This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

I'm your host Tom Church and I'm joined as always by the Libertarian Professor Richard Epstein.

Here at Hoover, Richard is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow. He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law over at NYU, and he's also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. Now today is Thursday, November 3rd, and on Monday, Richard, we had some arguments to two cases on affirmative action, one dealing with Harvard and one dealing with the University of North Carolina.

They're different schools, they're similar cases, but I'd like you. of is public. Harvard is of course private but receives some federal funding and so I guess I first

of all this entangle for me why why it's even possible to to bring a case against

Harvard when you would expect it just just be maybe the public schools that get

challenged. Well on the case against the University of North Carolina as a

state institution rests on large measure on the equal protection clause.

And the question when it says equal protection

of the law, it means that you have to be colorblind

and all its manifestation.

And the action about Harvard is based upon the fact

that since it refies federal funds, it has to agree not to discriminate on the basis of race.

So that what happens, one of them is supposed to be a constitutional debate and the other is supposed to be a statutory debate.

If you kind of read through some of the transcripts and so forth,

that really seems to fall to one side.

And what you hear in both of these cases

is a confusing jumble of arguments presented by all the lawyers

as to whether or not you can execute a color blind problem, whether you should excuse a color

blind program of one form or another,

whether or not if you do it's going to transform

American society for the worst,

...