minds they do so so that was great and now we’re um live uh sometimes but also archiving The chats and The crucial thing here the point is what we’re talking about is we try to imagine these conversations first who’s talking and second what are they talking about so if you can’t bring together classrooms from different parts of the country within a single classroom it’s very important to expose people to different points of view and to bring together liberal and conservative and libertarian Scholars teachers and moderators so that people can be exposed to all the arguments so here the curriculum is important and the Bill of Rights Institute is such a leader in primary texts and it’s you’re so uh correct that by presenting people the text and allowing them to speak for themselves you cut through the partisanship and get to the heart of the matter and we at the Constitution Center we’re so excited to partner with you in teacher training workshops and other things are also putting primary texts online but

um in addition to that we have competing and debating Scholars to guide the discussions so our interactive Constitution brings together leading liberal and conservative Scholars to write about every Clause of the Constitution describing what they agree about and what they disagree about so if the kids are discussing the Fourth Amendment they can see Barry Friedman and or incur nominated by the Federalist society and the American Constitution of society areas of agreement and disagreement and that’s a great guide and then we have these wonderful podcasts which every week bring together liberals and conservatives for thoughtful discussions so I’m I’m raising this to say it’s crucially important you know who’s who’s talking and at best you can have a really diverse group of people from different backgrounds but also to make sure that the topics of conversation and the teaching materials themselves present all sides yeah I think what you’re saying is is so vital because a key part about We the People is we the students right and young people oftentimes are are kind of intimidated by this process even and Michelle you talk about the steps that teachers can take in others there are four building blocks that you point us to in your book about building civil discourse they are courage understanding belonging and empathy I wonder if you could just say a few words about the courage part and then also the empathy part okay so the first part about courage is the idea that students should be able actually someone asked the question earlier how do I have that conversation yeah when I’m in a group right that obviously my friend may not agree I already know but I have this different view that’s the courage part right there that is the part about being able to say I don’t agree with that because and this is why I don’t agree with that I respect what you’re saying the empathy I hear what you’re saying but I disagree because this reason and this reason and so really building that foundation in our students to have courage to know they do have a voice their voices can be heard but how we use that voice to respect others gives that empathy part about understanding that um the perfect example we have that discussion we leave here and everyone still has their same view but you have something in the back of your head that’s like but when they said that it made me think even though I still believe what I believe and that part is okay and so really letting students understand that it is okay to disagree it is okay that you and your friends don’t have the same view actually that probably is what makes you better friends that you have those different views because it allows you to see the

windows of other lives I’m just imagining tonight as you’re watching election returns and the pundits are on just how much you’re going to hear that right I hear what you’re saying but I believe right I mean we’re just not we’re not used to that kind of language that kind of thought that kind of habit how do you see the project you’ve had the book now out you’ve done a lot of work uh Joe Schmidt at the Bill of Rights Institute does a lot of work I know the national Constitution Center there’s there’s institutional work that’s being done how are teachers kind of feeling you gave us a little bit of a picture at how hard it is to teach contentious topics do they feel like this is a doable thing and maybe you could address the role that parents play in this because our teachers tell us often that it’s the parents who actually want to and this ties into a couple of questions that have been asked on slido that the parents want to kind of shut the conversations down yeah so the biggest thing I would say is we have to change the narrative so my first statement is to teachers we have to change the narrative and as a teacher The Narrative of my classroom The Narrative of your classroom parents their issue is of a distrust so when I distrust someone the only way that I can get their trust back is allowing them to see that their distrust is not warranted and I think because of the fear of whatever backlash teachers have gotten to a point where their walls are up even higher than they were before so the first thing I would say to teachers is take the wall down change the narrative so the narrative is whatever is being taught in the classroom this is what it is how do you change that know that it’s not what we’re teaching in our class I would love for you to come to this day when we’re discussing I’m going to use the Fourth Amendment because you just used it we’re going to be discussing the fourth amendment in search and seizure I would love to have you come and participate in our conversation here are the resources that we have given students to read we’re annotating these resources in class please feel free to annotate I can give you an example of my annotation if you don’t have time I would love for you to come in here’s a zoom link if you would like to participate in the conversation so it changes the narrative because at this point we’re saying this is not what we’re doing in schools but no one is really opening the door to say hey come in let’s show you what is going on in school what we are doing great and I talk about that in the book about how I my doors were open and my principal was like are you serious you really want parents coming in yes I want them coming in because maybe then they’ll register and maybe they’ll vote then so yeah come on in hear this conversation to parents I would say become your teacher’s friend The Narrative is not The Narrative is not every classroom in America right and so learn that teacher

in that classroom that your child sits in and be that Advocate if you want more conversations about different things then help come in with those conversations I would love to be a participant because the first thing that teachers think is parents don’t want to be involved or they’re against them so the first thing you do is you set up that window to say I am not against you I believe that you are a highly educated highly qualified individual to instruct my kid and I can’t wait to be a part of your classroom and that’s the piece I think we’re missing and I think that’s the piece that teachers are afraid of superintendents are afraid of parents are afraid of to just open the doors and be like hey this is what we’re doing and stick to what you’re doing don’t change it um the conversation of what my opinion may be shouldn’t be in my classroom no one should know I was a government teacher for 14 years and you could probably call those kids and they would be like we have no idea how she voted they had no concept of how I voted because in my classroom it represented every issue that was on that ballot and because I didn’t want to make anybody feel different this is what it is I had shirts from every candidate posters I mean it was like election headquarters for everybody in my classroom but it was supposed to be like that in a classroom it’s supposed to be like that they are not supposed to know how you feel per se but they’re supposed to know how to get the information to become that Civic leader that we want them to become and so I say to the parents learn and engage with those teachers and I say with the teachers change the narrative it’s time for us to change the narrative that is such a powerful absolutely Michelle that is such a powerful uh prescription for what ails America I think it points to a kind of renegotiated uh social compact it says that we have to rebuild those bonds of trust but they can be rebuilt I would ask now one of our slido questions has from from Dave is there a cause for optimism and as we wrap up this portion of our program Jeff I’d like you if you would please say a few words about that Michelle you just painted some portrait of how what steps we can do but what do you what do you anchor on right now to see that that thing that you just so beautifully laid out is possible Jeff uh of course there’s a cause for optimism we just heard it what beautiful words and I love what you said uh I can’t wait to teach your child because I know about the potential that they have that faith in the individual and uh confidence that they can rise to the challenge is a cause for optimism

discussions like this are a cause for optimism look how we’re learning from each other in this in this beautiful and meaningful space and the cause for optimism I have is every single constitutional conversation I have whether it’s a podcast or a class with middle or high school kids or here in Grand Rapids talking to the economics leaders every time you bring people together and create some thoughtful ground rules so everyone’s confident that they can be heard and that they can learn that’s the crucial thing to learn and grow together and be guided by Reason Not by anger and emotion when you set the right platform it’s remarkable people who thought that they were different find that they’re empathizing with each other because we’re learning from each other the other incredible cause for officers we’ve seen that the terrible polarizing uh dangerous qualities of the internet and those statistics about the kids in Psychology are very very sobering but on the other hand think of the fact that learning of the world are now free and available in our pockets think about the fact that these women in Michigan in the 19th century had to build this brick and mortar Temple and carefully brought out all these beautiful images I mean just it’s so moving to think about the work that they designed just to create a space for deliberation and we with a click of a button or a mouse can find the original editions of these prints and we could find them within moments or the books that Thomas Jefferson read to inspire him about the meaning of the pursuit of happiness or it just blows my mind how exciting that is all we have to do is take the time to find it and to read it and that’s why the theme of our panel and your virtues are so excellent uh the burden is on us on the individual to develop those Civic habits the culture to take the time to read and not to tweet that simple radical Act of of learning and discipline the world is all before us if we and it’s a choice every moment of the day and we all know that we have it every moment of the day are we going to browse and tweet or are we going to read and learn and it’s difficult because the browsing is easier and more immediately gratifying so let’s not be holier than anyone else about how hard this is but you develop the habits and then you have that feeling of of of of of being your best self and once you start feeling that habit that it’s it’s better to delay the immediate gratification and learn and and resist the impulse to be angry and to lash out instead to listen to demonstrate those habits of humility then you can do it better it is it’s it’s a it’s a lifelong learning process and these are habits of virtue you’re absolutely right to put it that way so absolutely I’m optimistic

there’s so much to look forward to thank you Jeff Michelle well I am a hundred percent optimistic because I’m an educator and I see the Brilliant Minds that come through our schools I see um my nieces and nephews and see that they know things that I didn’t even know at their age like the children that we have in schools are so brilliant and so smart partially because everything is at their fingertips they don’t have to get the huge britannicas um and do research see I’m giving my age a little bit here I remember those days um they get to click and see things and we wouldn’t be true Americans if we didn’t see that optimism see I think a lot of people forget that people do so much to come here because of those freedoms we have um they do so much to come here um my grandma my great-grandmother is Trinidadian and she did her citizenship in 1989 came across on a boat to come here because she was optimistic about that dream I live in Texas there are people despite what people may believe or with border patrol that come across the border for optimistic reasons to have something different to believe in something different to be a part of something that’s different and so if people can risk their lives to come to this place why can’t the people that were given the privilege and Liberty to be born here not have that same optimism about the place that they live in and believe in and so I am very optimistic otherwise we wouldn’t be the country we are and we wouldn’t have the foundations that we do have and those steps take just to realize where we are and how thankful we are to be here it’s a great place to wrap thank you very much to both of you [Applause] okay [Applause] thank you Nichelle Jeff and David and thank you to all of you for taking the time again to be with us this morning before turning the microphone back to Doug for his concluding remarks I again wish to express our thanks to our speakers please join me in thanking Greg lucianov Nichelle Pinkney and Jeff Rosen David Bob for joining us [Applause] we’ve heard from great observers of American culture today nearly 200 years ago Alexis de tocqueville came from France to this country and he saw two technologies at work and at first he

thought it was weird and he didn’t take it seriously and the two things he saw were American conversation and American Association the way we talk to each other the way we join together to solve problems we all have this kind of technology in our pockets but what we’ve just done here today is the stuff that’s going to make the difference tomorrow we invite you to continue the conversation with each other to continue with us at the Bill of Rights Institute we thank the staff and those here at the the lit the catering staff everyone who’s helped taking care of us today and again to Kevin Hart my other colleagues at Bri for putting putting the details of the event together please join me in thanking them as well foreign ly as he began our framing we invite Doug back to the microphone to conclude us for the day we we wish you a wonderful and successful election day today but more importantly a successful and active vibrant American conversation tomorrow thank you well I just have a couple of closing thoughts to go with because every time you do an event like this like okay now what do we do all right yeah we’ve heard these sorts of things you know now what do we do well I try to take notes throughout and I’ve come up with my own David Letterman top 10 list so give me a give me I’ll give a shot at kind of how this comes from just to pull out a few things maybe for us to remember as we go along now they’re not in the right sequence of the real funny one ends up next or last or whatever but I’ll just try to go through first thing look Greg We’re Not Fragile you are empowered you are a citizen of this country you are empowered to have your beliefs and have your discussion you are not fragile and you remember that as you go along too seek out dissent I know in my position in a big company as a as a head of a big company a lot of people think you know it all that’s the first thing I learned I knew very little about what was actually going on what needed to happen I had to seek out all the time because a lot of times people won’t tell you what to think the positions get weird friend groups get weird all of a sudden people are holding back seek it out ask the questions be curious and be humble enough to know you don’t know it all they’re smart people in this room they’re smart people in your friend group they’re smart people in your neighborhood seek it out be curious learn all right the third thing we kind of ended with it but it was it was kind of a place throughout you know the the safe the you know the the safe spaces when you’re talking to somebody it’s in yourself there’s reason for trust and Faith and Hope and optimism in our future we’re more aligned than we

think don’t believe all the stuff that divides us we’re more aligned than we think especially when you have to get face to face with somebody take the time to do that it’s really easy to tweet something nasty it’s really hard to say that personally and maybe you don’t feel quite like you did maybe you’re willing to listen a little bit more the solution for our future and the reason for our optimism is you it’s not our government it’s We the People it’s our country we put the government in place there’s a role there’s responsibility that they have but it’s not up to them to tell us what to do it’s up to us as Citizens this is our country unbelievably unique this is an experiment can we make it work I I love it respect respecting others views don’t just listen and kind of try to figure out how to discount actually listen and learn and respect it understand it take it in challenge yourself with it the good and evil the ugly and the Beautiful is in all of us we don’t all have this figured out we’re all in a journey here team right we’re all trying to figure it out and figure out how we can do things better together number six was address don’t avoid invite the discussion it’s the start of the discussion as soon as something crazy happens it’s the start of the discussion it’s not a time for judgment it’s time for engagement maybe that’s something that we can do as we go forward voting is your voice it’s election day team make sure you get involved with the process right that’s what Michelle said that’s your voice be part of it you belong in our country in our community in our neighborhood you belong here help us shape the future and do it together and while we have different views we all need to be part of the process uh um the whole idea of free speech that Greg and then Jeff talk about it’s the beginning of the discussion right take time this is personal don’t just discard it somewhere don’t just do it in a passing fancy take time engage in the relationship of what it takes to really have a discussion now the part that I really like in in number nine here is uh the primary text because Jeff does a great job of actually finding the text summarizing the text making it short enough so that it can read it and understand it and so even I can pay attention to some of these sorts of things because I’m not the best student in the world right but it’s there there’s resources like the Bill of Rights institutes like the national Constitution Center like the lit there’s resources there’s places where you go where people who can help bring it down so that some of us who may not be inclined to get off the football field and go to the library can still be informed and still take a a

step forward and realize with those primary tests realize the amount of time that people have been thinking about these ideas talking about these ideas trying to figure out these principles and values and how they apply to people and societies across time we’re not the first people doing this we can learn from those who have gone before and the last one that I would say Have Courage understanding and empathy Michelle you talked about those courage understanding and empathy and so uh remember that especially empathy for people this is not it’s not a society where we need to judge everybody right and wrong how about we just start to understand what if we ask questions what’s going on in your life we had a a group of people at Amway years ago and we did some special some different training kind of some new unique things to help teams work together and build things together and I was asked to come to the meeting because the folks wanted to tell me something and they said you know they told some powerful stories somebody said you know this co-worker right here I hated him I did not want to work with this person at all I thought they were terrible in every single way but through this training I found out what they’re dealing with at home I found out about a sick child I found out about a broken marriage I found out about a challenge that I didn’t know I love this person I’m walking in their shoes I have a deeper understanding for who they are and what they’re dealing with no wonder they come to work with maybe a tough day ahead because of the night that they’ve had before we can have empathy for people in different place and different walks of life that we have we can find ways to reach out have the courage to reach out and to understand these are opportunities these are chances that we have to come together to think a little differently to learn something but let’s make sure we take it with us it’s a top 10 list it’s my best shot hopefully it worked so with all that have a great day everybody thanks so much