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We're back with another edition of The
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinsky,

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culture editor here at the Federalist.
As always, you can email the show

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at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.

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Make sure to subscribe wherever you download
your podcasts, and of course to the

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premium version of our website as well. We're joined today by Kimberly Herman.

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Kimberly is the executive director for the
Southeastern Legal Foundation, where they are doing

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so much important work. I should
say I'm personally grateful to Kimberly for her

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help here at The Federalist a couple
of years back. Kimberly, welcome to

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the show. Thanks for having me. Can you talk to us a little

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bit about how you you know,
ended up at Southeastern Legal you've been the

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while, and also just maybe if
people aren't familiar the background on what Southeastern

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Legal is doing, the kind of
cases you guys are working on, because

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oh my gosh, there's so much
and so much of it is so important.

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Yeah. Absolutely, so a little
bit about Southeastern Legal Foundation. We

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were actually founded back in nineteen seventy
six as an answer to the ACLU,

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so Attorney General Ed Meese before he
was Attorney General, and a group of

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other kind of conservative public policy figures
and conservative lawyers knew that we needed an

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answer to the ACLU, which was
a growing threat to our freedom and to

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our liberties throughout the country. And
so they started groups which at the time

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were regional Pacific Legal Foundation, then
Southeastern Legal Foundation. We're now a national

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group. And what we do is
we see the government. It's as simple

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as that. When the government violates
your constitutional rights, whether it's free speed,

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each property rights. We do a
lot of work trying to save the

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America schools these days, federal overreach, transparency, you name it. We

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step in to represent the American people
for free and to the government and try

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to fight for our constitutional rights.
And to answer your first question, how

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did I end up here? Tell
us about yourself, Cook, I'm like,

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wait a minute, there was another
question there. I So, I

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am originally an accountant, but I
had just a love and a passion for

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American history and for the Constitution,
which you typically don't get when you're working

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at a big four public accounting firm
in the audit practice. And so I

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decided to go back to law.
School with the original intention of going up

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to DC, hopefully working at a
group like Heritage Foundation, and I ended

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up finding Southeastern Legal Foundation and fell
in love with the litigation side of things,

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and so instead of going the policy
route, I ended up here.

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I have been working with Southeastern Legal
Foundation since two thousand and eight in various

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capacities, and I honestly find it
to be an absolute privilege. I'm a

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mom, I have two kids,
and I wouldn't be doing this and taking

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the time to be in this world
if I didn't feel like we were making

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an impact every day. Well,
and you guys are working on some stuff

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that is like very very consequential right
now, some major cases, and Kimberly,

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I wanted to ask you could just
talk to us about in particular,

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some of the free speech cases speech
cases in general that you're working on.

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What are some of the big ones
that you guys are focused on right now.

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So, just a week ago we
filed a big lawsuit. I'm in

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the college free speech area, so
we have a big part of our work

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is under an umbrella called the one
A Project, so First Amendment Project,

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where we train college students on their
First Amendment rights. And how to have

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really successful public disc about the issues
that they find important. But a lot

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of times, as we all know, if you have conservative or libertarian values,

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you're shut down on college campuses,
especially in what we're dealing with today.

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And so we had a situation where
the Turning Point USA chapter at the

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University of New Mexico wanted to bring
Riley Gaines in to talk about her experience

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in call it in collegiate sports and
her views that biological men should not be

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competing against women and really just taking
over women's sports. So when they wanted

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to bring her in as a speaker, the school said, sure, you

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can bring her in, but you
have this huge fine not not find security

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fee that they were going to have
to pay. So it was going to

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be over ten thousand dollars to bring
her on campus, which these students just

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quite simply couldn't pay. Leadership Institute
stepped in and ultimately paid the security fee

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for them. But what's interesting here
is that there's events that are way bigger

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than the Riley gains event that they
were going to hold. Riley brought several

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hundred people came out to hear her
speak, but just earlier in the year

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the school hosted a drag queen bingo
with many many students there and required absolutely

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no security fee for an event like
that, and so it's a clear case

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of viewpoint discrimination. We filed a
lawsuit there, and that fact pattern isn't

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unique. We see that across the
country unfortunately, in every state, at

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almost every public institution. And so
something interesting about that, and it's not

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new, obviously, but it is
something people don't even necessarily think about.

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The speaking fees or i'm sorry,
the security fees. There are all kinds

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of little ways universities, public universities, universities in general will use to make

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it really hard to raise the bar
really hard for conservative speech versus liberal speech.

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So Kimberly, in your experience,
can you talk to us in this

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case about those ways that people might
not even think about, but that universities

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just kind of keep raising the bar
a little bit higher, a little bit

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higher, and you know, saying, well, this is very important.

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We have to have heightened security here. We have to do X, Y

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and Z. We have to put
it in this room because the other rooms

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of fire hazard. Could you talk
to us just a little bit about that?

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Yeah, And then I think you've
probably faced that on college campuses too,

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because I know, you know,
when you go out and talk to

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all of these students, there's lots
of different ways. They get very creative.

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During COVID, we saw schools using
COVID policies to do that, and

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so they would say you couldn't go
out and be on the quad at a

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table and just literally be out there
at a table talking to other students,

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and if you were, then they
were writing you up under COVID violations for

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how close you were standing to people, where if you coughed, literally we

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had cases where students would call us
and they were out there talking about their

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student organization, whether it was you
know, yaff or yell or turning point.

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You can list them all out,
and if they were coughing or appeared

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to be sick in any way,
they were getting reported for potentially having COVID

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and their speech was getting silenced like
that was the intent behind it. Another

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way is yeah, no serious,
seriously, I mean we I think we

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sent over twenty to twenty five demand
letters in the course of a two month

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period in the summer of twenty twenty
when students were or twenty twenty one when

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students were starting to like really deal
with this and go back onto college campuses

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and facing all of that. Another
big way is that they simply can't get

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faculty advisors, and so the schools
make it a requirement that any student organization

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on colleges has a faculty advisor.
And then they fear, like they put

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the fear in all of these faculty
members that if you actually go and advise,

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say college Republicans, then you will
be canceled on your campus and you

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may not get tenure. And so
they use little things like that to make

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sure that these student organizations can't even
come into existence. When we were talking

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about University of New Mexico, turning
point is the only conservative or student organization

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left on that college campus. There
were others, and they've either had to

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disband because they've been canceled, or
they've been attacked, or they can no

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longer get a faculty advisor. Yeah, the faculty advisor one is really interesting.

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Having worked in this space for a
while, Kimberly, I'm curious for

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your take on the big question of
whether this is getting better or worse,

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because on the one hand, it
seems like even some folks on the left

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have especially post twenty twenty in some
cases even post twenty sixteen, but especially

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post twenty twenty, had their eyes
really opened, And you know, kind

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of said may Kulpa, I didn't
realize how bad this was. This happened

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after October seventh to and you know, there was just a renewed kind of

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interest in making sure universities were places
that where speech is respected and you know,

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challenging speech is tolerated, if not
encouraged, as it probably should be.

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So do you think, though that's
real? That's significant because at this

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point it seems like there's so many
layers of bureaucracy at all of these schools.

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You basically have to strip that down
in order to really restore speech on

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campus. Yeah, I mean,
I think it ebbs and flows, and

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so I would say probably about eight
to ten years ago, we saw a

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big wave across the country, especially
our Red states, putting in additional free

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speech protections in state law, so
of taking all of the rights that we

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have in our First Amendment and putting
them into law. So there's another layer

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of protection for students who want to
speak on campus. But then the colleges

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learn how to get around that and
right now, quite honestly, what scares

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me the most, I think is
that we have a federal government, and

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especially a federal Department of Education,
that is doing everything that it can to

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silence students on college campuses that disagree
with its agenda. In the next couple

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of months, we're going to see
changes to Title nine, which Title nine

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is a federal law that's supposed to
protect protect women's sports. It is a

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basically outlaws sex discrimination on college campuses. As the federal government changes what the

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term sex means, it's also going
to be infringing on free speech. And

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so it is going to basically make
it illegal for anyone to use an incorrect

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pronoun. And so if you're on
a college campus and you do not want

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to use somebody's incorrect pronoun, you
will then be able to be written up

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by a Title nine coordinator. You
can be reported by your fellow students,

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by your professors, and then you
will have to go before one person,

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a Title nine coordinator, who will
investigate that complaint and who can impose punishment.

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It is going to have a serious
chilling effect across this country. And

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so, as I mentioned that we
ebb and flow. I am quite frankly

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nervous that we're about to go into
a period where we're going to have a

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lot more restrictions and severely chilled speech
on college campuses. We're all aware the

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I am so excited you brought up
Title nine because it drove me crazy

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during the Trump administration, although I
think you, Betsy Devass, handled these

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questions very well, but specifically that
there was just so little interest from the

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media in how important Title nine is
and what a role Title nine played in

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shifting some of these major cultural conversations
about, for example, gender identity.

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I mean, it was just a
dear call glutter from Barack Obama's Education secretary

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back in I think twenty fifteen.
It was like May of twenty fifteen or

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twenty sixteen. Dear colleague letter dramatically
changed schools around the entire country by reading

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gender identity into sex on the basis
of sex and Title nine. So,

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Kimberly, the Biden administration has vowed
and under pressure with the support of their

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allies in Congress, to restore the
Obama era standards. Essentially, they've tried

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to do some clever little things.
But what can you tell us about how

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they're handling this and how we should
expect them to handle this when the dust

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settles and all of a sudden done. Yeah, I mean, we're really

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close to the Biden administration finalizing its
changes to Title nine, which, as

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you mentioned, will kind of revert
us back to the Obama regime and then

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some right, so I kind of
call it Obama Title nine plus, and

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we're expecting the new rule to be
finalized in April. The federal government right

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now is finishing up what it calls
a series of testimonies, and so we

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just testified last week before the Department
of Education actually and several other federal agencies

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to explain why we think that these
changes are so problematic, you know,

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focusing on the First Amendment concerns.
I mentioned. Another thing is due process,

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Right, You're going to have one
person at all of these schools,

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and you know, I'll pause here
for a second and say, it's not

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just colleges, right. The American
people need to understand that these changes are

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going to affect your four year olds
that are in pre k your five year

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olds in kindergarten. You know,
they want to go to school and learn

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their ABC's, and instead they're going
to be punished if they use an incorrect

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pronoun or if they say something that
somebody else may find offensive or that a

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teacher thinks is quote unquote offensive.
This has such wide reaching application, and

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we're expecting the rule, as I
mentioned, to be finalized in April and

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become effective sometime this summer, and
you're going to see a massive run to

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the court. I know we are
planning on filing numerous lawsuits to represent parents

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throughout the country and represent college students. Yet it strikes me with these small

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changes that add up to just like
vast cultural changes, policy changes. Again,

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there's so little respect for how consequential
those things could be in the media

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unless the media is talking about how
they're going to dramatically change the country for

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the better and anyone who opposes them
is going to dramatically change the country for

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the worst. But the idea that
this would have major ramifications around for schools

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everywhere, I mean, Kimberly,
I'm curious. Just you know, again

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you've been following this very closely for
your take on the media's failure to tell

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the real story of Title nine,
because you know, it took towards the

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end of the Obama administration. There
was some great stuff by like Emily Yaffi

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and The Atlantic, and even the
Washington Posts editorial board I think was pleased

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with what Betsy Devace did, But
it took a while after Obama had changed

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the policies on specifically campus kangaroo courts, took a few years for people to

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catch on and be like this is
terrible. It took a while for people

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to catch on with the gender identity
thing, and the media was even further

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behind the curve and supports things like
Title nine. Plus it has to be

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very frustrating. From your side of
this, it is, it's extremely frustrating

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because we need parents, and we
need college students and just all Americans to

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understand the impact that these you know, that these arguably complicated legal concepts have,

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but they're not complicated, right.
I mean, it can sound scary,

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like you hear the term Patle nine, and you know you have to

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go and look at a law and
see what that means. But at the

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end of the day, these are
things that affect every single American and they

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really can be broken down, you
know, to that. And one of

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the things that I spent a lot
of time doing is training parents and college

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students, and so we do webinars, we put out guidebooks, anything we

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can to take you know, complicated
legal topics and put them into plain English.

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And I'm actually working on one for
Title nine right now to kind of

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help us get over that hurdle.
Because if if the media at large,

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right you excluded, the federalists,
excluded, you know, doesn't really dive

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into these issues and help explain them
to the American public, then we've already

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lost half the battle, right,
We're already behind the curve on that,

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And so the more that we can
get people talking about it, the more

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that we can get people to understand
it, putting together panels on it,

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webinars, podcasts, let's cover it, let's shout it from the rooftops.

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It also seemed to me like the
bureaucracy learned a little bit. The federal

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bureaucracy definitely in some states too,
maybe picked up some tips from college campuses,

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or people just brought these things with
them from college campuses. And obviously

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this has been going on for a
long time, but what we saw with

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COVID, what we've seen, you
know, with tech companies that are working

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with the Biden administration, all of
these different efforts to control the public square,

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control speech in the public square cumulated. It seems like what was happening

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on the campuses has now been adopted
into some actually policies. I mean,

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we know the sort of attitudes and
temperaments about speech have been brought into the

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working world. But it seems also
like federal policy is getting increasingly creative at

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how people's speech can be curtailed,
not even on campuses anymore, but in

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the public square too. It is
I mean, we've seen a lot in

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the news lately that's kind of come
out from some of these congressional you know,

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committee reviews and stuff about you know, Twitter, Facebook, you name

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it, from social media trying to
kind of really run with the narrative and

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change the public perception of things,
and you know, silence people and chill

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speech. But in the workplace,
and especially in the federal workplace, you

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know, we hear, for example, from teachers. We hear from teachers

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all the time that say, I
just I'm going to have to leave the

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profession. Like I love teaching,
I love the kids, but I'm scared

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to even voice my my views.
I'm scared to say anything in the classroom.

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And that's just kind of you know, one sector. But we've seen

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it through reporting. You know,
Chris Rufo has done a lot of reporting

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out there on federal and state agencies
and the DEI training that comes into play.

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And you know how if you even
dare speak up against it, then

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you are immediately ostracized. We present
teachers who have been shouted down in DEI

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trainings that they've been required when they
actually speak their views, they've been brought

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to tears. This is real,
right, and if you it's basically get

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in line or we're going to embarrass
you, ostracize you, and force you

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into quitting eventually. And that is
again another thing that the American public just

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needs to be aware of. You
don't see it because people are scared to

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talk about it, but we need
to have a forum where those people can

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00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:36,559
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Are there other big cases that you
guys have been handling that you think

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are interesting and people should know about
now or in just recent years, Because

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I feel like some of these cases
that you see, and you know you're

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talking to people who are dealing with
this personally, they're so interesting, and

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you know, unless you're someone who's
really paying attention to conservative media, to

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media that's telling the true story,
you might be missing. What's you know,

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some of these efforts to really control
speech. What can you tell us

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about maybe other things that people haven't
heard about? Kimberly, Yeah, I

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mean so some of our cases that
people probably haven't heard about. You know,

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we do a lot of work regarding
you know, the Biden email pseudonyms.

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They hear about that. I would
hope that gets a lot of coverage.

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But there's a lot of cases that
we have been dealing with in agencies,

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the federal agencies that people don't think
about. So we do a lot

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of work representing farmers in America who
either can't become part of programs. So

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let's say you have the USDA,
right, you have a federal agency that's

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supposed to help be there to help
agriculture, to support our country's farmers,

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and they put out programs. Maybe
it's a loan forgiveness policy where they say

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we will help forgive loans, or
maybe it's a natural disaster policy. We

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will give you this additional funding if
your crops have been destroyed by national by

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a natural disaster, but only if
you're not white. And it actually will

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say that, it will say it's
explicitly provided on the basis of race.

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And so we have been representing farmers
throughout the country who can't get the support

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00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:52,079
that they need because of the skin
color that they were born with and it's

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not just in farming. And that's
why I mentioned those cases. We've been

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00:24:56,279 --> 00:25:00,839
winning those cases. Right when you
go to court and you say the government

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00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:07,079
is very explicitly in writing discriminating on
the basis of skin color, the current

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00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:11,359
see that violation. That violates the
Constitution and the Civil Rights Act. But

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that's happening throughout all of our different
industries in America, whether it's our farmers

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or our fishermen or you know,
you know teachers that those are cases are

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a little bit harder because teachers are
scared to speak up. But when you're

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actually going to lose your family farm
over this, you have to do something.

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So those are just some cases that
we've been working on. We have

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a number of them that we're looking
to file in the next couple of weeks

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actually, and so hopefully we can
get more of the mainstream media to pay

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attention to them a little bit better. And you know, it strikes me

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also that even just working with with
people who are dealing with some of those

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christ I mean, we're talking about
farmers. You're a conservative student on a

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00:25:52,279 --> 00:25:56,839
college campus. You kind of understand
at this point what's going to happen.

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Although some students actually are still surprised. Even I'm still surprised sometimes when I'm

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talking to YAFF students and hearing what
they go through, which I mean it's

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just even now, sometimes it's still
jaw dropping. But we're talking about people

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who are are not even in an
arena that's known for you know, forcing

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us to answer some of these or
make some of these difficult decisions about speech

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and freedom. Can you just tell
us a little bit about what it's like

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to just, on the human side, work with people who are going through

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this and who should not have to
go through this. What are some of

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the things you hear, some of
the things you've learned from them. Oh?

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Well, when we're talking about the
farmers, right, like that type

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of case, I mean, they
can lose everything that that their entire family

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has built. And these are not
you know, these are not wealthy individuals.

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They are people who get up at
the crack of dawn and they work

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with their hands all day, and
they do it to put food on the

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table for their family. They're terrified
of losing everything that their family has built.

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They're terrified of not being able to
feed their kids. When we talk

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00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:08,640
to the teachers that we represent.
They went into teaching because they love the

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kids. One of our clients is
a what's called a five oh four process

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00:27:14,039 --> 00:27:18,160
coordinator. It sounds fancy, but
she helps work with special needs students and

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00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,519
helps make sure that they're getting all
of the resources that they need, meeting

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00:27:21,559 --> 00:27:26,480
with the parents, putting everything she
has into these students for over twenty years.

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00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,960
And you know, she goes to
work every day terrified that she's going

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to say the wrong thing, Terrified
that if she speaks her truth and speaks

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her views or anything that she does, she could be accused of, you

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00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:47,039
know, being a racist, or
being accused of not being an anti racist,

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which is what her school district requires
of their teachers. There's real emotions

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00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,720
here. These are real people,
right. We're not talking about big corporate

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America who they have interests that need
to be represented. But that's not really

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what we're in the business of.
We're trying to just help real people,

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college students who care about their the
issues. You know, they want to

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go out and spread their thoughts on
Title nine. They want to tell people

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that they think that a woman is
a woman and a man as a man,

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and they risk being expelled from school. And having their entire future destroyed.

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These are people with feelings and futures, and these cases matter. They

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set precedent throughout the country. They
are brave individuals who are willing to go

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to court for everyone else in America. And I'm just like I said,

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and as we started, I'm really
proud to represent our clients. I mean

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again, it's just stunning to think
of the different ways people are dealing with

359
00:28:51,839 --> 00:28:57,640
this and just imagining that your family
business is on the line because somewhere in

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their bureaucracy there deciding to enforce DEI
in creative ways. It is just it's

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so outrageous. Kimberly, when did
you first start seeing DEI? Again,

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Like, you've been working on this
for a very long time, so that's

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00:29:14,079 --> 00:29:17,559
why I'm asking, when did you
first start seeing what we now think of

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00:29:17,599 --> 00:29:22,359
as DEI or wokeness or any of
those sorts of things, not just sort

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00:29:22,359 --> 00:29:25,559
of mere political correctness, but kind
of Yeah, like the DEI stuff that

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00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:30,720
RUFO has written about and the explicit
DEI stuff that is actually done in the

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name of diversity, equity, and
inclusion. When did you first start seeing

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00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:37,920
that be weaponized? Yeah? Absolutely, I think we started seeing it be

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weaponized in the way that you're referring
to it in the way that we think

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00:29:41,359 --> 00:29:45,440
about it now. It really was
around the twenty nineteen twenty twenty time period.

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You know, Southeastern Legal Foundation has
handled you know, minority contracting cases.

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You go on and on back to
the nineties, but that really was,

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00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:59,880
as you mentioned, thinking about it
in a different way and in terms

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of of being weaponized, we started
seeing it on college campuses. So when

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we go and we train college students, we will do these in roundtable settings

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where let's say we meet with a
YAFF chapter on a college campus and we

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00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:15,759
hear about the issues that they're facing, and we walk through their speech policies

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00:30:15,759 --> 00:30:22,000
with them. And we started seeing
these biased response teams and biased response policies

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00:30:22,079 --> 00:30:27,119
that said you can't say anything offensive
or hateful, neither of which have a

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00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,079
legal definition. Okay, so all
of this is subjective. Our friends at

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00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:36,960
Speech First have done a phenomenal job
attacking policies like that in court. But

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00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,640
that's when we started seeing it.
And then, you know, you mentioned

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00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:45,680
Chris Rufo in twenty twenty. I
met him, we were doing some work

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00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:51,160
and he was I believe at the
time he held multiple positions, but I

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00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:56,480
believe he was a visiting fellow also
at Heritage Foundation, and we met and

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00:30:56,559 --> 00:31:00,759
started talking about these issues and realized
that what we were being on the legal

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00:31:00,839 --> 00:31:03,880
side was exactly what he was trying
to get America to wake up to,

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00:31:04,759 --> 00:31:07,799
and that it needed a legal response. So we kind of stepped in to

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00:31:07,839 --> 00:31:15,039
be that legal response. But even
then, every single day we're peeling back

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00:31:15,079 --> 00:31:18,079
the layers. And then as soon
as we had the Biden administration come in

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00:31:18,599 --> 00:31:22,720
and what what was it? On
day one, day two, they started

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00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:26,880
putting out executive orders on equity and
that we need equity, need every single

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00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:30,480
federal agency. And from there it's
just, I mean, it's just taken

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00:31:30,519 --> 00:31:37,480
off with the speed that we never
imagined. How much do you spend from

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your paycheck in about one hundred days? The watched Out on Wall Street podcast

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with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris
helps unpack the connection between politics and the

397
00:31:45,279 --> 00:31:48,680
economy and how it affects your wallet. The federal government is on pace to

398
00:31:48,759 --> 00:31:55,039
spend over one trillion dollars per every
one hundred days. Our Speaker Johnson and

399
00:31:55,079 --> 00:31:59,160
congressional Republicans doing anything about it.
Enough is enough? Whether it's happening in

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DC or Downald, it's affecting you
financially. Be informed. Check out the

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Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
mccowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever

402
00:32:06,119 --> 00:32:14,440
you get your podcasts. Are you
ultimately gosh? I sometimes I hate asking

403
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,519
this question, and sometimes I love
asking this question. So no pressure on

404
00:32:17,559 --> 00:32:22,799
your antier. Are you ultimately optimistic? Because I mean I have a hard

405
00:32:22,839 --> 00:32:28,839
time sort of marshaling a sense of
optimism when I think about the road ahead.

406
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,599
But then at the same time,
there's groups like Southeastern Legal. There

407
00:32:31,599 --> 00:32:37,359
are people like you who are dedicating
their lives to reversing these horrifying trends,

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00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:44,240
protecting preserving the American tradition of speech
itself. So, Kiberlea, are you

409
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optimistic that we can get back to
a better place here? I am optimistic,

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00:32:49,119 --> 00:32:52,759
I mean ultimately right. We live
in primarily in the world of the

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00:32:52,799 --> 00:32:57,240
courts, where we know that the
Constitution is on our side. Right,

412
00:32:57,279 --> 00:33:01,200
we know that the laws as they
stand and they were established by our founders

413
00:33:01,359 --> 00:33:07,119
are on our side. It's just
that we have to have brave Americans like

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00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,920
the ones that we represent, to
actually take those cases to court. And

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00:33:10,319 --> 00:33:16,000
the other thing that gives me hope
and optimism has really been the movement that

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00:33:16,039 --> 00:33:22,440
we've seen throughout the country with our
parents, right because and I'm not just

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00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,319
talking about K through twelve parents,
I'm also talking about parents of college students.

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00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:30,200
I'm talking about grandparents. There are
so many grandparents that come to us

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00:33:30,279 --> 00:33:36,599
wanting information about how to save our
schools, how to save our college campuses.

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00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,839
But I'm optimistic. All of that
is based on the fact though,

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00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:45,160
that we have to be teaching our
kids what's right and wrong. Right if

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00:33:45,319 --> 00:33:50,279
they if we allow the left,
and if we allow the progressives and the

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00:33:50,279 --> 00:33:57,079
liberals in this country to continue to
take over our schools, then I think

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00:33:57,119 --> 00:34:00,200
that optimism just kind of goes out
the window. Right. They are trying

425
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,119
to use our kids, They are
trying to use our teams and take them

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00:34:05,119 --> 00:34:08,239
away from us, And we have
to preserve our families. We have to

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00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:15,800
preserve our children's education, and without
that, then they are gone, and

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00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,719
then you know, the future of
our country is gone. And so seeing

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00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,039
parents stand up and want to be
in this fight and save everything for their

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00:34:23,119 --> 00:34:29,039
kids, that's where the true optimism
comes for me. You know, Carly,

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00:34:29,079 --> 00:34:34,119
you made me so glad I asked
my question hopefully that's it's just you

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00:34:34,119 --> 00:34:37,079
know, as a mom of two
young kids, I've got a first in

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00:34:37,119 --> 00:34:42,119
the fourth grader, and you know, we have them at a small private

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00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,360
Christian school, and I see everything
that they're learning and we talk about it.

435
00:34:46,519 --> 00:34:51,639
And the more and more parents that
wake up to this, they're engaging

436
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:53,800
with their kids, right. They
want to know what their kids are being

437
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,559
taught. They want to know what
their college students are being taught. I

438
00:34:57,599 --> 00:35:04,559
have parents send me still aby from
from college courses on a regular basis saying,

439
00:35:04,599 --> 00:35:07,360
hey, this is in my kids, you know, syllabus, they're

440
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,519
going to be learning this. What
do you think about this? How can

441
00:35:10,559 --> 00:35:15,559
I talk to my college student about
this? Right? Because they're being inundated

442
00:35:15,599 --> 00:35:19,079
about this every single day, and
so it doesn't end when they graduated high

443
00:35:19,079 --> 00:35:22,360
school. As parents, we have
to stay diligent throughout there, you know,

444
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:28,599
the entire relationship and throughout their entire
life to keep instilling you know,

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00:35:28,679 --> 00:35:35,280
conservative and true values into them.
Kimberly Herman is the executive director over at

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00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,840
the Southeastern Legal Foundation, where they
are doing such important work. Kimberly,

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00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,719
thank you so much for coming on
the show, talking through all of this

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00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,880
and for all of the work that
you do. Thanks for having me today.

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00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:50,119
Of course you have been listening to
another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour.

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00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,239
Emily Dashinsky, culture editor here at
The Federalist. We will be back

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00:35:52,360 --> 00:36:01,760
soon with more. Until then,
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the pray po
