So I think what's most important to realize is that whether it's on the left or the right, that these kind of radical forces ultimately become the same. I'm tally Farhadian Weinstein, and this is hearing. Over the last couple of decades, there's been one name at the center of many of the most high profile legal battles on issues ranging from sexual harassment to white supremacy, to domestic violence to sexual assault, Robbie Kaplan. Robbie is the co founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, but long before that, she successfully argued the Supreme Court case that struck down the Defensive Marriage Act. She's representing writer E Jean Carroll in her sexual assault case against Donald Trump, and coincidentally represented last week's guest on This Show, Tanya Selveratnam. On top of her seemingly endless list of science bringing newsery cases, Robbie's quoted regularly in the press by reporters seeking a source who could speak eloquently and with authority on the evolving role of lawyers in shaping the cultural conversation around the thorniest questions in law enforcement, which is exactly what you're about to hear her do on this episode of hearing. When I think of you, I think of you as a crusader against hate and as really having dedicated yourself to using the law to change people's views, whether it's around white supremacy or homophobia, or sexism or anti semitism. And I'm curious to know where you get your appetite for these fights. Why do you take on hate and why do you take it on through the law. I became a lawyer very very long time ago with what perhaps seemed like the naive impression that you could really make change by being a lawyer and through the law. And when I started my career, I was incredibly motivated by kind of the great lawyers of the time and the people I was at Paul lysand my mentors, people like Arthur Lyman and others who really devoted themselves to not only do the regular commercial law practice, but also having a very significant practice in the public interest. But as time passed, and as the legislative branch in our system became more and more atrophy and less and less capable of passing legislation, it became clear to me that in fact, the use of the law to make social change was even and the course was even more important. And that's maybe not a good thing. That may be a sign of a dysfunctional legislative system, but the Windsor case is the perfect example of that. Congress had passed this law defense the marriage back in nineteen ninety six. Bill Clint signed it an in the middle of the night, kind of with his lips pursed, not wanting to do it. The law had absolutely no impact when it was passing nineteenenty six, no gay people were getting married anywhere in the country, much less the world, and so it was purely at that time a symbolic law intended to express, as the House report said, moral disapproval of gay people. And over time, when in two thousand and three the Commonwealth of Massachusetts first enacted marriage equality, it became a reality. By the time we brought the case in two and ten, I think most people thought that DOMO was a bad law and was at best unfair and at worst filling unconstitutional. But there was almost no chance of Congress doing anything about that, and so we had no choice but to do it through the courts. And sadly, at least still today, that's very much a feature in our society. So let's stay on this, we'll move around because I was going to ask you about windsor anyway, because I had heard Robbie that other lawyers have passed on this case, and I wanted to know what you saw that you knew that this was the one that you could use to make the kind of change that you wanted. Why did you take it? So a couple of things. First of all, I think one, and this is I was part of this mistake. So I'm not pointing the finger to anyone else. But the LGBT rights litigators for many years had brought cases using groups of plaintiffs, and there was good reason for that. You wanted to kind of express the full diversity of the community in the plaintiffs. So you'd have a gay mail plaintiff couple, you'd have a lesbian couple, you'd have an older couple, you have an Africanaic couple, etcetera, etcetera. And well, I certainly see the value and saw the value in that. I think what none of us appreciated is that when the case is about six couples or seven couples or eight couples, the lives of the couples fade into the background, and to the public, and frankly even to the judge and the jury, the case looks like a fight between Fox and MSNBC rather than a case about people's lives. And so e was e first of all, her spouse and died, so it wasn't even a couple at this point. She was incredibly articulate, had an incredible story, Like you know, we all would want to have the kind of marriage that Egidia had. The after all, was a paraplegic for many years, and we would all want a spouse like Edie. God forbid of that happened to us, to take care of us. And I think this thing where I probably diverged most from the LGBT groups was that I saw the tax issues in the case as a huge plus. There was certainly some concern that Edie was seen as too rich, but certainly by Manhattan standards, she isn't rich. The reason she had to pay the estate tax is because the value of her apartments in the village appreciated greatly over time, as you might imagine, but that's where her wealth came from. And I thought, given the fact that our country arguably started about a fight about taxes, I thought the fact that she had to pay such a huge three hundred and sixty three thousand dollars or state tax simply because the person she was married to was another woman rather than a man, it was the most kind of stark example of how unfair and unconstitutional laws. And as I listened to you, sound like Justice Ginsburg to me, who I think also understood as she did all those sex discrimination cases. You had to focus on one person or a couple and what the discrimination meant to them. And she also, of course brought pocketbook cases. I think her first case involved a widower who was taking care of his newborn son, and if the genders had been reversed, you know, he would have been able to collect Social Security benefits, and he couldn't because his wife had died. Right. I mean, these facts stay with us, and they live with us. So it's unfair to Justice Ginsburg memory to compare me to Justice gins I don't think so, I mind up. In my mind, I only have two things in common. I think I said we were both we were both short, we're both Jewish. But other than that, I can't think of anything we have in common other than her litigation strategy. There's no question in those cases was brilliant, and it was considered kind of not the standard operating procedure that civil rights groups hey. And in fact, she too, if you read some of the literature, she too had great fights but with the ACLU and other groups about how best to litigated. And she turned out to be correct, and she turned out to be right. And I do think you carried on in her tradition. And so now we are on the other side of Bostock and a really important, really important victory, and what was dark here in many ways for the LGBTQ community, And I wonder what do you think is the next frontier. The current majority of the current United States Supreme Court take a view of religious liberty and the free exercise clause that is, at least in my view, a radical departure from how both the Framers looked at it, and most people in our country have looked at it for many, many, many years. They believe that an individual, an employer, indeed even maybe government employees, have the rights based on their personal religious beliefs to not comply with otherwise valid and neutral laws, including valid and neutral laws that prevent discrimination against gay people. I do think we are going to see more and more erosions of rights based on this so called religious liberty, I say, so called bious liberty. Being a Jew, I very much believe in religious liberty, but I don't believe it gives me, as a Jew, the right to discriminate against people. I certainly don't think anyone, including the Justices, things that gives anyone a right to discriminate against anyone based on race in the same standard should apply to LGBT people. But I don't think most of the Justices would agree with them. I think that you're right, and I think we just have to say this is new right. This is not sort of a resurrection of a reading of the First Amendment that has always been there. Yeah. No, it's interesting. I mean when you look at you know, even on establishment close works I litigated, when you look at what the framers said. They believed in religious diversity and religious pluralism, but they also believed that the government itself had to be neutral as to religions. And again, if you look at the Supreme Court cases, they say it's religious liberty, but it's almost Christian supremacy because remember the case about the prisoner who wanted the Muslim Japlin that they had no respect for. But when it comes to kind of very very right wing, anti LGBT, anti pro choice, anti women views, they believe that those were so called religious names trump the rights of others. And you know, explained and some of her last opinions. Yeah, and since we've invoked her name, I have you know, I'm going to invoke Justice O'Connor's name too, And if I wonder if you'll agree with this. But if I had to summarize her twenty five years of establishment clause jurisprudence, what I always heard her to be saying at her best was the establishment clause is there to make sure that we don't use institutions of government to exclude people. It's how it makes you feel, to make you feel excluded. So she understood that immediately that it was about discrimination. So let me shift gears a little bit. I want to talk to you about sex crimes and workplace harassment, and so I guess, you know, shifting onto the terrain of hatred against women, And I guess I'm just going to ask you that basic question first, which is do you think it really is a hatred of women that under eyes these offenses that's above my pay grade. It does seem to be different, you know, like it's easy for me to understand racism and the sense that people look different. You don't know a lot of people who are African American. I'm talking about a typical kind of racist. They don't really know are close to people who are African American, and so it's easy to consider them to be the other. I think one of the reasons why you see such progress in terms of GBT rights is that it got to the point, certainly by the time when new or living any windsor that almost every American and certainly almost every justice knew someone or was close to someone who was gay, and that made all the difference, right, And these justices that they would testify about it, like it was important for them to say that out loud. But but the crazy thing for me is the one thing I know for sure that everyone knows a woman, right, and there's one Yes, it exactly came out of one's body. Yeah, pretty sure. It's so why there seems to be this incredibly deep seated, pervasive hostility to women just for being women. I don't fully understand Morris Finem always said it's because women can have children and men cans and there's this fundamental, kind of deep seated jealousy about that. Again, I know I haven't studied enough to be able to speak intelligently about it, but there does seem to be something. And Robbie, I'm not a philosopher either. The reason I asked this question is because obviously I feel like we have to do something about it, as do you. You found it times up. I'm trying to change how we prosecute these crimes, and we're always talking about addressing root causes alongside accountability and weaving those two things together, and so that's on my mind, and then I'll ask it it's a question and more I'll shift to a more practical question, But the question about the underlying hate is still there, which is I think we're going to agree that things can be better and how these cases are handled right and how in increasing reporting rates and then doing better investigations and ultimately better prosecutions. And I want to ask you do you think it's a capacity problem, or do you think it's a courage problem, or do you think it's a cultural problem? In all three? But it probably starts with cultural like, you know, even me when we we represent a lot of women who've been have used, even me, and I'm sorry you have to confess to this, but when you see a problem in their story right, they don't get everything absolutely one hundred percent right, or maybe they can victimize again. You have this keeps get fear like, oh my god, I won't be able through the case. And we have this image culturally. I do, and I am quite very hard against it. Well, we have this image culturally that women who are victims have to be the perfect victim, and there is no such thing. There really isn't any such thing as the perfect victim. I saw its probably most dramatically in my representation of Emperor heard in the Johnny death case. Because people literally have this view that you can only be a victim of domestic violence if you just lay there like a raggedy end doll and do nothing. But that's not how victim of domestic violence at There even beings like anyone else, and they yell and they scream and they sometimes hit back. That's what you would expect someone to do. You know, if even I have to get over that, imagine how most other people up there feel about it? Yes? And where does this seep end, you think, because I want to know where the places that we can do better. Is it about checking our own biases at the beginning of a case to make sure that in the same way they don't We don't expect a robbery victim to be perfect or without flaws, we sort of approached the victim of a sexual assault in the same way. Or is it about having more courage in the face of juries, because I do worry that we carry this bias with us and we say, well, this jury is not going to convict because of these things, losing where we started this conversation, which is we're supposed to use the law to change people's hearts and minds. So I think, you know, in terms of investigation, that has to do more sensitivity, and you can't have invested users who don't who aren't trained in how to deal with these kind of cases with juries. And we've done a little bit of jury work on this, and I've actually been shocked to see that times of the meets you actually have made a different visturities and that we were hearing when we did the interviews from from men more so than women, which is actually quite dramatic men saying I understand, I get that this is wrong, and you could tell that they've been influenced by all the work that's been done already my groups in the wake of Me Too and times Up in others. That's amazing. Yeah, and tell me more about times Up, Robbie, because you were so purposeful, you know you as an organization from the beginning and saying that we wanted to hear from everybody, from farming to tech, from famous to not famous, rich and poor, C suite, entry level job, the whole range of it. Are we hearing from everybody? If not, who are we not hearing from? Who are you the most worried about? So there's no question that particularly in the service industries nursing and home health and restaurants and all the kind of service indus do that women are so problemed in, there needs to be a lot more worked on leave. We have very good reasons to believe that the rates of harassment, inscrimination, abuse are super hot at the top. Honestly, I think music is the industry that's most obviously has huge problems, and I think they're just starting to come out and part of that's the culture of the music industry and have the sex, drugs and rock and roll that there was just a culture that this kind of behavior was okay and was part and partial of being a rock star, had something to do with making art exactly. And so there's a little bit of a break with Marilyn Manson, a little bit of a crack. But I think you're going to see a lot molical. I wanted to ask you this is a different question about because to your this this amazing defense attorney. Are there any cases you would not take or you would not defend? I mean, I hear that defense attorneys have have have these lists. Yeah, so for only I think it's very different per civil and criminal. So criminal lawyers and I think they're even cases of criminal lawers won't take. But everyone has a right to defense in a criminal case because the ultimate possible implication is that you could end up in jail. And so that's a different standard. I've never done. I'm not a criminal lawyer, so that those things on the part of me, I'm strictly so so a lawyer, and I have I think a lot more license of all what cases to take and what cases can nottake. Our practice I think is different and very innovative in the sense that there are errors in the law like defamation and like sexual discrimination, harassment, et cetera. Well, we will take cases on both sides, and what guides us, honestly is what side we think is right, quite frankly, and I think it makes us better lawyers because we see both sides, and I think we can kind of look at the picture in a more complex way. And I think it gives us greater credibility because the fact that I will both take planets cases on times of in me two matters and defend the general counsel of woman sacs who's a woman in the case that I think is meritless, shows that we're able to make those kinds of distinction. But saying I have a values, you know I have values that drive us, I think gives your credibility, not just with your clients. Would rather have you as my attorney, knowing that you have decided to believe in me, and if you didn't, you wouldn't bring the case, but also in court right because you've been very open about how you're using the legal system to make the kind of change that could have been made in the atri freed parts of our government, as you said early on, and so you are making a declaration just by being there. Thank you. I mean, I'd like to think that. I'd like to think that. And again, I think that's it's a really good way to BacT this law because it makes you're better a lawyer. And I think you're right. I think when we take on a case, particularly these very kind of controversial areas like defamation or discribation, people read correctly that we think we're on the rights. In the sexual harassment cases, we are also seeing a lot of shaming what we might even call punishment outside of the courtroom. And I wonder what you make of all that. Is it fair? Can it be done in a fair way? The law itself has been a very weak tool in fighting the enormous amount of harassment and abuse of discrimation of pronounmental and there's a bunch of reasons why one class actions are really almost not permitted in this area anymore, after in the wake of the Circumpot decision in Walmart too. Until very recently, the stature of limitations were very short, the penalties that could be obtained were very low, statutorially set very low. The standards that were prescribed, the pervasive, severe, and pervasive standard under Title seven were very hard to achieve, and that meant that the vast majority of women who have been harassed discriminate against really didn't have cases. And what shows the dynamic, what really created a revolution, were women brave enough to come out and say this happened to me, even if they didn't have a case. I don't think we can overexaggerate be informed of that, and I honestly that in turn has led to change in the law. So for Times Up, because of the power of all the women coming out and saying what had happened to them, and all the actresses who support us, we were able to get New York to extend the sexual limitations for second that they're degree in the rape, which believe or not, we're someone the's shortest in the country before we did that. You see the same thing happening civilly New York last year change the state law to make the severe imformation standard much more reasonable and accommodating, consistent with New York City law as opposed to federal Title seven laws. So the answer I think is all of the above. We need to have those public acts of bravery because those public acts of bravery are what drive change. And I don't think it's about changing any particular man as much as it is of warning when you talk to these when most of them will say, I want to warn other women. I know Rachel A. Wood said about Marilyn Manson, I want to warn other woman who might get wrapped up in Marilyn Manson to be careful. As I listened to you, that tracks I think with also how criminal law develops, right. I mean, we had to have people say one of the things that happens in a domestic violence situation is asphyxiation and choking that is not yet actionable under the law because it doesn't lead to you know, I mean in many cases you really had to completely pass out in order for the criminal law to have anything to say about it. And then we had some change in New York around that, and now I see a conversation coming up around coercive control and actually even some of the cases that you've cited are about that. And you know, should that be actionable either in civila or in criminal law, We don't know yet, but maybe we have to sort of talk about it in the way that you have said before, we can answer that question. So interestingly, one of the best I think experts in the seconds of don Fus has said that the two the most concerning things that she sees in domestic abuse are a one, men typically men choke or try to choke or attack women around the neck. And she when they use goorgs of control, who they go out with, what they do, what they wear, check their phone, calls, video, you know, head taking of the house. Doctor user said, when she sees those two things, it's the greatest risk for serious injury or even that and that's when she really gets concerned. Yes, and they're already there on the checklist that really any any good police officer, prosecutors should know in making a risk assessment. These are major red flags, along with some other things that may not be totally obvious, like if if the couple met when they were really young. And the question is do we need to use them as more than just clues, But yes, I think even raising awareness and saying out loud like these things they can lead to a to a violent outcome in fairly predictable ways and are damaging in and of themselves. I think we're in the middle of this, Robbie like, we're not there yet, right, of course I can think about with respect to Amber, who's become a very I'm like her adopted Jewish mother. Now your friend, is that Johnny depted all those things? You know, he controlled what she wore U, he controlled who she hung out with. He would rent to choke her and would and go around her neck and it. What's amazing to me is the fact that with someone as talented and beautiful and successful as Amber, given how hard it has been for her to fight back against this, to defend herself in these faces to be attacked, which is another thing. Hopefully when you're DA you will look into the way she has been attacked and abuse online and these petitions up against her that she should lose her job, and she should lose a should lose back the fact that she had to go through and imagine what a woman without all those resources has to go through. I mean, it's almost hard to imagine. So one of the things that I do want to do, if this is really at the very top of my agenda, is to build a Bureau of Gender Based Violence and to put all of these things under that rubric, not because it looks right on an ORG chart, but because even in the course of our short conversation, we have connected things like cyber assault to domestic violence to sexual assault, and to say, all of these things have common threads, and so we should be doing training and awareness that runs through all of them, and the supportive resources need to be there, right the investigators that we've talked about, the service providers, and all of this. And I think that that would be radically different to set all of this aside, to not say all these crimes are all you know, they all happen, and we take them seriously, and they're just the same as the gunpoint robbery. When you silo, it's the one particular thing and that's all you do over and over. You can't help it. You tend to like create binders around yourself and you don't deep enough. So I think to say, our office has a Bureau of gender based Violence the same way that we have I don't know, a homicide bureau or Bureau of for construction fraud. Because this kind of violence is its own thing, and these are the seven different ways that it happens. Gender based hate crimes I think, you know also sit here. I do think would be really radical and it would force the commitment of resources. We will have times of support that well, I hope, So thank you. I want to ask you one last thing, Robbie, just to take a step back, and we haven't really talked very much about and we'll have to say this, I guess for another day what you've done around to stand up against anti semitism and white supremacy. But I will just ask you you, like many of us, live in lots of different worlds, and you've experienced homophobia in the Jewish community, and you've experienced anti semitism in the progressive community where you're trying to make change, and how do you navigate all of that and stay yourself? You know, I a out making other profession today. During the clip campaign, I hated the word intersectional. I thought it sounded too academic and too many syllables, and I just thought it was not a very persuasive argument. I was completely wrong about them, because today what I see is this incredible intersectionality of hate that the same people and you see this most and people the people attack me on the internet, so the people tap me on the internet, attack me for being Jewish, attack me for being gay, attacked me for supporting Amber Heard, and attacked me for bringing cases against Donald Trump. And it's all gotten mixed together in this forrid noxious too today. So I think the final thing is hate is hate. And whether you see it on the lot, or you see it on the rights, or you see it you know, in your hometown, or you see it in Mississippi or Washington. See. The job that we have is people to find. So that's what I tried to do, albeit imperfectly, for sure. Robbie, You're so in spectacular. This is such a pleasure. Thank you so much. I'd love talking to you. Thank you. We'll keep talking. Hearing is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. Our producers are Sam Dingman and Camille Baptista, and our engineer is Evan Viola. Special thanks to Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weissberg. This podcast is paid for by New Yorkers for Tally and Robbie Kaplan's appearance on the show does not constitute a political endorsement. I'm running to be District Attorney of Manhattan and to set a national example in delivering safety fairness and justice for all, especially are most vulnerable. If you like what you've heard, go to tally foga dot com to learn more about my campaign, and be sure to join us for the finale of our Women's History Month interview series next week. I'll be in conversation with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who's been one of our city's most influential progressive leaders for decades and whose abiding belief and nonviolence defines everything she does. I hope you'll join us. I'm Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next time on Hearing

So I think what's most important to realize is that whether it's on the left or the right, that these kind of radical forces ultimately become the same. I'm tally Farhadian Weinstein, and this is hearing. Over the last couple of decades, there's been one name at the center of many of the most high profile legal battles on issues ranging from sexual harassment to white supremacy, to domestic violence to sexual assault, Robbie Kaplan. Robbie is the co founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, but long before that, she successfully argued the Supreme Court case that struck down the Defensive Marriage Act. She's representing writer E Jean Carroll in her sexual assault case against Donald Trump, and coincidentally represented last week's guest on This Show, Tanya Selveratnam. On top of her seemingly endless list of science bringing newsery cases, Robbie's quoted regularly in the press by reporters seeking a source who could speak eloquently and with authority on the evolving role of lawyers in shaping the cultural conversation around the thorniest questions in law enforcement, which is exactly what you're about to hear her do on this episode of hearing. When I think of you, I think of you as a crusader against hate and as really having dedicated yourself to using the law to change people's views, whether it's around white supremacy or homophobia, or sexism or anti semitism. And I'm curious to know where you get your appetite for these fights. Why do you take on hate and why do you take it on through the law. I became a lawyer very very long time ago with what perhaps seemed like the naive impression that you could really make change by being a lawyer and through the law. And when I started my career, I was incredibly motivated by kind of the great lawyers of the time and the people I was at Paul lysand my mentors, people like Arthur Lyman and others who really devoted themselves to not only do the regular commercial law practice, but also having a very significant practice in the public interest. But as time passed, and as the legislative branch in our system became more and more atrophy and less and less capable of passing legislation, it became clear to me that in fact, the use of the law to make social change was even and the course was even more important. And that's maybe not a good thing. That may be a sign of a dysfunctional legislative system, but the Windsor case is the perfect example of that. Congress had passed this law defense the marriage back in nineteen ninety six. Bill Clint signed it an in the middle of the night, kind of with his lips pursed, not wanting to do it. The law had absolutely no impact when it was passing nineteenenty six, no gay people were getting married anywhere in the country, much less the world, and so it was purely at that time a symbolic law intended to express, as the House report said, moral disapproval of gay people. And over time, when in two thousand and three the Commonwealth of Massachusetts first enacted marriage equality, it became a reality. By the time we brought the case in two and ten, I think most people thought that DOMO was a bad law and was at best unfair and at worst filling unconstitutional. But there was almost no chance of Congress doing anything about that, and so we had no choice but to do it through the courts. And sadly, at least still today, that's very much a feature in our society. So let's stay on this, we'll move around because I was going to ask you about windsor anyway, because I had heard Robbie that other lawyers have passed on this case, and I wanted to know what you saw that you knew that this was the one that you could use to make the kind of change that you wanted. Why did you take it? So a couple of things. First of all, I think one, and this is I was part of this mistake. So I'm not pointing the finger to anyone else. But the LGBT rights litigators for many years had brought cases using groups of plaintiffs, and there was good reason for that. You wanted to kind of express the full diversity of the community in the plaintiffs. So you'd have a gay mail plaintiff couple, you'd have a lesbian couple, you'd have an older couple, you have an Africanaic couple, etcetera, etcetera. And well, I certainly see the value and saw the value in that. I think what none of us appreciated is that when the case is about six couples or seven couples or eight couples, the lives of the couples fade into the background, and to the public, and frankly even to the judge and the jury, the case looks like a fight between Fox and MSNBC rather than a case about people's lives. And so e was e first of all, her spouse and died, so it wasn't even a couple at this point. She was incredibly articulate, had an incredible story, Like you know, we all would want to have the kind of marriage that Egidia had. The after all, was a paraplegic for many years, and we would all want a spouse like Edie. God forbid of that happened to us, to take care of us. And I think this thing where I probably diverged most from the LGBT groups was that I saw the tax issues in the case as a huge plus. There was certainly some concern that Edie was seen as too rich, but certainly by Manhattan standards, she isn't rich. The reason she had to pay the estate tax is because the value of her apartments in the village appreciated greatly over time, as you might imagine, but that's where her wealth came from. And I thought, given the fact that our country arguably started about a fight about taxes, I thought the fact that she had to pay such a huge three hundred and sixty three thousand dollars or state tax simply because the person she was married to was another woman rather than a man, it was the most kind of stark example of how unfair and unconstitutional laws. And as I listened to you, sound like Justice Ginsburg to me, who I think also understood as she did all those sex discrimination cases. You had to focus on one person or a couple and what the discrimination meant to them. And she also, of course brought pocketbook cases. I think her first case involved a widower who was taking care of his newborn son, and if the genders had been reversed, you know, he would have been able to collect Social Security benefits, and he couldn't because his wife had died. Right. I mean, these facts stay with us, and they live with us. So it's unfair to Justice Ginsburg memory to compare me to Justice gins I don't think so, I mind up. In my mind, I only have two things in common. I think I said we were both we were both short, we're both Jewish. But other than that, I can't think of anything we have in common other than her litigation strategy. There's no question in those cases was brilliant, and it was considered kind of not the standard operating procedure that civil rights groups hey. And in fact, she too, if you read some of the literature, she too had great fights but with the ACLU and other groups about how best to litigated. And she turned out to be correct, and she turned out to be right. And I do think you carried on in her tradition. And so now we are on the other side of Bostock and a really important, really important victory, and what was dark here in many ways for the LGBTQ community, And I wonder what do you think is the next frontier. The current majority of the current United States Supreme Court take a view of religious liberty and the free exercise clause that is, at least in my view, a radical departure from how both the Framers looked at it, and most people in our country have looked at it for many, many, many years. They believe that an individual, an employer, indeed even maybe government employees, have the rights based on their personal religious beliefs to not comply with otherwise valid and neutral laws, including valid and neutral laws that prevent discrimination against gay people. I do think we are going to see more and more erosions of rights based on this so called religious liberty, I say, so called bious liberty. Being a Jew, I very much believe in religious liberty, but I don't believe it gives me, as a Jew, the right to discriminate against people. I certainly don't think anyone, including the Justices, things that gives anyone a right to discriminate against anyone based on race in the same standard should apply to LGBT people. But I don't think most of the Justices would agree with them. I think that you're right, and I think we just have to say this is new right. This is not sort of a resurrection of a reading of the First Amendment that has always been there. Yeah. No, it's interesting. I mean when you look at you know, even on establishment close works I litigated, when you look at what the framers said. They believed in religious diversity and religious pluralism, but they also believed that the government itself had to be neutral as to religions. And again, if you look at the Supreme Court cases, they say it's religious liberty, but it's almost Christian supremacy because remember the case about the prisoner who wanted the Muslim Japlin that they had no respect for. But when it comes to kind of very very right wing, anti LGBT, anti pro choice, anti women views, they believe that those were so called religious names trump the rights of others. And you know, explained and some of her last opinions. Yeah, and since we've invoked her name, I have you know, I'm going to invoke Justice O'Connor's name too, And if I wonder if you'll agree with this. But if I had to summarize her twenty five years of establishment clause jurisprudence, what I always heard her to be saying at her best was the establishment clause is there to make sure that we don't use institutions of government to exclude people. It's how it makes you feel, to make you feel excluded. So she understood that immediately that it was about discrimination. So let me shift gears a little bit. I want to talk to you about sex crimes and workplace harassment, and so I guess, you know, shifting onto the terrain of hatred against women, And I guess I'm just going to ask you that basic question first, which is do you think it really is a hatred of women that under eyes these offenses that's above my pay grade. It does seem to be different, you know, like it's easy for me to understand racism and the sense that people look different. You don't know a lot of people who are African American. I'm talking about a typical kind of racist. They don't really know are close to people who are African American, and so it's easy to consider them to be the other. I think one of the reasons why you see such progress in terms of GBT rights is that it got to the point, certainly by the time when new or living any windsor that almost every American and certainly almost every justice knew someone or was close to someone who was gay, and that made all the difference, right, And these justices that they would testify about it, like it was important for them to say that out loud. But but the crazy thing for me is the one thing I know for sure that everyone knows a woman, right, and there's one Yes, it exactly came out of one's body. Yeah, pretty sure. It's so why there seems to be this incredibly deep seated, pervasive hostility to women just for being women. I don't fully understand Morris Finem always said it's because women can have children and men cans and there's this fundamental, kind of deep seated jealousy about that. Again, I know I haven't studied enough to be able to speak intelligently about it, but there does seem to be something. And Robbie, I'm not a philosopher either. The reason I asked this question is because obviously I feel like we have to do something about it, as do you. You found it times up. I'm trying to change how we prosecute these crimes, and we're always talking about addressing root causes alongside accountability and weaving those two things together, and so that's on my mind, and then I'll ask it it's a question and more I'll shift to a more practical question, But the question about the underlying hate is still there, which is I think we're going to agree that things can be better and how these cases are handled right and how in increasing reporting rates and then doing better investigations and ultimately better prosecutions. And I want to ask you do you think it's a capacity problem, or do you think it's a courage problem, or do you think it's a cultural problem? In all three? But it probably starts with cultural like, you know, even me when we we represent a lot of women who've been have used, even me, and I'm sorry you have to confess to this, but when you see a problem in their story right, they don't get everything absolutely one hundred percent right, or maybe they can victimize again. You have this keeps get fear like, oh my god, I won't be able through the case. And we have this image culturally. I do, and I am quite very hard against it. Well, we have this image culturally that women who are victims have to be the perfect victim, and there is no such thing. There really isn't any such thing as the perfect victim. I saw its probably most dramatically in my representation of Emperor heard in the Johnny death case. Because people literally have this view that you can only be a victim of domestic violence if you just lay there like a raggedy end doll and do nothing. But that's not how victim of domestic violence at There even beings like anyone else, and they yell and they scream and they sometimes hit back. That's what you would expect someone to do. You know, if even I have to get over that, imagine how most other people up there feel about it? Yes? And where does this seep end, you think, because I want to know where the places that we can do better. Is it about checking our own biases at the beginning of a case to make sure that in the same way they don't We don't expect a robbery victim to be perfect or without flaws, we sort of approached the victim of a sexual assault in the same way. Or is it about having more courage in the face of juries, because I do worry that we carry this bias with us and we say, well, this jury is not going to convict because of these things, losing where we started this conversation, which is we're supposed to use the law to change people's hearts and minds. So I think, you know, in terms of investigation, that has to do more sensitivity, and you can't have invested users who don't who aren't trained in how to deal with these kind of cases with juries. And we've done a little bit of jury work on this, and I've actually been shocked to see that times of the meets you actually have made a different visturities and that we were hearing when we did the interviews from from men more so than women, which is actually quite dramatic men saying I understand, I get that this is wrong, and you could tell that they've been influenced by all the work that's been done already my groups in the wake of Me Too and times Up in others. That's amazing. Yeah, and tell me more about times Up, Robbie, because you were so purposeful, you know you as an organization from the beginning and saying that we wanted to hear from everybody, from farming to tech, from famous to not famous, rich and poor, C suite, entry level job, the whole range of it. Are we hearing from everybody? If not, who are we not hearing from? Who are you the most worried about? So there's no question that particularly in the service industries nursing and home health and restaurants and all the kind of service indus do that women are so problemed in, there needs to be a lot more worked on leave. We have very good reasons to believe that the rates of harassment, inscrimination, abuse are super hot at the top. Honestly, I think music is the industry that's most obviously has huge problems, and I think they're just starting to come out and part of that's the culture of the music industry and have the sex, drugs and rock and roll that there was just a culture that this kind of behavior was okay and was part and partial of being a rock star, had something to do with making art exactly. And so there's a little bit of a break with Marilyn Manson, a little bit of a crack. But I think you're going to see a lot molical. I wanted to ask you this is a different question about because to your this this amazing defense attorney. Are there any cases you would not take or you would not defend? I mean, I hear that defense attorneys have have have these lists. Yeah, so for only I think it's very different per civil and criminal. So criminal lawyers and I think they're even cases of criminal lawers won't take. But everyone has a right to defense in a criminal case because the ultimate possible implication is that you could end up in jail. And so that's a different standard. I've never done. I'm not a criminal lawyer, so that those things on the part of me, I'm strictly so so a lawyer, and I have I think a lot more license of all what cases to take and what cases can nottake. Our practice I think is different and very innovative in the sense that there are errors in the law like defamation and like sexual discrimination, harassment, et cetera. Well, we will take cases on both sides, and what guides us, honestly is what side we think is right, quite frankly, and I think it makes us better lawyers because we see both sides, and I think we can kind of look at the picture in a more complex way. And I think it gives us greater credibility because the fact that I will both take planets cases on times of in me two matters and defend the general counsel of woman sacs who's a woman in the case that I think is meritless, shows that we're able to make those kinds of distinction. But saying I have a values, you know I have values that drive us, I think gives your credibility, not just with your clients. Would rather have you as my attorney, knowing that you have decided to believe in me, and if you didn't, you wouldn't bring the case, but also in court right because you've been very open about how you're using the legal system to make the kind of change that could have been made in the atri freed parts of our government, as you said early on, and so you are making a declaration just by being there. Thank you. I mean, I'd like to think that. I'd like to think that. And again, I think that's it's a really good way to BacT this law because it makes you're better a lawyer. And I think you're right. I think when we take on a case, particularly these very kind of controversial areas like defamation or discribation, people read correctly that we think we're on the rights. In the sexual harassment cases, we are also seeing a lot of shaming what we might even call punishment outside of the courtroom. And I wonder what you make of all that. Is it fair? Can it be done in a fair way? The law itself has been a very weak tool in fighting the enormous amount of harassment and abuse of discrimation of pronounmental and there's a bunch of reasons why one class actions are really almost not permitted in this area anymore, after in the wake of the Circumpot decision in Walmart too. Until very recently, the stature of limitations were very short, the penalties that could be obtained were very low, statutorially set very low. The standards that were prescribed, the pervasive, severe, and pervasive standard under Title seven were very hard to achieve, and that meant that the vast majority of women who have been harassed discriminate against really didn't have cases. And what shows the dynamic, what really created a revolution, were women brave enough to come out and say this happened to me, even if they didn't have a case. I don't think we can overexaggerate be informed of that, and I honestly that in turn has led to change in the law. So for Times Up, because of the power of all the women coming out and saying what had happened to them, and all the actresses who support us, we were able to get New York to extend the sexual limitations for second that they're degree in the rape, which believe or not, we're someone the's shortest in the country before we did that. You see the same thing happening civilly New York last year change the state law to make the severe imformation standard much more reasonable and accommodating, consistent with New York City law as opposed to federal Title seven laws. So the answer I think is all of the above. We need to have those public acts of bravery because those public acts of bravery are what drive change. And I don't think it's about changing any particular man as much as it is of warning when you talk to these when most of them will say, I want to warn other women. I know Rachel A. Wood said about Marilyn Manson, I want to warn other woman who might get wrapped up in Marilyn Manson to be careful. As I listened to you, that tracks I think with also how criminal law develops, right. I mean, we had to have people say one of the things that happens in a domestic violence situation is asphyxiation and choking that is not yet actionable under the law because it doesn't lead to you know, I mean in many cases you really had to completely pass out in order for the criminal law to have anything to say about it. And then we had some change in New York around that, and now I see a conversation coming up around coercive control and actually even some of the cases that you've cited are about that. And you know, should that be actionable either in civila or in criminal law, We don't know yet, but maybe we have to sort of talk about it in the way that you have said before, we can answer that question. So interestingly, one of the best I think experts in the seconds of don Fus has said that the two the most concerning things that she sees in domestic abuse are a one, men typically men choke or try to choke or attack women around the neck. And she when they use goorgs of control, who they go out with, what they do, what they wear, check their phone, calls, video, you know, head taking of the house. Doctor user said, when she sees those two things, it's the greatest risk for serious injury or even that and that's when she really gets concerned. Yes, and they're already there on the checklist that really any any good police officer, prosecutors should know in making a risk assessment. These are major red flags, along with some other things that may not be totally obvious, like if if the couple met when they were really young. And the question is do we need to use them as more than just clues, But yes, I think even raising awareness and saying out loud like these things they can lead to a to a violent outcome in fairly predictable ways and are damaging in and of themselves. I think we're in the middle of this, Robbie like, we're not there yet, right, of course I can think about with respect to Amber, who's become a very I'm like her adopted Jewish mother. Now your friend, is that Johnny depted all those things? You know, he controlled what she wore U, he controlled who she hung out with. He would rent to choke her and would and go around her neck and it. What's amazing to me is the fact that with someone as talented and beautiful and successful as Amber, given how hard it has been for her to fight back against this, to defend herself in these faces to be attacked, which is another thing. Hopefully when you're DA you will look into the way she has been attacked and abuse online and these petitions up against her that she should lose her job, and she should lose a should lose back the fact that she had to go through and imagine what a woman without all those resources has to go through. I mean, it's almost hard to imagine. So one of the things that I do want to do, if this is really at the very top of my agenda, is to build a Bureau of Gender Based Violence and to put all of these things under that rubric, not because it looks right on an ORG chart, but because even in the course of our short conversation, we have connected things like cyber assault to domestic violence to sexual assault, and to say, all of these things have common threads, and so we should be doing training and awareness that runs through all of them, and the supportive resources need to be there, right the investigators that we've talked about, the service providers, and all of this. And I think that that would be radically different to set all of this aside, to not say all these crimes are all you know, they all happen, and we take them seriously, and they're just the same as the gunpoint robbery. When you silo, it's the one particular thing and that's all you do over and over. You can't help it. You tend to like create binders around yourself and you don't deep enough. So I think to say, our office has a Bureau of gender based Violence the same way that we have I don't know, a homicide bureau or Bureau of for construction fraud. Because this kind of violence is its own thing, and these are the seven different ways that it happens. Gender based hate crimes I think, you know also sit here. I do think would be really radical and it would force the commitment of resources. We will have times of support that well, I hope, So thank you. I want to ask you one last thing, Robbie, just to take a step back, and we haven't really talked very much about and we'll have to say this, I guess for another day what you've done around to stand up against anti semitism and white supremacy. But I will just ask you you, like many of us, live in lots of different worlds, and you've experienced homophobia in the Jewish community, and you've experienced anti semitism in the progressive community where you're trying to make change, and how do you navigate all of that and stay yourself? You know, I a out making other profession today. During the clip campaign, I hated the word intersectional. I thought it sounded too academic and too many syllables, and I just thought it was not a very persuasive argument. I was completely wrong about them, because today what I see is this incredible intersectionality of hate that the same people and you see this most and people the people attack me on the internet, so the people tap me on the internet, attack me for being Jewish, attack me for being gay, attacked me for supporting Amber Heard, and attacked me for bringing cases against Donald Trump. And it's all gotten mixed together in this forrid noxious too today. So I think the final thing is hate is hate. And whether you see it on the lot, or you see it on the rights, or you see it you know, in your hometown, or you see it in Mississippi or Washington. See. The job that we have is people to find. So that's what I tried to do, albeit imperfectly, for sure. Robbie, You're so in spectacular. This is such a pleasure. Thank you so much. I'd love talking to you. Thank you. We'll keep talking. Hearing is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. Our producers are Sam Dingman and Camille Baptista, and our engineer is Evan Viola. Special thanks to Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weissberg. This podcast is paid for by New Yorkers for Tally and Robbie Kaplan's appearance on the show does not constitute a political endorsement. I'm running to be District Attorney of Manhattan and to set a national example in delivering safety fairness and justice for all, especially are most vulnerable. If you like what you've heard, go to tally foga dot com to learn more about my campaign, and be sure to join us for the finale of our Women's History Month interview series next week. I'll be in conversation with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who's been one of our city's most influential progressive leaders for decades and whose abiding belief and nonviolence defines everything she does. I hope you'll join us. I'm Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next time on Hearing