Good afternoon. Welcome. You're a really scary group of people. Thank you so much for being here. It is great that you came back to the university to celebrate the contributions that women have made to Princeton and to society. My name is Ramona Romero and you can take as many pictures of me as you want. [applause] Just no pictures of the Justices after a couple of minutes. My name is Ramona Romero, and for almost four years I have been the general counsel of the university. As a lawyer. As a lawyer, it is a true, true honor for me to introduce three legal superstars. Supreme Court Justices. Sonia Sotomayor, Class of 19, class of 1976. Justice Elena Kagan, Class of -- Class of 1981, and Heather Gerken, Class of 1991. The recently appointed Dean of the Yale Law School. As the lawyers in the audience know that Supreme Court begins its term on the first Monday in October. So we are particularly grateful to the justices for having come today during this very, very busy week. We're also very grateful. That was unintentional. We're also grateful to then Gerken, who has also had an unusually demanding beginning of the term. This could take a long time guys. So I first met Dean Gerken a few years ago. I was new to Princeton and she was a university trustee. Based on our interactions, her unassuming manner would give you no clue of her many accomplishments. After graduating from Princeton summa cum lauding, she earned her degree from the University of Michigan Law School, again, with the highest honors. Following her clerks up on the ninth circuit and for Justice David Souter on the US Supreme Court. She worked at a law firm for a few years. A mutual friend who was a colleague of hers at the law firm, describes her as phenomenally talented and too good for the world. Dean Gerken, entered academia in the year 2000, earning tenure at Harvard and then at Yale. When she was appointed Dean last year, the first woman to hold that position. Then Gerken's predecessor said, that Yale Law School is very lucky to be able to draw on the energy, brilliance, and leadership of Heather Gerken. This is a time of change in our country and in legal education. And Heather is perfectly suited to take the helm of this extraordinary place. And I think we've seen evidence of that already. But lest you think that Dean Gerken is all about legal scholarship, I encourage you to Google her name after the program's over, to Google her name and the words vampire novel. Now, onto the toughest part of my assignment. Introducing two women who really need no introduction. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justice Kagan and Sotomayor have much in common. Both are from New York. Clock is ticking. Both are from New York. And both are serious baseball fans. Although they have, although they do favor different teams and only one of those teams is doing well. At Princeton, both majored in history, excel academically, and graduated with the highest honors. Since they left our campus, both have blaze many trails. For example, Justice Kagan was the first female Dean of the Harvard Law School. And she was also the first woman, and so far the only woman to serve as Solicitor General of the United States. Justice Sotomayor, is that first and only Hispanic American ever appointed to the US Supreme Court. And the first and only woman of color to ever serve on that court. Clock is ticking guys. After graduating from Princeton, Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, traveled different paths to their appointments as the third, fourth female justices in our nation's history. Justice, justice Sotomayor, who attended Yale Law School, honed her courtroom skill as a prosecutor in New York, worked at a law firm, spent 17 years as a federal trial and appellate judge. Before her elevation to the Supreme Court in 2009, she issued hundreds of decisions. However, none is better known than a decision she issued in joining that an injunction she issued that effectively ended a baseball strike that had forced the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. As a former baseball Major League Baseball player testified during her confirmation hearing with one decision, she brought players and owners back to the table and rescue the 1995 baseball season. So you see putting aside Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who authored a misdefine  to lawyers, Supreme Court opinion in 1922 that extempted baseball from the antitrust laws. I think it is safe to say that Sonia Sotomayor is the only justice in our nation's history who can take credit for saving the national pastime. When Justice Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court, New York District Attorney Robert Martin thought, noted that throughout her career, she had exhibited wisdom, intelligence, collegiality, and good character. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised her sharp and agile mine, her wealth of unique experience. And the fact that she is an independent jurist who does not fit squarely into an ideological box. Her appointment was a particularly joyful and proud moment for the Hispanic legal community. She was active within our communities throughout her 17 years on the bench and was and remains deeply respected and beloved not only for her accomplishments, but also for her extraordinary commitment to giving back as someone who knows her well said to me recently, her commitment is authentic. She has never forgotten her roots  in the south Bronx. Prefers Puerto Rican food above all others. It means everything she says. And thus.  She is also based on my own observations over the years, one of the most genuine, gracious, humble and decent people on the planet. [applause] Now, Justice Kagan, her post-Princeton path to the Supreme Court was equally impressive. After she earned her law degree from Harvard Law School. She clerked on the Court of Appeals in DC and for Justice Marshall on the US Supreme Court. Follow -- when her clerkship, she ventured ever so briefly into private practice. Subsequently, she taught at the University of Chicago and at Harvard, where she later became Dean and served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. A mutual friend who worked with Justice Kagan when she was a counselor to President Clinton, told me that she is known as a brilliant jurist. Her talents range far beyond that. As Dean of the Harvard Law School, she was beloved because, because she was approachable and responsive to students and faculty. And I'm happy to add alumni to that list. A few years after Dean Kagan, and after she became Dean, Justice Kagan hosted law schools first ever reunion of Hispanic alumni, a large group of us met with her. We were determined and I mean, determined to find out what she intended to do to correct the law school's failure to hire Hispanic faculty. Over a decade later, I still remember how impressed I was by the directness and by the grace and humor with which she handled our spirit to questioning those qualities, including her sense of humor, where her parents who were  in her confirmation hearing in 2010. There, to quote President Obama, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee got a good sense of her judicial philosophy, her commitment to the rule of law, her rich understanding of our Constitution, and of course, where she can be found on Christmas Day. Let me conclude by acknowledging, acknowledging how fortunate we are that these three women's have chosen lives of service. And are now in positions, in positions to influence the evolution of American law. As Justice Kagan, as Justice Fernando of the Massachusetts Supreme Court said, during Justice Kagan's confirmation hearing. The presence of women and minorities on a court has an impact on the overall decision making that goes beyond the opinions of female, of the female or minority judges themselves. They influence how the others judges think and how they analyze the loan. Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Thank you for your service to the American people and for being here today to share your unique experiences. And thank you then Gerken for moderating today's conversation and for your contributions to legal scholarship and for your courage and leadership at this time in our nation's history. [applause] And now, now. So it is, it is wonderful to be here. It feels so sustaining to be around so many women, to hear so many women's voices at this moment. And so I'm just going to cut to the chase because I know you do not want to hear from me. And we have a series of questions that you have all helped shape with your own contributions that I'm going to ask the justices over the course of the evening about their life here at Princeton, their careers advice they'd have for all the young women in the room. So I'll just get started and just start with something very short. So one of you came from Manhattan, another came from the Bronx. Why did you come to Princeton University? And Chris, Yes, I am setting this up for you so that you can put it on the website. Well, for me, it was my high school coach in debate club. And he guided that guide at Princeton by one of the teachers at our high school. We were not a feeder school. And Kenny was the first of our high school graduates to attend an Ivy League school. And he came to Princeton and obviously he didn't f*** up. And they took a chance on me. It is a long story and for those of, I've set it at the first, she roars. So you may have to listen to that. But suffice it to say, I went to Harvard and I met an interviewer who was dressed in a black dress, beautifully white coffered hair, pearl earrings, a black and white poodle next to her. A red rug, oriental rug and a white couch. Now, in my house, all couches had plastic on them. And you never bought a white couch because the kids would mess it up. Literally ran out of that room. It's the only time I've run away from something and left until the assistant to English, -- Wait so you went to Princeton instead? Put that and I'm going to tell the story of why. Oh, I tried at Harvard, They were too radical for me. This is an amazing story. But I came to Princeton and my friend was my friend. And he had a bunch of other friends that were like him and not like most Princetonians, And I got fooled. And that's how I here. There is a reason to have posses around you. For those of you in education, you know that there are many colleges who bring kids from similar neighborhoods. If they want to integrate their schools better. Because there is a comfort in meeting people who are more like you at, at least at first. I obviously got used to Princeton, but it does take a while. If you're from a different environment. Justice Kagan? Well, I'm not quite sure why I came to Princeton actually. First off, I want to say it's great to be here. I haven't been back for a few years. I was I was just saying to Heather into Sonia reunions or at the worst time of year for us. So I haven't I haven't made it back to my last couple. And it's absolutely wonderful to be here and to be here, especially at an event like this. Give yourselves some applies. What, wow. What a crowd. I would have never imagined the crowd like this where Nike, who know. I mean, we were I was in the third year of women. You were in the fit. I had many classes where I was the only woman in the room. To see a gymnasium filled of alumni, and to see all the women students software grad. So I went to a great public school in New York. Hunter college high school, downside, there are some Hunter and very few people went to Princeton for my high school. And at its center, a lot of people to a lot of Ivy League schools, but, but Princeton was not on the list. And but occur down here and I am and with the place and was one of those glorious spring days on the campus was looking incredibly beautiful. And basically, I kind of think that people do not know what they're doing when they're 70 and and they're picking colleges to undersell avid gave me my daughter. Yeah, I would love to be able to say I had a great reason for coming to Princeton, but mostly it was, I caught it on a really sunny, beautiful day. I just wasn't. So you're just talking a little bit about being, you know, a few years after women were admitted here, you, you've described yourself publicly as a fish out of water at Princeton. I wonder if you might say a little bit more about what that was like. It's hard to describe to people, I might think my favorite story is a couple of days. And to being here, I'm sitting outside of Dylan gym. And there is a classmate there who's from Alabama [woo in the crowd] And she starts talking to me about how her great grandfather had been in Princeton. Her grandfather, her father, and two of her brothers. And how amazing it was for her now to join their ranks. And I'm sort of looking at this and I'm the first generation going to college and my family. And I'm thinking how many generations is that? But coming up to me were my roommate who was a Mexican-American and a Puerto Rican friend, and they were talking Spanish and the young woman standing next, sitting next to me says, that's why I love this place. It has so many different people. And I'm looking at her within her Southern drawl and thinking. And I thought you with a different one. But the longer I stayed at Princeton, the more different than most of my classmates remember. I don't think it's as true today. This was the, this was the most non northern School of the South. That's what it is most famous for. And that environment had Eating Clubs and not all the ivies did at the time. And it was just opening it stores to women. And there were still a lot of alumni who were not happy with that state of affairs. And I think most of the men on campus like it a lot. But there were still some who really would have preferred can all male, college or university. And so when you feel like a fish out of water, I don't think you ever completely get past it. If you want to know when I finally figured out I belong. Made me a trustee. That's not to say that I didn't identify as a print stone, Ian, because I did. And it likely was the most influential experience of my life in terms of transforming me from the world I came from, into the world I was entering. But it I think I said it best when I accepted a prize at the end of my four years, which is, we all march to different rumors. And the beauty of a place like Princeton is to let all of us marched to our own drummers while still being on the same parade ground. And so that was important. As Justice Kagan. Are you a little bit about something that is so important to students these days, which is mentorship. And, and this is a little bit personal for me because I was a junior faculty member, worried about getting tenure and Justice. Kagan was then Dean Kagan And not only an extraordinary Dean of Harvard Law School that managed to be a mentor to me. So I'm intensely grateful for that and I just want to I don't really think you needed meant. You would be surprised. If I wanted who were, who were the most influential mentors in your career and, and what kind of advice do they give you as he moved along? Well, I think a clenched and I'll start with Princeton inference. It was my senior thesis advisor who maybe is here, He's still a history professor here. Ok. So there is in the front row because he was my senior thesis adviser. And I did my junior paper with him, my senior, my junior paper in the spring and then my senior thesis and traveled once taught me how to write, which is a useful thing to know. And and, and so I'm, I'm, I'm forever grateful to him for that and for all the advice he gave me along the way and for convincing me that I really didn't want to be a historian after all. You wrote him 153 pages. I did up here, let's see, 150 pages on a subject that was sort of the bane of my existence as I was going through my confirmation proceedings. Because I wrote on the history of the socialist party in New York City [laughter] in the early 20th century. And from this, everybody assumed that I must be a socialist. And so, and, and, you know, she's now this year that's popular is here. That's popular was not so popular among many members of the Judiciary Committee when I was trying to get through the process. But the judges I clerked for were unbelievable in in different ways. Judge Mikva was somebody who had served in all different parts of government and then he ended up being really important to my career, not only because what he taught me when I was a clerk for him, but because he ended up at the white house and one day I picked up the phone, I was teaching at the University of Chicago at the time. And and Judge Mikva said, come back and work for me at the White House. So it was my entry into a place that I never expected to be and I spent four years there. And it was it was it was very important for just really all the rest of my my career. And Justice Marshall, It was just an amazing experience clerking for Justice Marshall, clerking for one of the icons of American law and American history. And and, you know, I guess I guess it was the year that I spent with him that just put into my head. You have to use what you've been given to, to he, what he did of course, was to promote justice for more people in more ways than pretty much anybody else in the legal profession in his time. [applause] And one can one can never think that one is going to do that. But, but, but that's a really important thing to have in your head as a goal. To just sort of my re, ask the same question because you may not know you have this in common, but both of you apparently have written extraordinarily long theses. Theories out there get kinda get snapping. So Peter, when was your adviser and he called your thesis and I quote, extremely ambitious and one of the longest I have ever. But I wanted you also might say a few words about mentors along the way and thought. And I'll approach the question a little differently. Which is, how do you pick a mentor? Well, first of all, I'm not sure you pick them. They mostly pick you. And the way to do that, I think, is to show them that you're interested in learning. And it's sort of surprising to put it that way. But if you don't see them out and actually listen to what they're saying and put it into some sort of practice. They're not going to think very highly of you are really very interested in working with you. So you have to demonstrate your ambition basically. And the way that most people do that is by working with them in a way where you're actually showing them that you're taking their advice to heart and following that or that's actually the most important thing. When a professor talks to you and makes suggestions. It's not enough to say those are nice. What counts is coming back and actually implementing those suggestions in a positive way. So for me with Peter, and I will say that the first mentor I had was Nancy Weiss, later to become. And she was the first professor that I went to at office hours. And my first question is, why did you give me a C on my paper? And she didn't blow me off. She actually explained why. And I took to heart her advice and gotta B on my final paper. But then went and found Peter who, because he taught Latin American history, understood some of my language difficulties in writing English from Spanish background. And so he was able to help me learn how to write properly. But every time he gave me advice, The one thing I knew was my next paper how to fix that problem. And I could, you know, you could make a mistake once, but you shouldn't make it twice. And so by the time I finished with him four years later, I began the process of writing in a way that led me to my law degree and to being a judge. But when you go into the workplace, find people who are doing things that you admire, that you don't think you can do. Because finding a mentor who is just going to show you what you know to me is not very helpful to me. I always look for those mentors in my workplace that will help me understand things and learn how to do things that I don't think I know how to do. And so picking the two judges you did. And I know they had a lot to do in picking do obviously, but I'm sure you had alternatives. They both opened up different worlds to you. And that's what I've always tried to do with other mentors throughout my life to pick people who can teach me things I'm not sure that I can do. Can I just say Professor Weiss did not give me a very good grade either? So who knew that we had this in common I have question about your career. So Justice Kagan, you were talking about moving into government. And you've made a lot of big jumps in your, in your time that you have going into becoming an academic, going into government, becoming a Dean, the Solicitor General, I know Justice, a summary went for IP litigator prosecutor to judge their they're quite different leaps to make. Just more attention span. And I wonder if you might talk to your -- That's the beauty of being a lawyer by the way, It's a great it's all purpose degree, but I actually do think that I mean, whenever I talk to my one else, the panic that they have, that they don't know what they want to do in their first semester. And you can't just say to them, You don't even know how to read a case in more -- in under four hours. So don't worry about this later. But I think it, it, I imagine all of the students here are wondering whether they really know what they want to do and whether they're going to have the courage to make that jump when they make it. So how did you know Justice Kagan when to  make that jump? Yeah. So I mean, I didn't make a lot of jumps before I came to this job. Has life tenure, you know, so i'll be in this one awhile, knock wood. [applause] But visibly, I changed jobs every four years or so. And then in the Deanship, I stayed six years. That was a lot different strokes for different folks. Some people they love just finding one thing and they want to do it for the rest of their lives. And that's absolutely fantastic. But for me, the variety of when you said law allows you to do that, the variety of things that I was able to do was really part of the fun of putting together a legal career. And what I always think, it sounds like you agree with me, Heather, about advice and law students is that they all have this kind of plan. And first you have to do step A and then that leads you to step B, and that leads you to step C. And god forbid if you should ever step off the plan. And I found that all the most fun things that I did in my career where mostly the result of serendipity. And it was keeping your eyes open for opportunities for sure. But just like lucky things cropping up. And, and having the ability to to change direction at a moment's notice, say, you know, I never thought I would do that. But that sounds really like a lot of fun. And and to be and to be able to step off the plan, maybe to come back on the plan, maybe not to come back on the plan because it leads to another thing that you would never have done. So I feel as though my life had a lot of twists and turns. And just for an example, I was there, I was I was Dean of the law school on I thought for sure my next job was to leave the law entirely. I thought I was going to go be a university president someplace as my next job. And then all of a sudden, here I am doing this. [laughter] So things work in a funny ways. But, but, but I guess what I would say to students is just, you know, be open to opportunities. Look, things fall into people's laps that you never expected. And in the end, what you have to do is be aware that you should grandma I guess I start with that question by saying, there are very few, if any, fatal mistakes in life. You know, you can end up in a dead end job. You can, but it doesn't mean you have to stay there. Lots of people forget that learning is a lifelong endeavor. I had a mother who went to college when she was in her late forties and she taught me that it's never too late to retool, never too late to change directions. So you should explore your options, think about them a little bit. But at a certain point you gotta stop worrying so much. You just gotta jump in. Take a bunch of different courses, try courses that you know nothing about. You may fall in love with one of them. Go to law school and don't get pegged in one area of law, go try different areas. You may end up believe it or not, it could be shocking to some of you liking corporate law. There's a huge number of wonderful lawyers. I know who are terrific people, very interested in public service, who go in and out of government all the time, who are corporate lawyers. There is no occupation or profession that doesn't and can't give you an avenue to do good work. You have to be flexible enough to try new things. And you have to have the courage to realize, if you make a wrong choice, then pick yourself up and move in a different way. Sometimes people get the golden handcuffs put on, they're making so much money, they don't want to make a switch. That's a very real limitation in life. But that shouldn't be the excuse for unhappiness. And it shouldn't be the excuse for saying to yourself, Oh my god, am I going to make a mistake? You know, what should I do with my life? Do with your life, live it. Take on adventures. Try new things. Then figure out the thing that seems interesting and give it a go. If it doesn't work, shift directions, do something else. But don't let the panic take away from the enjoyment of today. Because look at the opportunities you have in a place like Princeton. It's amazing everything this place offers you. But it won't be valuable unless you're willing to take chances and do those new things that might otherwise scare you. And the same thing in law school. [applause] This is a question that was really spurred by a conversation I witnessed today. A woman who was in one of the early classes practically embraced a young grad and said, You don't know what it was like when there were so few women on this campus and what it means now to look around and see how, how much it has changed. And I know that each of you has been in many situations as are most of the women, I suspect on the older end, and not that you're old. [laughter] On the more senior end  of the side More experienced. You both experienced at that moment when you're the only woman in the room and Justice Kagan, I wonder if I might start with you. I feel keenly that of the a 194 year history of my institution, only one year has been helmed by a woman. For me. And I think you were probably in roughly the same numbers as the first, first woman Dean of Harvard Law School. It was an enormous moment when that happened. And I just wonder how you thought about occupying that space. And did you feel as a woman, did it feel different? How did it shape what you did? When I walked in it, when you walked into the Dean's office. My predecessor. He had this big thing on the wall, which was all of the different Deans of Harvard Law School. There were, I think about 13 of them. They all served remarkably long tenures. And I'm sure that they I'm sure that they had much that was different about them. But when I looked at this picture, it was like 13 of the scariest looking older men, older white men, whatever. So the first thing I did was I took that picture down. But, you know, you, you, you do worry the faculty was yet by the time I became Dean of the Law School. As for you, Heather, the student bodies are about 50-50, but the faculties are, are, are still, there's still not enough women in them. And, and they're, and they had never had a woman. And you wonder, how are some of these faculty members going to deal with that and are going, Are they going to accept a woman as their boss? It's hard enough when you're Dean, actually faculty members did not really think of us their boss. So it's a little bit hard to establish that's when you need to. And then when you're a woman and when you're a younger woman as I was, and as you are, and that's you know, it's a hard thing to do. But I found that in the end, people were very generous and I found much more than I expected. I thought that they were going to be more problems, more resistance than in fact there were. So I was, I was actually really grateful to all my colleagues in my office. It's in the stained glasses and they have all the demes names carved and then the stained glasses are criminal punishments which include a woman with a giant leather harness on her face for talking too much. And a woman being drowned as a witch. So I take some pleasure that my name will be carved on that window. So Justin Sotomayor, wonder if I may ask you the same question. I don't -- I don't believe that you can be part of the working world without having a moment, a story, if not more than one, about being treated differently because you're a woman. In one of the classes I had here at Princeton, the professor had been giving his lecture for, I'm sure close to 40 years. And every time he got to the point in his lecture where he was going to tell it off-color joke. He would stop. He would look at me and try to fix the joke. Couldn't and then go to something else. Okay. And the guys would all look at me and snicker and laugh. But I snickered and laughed with them. But there are more there. You can't be a professional woman even today, whether it's in law, in medicine in any field. Without having a moment where someone is going to treat you differently because you're a woman. It even comes down to the, the guys poker game. Justice, Justice Scalia was involved there, took him a while to invite me and I think they were very happy when I said no. I don't know if you said yes, but the point is that. I was never invited actually. But, I do it in reverse, we do it in reverse. We have poker games and have an invited any of them. So you can't deny it without minimizing the fact that it can leave its moments of, can leave scars. And it can affect the way you feel about some people and your interactions with them. But I do think Elena is right. That even at the very beginning of my career where there were so few women in positions of power. And I have very few mentors that I could look to to guide my development. There were always men of goodwill, and that's what I call them even today. Men who understood that equality had to be put into practice. And men who mentored me and who supported my career and helped me along. And there are still those people out there. And so I think important for all of us, for women to understand that no matter how hostile and an environment may see, you have to look around for those people who will come and stand with you and by you because they are there. And so I guess my point remains, we still have a long way to go parroting an old cigarette ad. But it's a lot shorter distance than when I started out. So I wonder if I might turn a little bit to the court and in the moment in time in which we find ourselves. So this is a really difficult moment in terms of politics. And there's an enormous amount of polarization and partisanship around. And the court has always been Understand, stood as a neutral arbiter. And it's an incredibly important thing. But it's hard these days when, when people have trouble even talking to one another, let alone having a shared set of facts and arguments. And I wonder how you think about your role on the court at this moment and how you deal with the challenge that we all deal with, which is making sure to be fair to the other side. To see things as they really are, to check your own views and Justice Kagan, I wonder if you might just start and talk a little bit about that. Yeah. This is a really divided time and part of the court strengthen and part of the court's legitimacy depends on people not see in the court, in the way that people see the rest of the governing structures of this country. Now, in other words, people thinking of the court as not politically divided in the same way as not an extension of politics, but instead somehow above the fray. Even if not always and in every case. And it's an incredibly important thing for the court to guard is, is, is this reputation of, of being fair, of being impartial, of being neutral, and of not being simply an extension of the terribly polarized political process and environment that we live in. And, and, you know, that this is a challenge there. I think people too often don't realize that we agree on a lot. If you look at the court's case load as a whole, you'll find that about half the time where unanimous. On another big chunk of the time, we have very lopsided votes. But there are some issues, some important issues that people care about in which the court is more closely divided and tends to be divided along lines that you might predict. If you looked at who nominated each of us. I think it's been an extremely important thing for the court that in the last really 30 years, starting with Justice O'Connor and, and continuing with Justice Kennedy. There has been a person who people found the center where people couldn't predict in that sort of way. And that's enabled the court to look as though it was not owned by one side or another. And and what's indeed impartial and neutral and fair. And it's not so clear that, you know, I think going forward, that sort of middle position. It's not so clear whether we'll have it. And that puts I think all of us need to be aware of that every single one of us. And to realize how precious the courts legitimacy is. The only, we don't have an army and we don't have any. And the only way we get people to do what we say that they should do is because people respect us and respect our fairness. And I think especially in this time where the rest of the political environment is so divided, every single one of us has an obligation to think about what it is that provides the court with its legitimacy and has to think about how we can be not so politically divided as some of the other political institutions in the nation. I agree fully with everything Elena saying. I think it's important to explain to people often that part of the politicization of the Court has come about because our political parties have adopted the academic discussions that judges were having for the longest time about how to interpret laws of the Constitution. And these were legal discussion centered around originalism. Do you interpret the Constitution according to what you discern the Founding Fathers would have done. Or according to the plain meaning of words versus people who believed and still believe that originalism has general principles. But that like our society today, our Founding Fathers were never unanimous about what they thought the answer should be. And they wrote very broad terms to let generations that follow give those words meaning. And so you've got these two sets off between originalists and other people. And you've got plane meaning. And people who say no word is playing, because every word has to be read and contexts and contexts shades the meaning of everything. And so those academic discussions have often lead to outcomes that some people can predict. Not always, but some. And when the political parties adapt to that, language has their own. They've now superimpose that on the court. So originalists get identified as the choice of a certain group of politicians, not Origen was the choice of another group of a different party. And I think that that institution has hurt the court held lot and may continue to do so. I do think that there are structures within court, not the least of which is our modern understanding among, I believe, that we're eight justices. Eight justices, that we have to rise above partisanship in our personal relationships. That we have to treat each other with respect and dignity and with a sense of applicability that the risks of the world doesn't often share. Elaine has relationship with Justice Scalia is well known, even though he didn't invite me to add, apparently did. Yeah. Yeah. But you went hunting with him and I never would. But then that same friendship by the way, with Ruth and and their Neil Gorsuch and I are doing a lot of work together and promoting civic education in the United States. And so I think that our openness about respecting one another is an example that's important for us to both maintain and promote whether and how we can accommodate the differences in our traditional approaches is a much more difficult question is on some things as, as Justice Ginsburg once said, It's hard to compromise on fundamental constitutional principles. And a lot of those things are what lead to the 5-4 decisions. The public seems to think are divisive. But we do manage to agree on much of things. And to the extent we can avoid ruling and such expansive ways as to foreclose continued conversation. I think we'd have a chance of holding on to our legitimacy. As Elena says though, we're each going to have to think about how to do that and how to implement and support our institutional reputation. So soon as follows nicely from one of the questions in the audience, because I am struck. I read your  opinions. You are fierce lawyers. Sometimes when you're reading that header again and again, you know, it's really the lawyer in me is so impressed with its hard hitting, its frank. When you disagree, you disagree in a, in a respectful but powerful way. And then I know how collegial you all are with one another when you walk off that bench. I think that's something that most people don't see and don't know. And just as king, I wonder if you might talk a little bit about what are the rituals of respect that exists inside the court? Is it the deliberative process? What is it that you do that enables you to do something that almost no one else is able to deal with this moment in time, which is to be friends with the people with whom you disagree fiercely. Well, I'd say first of all, that I think that there is a little bit of self-interest going on here because we live in this world where it's just the nine of us. We are the consummate repeat players. Every case that's going to be the same nine of us. And if you hold grudges or if you have a bad relationship with one of your colleagues, then in the next case and in the next case and in the next case, you have not much of a chance of persuading that colleague to come along with what you think is the right thing to do. So, so we all have a kind of vested interest in having good relations with each other. And I think that that's part of what maintains our good behavior. But I will say that I think that it's, it's, it's something more than that and I don't think it's necessary. If you look at the history of the Supreme Court, there are some parts of the Court's history where people had completely pathological relationships, where they where they wouldn't talk with each other, where one person walk into a room and another person would walk out. And we don't have any of that. First read Scorpions  by Noah Fell It's a wonderful read even for non lawyers. And it will talk about that one of those periods in our history. Absolutely. And we are very much not like that. I think we all got along genuinely very well. I think we we we we all believed that everybody is operating in good faith around the table, even if we disagree strongly with them. Yet Ido so what, what, what, what accounts for that? I'm not sure. I think partly it's personalities. I think that the, that the Chief Justice is very good about setting the tone that for the entire institution, we have lunch all the time. Now is my seams a little thing. But every time we have arguments and every time we meet in conference to talk about cases, we always follow that by with a lunch together and the Justices dining room. And there were rules about you can't talk about work, you can't talk about cases. You can. So we got to know a lot about, you know, each other's families. Or we talk about books or movies, or sports or various things. And, you know, I just felt that jokes, we tell bad jokes. I won't say which of our colleagues are, are sort of the masters of the bad jokes. Neither of the two of us. But we laugh, we grown. And I think that those kinds of error, no, they're called lunch and institutional arrangement. But sort of do help to keep things a little bit lighter than they might otherwise be. So, you know, we do get annoyed with each other sometimes. And as the year goes by, the annoyances tend to add up a little bit. So I've always thought that much as in the academic environment, one of the great things about really getting along with each other is that we get to escape each other in the summers. And you know, you, you escape each other. You, you're away from people and you actually win. Come back. You realize how much you miss them and how much you like them and how much you appreciate them. How I do it in life generally is I try to find the good in every person. If you start from the proposition that there is something good, that everybody, it's a lot easier too. Get along with them even when you disagree vehemently. And so for me, I tell people often who don't know. Justice Clarence Thomas knows every employee in our building. Not only knows their names, but he knows all their family members. If someone gets ill, he's the first one to reach out and offer help. He is exceedingly carrying whenever anyone myself, I can speak for myself, but I know he does it with everybody. Uriel. If you've had someone die in your family, here's is the first flowers that arrive. It's the first call that's me to see if you're okay. He and I don't think I've folded together on hardly anything. But I know that inside of him there is a goodness that I can admire, might disagree with him on everything else. But I think if you can approach people in that way and understand that a difference of opinion doesn't necessarily brand-new. An evil person. There's more space to talk. There's more space to engage, and certainly more space for willingness to compromise. And the master of that was probably Tony Kennedy. Tony Kennedy, I think spent all of his time trying to find the best and his colleagues. And I think that's why he could find middle ground so awful. So one of the things that is so striking about your opinions and particularly your dissents, Is that they speak to people who don't have law degrees. So law can be very technical when judges, right, they often rate quite abstractly. But you two are both able to crystallize issues in a way that's accessible to people who were reading the newspaper. I actually think in some ways you share that with Justice Scalia that you're able to read it and understand the stakes. And it's very powerful. I wonder, especially when you're writing to sense, how do you think about uses of, of emotion? How do you think about that crisp phrase? That's, you know, it was going to be in the front page of The New York Times. How do you think about when to do it, when to play that card and when not to play that card. And I ask you in particular, because there is some possibility that you may be dissenting more often in the future. And so I wonder if you imagine yourselves as lawyers, as justices, but also as dissenters. How do you, how do you think about how you rate their opinion and when to play the sort of one of those cards and just sort of I don't know if I may talk to you because I know you sometimes you speak quite personally, even emotionally in some of your designs. And I wonder if you might. Talk about when you think about doing that and why. I lost two cases that arose early in my career as a prosecutor. And I went to my supervisor and he sat down and said, how did you present your case cases? And I went through it and he said My, that's so logical. That's why you lost. You didn't convince the jury that it was their application to convict. And I looked at him and I said what? And he said, you know, jurors are human beings who don't want to pass judgment on another person. And it's very hard for them to say that person is guilty. Or to imagine that maybe that person's going to go to jail. And when you're presenting your case, you have to not only convince them that this is what the evidence proves, but that it's also their obligation to convict. He said that to me and I did not lose another case. And I think I tried 30 cases after that. I had a couple of hung juries. And I have a couple of less than the top charges, but I never lost another case. Now, it doesn't mean I when I write that way, you have to marshal the evidence. You have to prove the case. But you have to convince a reader of the moral justice in your position. And I think that it is not every case requires that, you know, we've got more than 50% of cases that that we agree upon. And I if I wrote that way for all 50 of those, never get unanimous court again. But we do, because we write in certain ways when you have your trying to draw more votes. But when there is something that I understand to be fundamental. And if you want to have people understand your position and what you're arguing, than I do think that explaining it in a way that people can feel is critical. I probably don't do it more than once or twice a year because it has to be that fundamental case that people need to understand and need to understand that the choice is right under the law. And so for me, it's not hard to come to those moments. I do think that writing so people understand your cases or your position is always important. Writing the most complex case in simple ways is terribly important. But I will tell you, even though we work hard at that, I'd bet the majority of people never read a Supreme Court case. They read the, the clips in the New York Times. They read summaries in some other form. I if I were to ask this room how many of you have read a Supreme Court case cover to cover? I bet that two-thirds of you never have. And so do it in the hopes that the person who does pick it up will understand. And in the hope that if what you are explaining can touch people, that they will read more than they normally do. Justice Kagan, I wonder if I might ask you the same question. There was a First Amendment case this year where you wrote extremely powerful dissent and crystallized a set of cases and as they were moving through. And when, when we all read that phrase, the weaponization of the First Amendment, it was, it was something that sort of everyone, the academies stood up and listen and all the layers stood up and less than it was really powerful because we knew you don't do that often. And I just wonder, how did you think about without being too specific about any case, how do you think about this, right? You don't do it often and you can't do it often for just the reasons to Justice Sotomayor said is, you know, there are different kinds of defense there, dissents where you think that the majority has gotten it wrong and you think, I should say that there's another way to understand this question. But in the next case and the next case and the next case, you're going to to go along with the majority's position. You've had your say Now it's time to, to join the precedent that's been created. And nothing about your dissent in a case like that. What's to be so, so powerful, right? Is try and tell people why you're right, but it's not. The world doesn't depend on it. But every once in awhile you you see a case which seems sometimes these cases they stand in for bigger issues. It's not just the case itself. It's what you fear the case signifies for the future. It's what it's the case and the next case and the next case. And you can see how the court is going down a road that you think is profoundly dangerous. And then you have to say so. And you have to say, what do you find dangerous about it and why you think that there, that there is this danger and and and you know, in an attempt, if not now, then next year or next year or the year after that, or ten years or 20 years to get people to re-evaluate where the what the court has done and where the court is going. And those decisions have to be written in a different way if you're really speaking to the next generation and if your saying, here's what the court has done wrong and here's how we, you know, needs to reverse this. I mean, you got up your rhetoric a little bit. Now, I tend not to. I think some of the opinions that Sonia has written that are emotional of really powerful. But I tend not to try to get people to feel things. But I just sort of not the way I write, but, but, but I want them to think they have gotten it so wrong. And I guess, I guess maybe to feel that, to feel. Feel that they are logic, that they're legal and dialysis, that their use of precedent that ended there, you know, that their selection of fundamental legal principles is, is, is, is just really wrong. We are very different. So that's what you try to do. I tried to do is I wonder if I might ask you a little bit about being a first and there's only four women who've worn this robe. I remember when Justice Ginsburg joined the court, and she was up there with Justice O'Connor and one of the advocates mixed them up. Others say they really don't look anything alike. Different politics, different, different accent, everything you could ask for. And so, you know, there's a lot of studies about what happens with lemon on the bench. Do they get interrupted more? How to counsel treat them? Do they mix them up for one another? And I wonder when you have, when you put that Rabban, do feel it. Do you feel that gap or are you unselfconscious about your gender? I'm just curious how you, how you inhabit that role. Maybe Justice Kagan, I really don't feel it on the bench. There have actually been these these, these, these studies recently that have surprised me because they're so not in keeping with my experience of it. There studies, they insist that the women on the bench and particularly the two of us get interrupted more than our male colleagues still in a way that in lots of other parts of my life that has struck me as a common experience that women get interrupted more than men do that women have an idea and nobody really responds to it. And then a man repeats the idea and everybody says, wow, that is amazing. But I have to say that on the bench, I think that those statistics about interruption have much more to do with the fact that there is the Sonia and I are relatively Junior Justices and that there is a practice of if two people start talking at the same time, which is often the case that the court, because there are lot of talkers on the court. And, and and so the moment you see a sort of pause, you jumped to people jump in and one of them has to step back. And I think we tend to step back a little bit because what Junior Justices, but my sense of the bench now is there are three women on the bench, and Justice Sotomayor and I sit on opposite sides of the bench and Justice Ginsburg sits in the middle. None of us are shrinking violets. We all ask lots of questions. We all can give lawyers a good run for their money. And I think if you come to the Supreme Court is like, wow, there are these women's voices from all over the place, from this side and that side in the center. And they're just kind of common at you and it seems to me we don't take a backseat role. I was just gonna say that I don't disbelieve the statistics. I accept them as true. I think the differences that not one of us three are shrinking violets. And we just don't care. Because of it and because I think we just accept it and just move on from there and it doesn't stop us from doing whatever we think we need to do or getting a clarification question we think is important that it really doesn't affect us. You know, it was Ruth who at a public event not so long ago said, and this may be true for her for a slightly different reason. Justice Ginsburg speaks very softly, and it's sometimes very hard to hear her. But she said that there were moments where she would say something and go around the table in some mail in our group would say something. And it was a great idea coming from him and not her. Whether that's because of the softness of her tone or gender dynamics in place. It's hard to tell. But I do think it does happen. And but I do think that given the nature of the court and the fact that we all understand that we're one among nine and that our bolts are equal in that respect. That it doesn't affect us as much. So it's a great job. You have side I know you won't be a company, but, but it does require you to give things up into different roles, require different things if you I mean, just as king, I remember speaking to you just after you become Solicitor General and you'd left running this giant last school year, this extraordinary law school, this massive operation, students, faculty, alumni, all these things. And I remember you said the phone doesn't ring that much when you are SG, and I imagine you both now and in a completely different and you've been before. So I wonder, as you think it, what is it that he'd given up? What is, what are the things you can't do, the things that you can't say that you would have done in an instant at some other point because you're both reasonably blends. So I'm curious. The phone doesn't ring. I track my jobs in terms of emails received. I used to when I was dn used to get four hundred, five hundred emails a day. And then when I was Solicitor General, I got about 40. And now when I get an email, it is such an exciting moment. If I'm not, I don't know, you know, different different jobs have different constraints that go along with them. And I've been in other jobs to where I haven't been able to do whatever I wanted to do or just say whatever I wanted to say. You're a Dean. I'm in my view with the Deanship was that as to various issues that my students and my faculty and my alumni were very divided on that my job was to kind of be neutral and to, and to play it straight. And so I think I'm amused to feeling that there are some, every job has that. But goes along what the job is, some set of constraints. This is what you can't do and still be able to do your job effectively and well. And according to the ethical rules of the job or or that will allow you to serve the goals of the job. And so in this chart, doesn't feel all that different to me from others in that respect. That sure. There's a lot of stuff that I can't talk in public about. Some stuff that I feel as though I shouldn't even really think about. But I think that's, that's true of most things in the world. I don't disagree with the basic point, but I do think that more than the other jobs I had when I was a judge for 17 years before this. First of all, I won't wear shorts anymore. You do have to be careful about what you wear. Which when I was a judge before, people would never think of taking a picture of me when I walked around my neighborhood. Now the justice, they would and they do. I'm careful at beaches. Uh, but that also goes to my conversation in public when I was a regular Judge, whatever that means. But when I was a judge on the Court of Appeals and on the district court, I could go and express opinion to have friends privately and never had to fear that it would go public. But that's not quite the same today. And not because I don't think my friends intend to spread private comments. But they inadvertently might say something to a friends who then will report a problem. And that sort of thing makes you much more guarded than I ever thought I had to be before. And even when you tell jokes, people take them seriously. You get stuff back and calls from the press the, to save this and you go, what their theory is, you give up quite a bit of public life and being open and blunt. But it also I think to some degree makes you more gore do even in your private life. So now I'm going to ask you a question about your private life. Since a lot of the questions, I wanted to just know this one simple question, what on Earth do you do for fun? And if I just may ask my own version of it which I view as a better poker player. Yes. That's a we both like poker. We have finally with that. I love food and I love going to great restaurants. I have champagne and beer taste. So I can go very high end and I can go to dives. And I love both of them. I didn't bicycle ride, when I'm not injured. This year you know, it's been a bad year for me. And I like spending time with my friends. I like cooking or like, you know, just laughing about things that's not my work. So I do have fun actually. This is fun. I don't know. Elena and I work together, were in conference together, were the court together. But it's rare that we have a plane ride here to give or, or just a few hours just to pass the time. Sometimes we go out for a meal. The two of us definitely know more restaurants in Washington DC than any of our colleagues put together. Yeah, we do. We do. So I know you read a lot and read a lot. Go to movies. That I don't do as much. Try to, try to do some exercise every once in awhile. See friends, normal things. And actually you know what, it affects your life a lot less than you might think, at least for me, I think Sonia is a little bit more recognized than I am, or maybe a lot more recognized because her faces on the cover of all these books. But I find for me that as long as I put on a hat and sunglasses. So so in the winter it's a little bit weird, you put on the sunglasses. I can do most things without without making a scene. Sometimes I'll be aware, I'll be in a restaurant and I'll be People will be like over there, you know, but Washington DC has its share of public officials and I think people don't get all that terribly excited about seeing another one. And you know, for the most part, we live very normal lives. Alright, this is just a quick one. If this were not the job of your destiny, what would be the job of your destiny if you could just pick any job other than this one that you have, what would you do that you really want to do is you really want, even though you have none of the talents for None of the talents. Trapeze artist, if you want to pick it. What would you do? Oh you're going to have to answer that. No, I'll tell you why I'm in my perfect position. But I don't mean as a Supreme Court Justice. I loved being a lawyer. I loved being a district court judge, Circuit Court Judge. I love being a Supreme Court justice. Law was my dream and I have always been happy in my life in my lot. There really wasn't anything that I could aspire to be like that except may be a salsa dancer because I couldn't do it. And because even now I do it, but I don't do it with the natural grease that I would love. If I could have found that, tell it. I would've been Rita Moreno onstage. Something. Yeah, I think I'd be Serena Williams or something like that then I doubt that she'd still be doing that at my age. So I'm glad I have this job instead. How old was she when she played Bobby Riggs? Definitely young that I am. [laughter] So I'm going to say I'm going to say the one thing that's going to displease everyone in this room, which is, this is our last question. And so I wonder if I just might ask you a question about the effect that Princeton had on you. I mean, this is a place where we all came to grow up. We all began our professional lives. We have a set of memories, I'm struck, just a set of mine when I came back as trustees, how embedded it was even just in the physical layout of the place in memory is just flooded back to me. And so I wonder, as you look back what has stuck with you from Princeton. It is easier for me to answer this because it will show transformational for me. And it affected my entire existing life then and everything that has come since it opened the door to opportunity for me in a way that I never imagined even when I accepted attending Princeton. I tell a story in my book of my mother and I shopping for a raincoat that I could bring with me to Princeton. And we were shopping in the South Bronx, most famous shopping area. And Alexander's. For those of those not who isn't. And you may see a little  less than Macy's. Lot less. But we were treated such awe by the sales people. When I told them I was attending Princeton and as we walk down, my mother looked at me and said, what have you gotten us into now? And I didn't know I didn't really understand what it meant to come to a place like Princeton and all of the changes that it would create in me, how much I would grow up. Not just in my writing skills and my thinking skills, but in my life skills, getting along with people who were so vastly different from me. And so that gift is one I treasure. It is my enduring, my enduring gift from Princeton. And so it, it took lots of years to be convinced to become a trustee because I was so busy in my life and what I finally did, I was so glad I had. It's my hope that more women in this room will aspire to that. Because it's still important to have women trustees who wants to participate actively in, grow, in growing this institution more. But that is my most enduring gift, who I became. Just, well, I feel as though I got the best education at Princeton and I made the best friends. So part of what I got out of prison is a set of friends whom I keep in touch with and who are really important to me. However many years later, how many years later as, it's coming up there [laughter] More for me. And I got this great education where people are really forced me to think about issues and problems in not simple-minded ways and to keep pushing the envelope and keep challenging myself. And to keep thinking about different points of view and to keep wondering whether I had gotten that right or whether there was more to think about. And that's something that is, is, is has been enormously helpful throughout my career. Was I know I know that everyone in this room feels like that. That goes the other way. Sorry, we just ask the audience to join me in thanking the Justices. [applause]