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Controversial Advice for Women; Adult Charged with Stalking 5- year-old?; Oil Spill in Your Yard; Gruesome Injury Mars March Madness

Aired April 01, 2013 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Here is some advice for the women of Princeton University and it comes directly from a former president.

"Your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry. And you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you. Find a husband on campus before you graduate."

Yes, "Find a husband on campus before you graduate." That is just part of the letter to the editor of Princeton's student newspaper, written by the mother of a current student. That letter, by the way, as you may imagine, has stirred up a heck of course of complaints.

Susan Patton is the author of the letter. She's a Princeton grad herself and Nina Bahadur is the assistant editor for the "Huff Post Women" blog and have some problems with all of that advice. They are both kind enough to join me now.

Let the fireworks begin, ladies.

Susan, I want to begin with you. You know, look, some people wrote right away, is this a joke? Did you mean this in satire? I want to ask you officially, on the record, on television, was this satire?

SUSAN PATTON, WROTE CONTROVERSIAL LETTER: Not at all. This couldn't have been more serious.

BANFIELD: So obviously the next question is, you know, you had to know that the hackles would be up not on just the women of Princeton but on women across the spectrum who think, are you kidding? You're suggesting a college kid look for a husband?

PATTON: What I am suggesting very specifically, and you understand that this letter was intended for a very small audience, it was the audience of women on Princeton's campus because it happens to be my alma mater, and even more specifically a subset of that group, those women who are actually interested in some day having a traditional family, marriage, and children.

And my advice to them was take a good look on campus now for a potential life partner, which is not to exclude pursuing a career, not to exclude other things, but add this to your mission while you're on campus and have access to this extraordinary community of extraordinary people. Get your world class education. Make your lifelong friends. And if you can find a life partner, good for you. And the problem is that these -- (CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I just want to say --

PATTON: The problem is that we've shown women are --

BANFIELD: Sorry, I just want to make it really clear to our -- to our viewers.

PATTON: Yes.

BANFIELD: As I read the piece, I got the feeling that you were saying this because in essence men may be OK choosing women who aren't as intellectually bright as they are.

PATTON: Yes.

BANFIELD: But women aren't as comfortable with a mate who isn't at least at their level.

Nina, you have some serious issues with this argument.

PATTON: Yes.

BANFIELD: What are they -- what is the most important issue that you have?

NINA BAHADUR, ASSISTANT EDITOR, HUFFPOST WOMEN: I think that -- I'm just not sure this is what we should be telling young girls that they should be looking for in their college experience. I think it's really important that young women learn how to be self-sufficient in college, they find out who they are, what they want unrelated to a spouse, unrelated to their future -- you know, girls need to learn what they need to learn in order to become the women that they want to be.

(CROSSTALK)

And I'm sure that you can do that --

PATTON: I don't disagree with you.

BANFIELD: It's a good point. Why not --

PATTON: I don't --

BANFIELD: I mean, my god, they're going to school at 18.

PATTON: I don't disagree with any of that. What I'm suggesting, though, is women who graduate and then spend the next 10 years of their lives focused on nothing but career find themselves in their early 30s with nothing but career. And for the women who in fact want to be married and want to have children to be in your early 30s and have a great job and nothing else it now becomes panic time for them.

So I'm just suggesting to those women who want marriage and family keep an open mind, keep an eye out, because the window of opportunity to find a mate and to bear children is limited. For women. For men it is not. Men can take virtually their whole lives to have -- to have families. Women can't.

BANFIELD: So, Nina, you're a lot closer to this age than I am or than Susan is. But -- and I'm not going to ask you to speak for your -- for your generation. But how important do -- as a Princeton grad yourself, how important do you feel having a spouse of equal intellect to you is because that essentially what a lot of Susan's argument comes down to?

BAHADUR: I mean, I understand that for many people having a partner of equal intellect is incredibly important. But I don't think that intelligence is firstly the most important thing in the world. And secondly, I really don't think that the name on your university diploma means that you are just one of the smartest people out there.

Like Princeton, I love Princeton.

PATTON: Of course.

BAHADUR: I met incredible people there. But I think that I have intellectual equals all around the world, some people who I'm sure never went to school let alone Princeton and I hate to think that -- you know, that Princeton was this kind of special elite place that can't be replicated anywhere else. But I also think that as long as intelligence --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: And Susan --

PATTON: No --

BANFIELD: Just to be clear, you are -- Susan, you are suggesting this is for the Princeton audience or at least the Ivy League audience not necessarily for anybody else out of those top five that are on the screen?

PATTON: I'm suggesting it's for any woman who has invested herself in academic achievement, any woman who has a sincere love of learning, any woman who has an intellectual curiosity that will be with her for a lifetime. Find a man who isn't going to be threatened by your capacity for greatness. Find a man who is at least your equal.

And can you find that outside of Princeton? Of course you can. And all I was suggesting --

BANFIELD: It takes a little effort, right?

PATTON: The reason that I wrote this -- the reason I wrote this is from a sheer numbers perspective, the concentration of extraordinary people from which to choose your best friends and potential life partner, the concentration of that community will never be greater than it is during your under graduate years.

BANFIELD: Than where you are --

PATTON: Yes, you can find it elsewhere. Of course you can find it elsewhere. But from a numbers perspective.

BANFIELD: So I want to bring in -- I want to bring in a colleague of mine, Sunny Hostin, who is a very bright woman. She is an accomplished attorney. She is listening. She was actually ready for -- you know, to be included in the next segment in this program, but I get the sense that you would like to comment now -- Sunny.

(LAUGHTER)

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's interesting, I guess I'm going to say something that's probably not that popular but I agree that when you're -- the most important decision that you make is the man that you marry. And that man is probably available in more abundance when you are in college, when you're studying, when you --

(CROSSTALK)

Of your ilk. And I mean, I married a very, very smart guy. You know, Ashleigh, he's an orthopedic surgeon. He is my best friend but he's also my intellectual equal. And as time goes on, we've been married for 15 years, it gets better and better because he isn't threatened by my career, because he is my best friend, because we're growing together.

And I have many friends that did it the opposite way. And I've got to tell you, either they didn't make it or they had trouble because men feel, some of them, that they lose their man card when their wife is more successful.

BANFIELD: Susan, one thing that I just need to read to you that was sort of point number seven from Nina in her response to your letter was this.

The last quote from you is, "My younger son is a junior at Princeton. And the universe of women he can marry is limitless."

And Nina's question to you after that was, after the piece that you just published, are you quite sure of that?

(LAUGHTER)

And I know you've written about it --

PATTON: Well, I think -- I think that --

BANFIELD: But I want you to respond to that.

PATTON: Fine. I think that the universe of potential marriageable women for any young man on Princeton's campus or Harvard or Yale or any other school of outstanding academics reputation is endless. And not only is the pool of women they can marry endless but the time within which they can make that decision and start having children is endless. I have -- I have classmates who are first-time fathers in their 50s. That's not an option for women.

(CROSSTALK)

HOSTIN: Our eggs get old. And so we do -- we have a limited period of time not only to find that best friend, that mate, your intellectual equal, but then to have children.

BANFIELD: And, you know, to be honest, it ain't that easy on Match.com. I think a lot of people will tell you a lot of people lie.

Listen, I could go on and on but certainly this is a great debate. And I think your writing has spurred a lot of interesting conversation, to say the very least.

Susan Patton, Nina Bahadur and Sunny Hostin. Thanks for jumping in on this.

HOSTIN: Sure.

BANFIELD: Thanks to all three of you.

BAHADUR: Thank you.

PATTON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: We know that you are definitely talking about this one today. And I do invite you to tweet me. It's CNNAshleigh. Please keep it clean. Use the mean filter. Back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: I think I don't need to say this. It goes without saying that, you know, kids trust grownups, generally speaking, right, to protect them. I'm about to show you a piece of video of a school aide on a bus verbally assaulting a 5-year-old boy. This is a Florida bus. I want you to take a look at the video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fasten that seatbelt now. I'm going to teach you a lesson, buddy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: You can hear the little boy crying in this tape. And to make matters worse -- that little boy is a special needs child. A special needs child. The woman in the video is 37-year-old Daneta McPherson. She has now been charged with stalking.

The authorities say that she verbally attacked that child leaving him scared, leaving him crying, and according to the Port St. Lucie Police Department this is not the first time that McPherson has harassed the little boy. They say she's done it several times, even threatening at one point to take that child home with her.

CNN reached out to McPherson. We also reached out to the school district for comments. But we did not hear back. Keeping in mind this was the Easter weekend. A lot of people away. Perhaps haven't seen e-mail yet, but we did make that overture and have not had a response.

I want to bring back my legal panel now. Sunny Hostin joins me again. And also former juvenile court judge, Glenda Hatchet, is with me.

Glenda, let me start with you. I mean, honestly. Well, OK, the first question I have is stalking. First, I don't understand that charge as opposed to a harassment charge. Maybe it's the jurisdiction but do you have insight there?

JUDGE GLENDA HATCHET, FORMER JUVENILE COURT JUDGE: Yes -- no, I was really baffled by that as well. And I was looking that up this morning and I don't understand why she was charged with stalking, number one, as opposed to harassment. But really the bigger question for me, Ashleigh, is why has this gone on multiple times? I mean, for them to say that this is not the first time that this has gone on multiple times.

I think it is absolutely outrageous. And also not just harassment, why wasn't she charged with assault because it is alleged that she actually -- caused the child's head to fall over into the window. And so this is just awful.

BANFIELD: So, Sunny, can you -- can you weigh in there? I mean there are a lot of legal issues obviously. And sometimes assault just is words and not physical, you know, contact.

HOSTIN: Sure.

BANFIELD: Why do you --

HOSTIN: How about abuse? I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Why do you see this as only stalking?

HOSTIN: You can commit child abuse, the crime of child abuse without physically touching someone.

HATCHET: Exactly.

HOSTIN: And I suspect, Ashleigh, I mean, oftentimes when prosecutors first bring cases they bring the charge that they believe they can easily meet under the guidelines and then you see later on additional charges being brought as the investigation goes on, as the videos get looked up, as the child is interviewed, which is going to be a bit difficult because the child is 5 but I've interviewed children when I was prosecuting cases at least that young.

So I suspect that we will see more charges. We will hear more charges. But I think the good thing about it is, my goodness, we now have these video cameras, right? We now --

BANFIELD: Well, you'd think so. Right? You would think --

HOSTIN: We now have that.

BANFIELD: Sure. But this video camera was set up in November. That's four months ago at the very least. Why on earth, Glenda Hatchet, would it take more than four months to actually arrest someone and charge someone when you have the evidence or at least this evidence?

HATCHET: I don't understand it, Ashleigh. I think that this is absolutely outrageous because we have been told that allegedly this has happened several times. And I am also wondering if DFACS has been called in for their separate investigation.

To Sunny's point, I would think that there would be some investigation around child abuse as well. So I -- I am disappointed that it's this taking this long. But thank goodness we now know and there have been charges brought.

BANFIELD: Sunny, does it make a difference that this child -- I mean, it's a 5-year-old, I can't imagine this happening to any 5-year-old let alone a special needs trial. Does that trump up any kind of potential charges that this woman could be facing, the fact that this is a special needs child?

HOSTIN: Yes, I mean, I think the standard for child abuse is going to be a bit different. Because you have to look at the particular child. Right? And so certainly I think it actually enhances this case, it enhances the charges. And I would suspect that anyone that sees this kind of evidence, and again, I'm just thrilled that there is this kind of evidence because you can't make this up. You don't even need the child to testify when you have this.

I -- this video I suspect that because the child is a special needs child, there'll be an enhanced type of charge that we will see.

BANFIELD: All right. We will continue to watch this.

HATCHET: I agree on that. And also --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Go ahead, last word.

HATCHET: Just quickly, just to -- I'm curious as to whether there will be some civil charges brought against the school system because these are employees. Why didn't they do something sooner? This has been going on allegedly to several months. So I think we're going to see layers of actions here.

BANFIELD: Well, and maybe even civil charges against the accused herself. You know --

HATCHET: Yes. Yes.

BANFIELD: You never know how deep the pockets are but certainly a school district has usually --

HOSTIN: She's sure lucky that wasn't my kid on that bus.

BANFIELD: Oh, boy.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: I know where you're going with that.

HATCHET: I am telling you --

(CROSSTALK)

HATCHET: They would have to be getting you out of jail.

BANFIELD: Yes, by the way, Sunny is kind of close to me, too, so I better -- before her arms start flailing and all of that.

All right. Thanks to you both. I do appreciate it. And stay with me, as well, Judge Hatchet and Sunny, if you would for this next story because an Arkansas neighborhood has been flooded. Look at what it's been flooded with. That is oil. Yes. The dirty crude kind.

What are the legal repercussions of a spill in your neighborhood that is a little tougher to clean than a flood.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: People in Mayflower, Arkansas, are looking out their front windows this morning at a major oil spill. And by major, I mean thousands of gallons in their front yards. Several homeowners knee- deep in slick mess after an Exxon pipeline ruptured. Twenty-two homes, in fact, had to be evacuated.

The Exxon cleanup crews were sent to the scene as well as representative for the company telling CNN, quote, "We regret that this incident has occurred and apologize for any disruption and inconvenience that it has caused."

Well, speaking of the cause, the cause of the spill is unknown at this point and it's under investigation by federal, state and local authorities on the site.

Judge Glenda Hatchet and Sunny Hostin are still with me. I usually bring up this expression in cases like this, the wheelbarrow, bring your wheelbarrow to pick up your cash when it comes to what other kind of civil litigation.

Sunny, why don't you begin? Is this one of those stories where those people are going to get a lot of money?

HOSTIN: I think it's too soon to tell. I mean, I think, as you mentioned, you've got state, you've got federal, you've got a lot of agencies that are going to investigate why this happened. But it's clear that Exxon Mobil is schooled at this kind of thing, right? This was post-Valdez, it certainly what we're not going to see happen with BP. They didn't know how to handle it.

This is a company that came out in front of it immediately, sent people there because they know how to deal with this type of crises, and so I think we're going to see certainly a containment of this issue and if they need to pay people for their injuries, I suspect they'll be able to do that because they're prepared to do that, they have a history and they know how to handle this kind of thing.

BANFIELD: So Judge Hatchet, this is the now. The pictures that we're seeing and the cleanup crew onsite and the instant response, but a lot of people point to the possibility of a long-term environmental impact.

HATCHET: Right.

BANFIELD: Those are things that could be a part of all of this. How does litigation factor into that?

HATCHET: Well, it's going to be, I think, a big factor and I agree with Sunny, if they can contain this and really get on top of this, it will minimize the damage. As we've seen now we're looking at the water in the lake nearby being contaminated and then of course, are there other streams, are there water sources, does this sink into the well water in that area if there is some.

So I think it's right to say that it is much too early to tell, but I think that there are a couple of things we have to remember and we don't think about it until these things come up, that there are millions of miles of pipeline that we just don't think about all over this nation and this particular pipeline was built in the '40s.

And so, you know, there's a question about corrosion. Now there's a policy issue about wanting to expand the pipeline and how that will impact, so I think there are a lot of issues that will really flow from this particular incident. Let's hope they can contain it quickly.

BANFIELD: Yes, and what about all the other parties that could be -- I mean, how do you find out exactly who might be to blame? What sort of investigation do the actual plaintiffs have to -- have to bring to the table, Sunny? Do they have to do something in order to establish who's going to pay?

HOSTIN: Assuming there are plaintiffs, right?

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Well, if you're looking at your yard like that, I think there are going to be complaints, right?

HOSTIN: You know, I mean, again, you know, we've seen this sort of play off before. We've seen this with BP, we've seen this with Exxon Mobil, quilt frankly, and generally when there is this kind of action, there is something set up. An investigator is set up. There's a fund set up for people to sort of pipe their complaints through and because we're dealing with this kind of company that has this kind of experience, I don't know that the plaintiffs will have to do their own investigation.

I suspect this is going to be a very transparent process because they have not only learned from Exxon Valdez.

HATCHET: Right.

HOSTIN: They've also learned from BP, and the PR nightmare that that was when a company didn't know how to deal with this kind of situation.

BANFIELD: Well, here's the upside. When gas prices are so expensive, free oil. I'm kidding. I am totally kidding, let's just be real clear about that.

Judge Hatchet, thank you, it's nice to see you.

HATCHET: Thank you. Great to see you.

BANFIELD: Thank you. And Sunny, always good to see you as well.

HOSTIN: Sure.

BANFIELD: Thanks to both of you. By the way, this story is sure to fuel part of that battle over the Keystone pipeline. Right? The argument that is Democrats say don't build the pipeline because it goes to a lot of pristine areas and things like that can happen. This is something clearly CNN is going to be covering in depth later today with "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer gets underway at 5:00 p.m.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Want to take a quick look at the markets. As you can see the Dow is down, a wee bit, 26 points at least, anyway. But we got a lot of time to go. We've only been opened for about 90 minutes now so we'll keep an eye on things today. See how the day progresses.

In the meantime, I am sure you at least are talking about this or have heard someone else talking about this. A gruesome -- there's really no other way to put this. A really gruesome injury on the basketball court leaving teammates horrified, some of them actually in tears, coach as well.

Louisville player Kevin Ware is recovering this morning after breaking his leg during yesterday's March Madness game. We're going to direct your attention to the video. He's in the top middle, he's about to take a jump and land and we've had to blur it. Honestly there's no other way to tell you this. It was so awful we had to block the injury. But you can see how his team reacts, how bad that injury actually is because it was nothing short of astounding to those players.

Here he is on the ground. But the teammates and the coach really having a tough time with this. Actually a couple of the players falling mid court, unable to deal with what they witnessed. Pretty remarkable. It is not often that you see something play out like this. Wow. CNN's Jared Greenberg has more now on how this really shook up the entire stadium.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JARED GREENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A trip to the final four on the line, the game, oh, so close. 6:33 left in the first half. Louisville guard Kevin Ware leaps to contest a shot on the perimeter. Then the unthinkable. Water lands, he breaks his leg, a horrific open fracture of his right tibia. Players were stunned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my goodness.

GREENBERG: Fans in shock. A rare sight, a coach visibly emotional. Louisville's Rick Pitino wiping away tears. Time stands still as medical personnel stabilize Ware.

RICK PITINO, CARDINALS MEN'S BASKETBALL COACH: It was a gruesome sight, nothing like I have ever witnessed before in my life or a basketball game.

GREENBERG: And then, a standing ovation as Ware is wheeled from the court and taken to the hospital.

RUSS SMITH, CARDINALS JUNIOR GUARD: I didn't ever think in a million years I would see something like that. And that happened especially to a guy like Kevin Ware. I was completely devastated.

PITINO: But he's a brave young man because all he kept saying is win the game.

GREENBERG: Louisville did win the game, beating Duke 85-63, advancing to the final four in Atlanta. Not far from Ware's high school.

PITINO: Real proud of our guys. Real disappointed for Kevin, but we got -- we're getting him home to Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) reporting for us. Thanks for watching, everyone. AROUND THE WORLD starts now.