"I would like young people to keep two things in mind that might sound a little bit contradictory. One is that there's a great tradition of knowledge and intellectual endeavor and philosophy that the university has to offer, that our culture has to offer, that is important to master and that can guide one in the future, but at the same time, the older generation doesn't know everything. And often the older generation will belittle younger people. The contemporary example is that ‘they're snowflakes’, that ‘they're engaged in cancel culture,’ this kind of thing. And sometimes us older people are right in those criticisms, and sometimes we're not. And so trying to navigate that, to say, ‘Yes, I have something to learn from you, but also…' You know, each generation needs to sort these things out for themselves. And sometimes the younger generation has got it right, and we've got it wrong. Figuring out which is and which is the challenge."

Richard Thompson Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. His scholarship combines social criticism and legal analysis, and he writes for both popular readers and for academic and legal specialists. He's written for the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. He’s a regular contributor for Slate and has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show, The Colbert Report, and other programs.

His most recent book is Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History. His books The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse and Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality have been selected by the New York Times as Notable Books of the Year. In 2012, On Being a Black Lawyer called him one of the most influential black lawyers in the nation.

http://richardtford.law.stanford.edu

www.creativeprocess.info

www.oneplanetpodcast.org