Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: While the President is making it harder for people to
Speaker 3: enter the US, his Confederate House alf Jeff Sessions is
Speaker 3: planning to make life easier for certain Americans who already here.
Speaker 4: In The New York Times is reporting that the Justice
Speaker 4: Department is planning to take on affirmative action in college admissions.
Speaker 5: The Justice Department is working on a plan to investigate
Speaker 5: and potentially sue universities for admission policies that.
Speaker 6: Are found to discriminate against white applicants.
Speaker 3: Finally, you know how many times I go to colleges
Speaker 3: in an America and say, hey, it, where's all the
Speaker 3: white people? If American colleges were any whites or John
Speaker 3: snow would build a wall to protect us from them.
Speaker 3: They're all coming, so many of them. They've got magic
Speaker 3: and hacky sacks.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: If you're confused about why this is happening, welcome to
Speaker 3: the club. Jeff Sessions and his Justice Department have decided
Speaker 3: to get serious about racism against white people, which I
Speaker 3: didn't think was a priority, but apparently it is. Because
Speaker 3: according to one poll, fifty four percent, or more than
Speaker 3: half of Trump supporters think white people face more discrimination
Speaker 3: than black people. No, no, no, no. Look, I know
Speaker 3: a lot of white people have real problems, but to
Speaker 3: hear them saying, you know, us whites have it worse
Speaker 3: than black people, it's like where in the sun, Like
Speaker 3: where It's almost like when rich people complain about their
Speaker 3: financial problems. Do you know how high the taxes on
Speaker 3: my summer home are?
Speaker 7: Wait?
Speaker 3: You have a house for one season? Yeah, I need
Speaker 3: a house to get away from my house. What you
Speaker 3: don't have a second house. I don't even have a house.
Speaker 3: You're so lucky. Goddamn it. This is just madness. And
Speaker 3: the news of the Justice Department going after affirmative action
Speaker 3: in America universities is bound to be a big ishu.
Speaker 3: So to get more perspective on it, we turned out
Speaker 3: to Roy with Jr. And Jordan Klepper. Everybody, let's get
Speaker 3: straight into it. Roy, let's start with you. Now, why
Speaker 3: do you think?
Speaker 4: Whoa?
Speaker 3: Whoa?
Speaker 4: Why do we have to start with Roy? You see,
Speaker 4: it's happening right now. This is just another example of
Speaker 4: the subtle bias we white people face every single day.
Speaker 3: Oh man, here we go. Oh no, don't here we go?
Speaker 1: Me Trevor, Oh gound him?
Speaker 6: Up.
Speaker 3: Oh no, don't you wound him up me either.
Speaker 4: For way too long, white people have lived as second
Speaker 4: class citizens. Let me ask you a question since Obama,
Speaker 4: how many white presidents have there been one? And look
Speaker 4: at our culture. Just this year, a black movie literally
Speaker 4: Pride the oscar out of the hands of a white movie,
Speaker 4: a movie that had the guts to tell the story
Speaker 4: about how Ryan got invented jazz.
Speaker 3: Jordan, Jordan, Jordan, I'm sorry, man. The numbers show that
Speaker 3: there is still a huge opportunity gap between black people
Speaker 3: and white people. A black man's media income is fourteen
Speaker 3: thousand dollars less than a white man's. In schooling, thirty
Speaker 3: four percent of white people complete high education, while that's
Speaker 3: only true for twenty percent of black people.
Speaker 4: Trevor, numbers aren't the point twelve percent fifty five degrees
Speaker 4: four inches?
Speaker 7: Great?
Speaker 4: We all have numbers, but I've lived discrimination. Did you
Speaker 4: know that I did not get into Western Michigan University?
Speaker 4: Do you want to know why? Was it because my
Speaker 4: grades were bad? Or I didn't do the essay portion
Speaker 4: of the SATs, or because I didn't technically apply, or
Speaker 4: was it because of this.
Speaker 3: Your your lady risks don't you dare?
Speaker 7: Don't you dare?
Speaker 4: Gender my risks it was because of the color of
Speaker 4: my skin, Trevor. Just because I read at a seventh
Speaker 4: grade level doesn't mean I can read between the lines.
Speaker 4: I even see it in the workplace. Right, how many
Speaker 4: times have you covered black issues on this show?
Speaker 1: All the time? I did a black Twitter, black people
Speaker 1: in porn, black people in Congress.
Speaker 4: See, Trevor, you're gonna tell me I'm not an expert
Speaker 4: on black porn.
Speaker 7: Why.
Speaker 3: I don't want to know what you know about black porn.
Speaker 3: But Roy does these pieces because he's lived the black experience.
Speaker 4: Ever, I've also lived the black experience. You think I
Speaker 4: don't know hip hop. I ain't saying he's a gold digger,
Speaker 4: but jas with the broa.
Speaker 1: Whoa, that's that's not your word?
Speaker 4: You see? You see? How is that not our word?
Speaker 4: We came up with that word? Talk about appropriation?
Speaker 3: Ah, you're stolen from us?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 3: All right, Jordan, before you make it impossible for me
Speaker 3: to be a black friend, I'm gonna stop you right there, Roy, Roy, Roy,
Speaker 3: what do you make of the Justice Department suing universities
Speaker 3: for discriminating against to white people?
Speaker 1: I'm like Jordans, I agree with Jeff Sessions.
Speaker 3: Yeah wait, wait what eh?
Speaker 1: If white people are being discriminated against, we got to
Speaker 1: look into this.
Speaker 4: Injustice, amen.
Speaker 1: People being blocked from getting into colleges just because of
Speaker 1: the color of their skin cannot be tolerated in America.
Speaker 1: I hope it turns class action. I hope Sessions slaps
Speaker 1: them colleges like a strip of booty and VP. And
Speaker 1: if anyone has been discriminated against, Jeff Sessions and his
Speaker 1: Justice Department need to go in and seek compensation for
Speaker 1: those victims.
Speaker 4: Yeah, cut the jack.
Speaker 1: And it's not just enough. It's not just enough to
Speaker 1: right the wrongs of today. We gotta go back. Sure,
Speaker 1: we gotta go way back.
Speaker 4: Well maybe not way back.
Speaker 1: Are you talking hundreds of years?
Speaker 4: Ten years back?
Speaker 1: And I agree with Jordan Klepper, reparations for all victims
Speaker 1: of discrimination.
Speaker 5: That's what you meant, everybody.
Speaker 4: That's okay, that's not what exactly we were talking about. Okay,
Speaker 4: you guys, that's why I get my own show.
Speaker 3: Where would you Jordan clap everybody, We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: So you don't want.
Speaker 2: My guest tonight is the former president of the NAACP
Speaker 2: Legal Defense Fund. Please welcome Cheryl and Eiffel.
Speaker 5: So lovely to have you here. It's wonderful to be here.
Speaker 2: You think you you're so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2: So right now, the Supreme Court, they're they're hearing a
Speaker 2: case about a firm inve action in college. This keeps
Speaker 2: coming up over and over again, Like why do you
Speaker 2: think you know we're still having this battle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's quite interesting, you know. Uh So, I'm a litigator,
Speaker 5: and and most litigators lawyers know that if you're going
Speaker 5: to take a case up to the Supreme Court, you're
Speaker 5: bound by president if the Supreme Court has decided that
Speaker 5: issue before, and has decided it one way. It's very
Speaker 5: hard to get the court to reverse courts. It happens,
Speaker 5: but it's hard to do, and you have to really
Speaker 5: have a reason for why you think at this moment
Speaker 5: the court should reverse course. But this court has been
Speaker 5: doing it quite a bit at a brisk clip. Yes,
Speaker 5: and you know, obviously we know the Dobbs decision overturned
Speaker 5: Roe versus Wight, a fifty year old decision, and affirmative
Speaker 5: action as well. I mean, it's not as though the
Speaker 5: Court is not deciding affirmative action over and over again.
Speaker 5: This is like, you know, you just keep going to
Speaker 5: you get the court you want. In nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 5: in the Baki case, affirmative action in college admissions was
Speaker 5: challenged and upheld. It was upheld again, then in the
Speaker 5: Grutter case out of University of Michigan. Then in twenty
Speaker 5: sixteen again in the Fisher case University of Texas, and
Speaker 5: after the University of Texas lost, the man who has
Speaker 5: been behind this whole effort basically said, you know, using
Speaker 5: a kind of a clue from the descent of Justices
Speaker 5: Thomas and Alito, I think I need Asian American plaintiffs.
Speaker 5: And he set about crafting a set of of claims
Speaker 5: that raised conscious admissions is actually discriminatory against Asian Americans.
Speaker 5: And that's the claim that he had brought in Harvard
Speaker 5: at Harvard, and that's the case that's now before the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court. But should the Supreme Court be hearing this
Speaker 5: again when they just heard it in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 5: before that, just heard it in two thousand and two
Speaker 5: and before that just you know, but it's a new court, right,
Speaker 5: And so basically you have somebody who keeps coming back
Speaker 5: and now they have the court they want.
Speaker 2: Okay, but this scares me about the court. Though the
Speaker 2: court we have now, right, I mean, it's the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court has really been our only recourse for justice. I
Speaker 2: mean pretty much everything that we've gotten as far as
Speaker 2: rights right has been based a decision from the Supreme Court. Now,
Speaker 2: like you said, Roe has been overturned. What do we
Speaker 2: do now, how do we get past this court?
Speaker 5: Well, I think actually it's a sober and sobering moment
Speaker 5: for us to recognize that although I think many of
Speaker 5: us grew up in a period of time where we
Speaker 5: believe that it's in fact not true, it is true
Speaker 5: that the Court decided Brown versus Board of Education, which
Speaker 5: ended legal apartheid in this country and really changed American democracy.
Speaker 5: And there have been many other civil rights decisions from
Speaker 5: the Court that have been wonderful. Most of them have
Speaker 5: not been wonderful actually, in the history of the United
Speaker 5: States Supreme Court, and so we've always had to supplement
Speaker 5: it with legislative action, with the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty four, with the Voting Rights Act of nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty five, with the Fair Housing Act of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 5: We've had to supplement it with direct action, with protests,
Speaker 5: with boycotts, We've had to supplement it with education. We've
Speaker 5: had to supplement it in all kinds of ways, and
Speaker 5: so it's always been a multi pronged strategy. The problem
Speaker 5: we have now, though, is that the Court seems bent
Speaker 5: on dismantling the successes we make in those other realms,
Speaker 5: and so we see that with, for example, the Voting
Speaker 5: Rights Act, which has been severely weakened by this Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: That's where we have to really start to get worried,
Speaker 5: and it is a real problem. It is not something
Speaker 5: to be taken lightly. And it's not just a partisan
Speaker 5: battle as many people think. I've been a civil rights
Speaker 5: lawyer for thirty years. You win some and you lose some.
Speaker 5: The rule of law is that you have by what
Speaker 5: the court says and does. But you do that with
Speaker 5: the knowledge that the Court is behaving fairly and with
Speaker 5: integrity and legitimately. And when you start feeling like decisions
Speaker 5: are being made without the proper foundation, then it gets
Speaker 5: very hard to convince your clients that it's a fair system.
Speaker 5: And so I think we are in a kind of
Speaker 5: perilous moment. As it relates to the court.
Speaker 2: Before you go, you said something I want to get
Speaker 2: to that. You said, our democracy. It's like we're teenagers.
Speaker 2: We're young. It's like teenagers. So democracy is what staying
Speaker 2: up all night on snapchat and what's up you know.
Speaker 5: I mean, yes, like teenagers who think they know everything,
Speaker 5: who have a grandiose sense of themselves, who throw tantrums.
Speaker 5: Yes we are. I mean, if you think about American democracy,
Speaker 5: at least for me, I wouldn't count America as a democracy.
Speaker 5: I certainly as a nation, but not as a democracy
Speaker 5: until at least nine fifty four, when Brown was decided,
Speaker 5: because you can't call a country a democracy if by law,
Speaker 5: If by law a whole segment of citizens can be
Speaker 5: denied the right to participate in the political system. So
Speaker 5: that's just, and that's being pretty generous. That's nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 5: I would take it to nineteen sixty five with the
Speaker 5: Voting Rights Act because before the passage, Before the passage
Speaker 5: of the Voting Rights Act, even though the right of
Speaker 5: black people should have been guaranteed by the fourteenth and
Speaker 5: fifteenth amendments to the Constitution enacted and ratified after the
Speaker 5: Civil War, most Black people then lived in the South
Speaker 5: and still live in the South, and most of the
Speaker 5: South was denying the vote to black people. So until
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty five, I wouldn't call us even credibly a democracy.
Speaker 5: And if you think of it that way, then we
Speaker 5: are young, and so we're still figuring this thing out,
Speaker 5: and I'd say, wanted just to give people hope. Please
Speaker 5: give me some pal and give.
Speaker 7: Me some vote, Please.
Speaker 5: Give me some vote. We're also trying to do something
Speaker 5: that no other country has done. There is no template
Speaker 5: for the kind of multi racial democracy with the kind
Speaker 5: of history of white supremacy and slavery. There's no other
Speaker 5: country that's trying to do that in the dynamic way
Speaker 5: that we are doing it. We talk about, you know,
Speaker 5: being a nation of immigrants, which is not entirely true,
Speaker 5: but immigration is a huge part of the character of
Speaker 5: our country in twentieth century. Immigration for sure made the
Speaker 5: country have the cast that it does. And so we're
Speaker 5: trying to create something. We're not trying to do something
Speaker 5: like another country. We're not pointing to them and saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: like that. We're trying to do something very particular and
Speaker 5: it's hard, and that's what I'm currently writing a book
Speaker 5: about It's called Is This America? And it is about race,
Speaker 5: but it is also about what I think of at
Speaker 5: this moment as the last best chance for us to
Speaker 5: really create a healthy democracy in this country.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, when you finish a book, I won't be here,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure no bring you back and it'll be
Speaker 2: a nice white guy Sydney interview.
Speaker 5: Look at that.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much, and we'll be right back
Speaker 2: after next.
Speaker 3: American universities all around the world.
Speaker 7: They're known as.
Speaker 3: Some of the most prestigious institutions of learning, and so
Speaker 3: to get into them, you have to work hard. You
Speaker 3: have to volunteer, you have to play sports, you have
Speaker 3: to get super high grades. Or you can just have
Speaker 3: shady rich parents.
Speaker 8: Federal prosecutors today revealed what they say is the largest
Speaker 8: case of college admissions fraud in US history, charging coaches
Speaker 8: and affluent parents, including Hollywood elite, in a massive bribery
Speaker 8: scheme to fast track kids into some of the country's
Speaker 8: top universities, including Yale and Stanford.
Speaker 4: All told, the thirty three people named in the indictment
Speaker 4: paid and alleged twenty five million dollars in bribes those kids.
Speaker 6: Parents now facing jail time include real estate moguls, wine
Speaker 6: vineyard owners, entrepreneurs like trend expert Jane Buckingham, who posted
Speaker 6: this inspiring Instagram message last spring.
Speaker 5: Don't cheat it really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, don't cheat because I'm cheating and if we
Speaker 3: all start cheating, then it's fair game. So what even
Speaker 3: is the point from on this college admission scandal. We're
Speaker 3: joined now by a man who spends most of his
Speaker 3: time on college campuses, Michael Cost to everybody, as a
Speaker 3: college expert, I would love to know what are your thoughts?
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, Trevor, this is the biggest college scandal since
Speaker 7: I was kicked off my a cappella team for quote
Speaker 7: unquote bringing a gun to rehearsal. They love their rules,
Speaker 7: but I'll tell you what. The whole thing just makes
Speaker 7: it clear to me that we need affirmative action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I agree, Michael. We need affirmative
Speaker 3: action because that would help my Nazi students compete against
Speaker 3: these we connected families.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no, you more. I mean we need affirmative
Speaker 7: action for dumb rich kids, because if we stop letting
Speaker 7: wealthy parents bribe colleges and their kids won't be able
Speaker 7: to get in, and dumb rich kids are just as
Speaker 7: important to campus diversity as any other minority. Sure, black
Speaker 7: and Asian students add new perspectives, but without Spencer the
Speaker 7: trust fund baby, who's gonna ride a wheelchair off Sigma
Speaker 7: Chi's roof, screaming lines from Anchorman? Without dumb rich kids,
Speaker 7: who's gonna teach me how to soak a tampon in
Speaker 7: vodka and put it up my ass so I can
Speaker 7: get drunk without having vodka breath?
Speaker 3: So, Michael, you approve of what these parents.
Speaker 7: Did, Yeah, but not in the way they were doing it.
Speaker 7: Secretly bribing colleges is despicable. They should be openly bribing
Speaker 7: these schools, like build a library and put their name
Speaker 7: on it. Then we all know who the dumb rich
Speaker 7: kids are. If Thatcher Worthington is going to class at
Speaker 7: Worthington Hall, every one knows in that class not to
Speaker 7: work with him in a group assignments. And when we
Speaker 7: all know who the dumb kids are, we can funnel
Speaker 7: them to jobs where they can't hurt anybody, like brand
Speaker 7: management or real estate or who are those people that instruct.
Speaker 1: You through yoga?
Speaker 7: A yoga instructor, Oh, professor brainiac over here.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 7: The point is if parents are bribing people in secret,
Speaker 7: then we don't know who the dumb kids are, and
Speaker 7: we might end up letting them be engineers or doctors.
Speaker 7: Like could you imagine if you got heart surgery from
Speaker 7: Donald Trump Junior, he'd probably get mixed up and put
Speaker 7: a can of axe body spray in there.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But cost Of, I hear what you're saying. But shouldn't
Speaker 3: we be trying to fix the overall system. Shouldn't people
Speaker 3: get into college based on merits.
Speaker 7: Alone, Trevor, Our forefathers fought hard for a just and
Speaker 7: equal society, and I would love to talk about the
Speaker 7: American dream with you, but I gotta go. That vodka
Speaker 7: tampon is kicking in. So thanks for the tips, Fence.
Speaker 3: You, my dog, buddy, cost Everyone. Explore more shows from
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