Keisha Toni Russell on Merit, Fairness, and Ensuring Equality Under the Law

The 64th episode of Bald Ambition asks a question most people are too afraid or confused to ask out loud: why would a Black female constitutional attorney publicly oppose the nomination of the first Black female Supreme Court justice—and why does that matter? 

Short answer: standards. Longer answer: life is unfair, yet basing those standards on race, gender, or other factors does a disservice to those ostensibly meant to be protected and empowered. 

Mookie is excited to explore this and other politically, legally, and culturally radioactive topics with Keisha Russell, who’s spent her career navigating civil rights, free speech, and the limits of government power. Her testimony against the SCOTUS nomination was rooted in merit, constitutional fidelity, and intellectual independence.

Keisha lays out a blunt reality. When race becomes a shield against criticism—or worse, a qualification in itself—it creates doubt and undermines. Heightened sensitivity invites the implicit, corrosive question: Did you earn it? 

The conversation expands into a broader cultural diagnosis: What started as a righteous fight for equal access has often mutated into a demand for equal outcomes that are enforced by the government, justified by history, and defended through emotional appeal rather than constitutional principle. Russell argues that this shift is unsound in the courts and destructive to the individual.

Keisha's key points

• You can’t cure discrimination by institutionalizing it in reverse
• You can’t build confidence by lowering the bar
• You can’t claim equality while insisting certain groups need different rules to compete

These principles are also understood within the context that racism and inequality exist. Yes, life is uneven and unfair, often brutally so. But Keisha draws a hard line between acknowledging those truths and building an entire worldview around them. The conversation finds balance between empathy and accountability, fairness and freedom, historical awareness and present-day agency. Mookie pushes on that tension, and asks if a purely merit-based system de facto ignores real-world disadvantages? Keisha acknowledges the asymmetry of life, but refuses to let it become destiny.

Together, Keisha and Mookie resist the reflex to sort people into tribes, treat disagreement as betrayal, and outsource personal responsibility to institutions. Keisha makes the case that equality under the law only works if it applies equally, without exception, even when uncomfortable. She argues that once merit becomes negotiable, everything else is too.

The Guest

Keisha Toni Russell is a constitutional lawyer with First Liberty Institute in Texas, a non-profit law firm that specializes in religious liberty litigation. Keisha is a sought-after speaker who writes op-eds in various national news outlets and delivers commentary on CBS, Fox News, CBN, the Victory Channel and others. Keisha graduated from Emory University School of Law and was a 2017 Emory University Graduating Woman of Excellence. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Keisha was a special education teacher in an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia. Keisha grew up in Palm Beach County, Florida and currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

Learn More

https://keishatonirussell.com/

Read Her Book

https://keishatonirussell.com/uncommon-courage/

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_04 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to the Bald Ambition Podcast.
I'm your very bald host, PookieSpitz, and the one with all the
ambition today is Keisha Russellon board.
How are you?

SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
I'm good.
Thanks for having me.
So good to be here.

SPEAKER_04 (00:21):
Thanks for making time.
I'm honored to have aconstitutional attorney on
board.
And I can't wait to talk aboutconstitutional attorney stuff
with you.

SPEAKER_01 (00:34):
Yeah, I think I can do a little bit of that.
I can do a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_04 (00:37):
I got the right the right woman for the right the
right podcast, sounds like.
I can do that.
Top of the news.
I think a great way to open upthe conversation is Charles vs.
Salazar in Colorado originally,bubbled all the way up to
SCOTUS.
And it's a highly sensitivetopic and an amazing 8-1

(01:00):
decision.
When do you see that in thisdivided court?
Almost never.
Katanji Jackson was the onlyholdout for the dissent.
So how do you frame it?
And how does this fit into whatI've come to understand?

(01:20):
Some of your advocacy andinterest in civil rights,
legality, and the whole shebang.

SPEAKER_01 (01:31):
Yeah, so the thing about this case is that, you
know, obviously it is a sense ofissue to a lot of people.
And this was about sort ofprohibiting what they call
convergent therapy for minorswho identifies LGBTQ in some
respects.
And this particular counselor isreligious, right?
So she provides religiouscounseling to anyone, including

(01:54):
minors who want to come to herto talk about not embracing
those feelings.
And Colorado said she could notdo that.
So I think one of the mostimportant things is because
sometimes you hear the termconversion therapy and you think
like electro shop therapy oflike, you know, gay kids in the
back or something, but she onlydoes talk therapy.

(02:15):
It's not anything physical orcrazy.
Um so I think that's importantbecause when I hear the term
conversion therapy, sometimes Iget images in my head that don't
quite fit this case.
But overall, I think this casereally fits into the larger sort
of cultural conversation aboutwhere civil rights begin and the
constitution begins and how andhow you're able to sort of

(02:36):
protect certain things withoutinfringing on constitutional
rights.
So for example, Colorado saysthey want to protect minors from
um what they call a therapy thatisn't uh scientifically proven
or anything like that.
And they have a lot of other uharguments, one of those being,

(02:56):
oh, we're we're not regulatingspeech, we're just we're just
regulating the content of a of aof a professional.
We're we're allowed to do that.
Um and you know, the SupremeCourt, uh eight of them at
least, said, No, you'reregulating her speech.
And and here's the kicker,right?
If she was saying to thesechildren, yes, you should be

(03:17):
trans, yes, you should be gay,and let me help you, let me talk
you through that, then she coulddo what she's doing.
The problem is that she'shelping them perhaps deny those
feelings or resist thosefeelings.
And because she's coming at itfrom that angle, the Supreme
Court said, no, this is calledviewpoint discrimination,
meaning you can talk about atopic, but only from a certain

(03:39):
viewpoint.
And that is completely againstthe f the free speech clause.
You are not allowed to regulateviewpoint.
Um, it's like the most egregiousform of uh speech regulation
that that a government can cando.
Um and so I think that's whatthis is really about is the the
other problem here is the minoror the family, they're choosing

(04:03):
the counselor, right?
So they're choosing toparticipate in this kind of
counseling, and so Colorado'sreally interfering with that
choice as well for someone whowants that.
They want someone who'sreligious and who's going to
talk them into these things.
So that's sort of the baseline.

SPEAKER_04 (04:20):
There are a lot of emotional issues here, and uh,
that's why this case is sointeresting.
From from what I read of theverdict, it had almost nothing
to do with conversion therapyper se, because there's some
very left-leaning judges,obviously, who no doubt don't

(04:41):
take much sympathy to thepractice and might even find it
reprehensible in principle.
But it really was expressed as aFirst Amendment kind of case,
which is a trend that's beenactivated, if you will,
regarding what ostensibly wouldbe considered civil rights

(05:01):
cases.
So, where does an individual'sprotection stop, boundaries
begin, and can we characterizewhat might have been considered
a civil rights issue as a FirstAmendment speech kind of ruling?
You got masterpiece cake issimilar to, where denying a

(05:26):
business's right to serve aparticular person is violative,
but not in the old school civilrights kind of way, but in this
kind of newer formulation offocusing on speech rather than
action.
Am I characterizing thatcorrectly?

SPEAKER_01 (05:46):
Well, there's there's a couple things.
So I think sometimes peopleclassify things that civil
rights very broadly now.
Um, and and I don't know if Inecessarily agree with all of
those of the things that peoplewant to put under that category
because you having a free speechviolated is a form of a civil

(06:09):
rights violation.
Um so and you you did bring upmasterpiece, but what what's
interesting about masterpiece,and even this case, is that the
justices and masterpiece neverreally they never really talk
about whether Jack Phillips wasallowed to deny to to say he's
not making this cake.
He's the the the court in thatcase really just says the

(06:30):
government didn't give him afair shake, they didn't evaluate
this neutrally, and that's whyhe won.
So there there are a lot ofconservatives that will uh
criticize that decision and sayyou need to say whether he can
do this or not.
And they never do.
Um I think here what they'resaying is, well, this particular

(06:51):
law, you can't tell this womanthat she can talk about any of
these sort of gay or transgenderissues in one way, but not
another.
That's viewpoint discrimination,and they leave it at that.
They don't really even go intohow any of them feel about
conversion therapy, much likethe Masterpiece Cake Shop
ruling, you know?

SPEAKER_04 (07:12):
So there are those key differences, but the overall
trend though is is slicing anddicing these cases, often with
that First Amendment focus andkind of making that separation
away from some of the precedentthat might have been set
earlier.
So, for example, initial civilrights legislation, as I

(07:34):
understand it, had a lot to dowith cross-border trade between
states, right?

SPEAKER_01 (07:41):
The commerce clause, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (07:43):
See, you're the lawyer, you know the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
So the civil rights, okay.
I see, I think I I see whatyou're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 (07:49):
I'm low enough to be dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
Yeah, no, go ahead because I don't want to
interrupt, but I I think I I seewhere you're going.

SPEAKER_04 (07:55):
The commerce clause, as you identify, the commerce
clause was invoked to giveAfrican American people
ultimately the same rights at adiner, frankly, for sitting,
because the meat in thehamburgers was coming from
another state.

(08:15):
I mean, that that's essentiallywhat the case was about.
You have that right that thatsince the hamburgers served at
the counter came from the otherstate, it was a federal
situation.
And then they did their magic tobring equal rights for African
Americans to dine at therestaurant.

SPEAKER_01 (08:36):
Well, so there's a couple of layers, right?
So the the core, the I think thecore focus of the civil rights
laws was to make sure that blackpeople have the same rights as
everyone else, including whites.
That means access to hotels,access to food, access to
whatever it is.
The commerce clause comes inbecause usually the state would

(08:58):
decide what happens in a lot ofthese situations.
In order to get control and forthe federal government to say
everyone must follow this, theyinvoke the commerce clause,
which in their view, it says ifyou're presenting, you're you're
preventing me as a as a blackperson from staying in a hotel,
you are in you are impactinginterstate commerce because I

(09:21):
can't buy anything, I can't, youknow, I can't eat, I can't, you
know, stay at a certain hotel.
I might have to go somewhereelse to do that if you're not
letting me.
So that impacts commerce, thatimpacts the money, and that's
all of that.
And so the commerce clause wasreally used for the federal
government to get control.
But when you look sort of moregranularly at the statutes or

(09:46):
the civil rights, they it reallyis controlling conduct.

SPEAKER_04 (09:50):
Like, yeah, saying that it's getting to that, and I
think that's what I'm trying toget at my own awkward,
amateur-ish way.
I'm obviously not an attorney,but you can see I kind of get
it.
No, definitely there'smechanisms that the law uses
from both sides to win, andthose mechanisms have changed

(10:11):
based on the changing times.
And the trend that I see now, atleast from the headline news and
reading and trying to analyzethis from my own amateur point
of view, is that the trend ismoving more towards speech and
trying to translate behavior tospeech, and and it's getting the
results that it's getting.
And my next question is if youmore or less agree with that,

(10:35):
how do you look at this trendand your own advocacy and work?
How does it tie in within thishistorical context of where the
law is going, where civil rightsstand, and how we really define
protections under that law?

SPEAKER_01 (10:54):
Well, I I'm gonna say that um I'm gonna be careful
with how I sort of phrase this,but I think, especially since
then, this civil rights period,um, the culture has become
increasingly more obsessed withfeelings and desire and getting
what you want.
And that's not exactly what thelaw is here to do.

(11:15):
Um the idea of making sure thatpeople have equal opportunity
and can go to a hotel and get aroom is not the same thing as
saying, you know, you can't hurtmy feelings and you can't do
anything that I don't like, andyou can't say anything that I
don't like, and you can't um,you know, offend me.

(11:36):
And I think in a lot of ways,that's why a lot of the cases
that you're seeing right now areabout speech, because a lot of
these topics do implicatespeech, because a lot of people
see and view um speech that theydon't like as violating their
civil rights.
And that's not the case.
You know, we live in America,you have to hear speech you
don't like sometimes.

(11:57):
If you don't like it, you canturn it off.
You don't have to talk to thatperson, you don't have to go to
that place.
But it's not necessarily thesame as saying um you're black
and you can't come in here.
One of the things that I thinkis important about the Jack
Phillips case is that he didsell this particular couple for
years anything in the store.
The one thing he said no to wasI cannot create this custom cake

(12:21):
for your wedding because I don'tbelieve in same-sex weddings.
He never told them, You can'tcome in here, I don't like gay
people.
There was none of that.
It was you can buy anything outof here, I'll even recommend
someone to actually create thisfor you, but I cannot create
this particular custom cake.
And then the next step is, okay,well, if that offends the

(12:42):
same-sex couple, is that offensea civil rights violation?
Are you able to say you have tocreate this?
And depending upon how you feelabout the creation of a cake,
the Supreme Court saw that asspeech.
Can you force someone to saysomething to not hurt your
feelings or to appease you inorder to vindicate your civil

(13:06):
rights?
So it it I I think it'sdifferent.
I think it's very different.
And I think that's why.
So there are a number of caseslike this too, right?
Where someone says, Well, thisis a violation of my civil
rights.
But once you start talking aboutyour civil rights as an
expression of what someone elsehas to say, that's where I think
the rook comes.

SPEAKER_04 (13:26):
Yeah, and that's the fuzzy boundary, too, between
protecting the rights of anindividual and then allowing
people to just speak their mind.
And the other boundary betweenspeaking one's mind and taking
action.
And this gets blurred inpeople's mind.

(13:46):
And I agree with you, there'sthis heightened sense of
sensitivity that translates intocollege safe spaces and everyone
just being unable to handlereality, if I could be so bold.
I'm a Gen X Zoomer kind of guy.
I grew up with lead paint, anduh, and my my parents didn't

(14:09):
know where I was at half thetime, and we didn't have cell
phones and GPS.
Uh, and I made it.
And uh everything, frankly, fromthe she, he, him signature lines
to all of these tropes that areostensibly designed to make
society a better place, toprotect the disenfranchise, to

(14:34):
me seems an overextension ofthis kind of moralistic vanity
almost, which is which is forcedimposition of behaviors
ostensibly to protect and defendthose who've been
disenfranchised, that backfireson the very people who these

(14:56):
protections are meant toempower.
That's how I sense it.
And I try to stay in the middle.
Um, I have sensitivities to gayrights.
I think you're born a certainway and you gotta do what you
gotta do.
But I'm also highly sensitizedto your point to the role of
government.
There seems to be a feeling,especially on the left, where

(15:19):
government needs to everybodyneeds to be everybody's big
daddy and big mommy.
And that that is the subtext toa lot of this, too, which is the
government's gotta protect me.
And if I don't like it, and ifsomebody's being mean to me,
there needs to be a law aboutit.
And I know that that soundsbanal and trivial, but that is

(15:41):
the underlying emotionalsentiment, I think.

SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
No, I think you're right about that.
Um there's definitely a lot ofthat happening, and I think if
you a lot of people will look atthe civil rights movement or you
know what it what happened toblack people during that time
and say and use that in order tosort of craft this, I think a
Frankenstein version of thecivil rights movement to say,

(16:06):
you have to do what I saybecause your way upsets me or
offends me.
You know, we didn't get youknow, black people didn't get
civil rights because it offendedus.
We didn't get freedom because ithurt our feelings.
We got it because theConstitution demanded it.
And that's it.

(16:27):
Right?
So I don't I don't know if umthis whole focus on feelings is
really the direction to go inbecause the law doesn't respond
to that.
I mean, you'll see some stateslike Colorado, for example, that
will enact these laws in orderto I I I guess acknowledge these
kinds of issues, but they'regetting struck down because the

(16:50):
constitutional principles arenot correct.
And I think if you are lookingat this very like shall in a
shallow way, you'll think, oh,well, the so the court is
willing to protect some peoplebut not others.
And that's that's not reallywhat's happening.
And that's I think is one of thefundamental reasons why I think
it's so important for people tohave these kinds of
conversations.
Yeah, yeah.
So you can see that this is notthis is not necessarily a civil

(17:15):
rights type issue.
Um, although all those issuesyou can put under the umbrella
of civil rights, it's not thesame as what we're as as what
was being dealt with then.

SPEAKER_04 (17:25):
You know, this is what I think again it's one of
boundaries and perceptions.
And there's also a sense, Ibelieve, and I'm curious about
your point of compensation forpast wrong.
So the history of America iscombative, it's violative, and

(17:46):
and oftentimes brutal.
And there's a feeling, Ibelieve, among a certain
segment, especially on the left,that we need to compensate for
this.
And the only entity capable ofreally doing that kind of
correction is the government.
And the only way to initiatethat kind of correction is

(18:09):
through programs likeaffirmative action, is through
civil rights protections, havingto do with many of these cases
that are being ruled in a waythat they don't like.
Colorado seems to be this hotbedof the state trying to
ostensibly protectdisenfranchised minorities and

(18:30):
it backfiring in this legalsense because it does smack of
unconstitutional dictate, right?
It's it's very schizophrenic andit's very, very confusing.

SPEAKER_01 (18:43):
Well, if you look at, so for example, when you're
talking about sort of the ideaof repairing the system or
whatever it is, and you getthese issues like DEI that
really just end up being racism,you know, towards different
people, right?
So this is your students forfair admissions case, right?
Oh, we've got too many Asians.

(19:04):
And so we're gonna invoke thesepolicies that are preferential,
racially preferential to blacksor Hispanics or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 (19:12):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (19:13):
Um and that disfavor whites or Asians.
Okay, that's racism.
We don't do that here.
Um, and you can't repair racismby implementing it.
That's just not how it works.
You have to get rid of italtogether.

SPEAKER_04 (19:32):
And you can't assume that it's an unfair playing
field, and therefore thegovernment has to come in and
mandate these changes toinstitutions and businesses to
somehow compensate for thatunfair backdrop.

SPEAKER_01 (19:49):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 (19:50):
It it seems to be like treating the problem with a
poison worse than the ailmentitself.
Absolutely.
Not only that, it's ineffective,it backfires politically, and
it's ineffective in practice, toyour point.

SPEAKER_01 (20:06):
Yeah, and it it ends up eroding constitutional
principles altogether.
So everything you did during thecivil rights movement is going
to be completely undermined whenyou say, okay, you can't
discriminate against blacks, butyou can discriminate against
whites, you can discriminateagainst Asians.
That is not going to work.
You know, that that kind ofsystem is going to completely

(20:27):
break down all constitutionalfoundation and all freedom,
really.
Because as soon as you getsomeone who wants to correct
things in the other direction,where are we?
So you know, you have a lot ofproblems.
It's particularly because I usedto be a teacher, right?
And I've heard a lot of peoplesay that we should um lower the

(20:51):
standards uh for certain groupsif they're not able to meet it.
No, that's not what we do.
We address why they're notmeeting it and make sure that
they can meet it.
We don't lower the standards foranyone that doesn't help
anybody, won't ever helpanybody.
And as a teacher, I can tell youyou've gotta, you, you've gotta
give kids something to jump to.
You cannot lower the standards,they've got to be stretched and

(21:15):
challenged.
And a lot of these standards arecompletely neutral.
A certain SAT score or certain,you know, as it relates to the
sort of Harvard situation,right?
Um the issue is not the neutralcriteria, the issue is why only
certain people are meeting it.
And that's what we should focuson.

(21:37):
I mean, American education isproblematic.
I won't even go into it becauseI'll talk about it forever.

SPEAKER_04 (21:41):
Oh, it's a mess.
It's not just problematic, it'sa problem.

unknown (21:46):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
So it's it's um, I think important that we keep
that in mind.
If we want civil rights, if wewant no racism, that means we
never allow the government to doit, no matter what.
What no matter what.
And that's that's what it is.
You know, I think people think,well, we we have to do this.

(22:08):
No, we don't.
No, we don't.
We don't have to do it.
We need to address theunderlying issues.
Um, we can't manipulate theoutcomes to make people feel
better.

SPEAKER_04 (22:18):
And if you base it on merit, you have a baseline
standard through which you canheighten excellence regardless
of origin and opportunity.
And if you destroy a merit-basedsystem, then you become rotten
in a sense from within becausethere are no more standards.

(22:40):
And it's arbitrary.
And to your point, if you'repicking arbitrary standards,
usually it's not going to befair and you're going to be
violative of another group.
So it begs the question of whatyou're trying to accomplish in
the first place.

SPEAKER_01 (22:55):
Right.
Um, you know, I I don't I don'tknow why people subscribe to
this.
I never have, and I can tell youI grew up in South Florida,
which is more like an islandthan the South.
Lots of diversity.
And it wasn't until I moved toAtlanta, to be honest with you,
that I realized that my views onthese subjects really clash

(23:15):
clashed with a lot of people,um, including a lot of black
people.
And at the time I didn't reallyidentify it as being a political
issue.
I really just thought it wascultural.
Because growing up, my myparents are Jamaican.
They never talked about race.
They never talked about, well,you have to work harder because
you know, all the things that II hear black people say

(23:36):
sometimes to their children, myparents never said that to me.
And so I never had in my mindthese sort of restrictions that
would come up in my life becauseI was black or a woman or
whatever million, you know,characteristics you can assign.
Um I I really think it'simportant that people are
empowered to accept their ownfate, to to to take control of

(24:01):
the wheel and not assume thatthe government is going to
either help you or you know,destroy you based on your race
or gender, whatever.
You've you've got to do now.
We're all gonna face things,right?
We're all gonna have theseissues, and you know, you and I
talked a little bit about someof that before we started.
That life is gonna come for you.

(24:22):
Um, and you you have to beresilient.
And that might happen withbecause you're black, it might
happen because you're a woman,it might happen because you're
white, it might happen becauseyou're poor, it might happen for
all kinds of reasons.
But we all have to be willing torise and get out of that stuff.
And if you don't, you're gonnabe destroyed, no matter what

(24:43):
race you are or what gender youare.
You have to be willing, youknow, to keep going.
And you can't expect people tohand you things.
Um, because it's not gonna helpyou either.
The other thing is, you know, asa lawyer, one of the things I
really like is the fact that Ipassed the same bar exam as
everyone else, and it's blindgrading, and no one can say that
I passed the bar because I'mblack.
I pass because I passed.

SPEAKER_04 (25:04):
100%.
That's part that's part of thewhiplash effect that that
undercuts this kind of reversediscrimination from within.
Because if you destroy merit,then they're always gonna say
that you got a free ride.

SPEAKER_01 (25:21):
Yeah.
I mean, Katanji Brown Jacksonwill never live it down.

SPEAKER_04 (25:26):
It's and in ways it's it's self-imposed because
you're setting standards outsidethat meritorious uh foundation.

SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
Yeah, and you're embracing it, you know, maybe
even bragging about it.
I heard Jasmine Crockettbragging that she told someone
they should hire her becauseshe's black.
That embarrasses me.
Like I'm cringing, thinkingabout telling someone they have
to hire me because of acharacteristic I can't even
control.
No, you should hire me becauseI'm capable, you should hire me
because I'm brilliant, youshould hire me because I'm a

(25:55):
leader, you should hire mebecause I'm a great lawyer, you
should hire all one millionthings.
And never in my mind would I sayyou need to hire me because I'm
black.
Because I don't have anything todo with that.
And that has nothing to do withmy character.

SPEAKER_04 (26:08):
I am very curious about your take on this, which
is a whiplash to the whiplash.
And by that I mean, let's saytacitly, someone is in 100%
agreement with both of us,everything we've said before.
Now, an ancillary effect of thatis to make this erroneous

(26:30):
conclusion that there's no moreracism in America.
And the reason that you getthat, and I I can tell you know
where I'm going with this, isthat all right, it's based on
merit.
Can you just shut the hell upand work hard like everybody
else?
And if you work hard, whetheryou're black, female, trans,

(26:53):
whatever, you have an equalopportunity because we have no
racism in this country, and thewhole thing is absurd.
So it's the typical polarizationproblem that we have, which is
everything is binary in thiscountry.
Either you're you're aprogressive humanist embracing

(27:16):
everybody, or you're a fascist,and there's nothing in between.
So, how do you how do youaddress that kind of whiplash?
I know a lot of white dudes, youknow, who are like all that is
bullshit because there's noracism.
And whenever an African-Americanperson complains in any way that

(27:38):
they're being discriminatedagainst, it's invalid.
How do you address some of that?

SPEAKER_01 (27:45):
Well, I think it has to do sometimes with the way
with sort of your view on likeyour values and even spiritually
sometimes the way you look athuman beings.
Do you think human beings areable to be perfect and they can,
you know, fix their minds in away where they never see rays?

(28:06):
That's no, no, or they neverjudge somebody by the way that
they look, or that's notpossible because we are all
fallen people.
I'm Christian, I believe thatpeople are really grimy to the
core in a lot of ways, and weneed Christ to be saved and to
kind of live a proper life.

SPEAKER_04 (28:22):
I'm not Christian, but I'll agree with you about
that.

SPEAKER_01 (28:25):
Okay, but even besides, even if I'm not a
Christian, I think the point isevery we're all capable of these
horrible things, and trying toconvince people that oh, those
bad things just don't happen,that's crazy.
Of course, people can be racist,but I know plenty of racist
black people, plenty.

(28:46):
So it's not just on one side orthe other.
We all have the ability to bethat way, and attaching it to
one group or another is just aform of prejudice.
It's it's something that we'reall capable of.
And yes, it absolutely exists inthe hearts of men, and it's up
to us every day to make surethat we're treating people
correctly and kindly and all ofthat.

(29:08):
Um, you know, but it it doesn'tmean that it's outcome
determinative for any of us.

SPEAKER_04 (29:17):
Um is it kind of is it a little bit so you mean
racism?
No.
Uh advantage and disadvantage,opportunity and lack of it.
If you look at the demographics,if you check out the charts on
Pew, it's a chicken or egg kindof problem.

(29:38):
But opportunity in America,income in America, education
America, slice and dicedifferently by gender, by race,
by age.
So there's causality, right?
And there's correlation, andthere's historical precedent,

(30:01):
and there's opportunity and lackof it.
So, and this goes back to theheart of nature versus nurture
as well.
So I think because of thatcomplexity, there is that
tendency to be empowering of theindividual, regardless of
circumstance, and there isempathy that somebody born under

(30:26):
disadvantaged circumstancesmight not even have a chance.
So, how do you reconcile thatwith this view of
self-actualization, empowerment,level playing field, and
meritorious-based hierarchy?

(30:46):
Because there's a lot, there's alot going on there, which is
There is.

SPEAKER_01 (30:50):
No, you're totally right.
Um there's a couple things.
I and I think it is I I taughtuh special education to children
who were picked out of thegeneral education classroom
because of their behavior, thathad behavioral disorders, um,
fourth and fifth grade inAtlanta, um in the worst section

(31:13):
of Atlanta.
And I didn't grow up like that.
The only th the only commonalityI had with the students that I
taught was the fact that we wereblack, and that's it, because we
didn't grow up the same way.
I wasn't rich or anything.
I was I guess kind of standardmiddle class, lower middle
class.
Um but I was on free lunch andstuff like that, so I didn't

(31:35):
have a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04 (31:36):
Um, but I was always values from your parents.

SPEAKER_01 (31:40):
Yeah, I was just always taught like you have to
figure it out.
Now I recognize that some peoplehave a harder road to do that.
Um some of us don't get the youknow extra tutoring for the SATs
or whatever because it costsmoney and you know, maybe the
rich parents can afford it andour parents can't, you know.

(32:01):
So there there are those things.
But I will say that it's like Iwas saying before, you know,
resilience will get you prettyfar.
I you know I can't say that Ididn't have struggles growing up
and even getting to this place.

(32:24):
But I'm black, I didn't havethat much money, my parents were
divorced.
I mean, by all measures, what amI doing being a constitutional
lawyer and having litigated atthe Supreme Court before?
The odds are very much againstme, right?

SPEAKER_04 (32:40):
100%.
I I agree completely.
I'm just wondering if if somekind of viable middle ground can
be had between this belief inthe individual and the need for
that kind of self-actualizationand some of the inevitabilities
of life just punching people inthe face to the point that they

(33:03):
can't do it, and is part of thatuh not so much a lack of
empathy, but imagination when itcomes to bringing these two
forces together.
How can we create a just societywhich is by the law ensuring
freedom?
And that's part of your worktoo, and at the same time create

(33:26):
not so much a safety net becausewe know you know I'm from the
government and I'm here to help.
That that that always works,right?

SPEAKER_03 (33:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (33:34):
So so how how can we kind of maintain our humanity,
our empathy, our feelings forpeople who just can't get their
shit together?
And you bring up your faith aswell, which is you know, turning
the other cheek, uh, you know,the Sermon on the Mount.
It it's uh it's a philosophy andit's a belief and it's a

(33:59):
spirituality that's founded inhumanism and caring and giving.
How do we reconcile these two,which seem sometimes at odds to
each other?

SPEAKER_01 (34:12):
Well, I think because they can exist, they can
coexist, and sometimes we actlike they can't.
So we can acknowledge.
So, for example, me talkingabout my students, I think my
next step would be recognizingthe limitations of where they
live and what they're around,you know, the fourth graders
that I had, one of them, youknow, um people there was rumors

(34:37):
that, you know, her mom wasselling herself out of the
house.
I mean, how what how do you whatdo you do with that, right?
How do you fix that situationfor a child um who are very
young but have very adultproblems?
And there's no way around that.
The the kids who are living innorth and north Atlanta are I
can guarantee you are notdealing with it.

SPEAKER_04 (34:58):
Um so not only am I I'm from Chicago, the west side
of Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 (35:02):
Yeah, so you know, right?
Um I'm feeding this thesechildren, I'm not just teaching
them, I'm I'm trying to growtheir values, their character,
their confidence, because theyneed all that to get out of
where they are.
I think the problem is that weso succumb to those realities
and we teach these kids, well,you're black, so that's it.

(35:24):
We don't tell them to pull uptheir bootstraps because we
don't like that phrase.
That's kind of what they need tohear in some ways.
We can acknowledge what's goingon with them.
We don't have to be um callousto that.
And I and I don't think I amabout recognizing it because
I've I'm face to face with thatquite a bit.

(35:44):
But I think um I think dwellingin it only makes it worse.
It's it's just kind of like umit's like with anything, you
know, in life.
If you dwell on the bad, that'swhat's going to sort of amplify.
So I think we really have to wehave to recognize these things,
and I totally do uh that somepeople have it worse than

(36:05):
others.
Absolutely, there's no questionabout that.
Um, I think even acknowledgingthat, looking for ways to to
kind of solve some of thoseproblems, solving the violence
in, you know, Chicago or solvingthe poverty in some of these
places, trying to kind of get tothe root of these issues without

(36:27):
saying, okay, let's just succumbto the way things are.
Or, well, they can figure itout.
You know, like you're sayingthey're somewhere right here.
And I think to do that, you haveto acknowledge that both of
those things are true.
Um that people sometimes have abetter advantage than others.
But I also don't think so.

(36:47):
You've seen this sort of thingabout equality and equity, and
equity being giving that personwho was born two steps below the
government giving them those twosteps so that they're equal to
this other kid who had those twosteps.
But it doesn't work that way.
You know, because there'sthere's all these, you know,
other things that have that haveuh propelled this person to this

(37:09):
step without the help of thegovernment, and those things
don't exist even if you givethem.
Right.
So it's just like the when I wastalking about the college, the
colleges, you can't just stick achild who you know got an eight
ten on the SATs at Harvardbecause they're black.
You can't do that, you know.
So you you have to find a way tobridge that gap without um sort

(37:37):
of treating the merits as ifthey don't matter and if they're
as if they're not going tomatter.
You have to find a way to sortof instill the merits in that
system as well, even those whoare disadvantaged.

SPEAKER_04 (37:47):
It's got to be brought up a great point, and
I'm just gonna repeat it to makesure it got in into my bald
head, which is you acknowledgethat life is unfair, and you
acknowledge that some peoplehave considerable, sometimes
formidable, maybe even possiblehurdles.
They just do.
But if you focus their issues onthe color of their skin or their

(38:12):
gender, then you're begging thequestion of what racism really
does in terms of the damageyou're ostensibly trying to
mitigate.
So we know that you have you'redisenfranchised and that you
have these all thesedisadvantages.
But if I focus on your race asbeing the causal element of

(38:38):
that, I'm doing everyone adisservice, especially you,
because you can't change thecolor of your skin and it's
actually immaterial to yoursuccess if you take the attitude
that it's immaterial to yoursuccess.
Get out of it, overcome yourproblems, do what it takes to
succeed in your own way, andeveryone's better off for it.

SPEAKER_01 (39:01):
Yeah, and not everyone's gonna end up in the
same spot.
I mean, the other thing is ifI'm black and I grew up rich and
you're white and you grew uppoor, which one of us has a
better advantage?
A lot of people will say, Well,oh, you're you're you're the
white person, obviously.
That is not true.
That's not true.

(39:21):
It isn't.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I think you can say maybe theper that person might run into,
you know, races and things likethat.
But overall, the person who hasmore money is probably gonna end
up, you know, in a a cushiersituation um than even the white
person who's poor.
So you you have to understandthat the race is just one
component of somebody's life.

(39:43):
Um it's not the whole thing.
Um, you can be you can be white,you can be rich, and then you
can be in an abusive house andit can destroy you.
So there are there are so manydifferent things that happen to
people, and we should not assumethat just because someone's
black and poor, that there's nohope for them, and just because

(40:03):
someone's white and rich, thatthey're gonna get everything.
I know plenty of white, I grewup in Palm Beach, I know plenty
of white rich people, and theyare not all successful, they are
not all happy.

SPEAKER_04 (40:12):
And I grew up with a lot of poor white people, and I
can say the converse.
So it's like I'm I'm with you.
Uh you remind me a lot ofColeman Hughes, uh, if you're a
fan of Coleman Hughes, and uhand just seeing him even on the
view being eviscerated was wasreally a demonstration of this

(40:35):
conflict.
I grew up in Chicago as well,and I'm just gonna come right
out and pick on Jesse Jackson.
He died recently.
And uh even when I was young, Ifelt that that a lot of what he
did was fabulous, no doubt aboutit.
He was there right when MLK gotshot, etc.

(40:56):
He's uh an icon of thecommunity.
But even when I was growing upin Chicago, I felt that Jesse
Jackson was doing a disserviceto himself.
And I don't mean to just pick onhim.
The reason I'm bringing up isbecause he epitomizes, I think,
a trend that you'rehighlighting, which is obsession
with race, obsession withcompensation, obsession with

(41:19):
forced fairness.
And as a white guy, when I saythat, people are gonna react.
But per our conversation, whogives a shit what the melanin
content of my skin is?
What am I saying, and what areyou saying?
And what I think we're bothsaying is a lot of the civil

(41:41):
rights movement that came postML ML, you know, MLK did a
demonstrable disservice to thepeople they were ostensibly
trying to represent.
And I'm saying that as a whiteguy, but I'm just saying it as a
human being.

SPEAKER_01 (41:57):
And well, I don't I don't share, you know, Jesse
Jackson's sentiment.
You know, a lot of conservativesthink he was a race fader.
I agree, particularly in thelast sort of couple decades of
his life.
Um, I don't personally, I thinkthat a lot of people put race on
this pedestal that it doesn'tdeserve to be on.

SPEAKER_03 (42:16):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (42:17):
Um I think a lot of black people uh hold their race
as an idol, and it becomes moreimportant than character, it
becomes more important than God,it becomes more important than
everything.
And that puts you in a positionwhere you're unable to see the
truth when the only thing thatmatters to you is race.

(42:38):
So one of the things that I'vedone because I was a Republican
witness against the nominationof Katanji Brown Jackson to the
US Supreme Board.

SPEAKER_04 (42:46):
I was gonna ask you about that.
I want I wanted to warm up ourlisteners.

SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
Um so I I I received a lot of backlash for it, but I
didn't I I I never criticizedher publicly or uh personally.
Um I said this woman does nothold the kind of views that uh a
judge should have in order to bea justice on the US Supreme
Court.
She believes in critical theory,which is extremely detrimental.

(43:15):
You cannot uphold the lawproperly if you believe in that
nonsense.
She wouldn't define a woman.
Why not?
Well, because she's beholden thepeople who don't want her to,
not because she can't, because Ican guarantee you a woman who
has as much education as shedoes can come up with a
definition.
She's not that stupid, you know.
I don't think she's stupid atall.
I just think she's a liberal.

(43:37):
And she's got these allegiancesthat force her to avoid certain
things.
And that's why you can't have ajustice like that on the court
because they will choose thatallegiance over everything.
And so when she's sitting in herhearing and someone asks her to
define that term, and she won'tdo it.
She is showing you where her lither allegiance is.

SPEAKER_04 (43:58):
You mean define.

SPEAKER_01 (44:00):
Define a woman.
So when she says she won't dothat, well, that means you have
allegiances to people who don'twant you to do it, and you're
willing to do that because youabsolutely should be able to
define that term.
You should have no problemdefining that term.
And I don't want anybody likethat on the US Supreme Court
because that means you'rebiased.
Like extremely.

(44:20):
And I'm not going to be able toget a neutral answer out of you.
Anyway, that was my position.
So a number of people were veryupset about that and talking
about because she's black, Ishouldn't criticize her.
And I'm I'm just like, I don'tknow what you guys think this
is, but I do not worship anybodywho's black.
I don't care what color she is.
And you shouldn't either.
But, you know, people do.

(44:42):
I've I've actually told people,you better hope the Antichrist
isn't black because you're Idon't think you're gonna be able
to see it.
Because you're willing to adoptanything, you know, like
anything somebody says or doesbecause they're black, you're
willing to go in line with it.

SPEAKER_04 (44:55):
And I'm glad we got to your role in that after we
set it up in terms of worldview.
Because if you come right outand say that I was there going
against Katanji, then it's kindof like, all right, come on.

SPEAKER_03 (45:10):
Who's this girl?

SPEAKER_04 (45:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think I think your pointof view gives context to that,
which is it's a lens.
And we began with a case whereshe was the sole presenting
justice.
Why?
See what see what I did there?

SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
I like that.
Yeah.
Um, and a number of her cases, Imean, if you read her dissent
and students for fairadmissions, I'm like, what
constitution is this womanreading?
Because this is not how the lawworks at all.
And so, but it's because that'sher that's the lens in which she
views everything, including thelaw.
And so um it's a problem, youknow.

(45:48):
They're there, like I said,she's the low dissenter in this
issue.
Even Soda Mayor said, No, youcan't tell this counts counselor
that she can talk about theseissues from one viewer and not
the other.
That is textbook viewpointdiscrimination.
There's no question about what'sgoing on here.

SPEAKER_04 (46:04):
I think Soda Mayor played the role on the left that
Gorsuch played on the right forthe tariffs.
You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 (46:11):
Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_04 (46:11):
Yeah, which is like, come on, guys.
It's like you might love theDonald.

SPEAKER_00 (46:17):
Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_04 (46:19):
It's it's Congress, okay?
It's it's commerce and taxes,which is tariffs, and it's
similar here, which is you know,it's it's like you're the
government is telling atherapist what to say.
And even if you find conversiontherapy revolting, even if just

(46:41):
in audible form, again, so to myyours point of view, that's not
what this case is about.

SPEAKER_01 (46:48):
Exactly.
But she will not rule againstthis group, right?
So, I mean, I'm not gonna saythat's gonna happen in every
single situation, but this is apretty heavily LGBTQ situation.
And just like she did in herhearing, even though it's very
easy to come up with adefinition for women, that group

(47:10):
does not want a definition forthat term.
How do we know that?
Well, because the oral argumentsa couple weeks ago, where you
know, we were talking about thesort of the the the uh
prohibiting my surgeries forminors um who want to change
their gender, um they would notdefine sex.

(47:34):
You know, you can't claim sexdiscrimination and not define
the freaking term, otherwise, itdoesn't exist.
The discrimination doesn't existif you can't define the
category, but they wouldn't.
Why?
Because they don't want todefine a woman.
Why?
Because then it shows that a mancan't be a woman, and so that
that's the issue, you know.
That's the core problem, thebasic facts they do, you know,

(47:57):
they don't want to acknowledgethat because it cuts against
their viewpoint, their argument,their mission, and that's
totally fine, but it's not finefrom a justice.

SPEAKER_04 (48:08):
And I had a transgender guest on the
podcast, and many of her viewsmirror what we're talking about,
which is uh, you know, this kindof affirmative action for a
certain type of people thatbackfires on that person, on

(48:30):
that group.
And to get the point of view ofsomeone who is trans and is
equally upset about this stuffas you're articulating is
interesting because it's a pointof view that we don't hear,
especially not in not in thepress.
So I just I just find itinteresting, and I find that our

(48:50):
media channels and conduits areso filtered and implicitly
biased, and especially withsocial media, we're all hearing
what we want to hear based on afew ad choices that we're
siloed, we're not talking toeach other, and that common
sense is thrown out the window,and tribal politics and culture

(49:14):
wars get in the way of just acountry where we can all just
get along.
So it's it's very frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 (49:25):
It is, and it's it's scary because we have to have
this kind of open dialogue.
Um otherwise we're we dehumanizeeach other, and then you have
situations like what happenedwith Charlie Kirk.
Like you, if you disagree withsomeone, they're not inhuman,
they're not all of a sudden notworthy of life or what they you

(49:46):
just disagree.
But we've been training, youknow, an entire generation that
they don't have to hear anythingthey don't want to hear if it
hurts their feelings or if theydisagree with it.
And so when they're forced tointeract with speech they don't
like, they get angry, they thinkit's worthy of violence, and
they haven't learned to regulatetheir own emotions yet.
And so they act out and theybehave violently.

(50:10):
And and so I think that's whywe're kind of in this situation.
But if we're if we are able toteach particularly the younger
direct generation, because Ithink they're they're very
guilty of this, um, that it'sAmerica needs different
viewpoints.
That's how we've been able to bethis most successful country in

(50:32):
history.
And if we continue to eitherdehumanize each other, um censor
each other, um, try tomarginalize each other, we're
we're gonna lose the freedomthat we have in this country and
it will it'll be completelyunrecognizable.
And I think people take it forgranted.

(50:52):
I mean, I it's pretty obvious.
I think people take the freedomin America for granted because
they don't really understandwhat it looks like not to be
under such a regime, right?
Um and they think somebodytelling you something you don't
like is tyranny.
You know, so it's it's it's it'sjust it's problematic.

(51:14):
And I think the more we get outthere and talk about this, it's
one of the reasons why I feellike it's important for me to do
this, is because I do feel likeI have a lot of the legal,
constitutional, and policyexperience, but I also have, you
know, life experience to sort ofshare with people that you know

(51:35):
we we're we're much closertogether than we are apart.
And if we can find thosecommonalities, I think we'll be
okay.
But the way we do that is bytalking, um, and and not by
isolating each other anddeciding you're not gonna speak
to your friends or your familyanymore because they're not the
same political party as you.

SPEAKER_04 (51:55):
I like it to building up your immune system
against intolerance andbullshit.
And the only way to do that isthrough exposure.
So, like any organization, youknow, the boy in the bubble, how
there's no there's nocontagions.
And if you break that seal, thatmofo is dead because they

(52:16):
haven't built resistance.
And young people who are inuredto any kind of feedback, who are
terrified of anything thatthat's perceived as being
violative of their norms, createthis ecosystem where they're
even more vulnerable andeverything becomes a safe space,
and there's no longer any beliefin things just kind of fighting

(52:41):
themselves out.
You can't rely on the governmentto protect your feelings.

SPEAKER_02 (52:48):
Well, you can, but you're gonna end up oppressed.
You're gonna end up oppressed ifyou do that.

SPEAKER_04 (52:55):
I grew up in Skokie, Illinois.
In 1977, the Nazis wanted tomarch.
Now they you can say theyweren't real Nazis, because you
know who's a real Nazi?
It's just kind of a bunch ofhooligans and a fool got into
the outfits and wanted to marchin front of the synagogue.
There was a big debate.
Can't let them march.
I I was young at the time, maybe12 years old.

(53:19):
And I said, let them march.
We could protest, we could throwshit at them, right?

SPEAKER_01 (53:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (53:27):
Why are we so vulnerable to other people's
opinions?
Is the question.

SPEAKER_01 (53:35):
Yeah, I mean, I think like you said, it's
weakness, but also I I don'tthink people really understand
like what wickedness, true evilis.
You know, if if you talk aboutNazis, for example, I always
tell people you're you're notdifferent than they were.
As a matter of fact, thosepeople were probably a whole lot
stronger than every Americanbecause they went through a
whole lot.

(53:55):
Um, the people who were inGermany at that point in time,
they're not weak people.
So they're in a certain state,state of mind, frame of mind
after the first war and theconditions that are going on at
the time, they're very unhappy.
And somebody rises up that says,I can fix all this for you.
And let me tell you whose faultit is.

(54:16):
These people, these Jews.
If we get rid of them, all ourproblems will be solved.
And if you're not careful andyou're not um level-headed about
what evil is, about whatsupremacy actually looks like,
right, then you're gonna fallfor that.

(54:36):
If there are a lot of people, Ithink, right now, and the only
reason why I pick on the left alittle bit is because they are,
I think they're they tend to bemore shielded from criticism and
opinions they don't like thanconservatives, because for many
years all we were hearing werethe leftist point of view,
right?
Like if you were conservativeand you had a point of view, you

(54:57):
really kind of ended up on thefringes, which is how a lot of
these independent podcasterspopped up, these you know,
conservative ones, because theyweren't allowed to say it on
mainstream media.
CNN wasn't putting it on, theView wasn't putting it on,
nobody was inviting theconservative to come and speak,
right?
So so I'll say that, you know,the I think the left sometimes

(55:19):
doesn't quite understand thateveryone is susceptible to this.
And if you don't get control ofyour mind and you don't start
dehumanizing people, that youcould be, you could very well be
someone who ends up being a Naziand saying, Oh, these people
aren't really worded worthy oflife.
It's I bring it back to CharlieKirk.
You may not like everything hesaid, but he died because people
didn't like someone didn't likewhat he was saying, they didn't

(55:41):
like his speech.
That's very scary.

SPEAKER_04 (55:44):
Very scary.
Oh, it's very scary.
It was awful, awful.
And you know what?
Agree with them, disagree withthem, love them, hate them.
He had he had the balls to go upthere in front of people and
just bring it on.

SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
But he was teaching these young people the exact
thing that we're talking about,which is come over here and
let's talk.
What's your problem?
Let's talk it out.
And they hadn't seen thatbefore, you know.
I think that's why it became sopopular, is because we've got to
go to the source, these collegecampuses, and show these people
this is how you handle peoplewhen you disagree with them.

(56:21):
You have a conversation and youmove on with your life.
Um, so I I say all that to saythat I think we think too highly
of ourselves at times, you know,and we we think we're better
than these people who were whitesupremacists or Nazis.
And we're really not that muchbetter than these people.
We are susceptible to the exactsame thing if we let our

(56:42):
emotions get the best of us, andwe start looking at the other
side as the enemy.

SPEAKER_04 (56:47):
Most Holocaust scholarship agrees with you
completely.
There have been various booksand analyses, which is it's just
um, you know, ordinary men,ordinary women, it's
circumstance, and you just haveto be careful.

And here's the thing (57:02):
it's like believe in yourself, have strong
opinions and values, don't letjust the whims of society sweep
over you, yeah, or your ownparty, send you into that tribe.
It's awesome talking to you.
I I don't want you to go untilyou tell me a little bit more

(57:23):
about you and your work.

SPEAKER_01 (57:25):
Yeah, so I um for I graduated from law school in
2017.
I told you I was a teacherbefore, went to Emory Law
Atlanta, um, started working inthis field.
While I was there, I studiedunder a rabbi and I was
introduced to this field calledreligious liberty.
Um, and so when I left Emory, Istarted working for a great

(57:47):
organization called FirstLiberty Institute.
First Liberty just won its 11thcase at the U.S.
Supreme Court last week.
Um, so very successfulorganization, very small, but um
definitely punch above theirweight loss.
So did that for a long time, alot of high-powered federal
litigation all over the country,a lot of speaking, a lot of um

(58:08):
interviews, including uh in youknow, national TV, a lot of Fox,
I did ABC, I've done Dr.
Phil.
Um, and now I work for GovernorDeSantis.
I I run the Florida Commissionon Human Relations.
It's the um discriminationoffice.
So it's basically like yourcivil rights division and your

(58:29):
equal opportun or equalemployment opportunity office.
So that it would be like the oneoffice that houses all of that
in Florida.
And so I handle all thosecomplaints for of
discrimination, whether it befor employment or housing, um,
public accommodations, and wealso handle whistleblower
complaints.
So I manage that office.

(58:51):
Um, it's great, the people aregreat, they're very dedicated,
so I'm very blessed in thatrespect.
So I'm getting a lot moreleadership, experience, and no
litigation right now.
So that's actually kind of goodbecause litigation can be pretty
stressful.
So my stress level is much lowerthan it was when I was
litigating.

SPEAKER_04 (59:10):
Well, that's uh an illustrious trajectory, you
know.

SPEAKER_02 (59:14):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 (59:15):
In your few short years, right?
Out of yeah, uh, out of the criband and doing this stuff.
That that is terrific.
So you're you're you're you're ago-getter and you're and you're
getting it, which is great.
I do want to bring up though,again, this whiplash effect
because you're talking aboutdiscrimination and you work in
an office that handles that.

(59:37):
I am hearing stories, and again,I don't have the stats.
And the difference between anapocryphal story that's meant to
reinforce an agenda versus atrue statistical fact that isn't
an anomaly, is that thisrecalibration is having impact

(59:58):
too, that you have actualinstances of race-based
discrimination that are beingtossed under the rug because of
this renormalization, wherethere's a focus more on
fairness, taking race out of theequation.

(01:00:20):
But there are instances whererace is part of the equation,
where someone is demonstrablydiscriminated against because of
the melanin content in theirskin.
And what I've been reading andhearing about, and again, I I
don't have the stats, but I'mjust relating this as a
potential impact of some of thisrecalibration, is that some some

(01:00:44):
black folks, frankly, with casesthat have been pending, might
have their cases thrown out.
Um, it's much harder to litigatebased on race, race
discrimination.
Do you how do you addressconcerns about that?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:03):
Well, there's a couple reasons for that.
To generally speaking, to provediscrimination, like race
discrimination, you have toprove like intent that somebody
intended to discriminate youbased on race.
So when we go back to the civilrights movement, the school
lunch counters were veryunequivocal.
You cannot come in here becauseyou're black.

(01:01:23):
Goodbye.
A lot of the the thediscrimination claims now um are
some of them can show intent,right?
If somebody says a racial slurto you, that's racial
discrimination, right?
In the workplace or somethinglike that.
Um and and you know,discriminates based on those

(01:01:45):
characteristics.
But a lot of times people willfile claims about race
discrimination and they can'tprove that the person was
actually treating them that waybecause they were black or
whatever, right?
They didn't get along with theperson or the person, you know,
maybe the person was kind of notnice, you know.

(01:02:06):
They were kind of and they say,Well, they did that because I
was black.
And then you talk to theemployer and they're like, Yeah,
but half of my staff is black.
It's not because it's becausethis person doesn't know what
they're doing, you know.
So there's the there's this umsort of vetting that you have to
do with these cases becauseintentional discrimination is
necessary.

(01:02:27):
Um, you have you you can't justassume someone is discriminating
against you based on race justbecause you don't like what they
said or how they treated you.
You have to have evidence thatthey did that.
Is that difficult?
Sometimes it is um to actuallyprove.
Now that person could be right,maybe they are discriminating
against you because you'reblack, but you can't prove it.

(01:02:48):
Um and that sometimes is therub, right?
Um, there's another issue,right, where you you look at
what's called disparate impactliability, which is basically
what happened at students forfair admissions.
All right, what is that?
It just means that there's adisproportionate outcome, and in
order to address that outcome,the employer or whoever the
official is changes theadmissions policies or the

(01:03:12):
procedures in order to favoranother race because of the
outcomes, right?
They're trying to level theplaying field, and in order to
do that, they have to, you know,do some things to make it easier
for this side.
Um, and that's also its ownproblem, right?
Because that's not uh theoutcomes of a neutral policy are

(01:03:33):
not an intent to discriminate,nor the evidence of it.
Well, it could be.
You could say oh, these peopledefinitely mean to discriminate
against blacks, for example,because there's no blacks on
their team, right?
Um, so that's the first levelyou can use it as evidence, but
then you have to have otherthings to back it up.
So you you can't just assume.
And I think a lot of I can't saythe claims we get.

(01:03:57):
I'm not gonna, you know, opineon what I see all the time, but
outside of the space that I'm innow, even in just general cases
that I read um and federalcourt, many of those cases fail
to actually prove that theperson is discriminating or the
employer or whatever.
Sometimes you can prove it.
Um, and many people have beensuccessful at it.

(01:04:18):
It's just, I think um, that'sprobably why people feel sort of
that tension, is because I thinkfor a long time, if you look at
some of the cases Jesse Jacksonfiled, um, a lot of those ended
up in settlements where somebodysaid, Well, we didn't do
anything, but we don't we don'twant these people or races
attached to our name, right?

(01:04:38):
Like uh so to prevent that, theysettle.
And a lot of people are at theplace now where they are not
gonna do that.
You're gonna have to go throughthe whole thing if you want to
prove that they're racistbecause they will not settle
with you and make other peoplethink that they are.
Um, and so there's a bit of thathappening now too, where people
are kind of fighting backagainst it.

(01:04:59):
Um, but the law is still thesame, is all I'm really saying,
you know.
Um, intent to discriminate isnecessary.
And the only thing that's sortof kind of back and forth right
now is a disparate impact issue.
Like, is a government allowed orany official allowed to sort of
uh equalize these disparateoutcomes that are the result of
neutral policies.

(01:05:20):
And a lot of people on um sortof the ACLU side of things say,
yeah, disparate impact issomething that we should fix.
Um, and obviously we talkedabout what that what that
results in.
So that's sort of the only sortof difference that's kind of
taken place in the law.
Um, people fight back a lotmore, they're not as afraid as

(01:05:41):
of being called a racist as theyused to be.
Um and so they're willing tojust kind of go through the
whole thing when if you justmention it to them before, maybe
in the eighties, nineties, andearly two thousands, they would
have just settled with you, andpeople are just aren't doing
that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:57):
The human pageant is just oh.
A circus, not always a circus,but you're always gonna have uh
uh abuses and compromise andthings going off the rails, so
so perfection is is impossible,and I think the overall attitude

(01:06:18):
of moving forward in a way wherewe can maximize fairness in a
meritocritous kind of way can'tgo wrong, right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:27):
Yeah, and there's we also have to kind of accept that
things just aren't fairsometimes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:34):
I think that's the heart of it, it's fueling the
engine of this point of view,which is just grow up.
At the end of the day, there'san infantilism.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:46):
I'm not going to completely you know, uh discount
the view that it does happen,like racial discrimination
happens, discrimination againstpeople in all sorts of
categories happens.
Yes, absolutely.
I'm not gonna say it doesn't.
I'm not the person who says, Oh,I'm colorblind, I never see
colorblind.
No.
Um but you know, there's theidea that we kind of have to

(01:07:09):
accept that there are people whoare like that, and we we've
we've gotta kind of move onsometimes.
We don't wanna sit there anddwell on it all day and let it
completely derail your life, orworse, you teach yourself and
your children that this is howlife is and they can never do
anything more because of theirimmutable characteristics.

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:29):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I've enjoyed thisconversation a lot, and I
especially enjoy it because it'sso reasonable, grown up,
rational, and and in a senseproves its own point where we're
just two people talking aboutthis, and frankly, I think we're

(01:07:50):
aligned on most of this in thesense that let's just apply
common sense and decency and agood value system, and I think
we'll get 90% of the way there.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:01):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Um I don't think we're as farapart as we think.
I think there's always thefringe on both sides, right?
But when you look at polling ona lot of these issues, most
Americans are not really thatextreme.
They're kind of right here.
Um, I would I call them thesilent majority because they're

(01:08:21):
not saying anything.
It's the loud fringe people thatare always on the microphone.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:26):
So And that's one reason we end up being so
polarized, because you know it'slike uh I have crazy.
Yeah, I was working for aresearcher as a medical writer,
and he was referring to me withthis comment that the empty cart
makes the most noise.
You know, because it's going upthe cobblestone street and it's

(01:08:47):
jumping up and down becausethere's nothing in it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:51):
Yeah, well, I mean, the the I think that's true for
a lot of things.
Uh a lot of the people I knowwho in class they have the the
loudest opinions or in adiscussion, they're they're
typically the least informedpeople in the room.
Um, and they just startscreaming and yelling, and
you're like, I actually that'snot even what happened.

(01:09:13):
Like you don't even have thefacts, right?
So look, what are you talkingabout?

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:18):
The more you know, the more you realize that you
don't know much of anything, andthe dumber you are or the more
ignorant you want to be, thesmarter you think you are
because you know you're notplaying with a full deck, and
you think you know, pocket twosare gonna win the game for you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:32):
Yeah, and you're surrounded by people who are
just as uninformed as you,typically.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:37):
And then you surround yourself with
like-minded souls to um justperpetuate your own bloviation.
So anyway, I'd love to have youback talk about spirituality and
um and relationships andpersonal growth because um I
know you've got that angle toyour your life and personality,
and I've really enjoyed thisconversation.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:58):
Yeah, me too.
I'd love to come back, talkabout some of that stuff,
including how to get throughdepression, which so many people
experience.
And I feel like I've come out ofthat pretty victoriously, and I
would love to share it withpeople to save their you know
emotions, their lives in somecases, and really touch people
who are in that space.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:19):
I'm gonna bring you back on the No Hair All Heart
podcast.
I've had acupuncturists anddoctors and music therapists,
and uh it'd be great to drillinto that.
I've had my own challenges withdepression, especially in my
youth.
And uh, I would love to comparenotes with you, and I'm sure
many of our viewers andlisteners can uh can relate to

(01:10:41):
that kind of journey.
And I'd love to hear what ittook to overcome some of that
and uh and become all you canbe.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:49):
Well, one of one of the easiest ones is movement.
Get out there and do something,move your body, exercise, walk.
That's the first step.
If if you're like, what do I do?
That's the first thing I wouldtell you.
Move, get up off that couch, getout of that bed, go take a walk,
go for a run, go for a swing,push your do something to get
those endorphins going.
That's the first step is yougotta get moving.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:12):
That that's been demonstrated, I think,
clinically, that uh you know,going for a three-mile run is
like popping three pros act it'sit's the same thing for your
brain.
It'll it'll it'll do that samething for you.
All right, to be continued,definitely, ladies and
gentlemen.
Keisha Russell, constitutionalattorney.

(01:11:32):
It's been awesome talking toyou.
Follow the links below to followKeisha.
We'll put we'll put reference inthere, and I'll put more
information about where to findyou and your background in my
book.
And your book.
We didn't even talk about yourbook.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:50):
We talked about so many things, and I forgot to
talk about my book.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:53):
It's uncommon courage, folks.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:55):
Yeah, so this is this is about how people faith.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:58):
Now when hold on, let's dial back one second.
When did you publish?

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:02):
Uh, last year.
So it's not been out a year.
Um and it's produced by HarvestHouse, published by Harvest
House.
And it's it's about a lot of thethings that I've encountered and
really kind of intersectingfaith and culture and policy.
I talked about media and thedeception there and how you can
identify it and how as a personyou can keep your conscience um

(01:12:26):
knowing who you are, knowing howwho God says you are, and using
sort of those things to alwayshave a measurement about what
you believe and not allowing theculture to shift you in one
direction or the other.
And I use a lot of law andpolicy for that, but I break it
all down.
Um I've heard it's veryaccessible, and there's an audio
book because I know a lot ofpeople prefer an audio.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:45):
You can cook in your kitchen, drive into work, you
can listen to listen to Keisha.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:50):
And uh you're so demure, you didn't bring up the
book really till well you'veasked, you know, we have a great
conversation, great questions,and I completely but this is why
I'm I'm horrible at uh promotingmyself, but I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:03):
I'm I'm an author too.
This is a classic unbranded kindof pitch.
I work in uh marketing mostlyfor healthcare.
When you give it a lot ofeducation, you do the song and
dance, and then when they're allripe and excited that's when you
said you want to know more, hereit is.
There, move it in the middle sothey can see it.

(01:13:23):
I will also, for the video, I'llput an overlay of the book on
there.
Uncommon courage, nice, and yourmiddle name Tony.
Your middle name Tony.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:33):
Yeah, it's my dad.
My dad's name is Tion Y.
And uh he and my mom didn't getan ultrasound to see whether I
was boy or girl, and they wereboth sure that I was a boy.
I was Tony Jr.
until I was born.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:49):
That's a good story.
I'm I'm mooky because it'sHungarian for those sheep
herding dogs that run aroundbarking at people and biting
them in the ankles.
And I guess my father thoughtthat I was loud and annoying and
small.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:03):
So this is your nickname.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:04):
So I became yeah, and it it still fits in my adult
age.
So here you go.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:08):
It's perfect for a podcast, though.
Like a podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:11):
The Mookie, the the Mookie barking.
So anyway, we'll follow upagain.
Uh I'll put the link below toyour book.
And thanks so much for makingtime.
We really, really appreciate it.
Like, comment, share, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:25):
That's right.
See you soon.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:26):
Uh see you soon.
Take care.