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Civil Rights Group Sued Harvard Over Legacy Admissions; Ron DeSantis Gains Fan Base Among Suburban Moms; Joey Chestnut Aims To Defend Hot Dog Eating Contest Title. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 04, 2023 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And it's all spelled out in the data they include in this complaint. They use admissions numbers. Let's look at some of that. And it becomes very clear the case they're making.

They argue that for the class of 2026, for instance, some just under 2000 students were accepted out of an applicant pool of over 61,000. That's a pretty low admissions rate of 3.24 percent. But it's very different if you are some kind of legacy applicant.

They looked historically from 2014 to 2019. They found that applicants related to a donor were seven times more likely to be admitted. So, their admissions rate was 42 percent during that period.

And if someone was related to a parent or other relative have gone to Harvard, they were six times more likely to be accepted for an admissions rate of just over 33 percent. Those with no legacy were getting in at a rate of about 6 six percent. So, there's clearly a significant difference.

And the timing here is important because now that the Supreme Court has said you can't use race, these groups are arguing that is even more imperative to eliminate any policies that disadvantage students of color. They're arguing that this one which largely benefits white students puts students of color at a disadvantage. And that's, of course, because a college admissions -- a spot in college is something that is a zero-sum game.

If a legacy applicant gets it, it means that someone else who's trying to get on their own merit doesn't get it. Bottom line, they argue that if Harvard gets rid of these preferences, they're going to see acceptance rates go up for minorities and go down a bit for white students, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: It's really interesting. Athena Jones with some of the fallout from the Supreme Court decision to get rid of affirmative action. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right with us now, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers. Jennifer, you know, it's interesting, many of the plaintiffs that we were talking to last week in the affirmative action cases came out against legacy admissions as well. They said, you know what, that's unfair too. Why was that important for them to say?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think it only makes sense, John. I mean, if you are going to argue for a complete meritocracy, then that means the admissions process should be blind in all ways, right? Not just colorblind, but blind to other specific characteristics of these applicants, including who your parents are, and whether their parents have given money. So, at least it's an intellectually consistent position so we have to give them that one.

BERMAN: And where would it run up against a potential law? It's not necessarily the Constitution at play here in this case, is it?

RODGERS: That's right. So, when you're talking about private colleges and universities, it's not the same government action that you need to file certain kinds of institutional claims. But they're alleging that it violates the Civil Rights Act, which applies not just to public colleges, but to private colleges as well.

So, they're saying, you know, listen -- and they're not by the way, suing Harvard directly, they're just filing a complaint with the Department of Education asking for an investigation, saying less in the Civil Rights Act requires you to treat these groups the same -- everyone the same. Protected groups like unprotected groups, and so on. And they're saying this is systemically racist because it elevates these profiles -- these applicants who are overwhelmingly white at the expense of applicants who are not.

It's not merit-based, it is not inherently race-based or explicitly race face, but the impact is race-based. And so, that's what they alleging the complaint is. And what's very interesting, it's not so much that there's going to be money recovered or certain plaintiffs that are vindicated by this.

But if the Department of Education investigation proceeds, there'll be a lot of universities who are really, really under the microscope about how they look at these admittance procedures and that could be embarrassing for them. So, I think what they're trying to prompt here is just more conversation.

They're trying to prompt changes to these policies that are voluntary from Harvard and from all similarly situated schools that are so prestigious. And they admit so few people really when you look at the numbers.

BERMAN: Right. Jennifer Rodgers, great to see you. Happy Fourth of July. Thanks so much for being with us. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. This morning, presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is spending his Fourth of July at a parade in New Hampshire. He is far behind the front runner in the Republican race but CNN spoke to some ardent supporters in the state and why they think he is actually the man for the job. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:38:50] SIDNER: Right now, Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is making his way along a parade route in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. There he is right now. The thing is, he's not got great numbers in the polls.

He's double digits behind Donald Trump but he has a pretty good sign game going on there. He's been shaking hands and speaking to voters as he tries to make up ground. He's pulling behind Donald Trump double digits but as CNN Elle Reeve tells us, he's turning some lifelong Democrats into fans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA STEINKAMP, TEACHER: If DeSantis were to run tomorrow, he would win. And that would be such a hard pill to swallow I think for many people.

ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Back in 2021, Vanessa Steinkamp was the first person who told me she was a fan of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And that they were more like her.

REEVE: When we first spoke to you in 2021, you mentioned that you had the circle mom, friends that you met on Twitter who are just obsessed with DeSantis. And it just stuck in my mind for years.

STEINKAMP: If he would just do stuff and say stuff with this conviction, we're all like, thank you.

REEVE: Did you guys have a nickname for him?

JULIE HAMILL, LAWYER: Daddy DeSantis. I mean, it's all joking.

REEVE: Of course.

[11:40:03]

HAMILL: Because we're like desperate women who had tried everything that we could do in our own power in our own communities, and we weren't getting anywhere.

JENNIFER SEY, AUTHOR & FORMER BRAND PRESIDENT OF LEVI'S: He was very vocal starting in the summer of 2020 about the need to open schools in particular.

REEVE (voiceover): During the COVID lockdowns in 2020, these frustrated moms built an informal Twitter network of people angry about closed schools and the difficulty of remote learning. They were from all over the country but saw DeSantis as a model of what they wanted in their cities.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): School is a safe haven.

STEINKAMP: I mean, when I started advocating for kids to go back in person, I was called a granny killer, a teacher killer, selfish on Twitter.

REEVE: On Twitter.

STEINKAMP: Oh my god, they were -- it was awful.

REEVE (voiceover): Steinkamp is a teacher in Dallas and warned early on that lockdowns would hurt kids, especially poor kids.

STEINKAMP: We can't forget our most vulnerable and we've just created the single largest inequality generator in a generation by having some schools open, some schools closed.

REEVE (voiceover): On Twitter, Steinkamp connected with Jen Sey, then- Levi's executive who moved her family from San Francisco to Denver in early 2021 so she could send her kids to school in person.

SEY: We quickly sort of found a community online. And I found it really interesting that she was a teacher that was advocating for in- person school. In San Francisco, you could go to a bar or a strip club, but my high school student couldn't go to English class.

REEVE (voiceover): Sey says she was forced out of Levi's in 2022 because of her COVID tweets, which the company told NPR undermined its own health and safety policies and sowed confusion among employees.

SEY: 90 percent of what I wrote about was playgrounds in schools. And there's nothing embarrassing about that now.

REEVE (voiceover): There were several active group chats where the mom shared news about COVID and DeSantis. One grew to more than 80 people, and they traveled to each other's homes. Many had been lifelong Democrats, including Julie Hamill, who has three kids and lives near LA.

REEVE: You voted for Obama.

HAMILL: Yes.

REEVE: You vote --

HAMILL: Twice.

REEVE: -- Clinton?

HAMILL: Yes.

REEVE: Did you vote for Biden?

HAMILL: Yes. I have never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. I have always considered myself very socially liberal. But as we became more vocal on Twitter, we were really demonized.

REEVE (voiceover): In 2022, she ran for school board in Palos Verdes and won.

HAMILL: So, I'm going to fight back.

REEVE (voiceover): And was an active defender of her Twitter friends. They aren't crazy. Data from the Education Department shows kids had been hurt by long-term remote learning, Black and brown students more than white kids.

In August 2020, DeSantis was early to open schools compared to other U.S. states, but not the world. Many European countries went back under national policies. In May 2020, for example, Finland health officials cited data that kids didn't play a significant role in spreading the virus. But in the last two years, DeSantis has launched his presidential campaign and focused more on the culture war.

DESANTIS: We will make sure as president we leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

REEVE (voiceover): The Twitter backlash they experienced made these women more receptive to parts of DeSantis's fight against wokeness. But not all of it.

REEVE: I'm wondering if you think that DeSantis says, you know, very public more on woke distracts from the message that you like about him.

SEY: A little bit. I do. Yes.

REEVE: Because I mean, like to be honest, I do feel like it would be really good to have a big public debate about what did we get wrong in COVID, like --

SEY: The left doesn't want to have that debate. They're never going to allow that debate. I think there's a lot of kind of incendiary tactics being used to smear him. I think there's --

REEVE: He did sign a law that restricts transgender care for adults, as well as kids.

SEY: I have greater concerns about the six-week abortion ban.

REEVE: Tell me about that.

SEY: You know, I think if he made it clear that he's a State's rights person, and that he is not looking to kind of pass a national law in this regard, I would be less concerned.

REEVE (voiceover): Not everyone in their Twitter orbit agrees on his tactics. But these three do think Florida's new six-week abortion ban is bad.

HAMILL: I think that's dangerous. That's something that I cannot get behind. And I don't think that's going to bode well for his presidential campaign. I think that that might be a real impediment to bringing in moderate women.

REEVE (voiceover): None of these women like the idea of a 2024 rematch between Biden and Trump. They're open to voting for DeSantis but are not sold.

REEVE: So, there's been criticism from Republicans that DeSantis is like too online that his campaign is too influenced by stuff that's popping online but like, isn't affecting people in real life. So someone struggling to pay their bills isn't thinking about pronouns. Is it possible that's true?

STEINKAMP: Well, I don't think so. I've been down all over Florida and you know what they all say? He helped my business open up. He helped my kids go to school. The media just fixates on the culture war pieces.

[11:45:04]

REEVE: Is it possible that you are too, online?

STEINKAMP: Yes. For sure in the beginning, but not anymore.

HAMILL: Do I need to fight with some random online? No. I would love to be off Twitter. But I feel like there are discussions that need to be had. For all the bad that comes with it, there is also a good. And I've connected with all of these like-minded women who are not outright demons. Their moms who have been unseen and unheard.

REEVE (voiceover): Elle Reeve, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And thank you to Elle Reeve for that story. John?

BERMAN: All right, my revealing interview with a true patriot, hot dog-eating champion Joey Chestnut. The tricks of the trade that he shared with me. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:14]

SIDNER: Finally, this hour. We're just minutes away from one of John Berman's most beloved Fourth of July traditions. In just moments, competitors from across the United States will meet at Coney Island for the famous Nathan's Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest.

BERMAN: It's not just me. This is an essential part of what it means not just to be an American but to be a human being, frankly. Joey Chestnut will try to defend his title and take home his astounding sixteenth mustard yellow belt. So last night, I had a chance to speak with Chestnut to find out how he gets ready for all this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Joey, do you even like hot dogs?

JOEY CHESTNUT, 15-TIME NATHAN'S FAMOUS HOT DOG EATING CHAMPION: Oh man, I love them. It's a -- it's one of the best foods there is. And on the Fourth of July, there's nothing better.

BERMAN: When you go out to eat on your own when you're not in season, do you ever order hot dogs? CHESTNUT: On a baseball game. I'm -- not all the time, but I'll try. I'm almost doing one every inning of a baseball game. But I -- it's a -- I love them.

BERMAN: So, it's not like you separate work from pleasure. It's just nonstop. There's never an offseason in the hotdog-eating business.

CHESTNUT: And so, I love them naturally. But I -- when -- I mean when at home, I'm not dunking them in water. That -- and I'm not -- I'm not eating to the point where I'm uncomfortable.

BERMAN: So, you won 15 out of the last 16 contests. This is you know contest eve. What are you doing today to get ready for this? How do you prepare?

CHESTNUT: Oh, today? Yes, I had -- I had an apple. I had a little bit of salad and some protein supplements. But I have lots of liquid.

I'm going to go into the contest tomorrow empty, loops, happy, healthy. Last year I had a broken leg. This year, I've put a lot of work into recovering that leg and rehabbing it and just getting back into good shape so I can push myself to go to extreme limits tomorrow.

BERMAN: When you eat vegetables, does your body just say like no, what are you doing? I don't want any of this.

CHESTNUT: No. I -- it's not -- I'm not anti-vegetable at all. I -- actually, this year, I did a three-week detox -- vegan detox because I -- last year, I had so many infections, I took a crazy amount of antibiotics, so I had to do a crazy detox to get my body back to even. And I -- vegetables are great. And some people are against them but I'm definitely not.

BERMAN: I like the fact that you're not anti-vegetable. You're a vegetable inclusive. You just like everything. You just like hotdogs in great quantities.

I mean, how do you feel after eating so many hot dogs at once? And you were just talking about the detox in the antibiotics. How long does it take you to recover?

CHESTNUT: It takes me -- it takes a while. You know, a football player, Tom Brady go into a football game knowing that he's going to get hit. I know that -- I know that after this time as I'm not going to feel great.

It's going to take about four days to feel really normal. And the first 12 hours after the contest, I'm going to feel a lot of garbage. So, it's a -- I go in knowing that and I'm willing to go through that because it's an amazing contest, it's Fourth of July, and I'm going to do what it takes to get number 16.

BERMAN: Any victory does cost. There's no question about that. In 2021, you set the record. 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. What are you shooting for in this one? Do you think you will win it again? CHESTNUT: I think -- I think I can pull off the win. And if the conditions are right and I find a mean nasty rhythm, a record is possible. And if the crowd is -- they -- it's an amazing crowd, Coney Island. And they're going to be pushing me and supporting me and I'm going to do whatever I can to deliver.

BERMAN: 80, possible?

CHESTNUT: 80 is possible -- OK. Hit it in practice. And its -- things would have to be perfect.

And you know I'm not saying that -- you know, what? I'm -- it's possible. And I -- and that's the way I try not to limit myself and say anything's impossible, but 80 can be tough and -- but its -- I can do it, I think.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: I told him last night that if you can dream it, you can do it.

SIDNER: You were cheering him on?

BERMAN: I was. As you know, he is going in as he said loose and empty.

SIDNER: OK.

BERMAN: That's what he said.

SIDNER: Yes. Empty and loose. If I remember correctly --

BERMAN: Sorry, I think you're right. I think it was empty and loose.

SIDNER: -- empty and loose, which I think just shows your acumen as a reporter and an anchor. You manage to get the best worst line ever on television.

BERMAN: I think -- yes, to get the answer from him. He also compared himself to Tom Brady un-ironically.

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: But in all seriousness, this guy is the goat.

SIDNER: He practices.

BERMAN: I mean, there has never been a better competitive eater than Joey Chestnut.

[11:55:02]

SIDNER: How many rings did he have? What, 15?

BURNETT: He's got 16.

SIDNER: 16.

BERMAN: 15 consecutive. He's good. I mean, the guy's good at this.

SIDNER: It does make me gag watching him eat. But 80 hotdogs? I believe it when I see it. It could happen.

BERMAN: He could do it in 10 minutes. It could happen any minute.

SIDNER: OK. Make sure to join CNN tonight. If you -- you know want to get some fireworks in, the July Fourth celebration has got an all-star lineup and spectacular fireworks. The U.S. Air Force band will perform along with Demi Lovato, Post Malone, Zac Brown Band, and the fabulous Sheryl Crow just to name a few. CNN's "THE FOURTH IN AMERICA" starts tonight at seven.

BERMAN: We are going in loose and empty.

SIDNER: That's on you.

BERMAN: Thank you for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "INSIDE POLITICS" is up next.

SIDNER: I cannot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)