Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV and the Boyd School of Law.

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald. I'm

Unknown Speaker 0:08
a third year law student and welcome to social justice, social justice to conversation conversations.

Unknown Speaker 0:13
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to social justice, a conversation with me Lana weatherald, a third year law student and professor Charles standing out of the Boyd School of Law here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, I want to discuss first and foremost and give, you know all of the warmest and I know thoughts and prayers are bountiful these days, but to everybody out in Florida, I grew up in Tampa spent the last 10 years between Tampa and Sarasota and that community, especially Fort Myers, Sarasota, that areas completely devastated. And I just want to give my my heart out to everybody that's there. And I want to urge you, if you're not calling your Republican congressmen and senators, and encouraging them that they should be voting yes on hurricane relief bills instead of no. That was that would be much appreciated. For those of you that don't know, Governor Ron DeSantis, as well as Marco Rubio voted no for hurricane Ian relief, citing that there was too much pork within the bill. For those of you that don't know others pork in almost every legislative bill to some extent. So to feign that this is anything other than political posturing and keeping people from getting the aid that they so desperately need, is disingenuous. And I think terrible. So my thoughts and my prayers and my hope that you can push your Republican congressmen and senators to be voting yes, on these sort of things, is the best I can sort of offer at this moment. And again, just my thoughts, my prayers, my love goes out to everybody in Fort Myers, and Sarasota and Bradenton, and all those areas in Florida. So it's October now guys, and October, typically, we think about wearing pink and we think about breast cancer awareness. And we think about sort of what that means and raising money and what that means for helping people that are diagnosed with breast cancer. And I want to talk about it sort of in a different sense. So you might hear everybody wear pink to a football game, everybody donate your $5 to Susan G. Komen, which you don't know do some independent research on what Susan G. Komen is really about. But I think we sort of missed the nuance in the conversation surrounding breast cancer and breast cancer research. So there's been plenty of studies about sort of the disparities in care, and disparities and treatment that that happens, you know, sort of as social socio economic status stratifies, you see differences in sort of levels of success difference in mortality rates, for example, and this is a study in the early 2000s. So granted, we have advanced a little bit but not much. Once diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, just by virtue of being an African American, you are 20% more likely to suffer a fatality from that stage for diagnosis than your white and even Hispanic counterparts. So I think it's, it's interesting when we talk about breast cancer research that we don't talk about the disparities, and we don't talk about where this funding is actually going. And we don't talk about the people that actually become enrolled in these clinical trials. And at risk of not letting Professor Stanton talk at all, I think we need to begin having a more nuanced conversation about disparities and research and about where this money is actually going, and about how we can better address the needs of everybody that's suffering.

Unknown Speaker 3:25
Yeah, that's it's interesting that you, you alluded to those things, because there was a major article today about the black residents of Fort Myers, Florida, a lot of alluded to health disparities regarding people of color. I think it's it's disparities across the board. You know, the article in the paper today about the black residents of Fort Myers, Florida, and the resignation that a lot of these people had about when actually aid was going to come to them, that they had previous disasters in that area, so not to the extent of this, and they always seem to be the last people on the totem pole, as far as government aid was concerned. And I found it very interesting. You know, Lee County, of course, was very much devastated by this meteorological event. And it was interesting how apparently, there was supposed to be a warning given to the residents of Lee County. That was for whatever reason, delayed and of course, the delay may well have resulted in the cause of a lot of extra debts to the people who live there. And it was very interesting that the people who were in charge and the police, sheriff's department basically were like, very adamant about the fact that they had done everything right. And it was it was almost like like they were they were asking the people, one of the guys was from CNN, like, how dare you question me about our procedures here. But he had every right to question him, because certainly in the other parts of that, near that area, they were given a much earlier evacuation

Unknown Speaker 5:18
Correct. Less than 24 hours notice for many and living in Lee County, as someone who has evacuated the state of Florida before the infrastructure and the sort of planning and the sort of availability of space on those highways and back roads to get out, it is near impossible. Imagine and less than 24 hours notice on top of that, on top of the fact that the city of Tampa, when the initial forecast came in was sort of expected to be the vast majority of the the damage and the hit. So you have all these people in a much more populous area in Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, right. They have all left, they're already on the roads. And then Lee County's 24 hours notice while the rest of the state is already on the road, I mean, just a nightmare. And the fact that they can't go back and admit that, hey, some wrong was done here. I believe, you know, Ron DeSantis, is starting to say and blame the people living there in Lee County. Oh, they didn't want to leave. The people in the county didn't want to leave. They wanted to stay. Come on. Yeah, come on. 24 hours. Notice it, please.

Unknown Speaker 6:13
Yeah, well, it's interesting, because it's interesting, because there has been a building boom in that area. And this is one of the fascinating things about the state of Florida, that there is there is what I call a fanatical denialism, absolutely, about the fact that you cannot continue to build in areas where they are very prone to catastrophic floods. And I have always, I've always wondered how building permits were issued. So many of the communities in Florida, about four or five years ago, they had a major article in Vanity Fair about the coming catastrophe in Florida, focusing in on Miami, right? And how there was a danger, right, really, of the whole place being completely flooded out. I know a gentleman who lives in the Brickell area of Miami Beach, and he lost everything in the last in the last major storm. But it is it is, I suppose about money, isn't it? That, you know,

Unknown Speaker 7:26
they're willing to pay the insurance premiums if they're willing to pay for the flood insurance, you know, they're gonna keep building and like you save building codes or allowing these places to be brought up. And we're talking 20 3040 storey buildings on Tampa, right outside of the bay. You know, this is not surprising. It's money driven. Absolutely. 100%, you hit the nail on the head?

Unknown Speaker 7:46
And of course, you know, this is not long after, you know, the catastrophe in Miami Beach where the condo collapse collapse, right? And, of course, they don't have the even the inspectors to examine these buildings. So you have climate, you have lack of lack of funds, you have lack of proper inspection, right? And, you know, you wonder, like, who's who's running the state government down there? Who actually enforces these rules? And, you know, I think the answer is kind of obvious. Nobody, nobody Yeah, right. 100%. So, so So that's, you know, how we began our show today. Very fascinating article, and today's New York Times, having to do with the Uber, and the car service and their response to sexual assault claims. And apparently, Uber has a procedure where they don't really go to the police in matters like this, they take in these complaints. And they basically, you know, deal with them on their, on their own, with their own investigators. And in the city of San Jose, of course, they have those particular cases, very few of them, if ever are reported to the police. And it's a kind of an interesting way of, I would say suppressing the truth because it's sort of modeled off the Catholic Church's procedures for a long, long time, where people would come to the diocese, and the thing would get covered up and the priests would get transferred and then the freeze would get transferred again, and the freeze will get transferred again, but it was never made, uh, it was never made a law enforcement priority. So I think that's kind of disturbing and you don't really it really ties into I think, the way women are treated in this country are regarding sexual assault and sexual abuse. There was a major article in the USA Today about the The Women's Professional Soccer League, and how prevalent these these claims are against people who were coaches and on the staff of these different teams. And this is this is not the first article that USA Today has had. They've had a whole bunch of articles, not just covering women's soccer, but covering a number of the other professions and other sports. It is a very, you know, speaking as a man, but But it's trying to be as fair minded as I can be. It's almost like women who go into these different athletic sports, are taking their own health into into they're taking their own health, putting their own health at risk, basically. Because there doesn't seem to be, you know, an enforcement procedure of for those coaches and those team officials who, you know, violate women and get away with it.

Unknown Speaker 11:01
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the problem is, you don't want to be the one you don't want to be the pariah, you do not want to, it is so hard for women already to get the same level of, you know, attention, but more so just mass marketing deals, sort of policeman's in, in majors in major leagues, right, the web, nobody cares about the WNBA. And even if you make it, you're not getting paid. I mean, just women's sports, by and large is so hard to break through. It's so hard to become a superstar. You can name very few female athletic superstars, right. So to already have an almost insurmountable challenge to reach the pinnacle of athletic success as a woman, to then have to be the one to then have to say, this is what's going on. It happened to me, you do not want to be the pariah as sick. And as horrible as that sounds. becoming someone that speaks up against sexual sexual harassment ultimately becomes makes you black sheep. It makes you someone that's outcasted. It makes you though, you know, the one that opened her mouth, look at Michael Sam in the NFL. Right. So and he wasn't even a woman. I think you just you women are put in this horrible situation where they, if they do speak, it's horrible. And if they don't speak, it's horrible between a rock and a hard place, right? Do you want to jeopardize your own career to help save, you know, the potential million girls behind you? Or like what happened with Uber? Are they just gonna give you hush money? Regardless, I just think there is no good answer. And for me to pretend like I could tell all girl you got to report this stuff where we end even if there were wholesale administrative changes and how we report and how we handle sexual abuse, I don't believe the incentive is sometimes outweighs the punishment that women receive for reporting these things. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:49
Oh, I think I think that's absolutely true. I think that the Dr. Blasi Ford case regarding justice Cavanaugh is a perfect example of 100%. And proceeding that with the Anita Hill, there is almost like a higher standard of proof, yes, that a woman has to present to, to even get a hearing. And I can imagine I can imagine a young woman or or any woman who was up for a Supreme Court judge, Judge ship or other promotion? Who saw those two confirmation hearings, and you would have to be very, very leery of going up there. Because you're not going to you're not going to get an independent, unbiased hearing from the people on the committee. Right? Because the priority is that the person be confirmed, that is the priority. And anything that stands in the way of that priority has to be removed. But when I watched, you know, you know, a number of years ago when I watched the Anita Hill, and also when I watched Dr. Ford, they were both compelling witnesses. I mean, you know, no one knowing I was like to say nobody but God and the two people themselves know actually what happened that on those occasions. But Dr. Ford made a compelling case. And the way that what was interesting was how none of the male members of the committee actually questioned Dr. Ford, right. They they immunize themselves by getting a woman to question her, in a sense to sort of, you know, bring her down if you want to put it that way.

Unknown Speaker 14:53
And not to seem crass, but this was a woman that a woman of stature, this is a woman that was incredibly articulate. This is a woman who headed As very far in her career, this was a woman who, you know, had stature in her community. And it's still not that who you are makes you more believable. But the fact that a woman have that level of credence could not even be considered believable, let alone sympathetic, mind boggling in a symptom of a disease in this country where we do not trust, believe, or want to provide support sympathy or empathy for our women. No, but we've seen that time and time again. And we've seen it now. And it's extreme. So I'm, what am I? I don't know why I'm shocked. I'm really Yeah, I'm not.

Unknown Speaker 15:33
Yeah, no, it's it's as, as a man, just looking at it. From my perspective. It's a lack of respect, I think. I think it ties into abortion, I think it ties into a lot of things. That a woman's voice, a woman's autonomy, a woman's sense of being respected and being treated in a certain manner, does not occur to a lot of forces in our country. And I think we're going to be we're going to see, hopefully, a very positive response from women in November, let's hope, let's hope Yeah, because it's not just a crucial election, it really is a statement about what people are willing to put up with or are not willing to put up with at this point. Yep. No,

Unknown Speaker 16:32
absolutely. Absolutely. I will add one final piece on that Uber thing. A lot of people don't know this. And I think in our capacity as legal professionals, it's sort of a good thing to tell you that when you sign up for these apps like Uber and Lyft. And especially where civil trials are concerned, you are often agreeing to the terms and conditions none of us ever read and scroll right by that you are not allowed to bring a case like that to try I'm going to try to put this in as least the least amount of legalese as I possibly can. But many times, if not almost all the time, these corporations will force you into mediation or arbitration, oftentimes with the arbitrator or mediator of their choice. And the same level of protections that you get in the typical justice in the typical court of law are not really available to you, in arbitration or mediation, necessarily. So do be careful. When you're reading terms and agreements, you're agreeing to just use these apps, when something serious really does happen. And something can come up, you can be caught between a rock and a hard place legally. Because this is for something as simple as hitting agree. So I, you know, here's the lawyer telling you to be sure you're reading what you're signing and agreeing to, because those things could have real life implications, especially if you're a woman, and you're trying to stay safe and newer.

Unknown Speaker 17:43
You Well, I think, I think also, though, from the criminal point of view, if you came to somebody there with a justifiable complaint, I think it should be taken much more seriously than they do. I think that that's one of the problems that you have. Which is this lack of belief problem, right? Or, or is that they don't care, right. It's a big business. We need our drivers, it's easier to pay it off, and it's easy to pay off. Sure. Absolutely. You know, but so, so that's so that's, you know, you know, news. The news of the day, I guess is that the ex president has appealed to the Supreme Court, to wow, apparently withhold or restrain or how can I put it at the Justice Department from continuing their investigation? Apparently, from what we understand, to declare to have the Supreme Court declare that the 11th circuit court of appeals did not have jurisdiction over over this over this judge in their own in their own home, state stay home, they're in their own home state.

Unknown Speaker 19:09
But we it's all but a kangaroo court, in my humble opinion as it stands right now. 20 years ago, we would be laughing at this very idea egregious we would be thinking that the ex president is I mean, who is his legal advice right? I mean, how could this possibly now Professor Stan, I am not positive that this again kangaroo court would not grant him exactly what he's asking for and remove this truly.

Unknown Speaker 19:35
Yeah. I don't know from a legal point of view, you know, and trying to analyze this the the appointment of the special master and of itself was dubious at best dubious at best, or you could say unprecedented but okay, so each each side could nominate two people. So, one of the one of the John Someone who was nominated by the ex president was it was okay with the Justice Department, because the man hadn't had much experience. You know, being a special master, he had, he had the security clearance that very few people have. It was highly knowledgeable. Okay, the guy, the guy gets ready to go to work, he's doing what he has to do. And today, and then his, his sin is his efficiency, right? That he's so quick and so quick, he wants to get this thing, streamline and get it done all the rest of it. So and now. And now, that's that's an obstacle, right, that he's competent. You know, it's, and, of course, you know, of course, now, of course, the the, the plea or the brief, or whatever you want to call it was presented to Justice Thomas. So the question is, why is Justice Thomas on his own doing anything? Or would he would he, or dismiss it, or then bring it to the full court. And we're seeing now, of course, the testimony before the House Committee of justice Thomas's wife,

Unknown Speaker 21:22
which is, which is still denying the election, for those of you who don't

Unknown Speaker 21:25
know, which is which is, which is denying the election. And of course, when you think about that, you know, whether it whether you're a man or a woman, whether your husband is on the Supreme Court, or your wife is on the Supreme Court. Now, bells should go off in your head and say, Listen, you know, I have very strong feelings about the election. I, you know, I may feel a certain way. But as my spouse is on the court, and he may have to hear some of these cases, I have to, you know, sort of act in a certain dignified way that I cannot, you know, actually be involved in basically saying that the election or the election was was was invalid, when that case, may well go before my husband, right, to decide. And then of course, you have the whole other issue. If that's the case, is it a conflict of interest? For Justice Thomas to you know, even hear such a case? Right, you know, but I think that I can't just I just can't drop a handle on Justice Thomas, because in one of my classes last year, there was a major story about the federal bench. And how many of the federal judges had heard cases, I think it was like a third almost where they were financially interested, and the the outcome of the case, and just coincidentally, in the vast majority of those cases, they ruled for the rules for the side that they had

Unknown Speaker 23:13
the financial interest of financial stake and

Unknown Speaker 23:16
imagine that they had wampum at stake. So

Unknown Speaker 23:18
well, that's no different from our congressmen or senators either is,

Unknown Speaker 23:21
well, that's I'm glad that you brought that up line. And because that bill that was supposed to sail through the Congress, has had hit a hit a roadblock, or did a fork in the road, a hole. And now all of a sudden, you know, we have to look at it again. And with there's all kinds of stuff, you know, but it's money, though, it's my You see, I think what a lot of people are missing, and what's sad in the country is we have this division between, you know, Magga, and liberal and the Antifa, and all these different groups. Really, we're all getting hosed. We're all getting hurt right across the board across the board. Because Because we always should ask, Who are these people serving? Right, who does the Congress serve? We they're our elected officials. Right. And we don't seem to be getting much over a return on our money at all, you know, and then you have people who are, you know, serving in the Congress, and they leave the Congress to work for a lobbying firm. And, you know, I mean, that's one of the one of the major changes I think they should make in the law is there should be a there should be a disqualification, or long term before anybody can lobby, leaving either leaving the house of representatives or leaving the Senate. Right. I think we need to do that. And there's no appetite for them to do it. No, you know, that's the other thing, right?

Unknown Speaker 24:51
I mean, it would take a, you know, a wholesale admittance that this is what's going on, it would take a wholesale admittance that this is pervasive and that there's that much might because I think You know how to talk to the average day American and say, is corruption and politics, oh, they're all taken bribes. And they're all taken is not shocking, right. But to understand the scope in which these congressmen these senators are in this is these are massive, massive stock breaks that they are getting. I mean, they are shorting stocks at the right time, they are investing in stocks at the right time to the tune of money that is sort of incomprehensible to everyday people. And this is this is not just one or two or three bad seeds. This is pervasive in our, you know, in our institutions. So I think it's just key for people to understand, like, not only is this going on, it's going on to a scale that is near unimaginable, and we have to we there will always be incentives to play dirty politics if the money's always there. Yeah, just fundamentally,

Unknown Speaker 25:47
it's it's gotten worse. I think, though. Absolutely. I think I think one of the things that happened in the country, in my experience anyway, you've always had greed, you've always had people trying to, you know, get extra more than they should. Right. But I think the greed today is more unvarnished. It's not subtle, even. It's just everybody grabbing for whatever they can't. And there doesn't seem to be any force in either political party to really try to rein it in. And that's why I think people were so disillusioned, right. I think there was, I think there were there were reasons why the ex President did as well as he did. Yeah. I think a lot of people were just so turned off by politics.

Unknown Speaker 26:39
And he was the antithesis to, to politics. He

Unknown Speaker 26:42
Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 26:44
He spoke in a way that they had never heard a politician speak before he behaved in a way that reminded them of their friends or their co workers or and not necessarily the people that they saw standing behind the podium, he just represented something like you say, very different from the system that had effectively like you said, hit us all across the board had kept all of us down in some way, shape, or form. So I always say, I understand Trump, and I get why he happened. And I think we've touched on a year when you're so sick of seeing the exact same things over and over and over again, and he offered some rather real or imagined respite. Yeah, that's what you're gonna that's what they're gonna vote for.

Unknown Speaker 27:23
And I think I think to that, in many ways, we're a reality television society. Yes. I've said this before, and I've said it in my class. If you look at the top 20 programs, the Nielsen ratings, look at look at the programs that are there. It's It's It's The Bachelor, it's the Bachelorette. It's the housewives of Bella Russia, right? It's crazy,

Unknown Speaker 27:48
right. crassness sells, right? You sort of the virality thing that we see comes from people being out of control being out of the norm, things that are shocking and things that are a you know, quick to take us out of just the mundane the crap that we've been dealing with for years now. So I think yeah, it to see something bright, shiny and wild, which was what Trump was and what much of reality television and Tik Tok and Twitter at all is is just bright, shiny and wild. That's exciting for people. And that's something that, you know, I think could happen again. And let's hope it does not. So I think we need to be very careful about trying to make politicians into something they're not I think there's a reason politicians have been boring for so many years.

Unknown Speaker 28:34
Well, I think to that, it's fed the need for sensationalism. Many years ago, there was a Billy Wilder movie called ace in the hole of Kirk Douglas. And he's he's marooned in this town in Arizona, and they're going to a rattlesnake hunt. And the he asked the man, why they're going to the rattlesnake counties. As always, since it's a custom here. Everybody likes to see the rattlesnake being hunted. And Kirk Douglas, the character he plays, he says, Good news is no nose, nose. And you know, like, you'll see whether it's the cable, other regular networks. Family values are not a priority.

Unknown Speaker 29:18
I would absolutely and then not to end on such a terrible note, but I would absolutely agree with you. I think we've sort of moved away from it. And we're moving away from traditional values, in a sense is good, but sometimes need to rein it in, right. So with that, no news is good news. Um, fortunately, we got a lot of it today. But thank you for tuning in. And we just want to invite you guys to always send us some questions. That's charles.stanton@nevada.edu or w e t h e. l one@unlv.nevada.edu. We're happy to answer any questions live on air you may have about our program, and we thank you so much for tuning in.

Unknown Speaker 29:55
Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 29:57
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions you Please do not hesitate to contact us at web one. That's w e t h e l one@nevada.unlv.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton, contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton, s t a n t o n@unlv.edu. See you next time

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