Advisory Opinions - NFL Faces Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

On today’s podcast, David and Sarah talk about all aspects of Brian Flores's lawsuit against the NFL, with a deep dive into law and culture. They then turn to he who shall not be named and pour water on a specious vision of the apocalypse. They wind up with an impromptu discussion of Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne Barr, grace, and accountability.   Show Notes: -Brian Flores's NFL lawsuit -David in The Atlantic: “The NFL Has a ‘Good Ol’ Boy’ Problem” -New York Times: “Cawthorn Challenge Raises the Question: Who Is an ‘Insurrectionist’?” -Politico: “Biden vs. Trump: The Makings of a Shattering Constitutional Crisis” -Representative Victor Berger of Wisconsin, the First Socialist Member of Congress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isger. And it's fitting, Sarah, in a way that in between the AFC and NFC championship games and before the Super Bowl, we're going to have primarily a football themed legal podcast for a really, really good reason. And we're also, listeners, I've acquiesced, I've surrendered. It has now risen to the level where the name, he who shall not be named shall be named, Madison Cawthorn.

We're going to talk about it in the context of insurrection and a Politico article that was made some suggestions about how the 2024 election goes that, well, I'll just let Sarah say what her piece about that when the time comes. But it is going to be an example of how analysis, constitutional analysis that you sometimes read in, don't take all constitutional analysis as equally valid. Just shall we say that? All right. Let's just talk about the NFL. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about a lawsuit as filed by Brian Flores, former coach of the Miami Dolphins against the National Football League and the Giants and the Dolphins and the Broncos and, quote, John Doe teams 1 through 29.

In other words, he's basically suing all 32 teams in the NFL. It's a class action complaint seeking a jury trial. And basically what he's alleging in this complaint is that he, there has been a systematic, that he individually has been discriminated against on the basis of his race in his career opportunities in the NFL, that his prior employer, the Miami Dolphins and its owner engaged in practices that would have direct implications for the competitive integrity of the league. And then in essence, that if you're a white coach, that you've got a lot of chances. If you're a black coach in the NFL, you don't have many chances at all. And that this is a 70% black league.

And I'm just going to run through some of the statistics that he shares in the lawsuit. One out of 32 teams, 3% employs a black head coach. Four out of 32 teams, 12% employ a black offensive coordinator. 11 out of 32 employ a black defensive coordinator. Only eight of the 32 teams employ a black special teams coordinator. 11 out of 32 employ a black defensive coordinator. Only eight of the 32 teams employ a black special teams coordinator. Only three of the 32 employ a black quarterback coach and six employ a black general manager. And again, this is coming from a potential talent pool that is 70% black players. So I have kind of thought about this complaint in three kind of broad

categories sarah anecdotes statistics and story and when you combine these three things together i think what you have is the complaint has painted a picture of how elite spaces remain predominantly in certain areas like coaching, etc. without justification, long after the formal legal barriers or the formal policy barriers or the quite explicit discrimination has faded. And I don't know where exactly we should start here, but I guess I'd want to ask you, what about this complaint stood out to you the most? No question. What stood out to me the most is how hard these cases usually are to win. So as you mentioned, there's like individual discrimination where you need to show that, you know, but for your race, you would have gotten the job or the promotion. You have to show that through evidence of things that were gotten the job or the promotion. Um, you have to show that through evidence of things that were said or implied or whatever else. And also that, you know,

a white person got the job and, um, you know, those cases are hard because you need to prove stuff that is like basically in people's heads. Um, then there's sort of the statistical evidence you can bring to bear. And what's hard about cases like that is that, roughly speaking, African-Americans make up 13% of the population. And so when you're looking at the statistics in a normal employment situation, and it's like, well, only 9% of our managers are black, but the population is 13% black. And it's like, okay, but you know, is that really disparate enough that it can only be explained by racism versus something else? What's so fascinating about this to me is that you have the unusual, I mean, I can't think of another example

where everyone agrees that the coaches are being taken from the ranks of players and the players are 70% black. And it's going to make those statistical numbers pop, obviously, but also have far more legal significance. So, you know, 3% head coach, 70% player, 12% offensive coordinator, 70% player. And then even when you get to 34% defensive coordinator. Yeah, but 70% player. And so these cases are still really hard to win. And we'll talk about that. But it's a huge help in this case that I think the NFL is going to have to basically stipulate that the pool is 70% black and that's going to make it hard then to explain how this is happening. Now, I do think that's different than, for instance, the owner of NFL teams. Well, those don't tend to be taken from players. So there's no black owners of an NFL team. There's only 32 teams with only 13% of the population of the country being black, that's an example of like,

well, yeah, but like, that's hard then. You know, you would expect maybe three teams to have black owners if it was based on the population as a whole, but you're going to factor in the money and blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden, like that statistic could get washed away really quickly. Now, of course, they're not suing on that statistic. I'm using it more as an example. But it's hard to argue that, you know, the special teams coordinator or the quarterback coach hasn't played football before. Right. And there's also evidence. I mean, I didn't go through all of it. We're going to, of course, link the complaint in the show notes. But there's a lot of evidence about coaches who perform similarly, black coaches who perform similarly to white coaches are fired more quickly than white coaches. The point that you made, Sarah, about it's still hard to win these cases is, and this is roughly a version of what is called a disparate impact case. So this is when you look at a statistical evidence that says, wait a minute, there is profound underrepresentation here.

There's underrepresentation here. There's underrepresentation. In other words, there's a lot of smoke that might indicate some fire of racial discrimination and violation of civil rights laws. And so when you go and you look at what disparate impact litigate, you don't win a case by saying, well, there's 13 percent of the population is black and four percent of English professors at Oberlin are black. Therefore, disparate impact, underrepresentation, civil rights violation. That's not the way it works. And so the way the EEOC has phrased it, and we'll put this in the show notes, is that a complaining party, if an unlawful employment practice is based on disparate impact, then you have to show that there's a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And then the respondent fails to demonstrate that the challenge practice is job related

for the position in question and consistent with business necessity. And so you kind of have to show, and this is, you kind of have to show that there's a particular kind of policy in place that's not related to job necessity and an essential business practice that is causing this disparate impact. And when you're talking about small circles of people, it's 32 folks in each one of these categories, really small circles of people who are hired through highly individualized interview processes that are based on tons of intangibles. Again, this kind of thing that we're talking about, like the clearly most qualified coach is not quite like the person who runs the 40 the fastest.

There's lots of intangibles. It becomes really difficult to make that kind of case. But, Sarah, there's a but here. kind of case. But Sarah, there's a but here. What happens when you combine in the real world, Sarah, as opposed to I'm putting on a hat that says I am a completely, I'm just a student of legal tests and all I am is a student of legal tests. But you put on a hat that says, I'm a human being inhabiting the real world. What tends to be pretty deadly from a plaintiff's perspective is a combination of statistical evidence

and some pretty freaking gross anecdotes. That tends to be pretty potent. And David, we talked about this a little on the Dispatch podcast yesterday, and I think it's worth revisiting because I think there's an expectation of sort of what racism is going to look like or what sexism is going to look like.

And it doesn't always look that way, and it doesn't have to look that way. So let me read you some other statistics that are not included, by the way, in their complaint, although I think it would have made their case stronger in some respects. 111 NFL coaches are related biologically or through marriage to current or former NFL coaches. That's 111 out of 792 coaches currently employed by the NFL. 14% of all coaches. The league averages 3.4 coaches per team who are related to a current or former NFL coach. The percentage of coaches at the supervisory level, the ones with hiring power,

it will not surprise you, that percentage is much higher. 11 of 32 head coaches are related to a current or former NFL coach. There are 24 coordinators who are related to a current or former NFL coach. There are 24 coordinators who are related to current or former coaches, almost a full quarter. And I mentioned that. Where did you see that? Offensive coordinators, of course, it's like the DC circuit to the Supreme Court. Offensive coordinator to head coach.

Okay, so why is that important? Right? Because it goes to how I think most racism and sexism in modern society actually works. It's why people call it systemic racism or sexism, a term that I get it. Everyone hates now, but this is what that means, which is it's not that you don't want to hire a black person because you don't like black people. You think black people are less than all of that. No, it's that you want to hire someone you know, you're comfortable with, you're related to. And if the system already has starts with all white people, which of course, for those who don't know the history of the NFL, I don't think it will surprise anyone that they had a no black player rule for quite some time.

And that, uh, that was, uh, explicitly implicit. Is that, is that a fair description? I mean, look, the NFL was quite racist. And so at one point, everyone in charge is white. Everyone playing is white. Even after it integrates the player section, everyone running it is still white. So if they want to hire their friends, relatives, sons, son-in-laws, what's going to happen is racism, systemic racism, not individualized racism. And you see that and sexism of that nature happening in

industries that were totally run by men and white men in particular, that it's hard then to transition from that because they don't feel like they're being racist. They're just hiring people they know and they're more likely to know men, be friends with men than women. And they're more likely to know white men than they are black men. And their daughters are more likely to marry white men. And so, et cetera, it goes. And that's, I think, what this by marriage or biologically related numbers,

I was like, boom, proved it. This is, and you called it the old boys network, David. And I don't like that term because I think that implies a pejorative, a certain amount of like actual racism. Like the, the good old boys network is a little bit racist in my mind is a little bit actually sexist. Like, you know, says racist jokes, slaps girls on the butt when they leave type thing. But yeah, we did get in a debate on the dispatch podcast of our good old boys implied ass slapping. That's right.

But take that term out. And like, that's exactly what you have here. Yeah, this is I'm writing about this in The Atlantic and and I'll put the link in the we'll put the link in the show notes. But this is how I describe this is sort of one of my, a single sentence description. There's all these descriptions of systemic racism. Here, here's mine where I try to get at the, at the objection that a lot of people have to the term. Okay. Because when a lot of people hear the term systemic racism, they think, well, I'm part of this system and I'm not racist. My employer has diversity training. The NFL has the Rooney rule, you know, where they have to interview.

Oh, I want to talk about that. Oh, yeah. We got to talk about that. So here's my definition. Systems and structures designed by racists for racist reasons are often maintained by non-racists for non-racist reasons. In other words, if you have an all-white community that has been created and maintained by things like redlining or deed covenants, you name it, that all-white community has traditionally been more prosperous, right? So we're out of the NFL world. It's traditionally been more prosperous. It's had access to better schooling. So you come along, you're a parent, and it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years after the deed covenants have been struck down. Redlining is no longer lawful. And somebody says, you know what we need is more multi-family housing in this community. Because right now,

the people who are in lower income communities just can't move to where you live. It doesn't matter that there's a deed covenant anymore. It doesn't matter that there is not redlining anymore. What the reality is, is that you just can't afford it. You have been left behind. You are as closed out of Palo Alto, California, as if they erected a hundred foot wall. You cannot afford it. And so somebody comes along and says, hey, let's do some multifamily housing here and let's redistrict these schools a little bit to make them, you know, to encompass some more lower income students who could really reap some rewards from this lavishly funded public school that is here in the suburbs.

And people say, no, no, no, no. And they could pass a polygraph test saying, I am not racist. They might have a Black Lives Matter flag in on their front porch. I mean, this is going at progressive neighborhoods pretty hard here in some parts of the country. But they here's the non-racist reasons. My primary personal investment in my life is my home. I'm not going to do anything that's going to risk the value of my home. My primary personal investment in my heart is in the flourishing of my children. I'm not going to do and support any sort of policy

that would risk the education that we specifically moved here to receive. And so these things, you could, again, you could pass a polygraph of saying you're not racist, but what you've done is you've maintained structures that maintain the exact kind of segregation, both educational and residential, that leave people behind. And David, what's interesting about this is it gets to why it's so hard to fix. Because I just don't, I have yet to hear any argument to refute what we're saying.

It just is the case. hear any argument to refute what we're saying. It just is the case. And if you look at the NFL coaches, this is the best example, I think, because again, you have the 70% black players that you're drawing from. So how are you ending up with all white coaches unless each of these people is racist? Ah, they don't have to be racist. They're hiring their son-in-laws and their friends who they know. And they don't need to be racist to have that work. Okay, then what do you do about it? How do you create a legal system that deals with that? Because in this lawsuit, for instance, if the answer is, well, no, it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the fact that we all hire our sons-in-law and they happen to be white,

actually, you will lose that lawsuit if you can show that. That every time you just hire your children, that's okay. That is a race-neutral reason. Now, of course, there's pretextual stuff. I don't mean that the lawsuit just goes away because of that. But like, truly, if you can show that's what's going on legally in our discrimination laws, that's fine. And same with what you're talking about in those neighborhoods, even though that is maintaining a racially discriminatory school system in its impact, it isn't in treatment. And we're very uncomfortable. We're very comfortable legally with banning disparate treatment because of race. We're very uncomfortable, I think, for very good reasons, by the way, for treating disparate impact based on race, outlawing that legally, because all things, all sorts of things can have a disparate impact on race race outlawing that legally? Because all sorts of things can have a disparate impact on race for non-racial reasons, even for non-systemically racial reasons, David.

And how do you distinguish between those two things? We as a society have not been able to answer that question at all, even a little. And in fact, we just fight over whether there's systemic racism, which is bonkers because it's quite clear that there is. It's in when you're dealing with a cultural problem. And I know I know you object to my framing of good old boys, but let me describe how I define that. OK, so I'm I define it and as essentially networks of relationships where essentially it is friends help each other out. They have connections that they share. They have a common culture

where they interact easily and freely. They vouch for each other. They take care of each other's sons or daughters in their career paths as evidenced by this. And this is really interesting. They forgive mistakes in a way that they don't forgive stakes for those outside the club.

Oh, can I just give the best example of this to explain what that means? When someone cuts you off on the road, that person is an asshole. When you cut someone off on the road, you didn't see them and you didn't mean to, and you feel bad about it. And so you're not an asshole for cutting them off.

And if someone cuts you off on the road and they're an asshole and you later find out it's your best friend and they were rushing, you know, because their kids school and whatever, whatever, you're like, oh my God, how can I help? Can I babysit? That's the difference that we're talking about here of forgiving people you know, and any mistake made by a stranger is attributed to their character, their bad motives. And so it's very easy. I mean, I'm sure everyone has experienced this in their workplace, right? You don't know someone when you first show up somewhere and you're like, oh, that was the worst decision ever. And then once you know them or once you understand sort of the constraints put upon them, you know, by whatever your workplace stuff is, you're like, well,

they didn't really have a choice but to do that. That's the difference when you know someone and they make a mistake. And I'll tell you this. It's also just sort of the background level of, it's not just even sort of forgiving an explicit mistake. It's sort of the background level of room you give them. You know, just sort of the discretion. And the perfect example is the John Grudem part of this complaint. complaint so in the in this complaint what what and a lot of folks who follow nfl know that grudem was fired by las vegas raiders after a bunch of emails came out which were bad okay he um engaged it's not not veiled racism not the kind of thing thing where you need to bring in an academic to describe the history of this term and that it might be how it was truly racist in 1878. And there's legacies of it now.

No, no, no, no, no. Like actual racist talk, shared nude pictures of cheerleaders was just and this was not sort of this was to other NFL officials. just, and this was not sort of, this was to other NFL officials. Okay. This was to people in the NFL who, and he lands a, I believe at the time, the most lucrative coaching contract in the history of the league. Okay. That's what it means to be in the club. That's what it means to be in the club. That's what it means. You can act with impunity. You have discretion and freedom of action that other people don't have. And that's, you know, when you see this. And then here's the other part of this that was so clearly this network of relationships and friendships that was just gobsmacking.

And we talked about on the Dispatch podcast. So Flores is about to interview for the Giants job. Oh, good. We're talking about the Rooney rule. That's where I wanted to go next is one of the fixes that we've come up with for the old boys network of relationships, as you said, not legally, but one that I have touted, one that I think is a great idea is the Rooney rule. And this was created by the NFL, but it's used now in a lot of private sector employee employers. And the idea is when you're interviewing for a position, even if you know the candidate, you know, that you think is best, you need to interview at least one person who is not a white male or, you know, the NFL has specific, you know, two minority candidates

for a head coach position, one minority candidate for, you know, coordinator position, whatever. And the idea is, yeah, you're going to otherwise pull from your relationship network. And this forces you to go out of your relationship network, A, and you don't have to hire the person, but you may be surprised in the interview of like, wow, we had to work extra hard to find this person. And now that we have, they're incredibly well-qualified. They wowed us in the interview. And so on occasion, then you're going to pull in people from outside the friend network and that this is a sort of non top-down legalistic way to fix some of these systemic problems. I thought, I have thought that it sounds great. I think I've been the beneficiary of Rooney rule-esque interview processes. I've gone into interview where two people were friends

with the hiring person and I didn't know the hiring person at all. And yeah, I went in with like an attitude of like, I have to be so much better and so good in this interview to even potentially get this job. And so I went in aggressive and was like, here are the three reasons you should hire me. I'm smarter than the people you are going to interview. I will cost less than the people you are going to interview. And I will work much harder than the people you are going to interview. I will cost less than the people you are going to interview. And I will work much harder than the people you are going to interview. I bring different skills, you know, and like I made it a head to head comparison and made it really hard to justify not hiring me. And I got the job. Turned out I did not have a good relationship with the person

who hired me, probably for all of the personality reasons that I just laid out in that interview, but that's on them. And so that's all to say, I think the Rooney rule is great. And this complaint completely destroys any positive feelings that you could have about the Rooney rule, because it turns out that if you don't do the Rooney rule in good faith, that it's not only doesn't accomplish what you want it to accomplish, but in fact has perversely the exact opposite. It's seen as it is humiliating. It is tokenism.

It's really bad. And you can't force people to do the Rooney rule in good faith. So David, tell us about how the Rooney rule worked for Mr. Flores. Boy, this story is unbelievable. Okay. So what happens is Flores is interviewing or about to interview for the Giants job. Now, you don't have to be someone who follows the NFL at all to know that this is a plum job. The New York football Giants, great, great job. Well, it's a plum job in prestige. It's actually kind of a hellhole from a football standpoint.

job in prestige, it's actually kind of a hellhole from a football standpoint. But also worth noting, the New York Giants have never in their entire history as a football team, not once, had a black head coach. Yeah. So he's a few days away from the interview, three days away, and he gets a text from Bill Belichick. And I just want to read this exchange. Sounds like you've landed. Congrats. Flores responds, did you hear something I didn't hear? Belichick, giants?

Question mark, exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point, question part, exclamation point. I interview on Thursday. I think I have a shot at it. Got it. I hear from Buffalo and New York Giants that you're their guy. Hope it works out if you want it to.

That's definitely what I think I want. Or that's definitely what I want. I hope you're right, coach. Thank you. And then, coach, are you talking to Brian Flores or Brian Dayball? Just trying to make sure. Next text from Bill Belichick. Sorry, I effed this up.

Double checked and I misread the text. I think they're naming Dayball. I'm sorry about that. Response. Thanks, Bill. Now, let's talk about missed texts here for a second because Belichick has a choice he can pretend that he misread the initial thing from the Giants and mixed up the two bills but what actually happened I mean come on right he texted the wrong bill. Yes. Something we've all done.

You type in bill and just start texting away. Those are like, oh, the feeling you get when you realize you've been texting the wrong person and now you've got to make it seem not horrible what you've done. Oh, man. There's also like the time that goes by. There's also like the time that goes by. Like, so it starts at 2.30 p.m. when he sends the, are you talking to Brian Flores or Brian Dable?

Just making sure. 4.51 p.m. Sorry. Oh, man. And so what this says is, so this is two things at once. One, sham, sham interview. Totally. Total sham interview.

And so blatant, by the way, because not only was it a sham interview that they were going to conduct to maintain their Rooney rule, where they have to interview two people, two minority candidates, at least one in person, but that it's clearly such a practice of theirs that these sham interviews exist, that they feel comfortable telling outsiders, enough outsiders that it's not even a secret that Bill Belichick finds out that they've already made the decision. That's how much of a sham it is. Yeah. And this is classic good old boyism. I'm calling my friends at the Bills and telling them we're hiring Dayball. Somebody calls Belichick at the Patriots. So that's three teams right there. Three teams in the loop that this is a total sham. They're interviewing Flores as a box checking exercise and it doesn't mean anything. And that's humiliating. That's

humiliating for Flores that now all these people know that he's having to go in there and sit there and waste his time because for the reason that he is black. Yep. Yep. Oh my gosh. So then it, of course, what does it do? It casts other incidents in a different light. So there's this other story from 2019. It says this was not Mr. I'm reading from the complaint here. So this is and this is let's just be clear that the screenshots are pretty freaking good evidence. pretty freaking good evidence. Now, what we're hearing next is Flores' account. Okay, it's the Elway, the Broncos can refute it, but this is Flores' account, or the Broncos can contest it, but this is Flores' account. He says, incredibly, this was not Mr. Flores' first sham interview

that was held only in an effort to comply with the Rooney rule. Indeed, in 2019, Mr. Flores was effort to comply with the Rooney rule. Indeed, in 2019, Mr. Flores was scheduled to interview with the Denver Broncos. However, the Broncos' then general manager, John Elway, president and chief executive officer, Joe Ellis, and others showed up an hour late to the interview. They looked completely disheveled, and it was obvious they'd been drinking heavily the night before. It was clear from the substance of the interview that Mr. Flores was interviewed only because of the Rooney rule

and the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate for the job. If you're coming in as a candidate for a job and the people who are interviewing you show up an hour later completely disheveled, they're not committed to you. And I, you know, that seems pretty obvious. Here's the problem legally for the case. You need to prove that you weren't hired because of your race. Proving that you were interviewed fakely because of your race doesn't actually get you that much closer in my view, you know, because they already

knew bill from the bills. Is that really what I'm saying here? Right. Bill from the bills. They already knew bill from the bills. They already knew they were going to hire bill from the bills. They didn't not pick you because of your race. They interviewed you because of your race. I think it is a great anecdote to show the rot within the NFL, but legally it's almost irrelevant. Now here's, here's the interesting thing. Um, here, so let's talk about courts of law and courts of public opinion, um, and how you can end up making major concessions because of courts of public opinion in cases where if you were to contest it to the hilt, you may win in a court of law. I remember early in my legal career, there were allegations made as a class action lawsuit. It was a racial discrimination class action lawsuit that a particular institution, a restaurant chain, was actually systematically discriminating on the basis of race. And there was a lot of evidence of statistical disparate impact, you know, underrepresentation, things like that. statistical, disparate impact, underrepresentation, things like that.

Well, what slaughtered the defense, what slaughtered the defense and ultimately, one of the things that ultimately led to settlement was some really potent anecdotal evidence, such as one of the senior leaders walking into a restaurant at random in a state and saying, wow, there's a lot of pepper in this on the white staff. Can't we get some more salt in it? Now was there evidence that this executive was then setting the tone and hiring practices for all kinds of, you know, restaurants run by general managers all over the country. Nope, no, no. Do you want to go into a jury and rest your defense on the idea that what looked like to be some pretty blatant racism

at the top didn't really affect the rest of the organization because of these sort of pretty precise reasons about who hired whom and things like that. Not great, Bob. Not great. Yeah, Bill Belichick on the stand here will be interesting. Also, just like interpersonally, I want to know whether Flores talked to Belichick ahead of time and asked him, you know, look, I'm going to include this. I want to let you know. Do you, you know, can I include that? Like how that all went down?

I'm super interested what Belichick would say about all this, but I'm glad that Flores included it because without it, it is such a key takedown of the NFL's application of the Rooney Rule. I feel like a lot of the private sector employers that I've ever talked to, they implement the Rooney rule because they themselves truly believe in its mission. Therefore, the Rooney rule isn't a waste of time. The problem is at the NFL, when Goodell puts in the Rooney rule, it's very top down. There's 32 separate entities now doing it who don't maybe believe in the efficacy or benefits of the Rooney rule. David, there's one other part of this complaint that I want to talk about, which is the race norming. Yes. So after all the concussion news came out and the head

injuries and the mental decline of some NFL players, the NFL agreed to make payouts to those players if they could show a mental decline of some kind. And they would have to meet with doctors. They have to do these battery of tests. And the NFL, it appears, told the doctors that it had to be based on that player's midline, what we assume to be their midline performance before joining the NFL. In doing so, that meant that the doctors were forced to or did race norm.

And let me explain what that means. African-Americans perform less well on average on some of these cognitive tests than white Americans. And so what they have done is, you know, reset the median. Now, when you hear that for the first time, you think, ah, so you're saying black people have lower cognitive performance than white people. And it's like, well, no, that's not quite what they're trying to say with race norming. What they are saying is that the tests themselves, which were largely developed by white doctors and then used on, again, generally white middle-class Americans to set what that norm was to create the questions in the first place, all of that,

that those tests, when applied to African-Americans, show lower scores. That's why you race norm, right? If the test is just a little bit racist and we can't quite figure out why, then if you are a black student who scores a 1400 on their SAT, that's a little bit more impressive than a white student who scores a 1400 on their SAT, that's a little bit more impressive than a white

student who scores a 1400 on their SAT. Roughly, that's how the argument goes. But here's the problem. It makes a lot of sense if we're talking about people overperforming. But when you talk about people who are underperforming, the reason that we race norm in medical stuff we right i just mean like the medical community not me personally uh the reason that the medical community race norms is because black patients were getting over diagnosed with health problems mental issues etc because these tests were sort of white based tests But when you're talking about that and about payouts, it very much appears that the NFL is saying, we're not going to pay this black player for their cognitive decline related to their time in the NFL, but we are going to pay a white player

with the exact same current cognitive function because presumably that white player was smarter to begin with. Woof. That is not a good place to be. They use it in this complaint to show sort of a baseline racism and assumptions that if the NFL assumes that black players started out dumber than the white players, of course they're not going to hire them for the offensive coordinator position. And the way you see this in the systemic line of argument is, okay, head coaches are generally taken from offensive coordinators. Offensive coordinators are generally taken from quarterbacks. Quarterbacks are generally taken from college quarterbacks. And those college quarterbacks are overwhelmingly white. Why? The argument would go because back in high school or some point,

there became an assumption that the white players were simply more strategically minded, could really see the field as a whole, just smarter. And so they were put into that quarterback position in ninth grade, 10th grade, whatever it is. And that literally putting more white players into the quarterback position because you think they're more strategic in ninth grade is why we don't have black head coaches now. I mean, it's like you can look at it from law schools and find something kind of similar, right? If Supreme Court justices are taken from D.C. Circuit judges and D.C. Circuit judges have to be taken League school. And how does it go when you go to an Ivy League school? Well, it helps to be wealthy. It helps to know lawyers ahead of you, have lawyers

in your family who can help you. I mean, you see how this all works out and how something at the very beginning, you know, the butterfly flapping its that, that's a great way of, of talking about sort of, of consequences. And it's also a great way of talking about when a, a, an entire system has been created for generations, generations and generations and generations. And what it does is it creates, as a result of a system that's aimed specifically at a group of people, it creates knock-on effect cultures. It impacts all of the other cultures in the U.S. Okay. So all of the other cultures in the U.S. become accustomed to a certain way of life, a certain way of living, a certain kind of relationships that are influenced by the culture that discriminatory conduct created. So therefore, when you lift the discriminatory conduct, which you have to do, that's an absolute indispensable necessity, you still have all of that culture there. It's still there. And that's why I think there's such a difference between what I call between fairness and aggressive fairness. OK, so fairness is OK. I'm myself. I'm not racist. I believe in equal opportunity.

in equal opportunity. I want people to have the same chance to succeed that I enjoyed. And in my capacity as someone who hires people, that's just my approach. And then amongst the people who come to me and I interview, that's the approach I'm going to apply. Okay, fine. Okay. But what you have to realize is that the water you're swimming in is influenced by everything else. So if you're saying, I want actual fairness in this country, then you have to have aggressive fairness. In other words, there have been people who have been on the outside looking in who aren't swimming around in this network as easily as everybody else because they've been on the outside looking in and they're super talented and they deserve a chance. Where are they? Where are they? Let's go find them. And one of the points I make in the piece

that I'm finishing is that elite space is in America. And a lot of this, so we're talking about football coaches. There's a lot of different things going on when you're talking about hiring, you know, you've got a thousand jobs to fill in a factory or 4,000 jobs to fill in a factory. What you're talking about is a very small universe of people. These elite spaces are small. There are multiple qualified people for each one of these elite spaces. And then how do you make that decision? How aggressive are you in finding people who are incredibly well qualified, who aren't your offensive coordinator's nephew, who isn't the brother of your head coach friend? I mean, this is the kind of thing that we're talking about, how even somebody who's fair, who's committed to fairness,

sort of is choosing by the people who come to him as opposed to aggressive fairness, which is choosing amongst the people who are qualified and aggressively seeking out a wide range of people to bring in and to sit at the table. And I think there's a really big difference of that. And people who sort of have that more passive degree of fairness, it's not that they're racist. You know, it's not that they're sitting around and believing black people are inferior to white people or whatever. And so when they hear things like

systemic racism or race discrimination, they're indignant. They're indignant because how dare you say that I'm a racist? Well, the issue isn't whether you're personally a racist. The issue isn't necessarily, and there might be evidence of explicit racism beyond what we've seen in this complaint, but in many cases, the issue isn't, is this league full of explicitly racist people? It's full of people who are just going with the pre-existing flow. And that pre-existing flow has its own momentum. Yeah. So let's talk about a little bit the legal hurdles and then we'll go on to insurrection. The Rooney rule was protecting the NFL quite a bit, showing their intention to try to hire more minority coaches. What they've done a nice job here is undermining the efficacy of the Rooney rule in that end.

Because if the Rooney rule is a sham, then it's not actually a genuine effort by the NFL, whether it was intended to be or not. It's not being used in a genuine effort by the NFL to recruit more minority coaches. Look, overall, these cases are really hard to win because they can show non-race-based reasons for every individual hiring decision by and large. And disparate impact cases, as we said, are, I mean, nearly impossible. I mean, there's even a question of whether disparate impact is protected under the law. So I don't know that this case, even as strong as it is, has what it takes to win. But you know what? It definitely has what it takes to get past a motion to dismiss, which would mean you would get discovery. Now, some people are like, okay, the NFL is just going to settle this for a lot of money. I don't know that if I'm Bill Flores,

there is a number at which I'm settling this before I get discovery. I mean, maybe there is, but boy, that number, it's so flipping high. I want discovery because the purpose in bringing this lawsuit, I would assume, is a legacy lawsuit. It's not just to win money.

And in that case, I think the NFL is in a lot of trouble because they're going to pay him so many digits in that settlement before discovery. Or they're going to go through discovery and it's going to be pretty bad for them. You know, and the problem is, and this is what's sad. He probably doesn't really want digits. He probably wants to coach a freaking football team, you know? Yeah, true enough. But here's the other thing about it, about discovery. If you have a set of text messages that are,

that have revealed what the Belichick, you know, that the Patriots, Giants and Bills knew who the Giants were hiring before one of the candidates knew. Are you thinking this? Wow, I have discovered the only text chain that has ever existed describing the only sham application of the Rooney Rule. Are you thinking, what the heck? Yeah, I mean, but for the Belichick accident, we'd never know about that. Right. You're thinking, how many times has this happened? How many text chains are out there between people in the club about who's getting hired before it's announced and before Black candidates have been hired.

And Sarah, if there's only even one or two others out there in over the years, I mean, they're just again and again, what you're talking about is, can you get to a jury? If you're talking about the legal hurdles and I agree with you completely, these cases are hard to win. But when you get over the motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment, and you stand in front of the jury, the balance of equities and the existence of startling moments is very important in shaping a narrative for a jury. It's just incredibly important. a narrative for a jury. It's just incredibly important. And defenses that are very legalistic and hyper-technical are not as compelling to the jury often as they are to a judge. And so, yeah, I agree with you completely. Hard cases to win. But this is not something that the NFL wants discovery on. And if he wants to press it all the way through and he can get in front of a

jury, I wouldn't want to be the NFL. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today. Aura ready to win mother's day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family. Give the moms in your life and aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. She'll love looking

back on your childhood memories and seeing what you're up to today. Even better, with unlimited storage and an easy to use app, you can keep updating mom's frame with new photos. So it's the gift that keeps on giving. And to be clear, every mom in my life has this frame. Every mom I've ever heard of has this frame. This is my go-to gift. My parents love it. I upload photos all the time. I'm just like bored watching TV at the end of the night. I'll hop on the app and put up the photos from the day. It's really easy.

Right now, Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off, plus free shipping on their best-selling frame. That's a-u-R-A frames.com. Use code advisory at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. All right, let's move to the 14th Amendment insurrection lawsuits going on in North Carolina. It turns out the bar to get someone kicked off the ballot in North Carolina is pretty low.

Suspicion that the person is not qualified to be on the ballot is enough to throw the whole thing into chaos. And that is what's happening for Madison Cawthorn. He has now sued to undo their suspicious, you know, flag of his candidacy. And that's where things lie right now in North Carolina. Madison Cawthorn's attorney, Jim Bopp, has filed a lawsuit saying that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Madison Cawthorn. Put a pin in that for a second. We'll explain everything about what that means. Because David did not want to talk about that, even though the New York Times wrote up this very credulous version of Madison Cawthorn not being on the ballot. But then very famous Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman wrote a piece in Politico, Biden versus Trump, the making of a shattering constitutional crisis.

Section three of the 14th Amendment, I'm reading obviously here of Ackerman's piece, along with Gerard Magliacca from Indiana University. Section three of the 14th Amendment, the disqualification clause expressly bars any person from holding, quote, any office, civil or military under the United States. If he engaged in insurrection against the Constitution after previously swearing to uphold it, quote, as an officer of the United States. These terms definitely apply to Trump. And some Democrats are exploring the use of Section 3 against him. Okay, just quick asterisk. It is actually not at all clear that an officer of the United States

can refer, includes the president of the United States can refer includes the president of the United States. So just asterisk on that. The text is framed in exceptionally broad terms, prohibiting service in any of the states as well as the federal government. You could overcome it, but only by obtaining a vote of two thirds of each house. Nobody thinks Trump's getting that. Fair enough. I agree with that. Before he can run for the Republican nomination in the primaries,

he must convince each state's election authorities that Section 3 doesn't bar him from the White House. Maybe so. I question whether they could do that in the primary versus in the general election. But OK, I'll even go with that. It makes it makes what I'm about to say even stronger, actually. OK. So according to Ackerman, it is virtually impossible that all 50 states will come to the same decision. Instead, some election authorities will disqualify him from being on the ballot, while others will conclude that the facts are insufficiently compelling to justify his exclusion under the 14th Amendment. Agreed. This means that in 2023, the nation will be split into two parts. In the constitutionalist region, Trump will be disqualified. In the insurrectionist region, the electoral authorities will validate him as a legitimate

candidate for the Republican nomination. For the rest of the campaign scene, Trump will organize massive rallies in the insurrectionist states. While the Democratic opposition in these states will respond with counter demonstrations, violent confrontations may result. At the same time, Democrats will mobilize against Trump in the constitutionalist states and Republicans will passionately defend him. This will dramatically reinforce the polarization dividing Americans. Election day will escalate these tensions. Trump supporters in constitutionalist states won't see his name on their ballot. Instead, they will likely see

the name of a proxy candidate whom Trump has designated as his stand in to deprive Biden of his electoral college majority. The constitutional crisis will escalate once the polls close because no one will receive that majority. She is likely to find that none of the leading candidates, either Biden or Trump, nor Trump's proxy has won a majority of the electoral votes. At that point, she will confront little known provisions of the constitution that will make Mike Pence's predicament on January 6th seem modest by comparison. They involve the 12th amendment ratified when Thomas Jefferson was in the white house to remedy serious difficulties that arose in his presidential

contest with John Adams. Here, of course, we're referring to the fact that it goes to the House and they vote by state delegation. And I mean, this goes on and on about how like crazy this will get because Republicans will control more of the states.

Democrats won't accept that. The presidential, this won't get decided in time before inauguration day. And that means that the speaker will act as president. And oh, my God. Now, Kevin McCarthy is president United States, according to Bruce Ackerman. How is this not going to happen? David, tell us. It just seems so everything's following from the next. Wow. Except I just mentioned that lawsuit going on in North Carolina. Mm hmm. I don't even the second a state says that they're not including Donald Trump on the ballot.

The Trump campaign sues. None of this other stuff happens until the Supreme Court decides whether Trump can appear on the ballot, not just in those states and any states will be that decision's implication. So none of these other things happen. And in fact, the Cawthorn, the Cawthorn case, look, could have slightly different facts, right? Madison Cawthorn, the Cawthorn case, look, could have slightly different facts, right? Madison Cawthorn didn't really have a whole lot to do with January 6th in particular. He, let's just stipulate, right? He said really nice things about them.

He cheered them on to some extent. Is that participating in an insurrection under the 14th Amendment? Again, I just want to read the section three again. participating in an insurrection under the 14th Amendment, again, I just want to read the section three again, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. David, I'm going to be real honest about my read on this. David, I'm going to be real honest about my read on this. That to me is a conviction. At this point.

Yeah, seditious conspiracy level conviction. I'm not saying that's going to be required, obviously after the Civil War, they weren't required to convict people, but shall have engaged. I was not following. Now I'm completely following that a conviction is necessary to meet that. Yeah. And so I don't think it's just up to individual states to make that decision.

Maybe you could have something short of a conviction, but meeting some other incredibly high bar. And David, before I turn this over to you for your thoughts, and again, just here are my three thoughts. One, this goes to the courts and it's resolved nationwide, not state by state. There's no insurrectionist states and constitutionalist states. And then there's a proxy vote and now no one gets an electoral majority. Bruce Ackerman was having one hell of a fever dream. Two, the bar for Section 3 of the 14th Amendment shall have engaged or given aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States. I just think that's a much, much higher bar than, again, the sort of progressive fever dream wants

to think it is, maybe as far as conviction. Three, historically, this has been done before. Nothing new under the sun. A member of Congress had been convicted under a sedition act circa World War I. He was a socialist. He didn't like World War I. And he won election to Congress. He had actually already been in Congress. And then he won reelection to Congress. The House refused to seat him, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And a long story quite short about him, the Supreme Court threw out his conviction. He was seated in Congress. And the whole episode's a bit of an embarrassment, frankly, to the United States. His name is Victor Berger. He was elected in Wisconsin, first socialist member of Congress. And the case is called Berger v. United States,

overruling a trial court decision against Berger, who were convicted of violating the Espionage Act by publicizing anti-interventionist views during World War I, like clear First Amendment stuff. He goes on to have sort of an interesting career. He gets back into Congress. career. He gets back into Congress. He has this sort of funny quote that they have. The congressman held the floor for an hour of debate on wool tariffs. If you will bear with me in patience for an hour, I am told that oratory counts for little or nothing in this house, that you want facts. I am very glad of it because I hope to convince you within five minutes that I am not an orator and within 10 minutes that I have some facts. Fun times. So, and the other thing that's interesting about this is, of course, it was up to the House to determine whether there was a violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, not the individual states. I think, so my bottom line position

is pretty much coming out exactly where you come out, that a conviction is going to be necessary. Because this idea that you could subjectively, subjectively, state by state, decide who meets that test and either deny them access to the ballot or not strikes me as untenable in the extreme. It's untenable in the extreme because there's also this little matter of a right to vote.

Okay, so that's not as fully and completely defined as you might think that, you know, I don't have that the right to vote can be circumscribed by certain specific rules and regulations and an election for state electors is a state election and their state rules and regulations. But this sort of idea that a state can say you cannot vote for a major party nominee for president. And if you do try to vote, whether write-in or whatever, it won't really be counted and be effective because, and why because? Because we have deemed in our wisdom

that this candidate doesn't meet a constitutional qualification according to a subjective test that we have established. That's a big yikes on that, Sarah. An objective test is a conviction. That's an objective test. A subjective test is, well, I think even though this person hasn't been convicted in a court of law,

they should have been, but no prosecutor brought the case, or no. I think conviction is the only way. Yeah, or a vote of Congress, I think, would count as a quasi-conviction, similar to impeachment, right? You could be convicted, quote unquote, in the houses of Congress. Let me just read also. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress or elector of president and vice

president or hold any office, civil or military under the United States or under any state who, you know, the insurrection language. It's very interesting to me because they're arguing that the presidency is included in or hold any office under the United States. But why would like if they're counting, if they're listing senator, representative, elector of president or vice president, you're telling me they didn't think about the presidency or vice presidency itself and just included it in a residual clause. I think there's a good argument that presidency is also not included in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And then, of course, as I mentioned,

who it counts for having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States. Again, it's not clear that the presidency is an office of an officer of the United States. So lots of legal problems, none of which Bruce Ackerman mentions in his piece. I actually would have, it's not that I object to the conversation. It's an interesting conversation. Legally, I am all in. I'm super fascinated by it, but you gotta be honest. Uh, does the first part of section three apply to the presidency? I think there's a very good argument. It doesn't. Does the second part apply to the office of the presidency's a very good argument it doesn't. Does the second part apply to the office of the presidency? Pretty good argument that it doesn't. And then does the third part apply to Donald Trump or Madison Cawthorn? What is the standard by shall have

engaged in insurrection? None of those three things are in the Ackerman piece. Doesn't mention that it would get to the Supreme Court and there would be a nationwide decision on how it applies and when. And instead, we're just riling people up that there's like a civil war happening tomorrow, wildly incorrect and illegitimate, in my view, speculation. Yeah. No, agree. Agree. It will not play out like that no no it's not going to play out like that let's just go ahead and declare there might be a parade of horribles somewhere in our future it's just not that parade of horribles so we'll follow the madison cawthorne lawsuit uh i think I think Madison Cawthorn will win that lawsuit. I think everyone here knows that, like,

I'm not a Madison Cawthorn voter, but this is where you, it's important to separate what your read of the law is from how you want the law to come out. So, you know, stop hoping that Madison Cawthorn gets taken off the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment unless you actually want to have this broad disqualification language that Madison Cawthorn gets taken off the ballot under section three of the 14th amendment,

unless you actually want to have this broad disqualification language that can just be applied by random voters in North Carolina. No. Right. Right. All right. Wow. We thought are two topics going to be enough? Two topics were enough. And we didn't even get to talk about Whoopi Goldberg, who, I mean, we spent all this time talking about race in the NFL, and there was like a major race-based kerfuffle with Whoopi Goldberg, but maybe another time. Oh, I know. I know, and it's funny.

I'm getting absolutely roasted online because I wrote that apologies should count for something in this world. And that given that we're all imperfect people, that, um, giving of grace is a necessary aspect of our human existence. And people are furious at me because I was not upset that Roseanne was fired from ABC. One of these things is not like the other. The idea that we should have more grace in society does not mean that there should be no lines. And those where more grace merges with, where more grace morphs into more accountability, those are debatable gray areas. But there's a giant difference between I made a mistaken statement about an event that I unequivocally condemn and people that I unequivocally support, and I'm sorry, versus, and I don't even want to say what Roseanne said about Valerie Jarrett,

after a history of wildly erratic behavior where actually ABC giving her another chance was a product of grace. And so these are really different circumstances, and we really need to be able to have an intelligent discussion that says, we can have more grace, but at the same time, more grace is not the same thing as saying there are no lines of behavior. Or shall I quote the Apostle Paul, shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? No. I wish that we had had a little more discussion on why the idea that that was just white people fighting amongst themselves is offensive. I mean, she maintains that you can't tell the difference between a white person and a Jewish person that they're both white because she can't see a darker skin color or something like that um and after her apology David she went on and said that and um oh actually I

think the timeline's more complicated than that apparently she taped apparently she taped that Colbert thing before she issued her apology. I did not know that. See, I apologize. But so this idea that one ethnic group doesn't see differences in other races, right? Like, well, they're all oriental to me. I don't see the difference between Chinese and Japanese. Well, that's offensive. Why?

You can't then say like, but I don't see the difference. You know, I'm sure Whoopi Goldberg would feel similarly if someone, you know, just said there's no difference between an African-American and someone born in Africa or someone born in the Caribbean, that those are all different groups of people. And so for me, someone who did experience anti-Jewish racism growing up, that struck me as like particularly problematic in what she said. You know, I think I've told this story before, but like I was severely bullied in fifth grade. Um, and I was only allowed to be friends with the non-white students in my class of which there were only two. Um, and the white students were all friends with each other. And, and because I was Jewish,

um, I couldn't spend any time with the white students and fast forward to high school. Um, you know, a boy who I really liked, uh, he thought I was like funny and smart and whatever. And he said, but yeah, but like, obviously I can't like date you because like you're Jewish and you look super Jewy. So like the fact that like Whoopi Goldberg can't tell the difference doesn't mean that other groups don't treat Jews with some amount of racism. other groups don't treat Jews with some amount of racism. And, and that it's just like, it is, I think, getting better over time. I'm glad. But again, it's just like, it denies this whole experience that some people had because she only sees her own racial lens, which I fully acknowledge that racial lens, but it's a problem in the United States that we have collapsed all race conversations to black versus white racism. When look, the Irish

were pretty racist against the Italians and vice versa. You read about busing in the 1970s in Boston. It was Jews, Irish, Italian, black, all separated. And so it just it denies this whole history of our country that is painful for some people and collapses it into, nope, it's literally black or white now and everything else is frivolous. Yeah, well, that goes to I actually wrote about this. There was a Stanford diversity program that created racial affinity groups. Title VII alert, Title VII alert, and then double Title VII alert told Jewish employees that they had one option to join the white racial affinity group. group. Well, if you know anything about the history of white supremacy, you know that Jews were placed very much on the outside there. I mean, this is the creation of the SAT. Harvard's entire initial admissions policy was based to keep Jews out. They were not considered white. Exactly. So, and if you know anything about the rise of the Third Reich, if you know anything

about Nazi ideology, I mean, it was not just that Jews are a different race. They were placed in a subhuman category. And so, yeah, what you saw was this really breathtaking display of ignorance. I can't peer into Whoopi's mind and say it was malice. I don't think there's a lot of evidence necessarily of malice, but there's this breathtaking display of ignorance for which she apologized. And so it's one of these things, I feel like there's a difference between malice and ignorance. It's easier or mistake, malice, ignorance, mistake. David, can I though say one other thing? The apology was a written statement and it was great and I accept it. But I would like to hear Whoopi explain in her own words,

not a statement written by the PR team, potentially, that where she explains what she thinks the problem is and what she's learned, I think that would be really helpful to hear in her own words for me. She might do that, but she's been suspended. I hope she does. Yeah. I don't mean to say that she won't or doesn't have any plans to do that. I really, for me, it would be helpful to have someone of her stature who clearly didn't know a lot about the Jewish experience in the United States or during World War II to say what she learned and what she thinks she would say differently now and how she views the, yeah, the racial history of the United States differently than she did before as a black woman,

which I think would be really helpful to the conversation, actually. And I'm all with you about grace, even when it's hard. And I have to say in this situation, I felt like it was a little bit hard for me, David. It was. And I think differently than for you, probably. And I think differently than for you, probably. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. And just to give some perspective. So, for example, on this Roseanne thing.

Here was the tweet that Roseanne issued. Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby, Valerie Jarrett. VJ, meaning Valerie Jarrett. It's a different category. If you can't see a different category, just a different category of sheer spite and malice versus even really harmful, maybe ideologically motivated ignorance. I don't know. I mean, my gosh. You know, my gosh. And this is after a string of incidents in this person's career. There was also a problem in that the initial apology, I believe, said that Ambien was responsible. And that led to the best PR as we said, it's not confined to Whoopi Goldberg. This is a viewpoint that has infected some pretty elite spaces in this country, including the spaces in Stanford that triggered an EEOC complaint. And we can put that in the show notes as well.

I mean, just imagine being told, here's your racial affinity group. And look, I appreciate the people who have tried to come out and explain the complication and the nuance of what being Jewish means. Like, right, you can convert to Judaism, but also it's an ethnic group. Like, I get it. That part's all confusing. Anti-Semitism is confusing because we don't then separate out whether it's against people because of the politics of Israel or because of the religion or because of the race, all of it gets really muddled, but, um, it's not something just

in our past. It's something very, very much in the present. And that's why, again, I hope I appreciate the apology. It was one of the sort of harder apology moments where like it actually tests whether you believe in grace a little bit more than most. And I think those are good moments for people, right? You never know how easy it is for you to extend grace until it's against you. Right. So I think that's great, but I would like to hear her Uh, so I think that's great, but I would like to hear her discuss in her own words. Um, and, and in a real way, right? Like that's what the view is supposed to be about. I don't want her to read from a statement.

I don't want her to feel like she's under a microscope and that if she screws it up again, that somehow like that's it, even though that's probably exactly, you know, what people would say, I actually think this is a great moment for someone to learn and explore who's a massive public figure with a huge following. And I think we should all go along that journey with her and be supportive of it, understanding that in two weeks, she is not going to learn the history of the Jewish people in international space. That's just not going to happen. And so it's fine that she won't know everything in two weeks or say everything right. Let's go on the journey together, Whoopi. You know, one thing, can I recommend somebody to read on these topics?

Sure. Yeah, Rosenberg. Do you follow him? Yep. Just totally the right person. Yeah. He's so good. And one point that he makes that I've learned a lot from is that if you're viewing race and racism through an American lens, you're so it's anti-Semitism is so ancient. It's any classification or category that we like to box these bigotry into that you can't do it. You can't box it into the American, especially sort of the American classifications of bigotry that we sort of put things in, which depend a great deal on skin color. And so I can recommend him, and he's written some marvelous stuff about this ever since the incident.

And so highly recommend. I can put some of his stuff in show notes as well. Great. All right. Well, then we actually ended up with three topics, Sarah. But glad we did. All right. We'll be back on Monday. So please, in the meantime, let's please, in the meantime, go rate us on Apple podcast, subscribe on Apple podcast and check us out at thedispatch.com.