Focus 580; Whats Wrong With Childrens Rights

In this first hour of the program we'll be talking with someone who is widely regarded as one of this country's leading authorities on children and the law. His name is Martin Guggenheim and he's professor of clinical law at New York University. I will be talking about some of the ideas that you'll find in a book that he's written the title is what's wrong with children's rights. It is published by the Harvard University Press and the book takes a look in part at the history of the children's rights movement a movement that began in the 1960s and clearly was designed to protect children from harm. The major question that the book asks is has the Children's Rights Movement been a success. And our guests Martin Guggenheim says the answer might not be the one that we would hope for. He argues that in fact often the interests of children have not always come first and there have in fact been cases where adults have had more to gain and indeed have gained more than the children that they claim to represent. As we talk this morning with our guest Martin Guggenheim questions of course are welcome and we always welcome a conversation debate questions comments the only thing that we ask of

people who call in is that you try to be brief so that we can keep the program moving and getting as many different callers as possible. Certainly all the people who want to be involved. It's very easy. All you have to do is dial us up here in Champaign or bed. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's the number we do also have a toll free line and that one is good anywhere that you can hear us that's eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 good around Illinois and Indiana where you may be listening if it's a long distance call for you and of course even people listening on the Internet around the United States also may use the toll free. So again here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Fessor Guggenheim Hello. Yes hello. Thanks for talking with us today. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. I would like to ask you maybe to talk a little bit personally in the in the beginning of our conversation as you do in the preface to the book about a little bit of the history of your involvement in these issues where you

write about the fact that certainly you've been working in the area of children's rights for a long time and had certainly been an advocate for children's rights and that at one point however you felt that perhaps you might be at odds with some of the other people who would have said that they were doing the same thing. Yes that's exactly what my experience was I found that I ended up rather quickly having the deepest arguments about. What are the not just our goals which is quite common in any civil rights movement where advocates are arguing over strategy. But we were arguing over outcomes over what results we wanted and that helped me realize that the children's rights movement is is unique among movements that were part of or vet gave birth in the in the 60s the civil rights movement being you know obviously hugely important a feminist movement. In that the

constituency plays no role in what we're doing. This is a movement of adults. It's a movement by adults and I even want to suggest it's for adults in some ways because we're using children so often for results that you know are going to have an impact on the society but it's our society the adult society and so these arguments I had with colleagues help me realize that there's this is a strange movement. A different movement from others and to be clear now for people who are listening. You also explained that with under the very large umbrella of children's rights there broadly are two areas one might deal with. One would be the relationship between our or relative rights of standings of children and the state. That's something else that's not really what you're focusing on here what you're focusing on is has much more to do with the how do we balance competing

claims about rights of parents and children or parents and the people who represent them and children and the people who say that they are representing them. Yes that is exactly correct. Blending the two discussions is what rights children should have when they are accused of crime when they're going to be suspended from school. And the like. Rights against the state. With the subject of what rights should children have within the family. Is this tricky and treacherous separating them you can have two very important separate conversations. The book doesn't attempt to blend the two. That's a hard task but the book focuses largely on rights within the family and what I came to appreciate the book is partly a reflection of my 30 plus years in the field of the field having started just around the time I graduated law school so I began working in

it at its beginnings. The reflection of the field led me to appreciate that story or to conclude that one of the enduring characteristics of the movement has been to become increasingly in the period that is in focusing on children as having rights within the family. It has led to policy practices and arguments that suggest that periods frequently are bad for their own children. And I think that's of course. Though sometimes true not just an exaggeration but deeply problematic. Well perhaps we ought to talk about or give you an opportunity to talk about how it is we got to the point where we actually talked and started talking about children's rights within the family because he would have been true. There would have been time not all that long ago in fact I'm sure people who will continue to make the argument today who would say that within the

family it is the parent or parents. It is for them to decide what rights their children have and this idea that somehow in that that the government should have some role in deciding what children's rights were. There would have been a time when they would have been strongly argued that it's none of the government's business. How did we get to the point where we started to feel as a society that there was some sort of societal interest in involving ourselves and family dynamics to the point that we would we would enter into a home and say to a parent your we feel that you're making serious mistakes here you're abusing your children you're unfit. And we might even go to the point where we would say and we think that it's a we society think that it's in the best interest of this child to actually be removed from this home I mean how do we get. Well we got to that point slowly and but I think for good reason. That is the general principle that you just described

is I think a sound one that as a society should have rules that provide for government to protect vulnerable family members from harm inflicted upon them within the family. We began with the idea that the family was metaphorically a zone of privacy that couldn't be penetrated by state officials but when we talk that way we were talking about marriage in a patriarchal society really only their children and their wives and that husbands were husbands and fathers had full power even to beat their wives. So part of this movement came out of the feminist movement that said look these rules were made by men and for bad. And the vulnerable members of the family were the losers. So. Piercing legal fictions such as unity within the family

allowing one family member to sue another or even something called the intra family tort of immunity was a major victory in twentieth century law allowing one family member to go to court and say This person did something wrong to be required changing Anglo-American law that once said we don't divide the family that way. There aren't individual members of the family as a single unit. So that then led to the medical discovery of the battered child syndrome contributed to the idea that we came to appreciate that children can be seriously injured by parents led to laws that for child abuse and protection by point in the book though is that not that that's a mistake as a first step but that the children's rights movement has helped take that very very far and so far that today it is common for most Americans to

think that the greatest risk to children's well-being is being exposed to child abuse in their own home. And that is anything but accurate. Add the children's rights movement has been used by some in society to contribute to an understanding that what's wrong with American policy today is that we let parents have too much freedom to raise their children. So that's the bottom line. You know way to the to the beginning inquiry. Why should the state play some role that should play some role. And the question is how much role in helping to rear children. I know that there are people who would as you do place the development of the idea of children's rights within this larger context of an expansion of the idea of rights since the nineteen sixties

and would make the kind of parallels that that you have between say the women's rights movement between the civil rights movement between increasing concerns about domestic violence and so forth. Now I think there are also some people be prepared to argue that the that children however are special that they somehow have a special status that they are different from adults. They are not always able to speak for themselves. Take care of themselves advocate for their own interest. And so for that reason we have a special interest that is society does in looking out for their interests because they often cannot do that for themselves. That's exactly right and going even further and we wouldn't want them to be looking out for themselves in addition. And so that then becomes a clash within the children's rights movement. Some who are liberationists who argue for children to be entitled to have the same rights as adults which be needs the right of self definition

of autonomy is seen by others in the movement as sets. At least when we're talking about children below a certain age whether that's 10 or 5 or 15 depending on who's saying it. So that within the movement there's a question of rights to decide what Life to Live and rights to protection. But most agree all agree with what you just said that children certainly should have the right to be protected from harm. The hard question becomes how much power should we give state officials in pursuit of the exercise of that goal. And what we have accomplished the children's rights movement has accomplished in the past 40 years is the greater is to transfer its of authority over the lives of children from parents to state officials and

judges. That at any time in American history. And the question I asking is is that good for children. Are we really improving their lives when we have to the extent we have today placed their fate in the hands of distant bureaucrats responsible for child rearing decisions. Oh that's a good opportunity for me to introduce again the guest with us our focus 580 Martin Guggenheim He's professor of clinical law at New York University and he is one of the leading experts in the United States on children and the law. His book if you'd like to read it that deals with this area in greater depth is titled What's wrong with children's rights. It's published by the Harvard University Press. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 0 9 4 5 5. You're basically. The basic argument that you're making here is that we have indeed in the pursuit of children's rights and with in the sincere and well intentioned

attempt to protect their rights. Perhaps we have gone too far. And in our effort to balance and maybe Rights is not always the best word to balance the interests of the well fair of parents and children that we've gone too far. On the one side and maybe we've heard on the side of children and their interest can you just to give an example. Give me a case study that would make the point well before giving you the case study let me just add that one of the things I think that is gonna write in the children's rights movement is that it is over concentrated on the notion of rights and leaving out the interests as something that's perhaps somewhere within the movement but not at its center at its center is rights. Now the reason for that is that lawyers are leading this movement. This is a movement dominated by lawyers in sharp contrast to the

children's rights movement in the early 20th century was led by social workers educators you know John Dewey Jane Addams. The odd lawyers who were interested in helping society reform itself to be more sensible in taking into account what children need and deserve. So the example I'll use is foster care and child protection. We have one of the highest rates in the world out of home care of children who are living in other than their birth families homes or adoptive homes. As a result of a court order barring them from living with their parents. Now that could be seen as the. Appear to be of a child loving society that ensures that won't allow children to be raised by bad parents. But experts who have studied child protection recognize that the overwhelming

reason most children are ordered not to live with their parents is because of the inadequacy of a support system in the United States. That has nothing to do with abuse or or bad parenting but it has to do with conditions associated with poverty. We have the highest rate of poor children of any nation that we like to compare ourselves with. We have the highest rate of children who are not given medical care dental care of any nation we like to associate ourselves with. But we have the highest number of lawyers that we give children. And that's what the children's rights movement has accomplished it gives kids lawyers and rights but it doesn't give them the human rights to. Service is because in our country role the rights are negative. They're not positive we have a right to

prevent something but we don't have a right to income or to services so that children's rights movement doesn't deal very well with the realities of American politics. It is focused on courts and lawyers and they have not been very successful in trying to reshape our understanding of what families that don't have a lot of money need and deserve what they need and deserve. American courts are not going to give them. So if the Children's Rights Movement weren't dominated by lawyers it wouldn't be thinking about going to courts as the main forum for improving the lives of children. I'd rather Jane Adams and John Dewey were still running the movement. We have several callers here let's start to bring them into the conversation we'll start with someone here on this. Cell Phone Line 1 Hello. Hi thank you for your topic I think it's very enter discuss one and I'm glad you're taking a societal approach. I just have someone who has

worked in child welfare in the past to violence shelter I think one of the issues besides the lack of support for people who have low income is the lack of support for children in the system here in Illinois per sample. If you were placed in foster care of a family member you often don't get the money that is awarded to foster families who are not family but the concern I have as a former child welfare worker is very often children are not protected even in say a county like Champaign County which is under investigation for over overreaction at seizing children. There are still plenty of children who are being deep not a daily basis by their parents. And. So while I was reform of child welfare I have to say I still think that not enough children are being protected so. But I like your

point of view and I'll listen. So thank you. All right. Will you want to comment on that. Oh I get I want oh I want to agree I am not an either or person here I'm not saying that we don't need to protect children and what is evidence we don't do it enough that we need to do better but the rest of my remarks still stand. All right let's take another call the next listeners in Ottowa Illinois lie number four. Hello. I have two questions the first one is is it my it is my understanding correct in that CPS actually received more government funding for the more children they take away from their their parents. Yes it is and it's an untapped in title but so if you kind of a skate a thousand children rather than 900 You were sees a further 10 percent of the funding for your agency. Yes. Oh boy. My second question is rights based theory that we seem to be moving on

with in our society where correctly we went from freeing the slaves to women's liberation. Now we're moving onto inanimate objects such as the world or forests which are animate but they're not conscious or animal rights or children's rights who really aren't able to speak for themselves. And here we have now another category of advocates who are demanding funds demanding hearing from the people in. For more money for themselves when in reality reality is everyone cares about children in the forest. But these people take it upon themselves to speak for the forests and their children and the animals. The bald eagles. I'm I'm wondering where this is going. Well I think there are real parallels with the other examples of the principle would be as I said earlier that there are advocates in the movement whatever it is environment

edible children's rights are not the objects or the subjects of the movement but yet they don't have a constituency. Frederick Douglass could speak for himself. Exactly so and I'm not a fan but some of these people claim to speak for the forest. Yeah but having said that we still have to get deeper right we still don't have to say that that by and that's an important insight but that doesn't condemn something it just means we have to address the subject with a little more delicacy. We have to realize that the advocate might have her old agenda that is being masked by claiming to be interested in something else. I agree with you 100 percent Thank you very much. Well I think though I think we have to be careful not to. Cloud the issue by bringing in related but indirect sort of points I guess I still find myself going back to the idea that children there are cases where protection is required and if it is that there are people who

for example might feel that physical violence was an appropriate way to discipline their children and if we as a society feel that that is not appropriate. And then we need to have some way to to deal with that. And if we get to the point where we think for the protection of those children they should be removed. I would hope temporarily from their family then don't we need to have some way to do that. Absolutely we do. One of the great victories of the progressive movement which was really the first children's rights movement was gaining societal consensus that government has a duty to protect most vulnerable citizens and that included for example child labor laws great fight social importance in the 20th century with some arguing it's none of the state's business it's a parent's right to permit her child to. Be gainfully employed at the age of 11 and our society ended up

entering that great debate on the side of saying no. Society has a right it is right for society I mean to place restrictions on that kind of freedom. As I say that's a that was a great victory. I'm not trying to turn the clock back and suggest that the government should not pay attention to protecting children who can't protect themselves when they are at risk of harm from their parents. The problem I have with the children's rights movement as it is currently operating in our culture is that it is a narrow lawyer driven movement that looks to the courts for help and you know what courts end up doing may end up giving judges more power to use to control family lives when the best answer for child. Welfare in the United States. It has to come in the legislature. It has to come in a recommitment to our society to

redistribute wealth to reduce poverty and to make it easier through family leaves and most importantly health insurance and dental insurance. Make it easier for parents to raise their children safely and well. But what has happened is when you make the point that we need to protect children from harm I'm not going to argue with you we do need to. But what is happened is that we have allowed a myth to to bloom in the past 20 years. The myth being that the worst danger to children experience in America is being abused by their parents. That is false. Let's take another call this is Bloomington Indiana. Why number two. Hello. Hi. You know for a move a movement that the child protective movement sponsored by lawyers is this movement this child rights movement is especially disgraceful

because it violates basic constitutional rights. And correct me if I'm wrong but but in virtually every state child protective agencies can take children from parents on the basis of Anonymous and anonymous informers. So some of the parents may have their child taken from them and the state refuses to tell them who their accuser is. Now that meant for for a movement sponsored by lawyers that violates Well it violates the Sixth Amendment. We have a basic right to know who the witness is against us and be able to cross-examine him. That's that's basic. Well you don't exactly state the facts be. There there there is a policy that prevents another Miss Coles for investigative purposes but children can't be removed without the investigator making it all of the I do in fact assessment that a child is at serious risk of harm. It can't be the another because coal is the

basis for the investigation. But it is not the basis for the removal. I have heard some cases in which children have been removed and the people who were supposed to be I suppose as you would say the investigator simply arrived at their door demanding to see their children. Of course you know those parents if they know their constitutional rights they would have known that they did not have to let those government government people in their in their house. That's true but sometimes they don't know their rights and then they simply take the child on the basis. Quite often it's a basis of of the of the parents religious belief simply on the basis of the fact that the parents may be a fundamentalist Christian or conservative or maybe it may have a horse spank the child and and the child is taken from them. There are a lots of problems in enforcing the child welfare system.

I certainly agree that it is not uncommon for children to be removed wrongfully and that the courts don't always work well in correcting those mistakes. But I don't blame that on the children's rights movement. That is the idea that we're going to want a mechanism by which we assign caseworkers to investigate allegations of child abuse. That does make sense to me. Would your criticism of how it's being enforced. And that's an important criticism but the concept is something I think a just society would support. My bigger concern is not only with how we enforce this practice but that it's the only thing we're talking about. We are only talking about parent abuse of children when in the United States it permits politicians to get away

with doing too little to improve the lives of children. You ask a governor of a state how are you demonstrating your concern for children. And they'll say we have aggressive investigation of child abuse and they get away with that as being a sufficient answer when it shouldn't be. Yes. OK with that thank you very much. All right we are a little bit past the midpoint here. And again I should introduce our guest We're talking this morning with Martin Guggenheim He's professor of clinical law at New York University and he's one of the leading experts in the United States on children and the law. If you're interested in reading more on the subject he's authored a book it's titled What's wrong with children's rights. The book is published by the Harvard University Press should be out there in bookstores if you want to take a look at it. Questions are welcome questions comments 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 again will go on to another caller this is someone listening in Champaign and line 1.

Hello. Yeah I guess I would like to bring a couple of points into the conversation first. I mean part of the illustrious history of the early children the rights movement like Jane Addams and John Dewey and so forth. I think you know my understanding is that until labor unions saw child labor as a threat to the wages of working men. What not much was done about child labor. I mean it was primarily economic motives and certainly understandable economic motives but not you know until there was an economic reason to conclude children from the labor force. It was not done until it was seen as not an efficient utilization of the labor. It was not done. You're exactly right. And I guess the other more copper Thank you. You know the more complicated issue in terms of you know there's a lot of apples and oranges. Sort

of. Underneath this conversation about child molestation and the interference of a child caring professions and so forth and you know when following the controversy you'll take care cases over the past 20 years starting with the McMartin case and going to North Carolina and up to then to the northeast and then into the Capturing the Friedmans and all this business. You know this isn't really about children's rights. I mean who are these people who are these police officers. District attorneys. Some of the social workers who have participated in this kind of witch hunt mentality. What this does that are you saying that this is this part of the children somewhere right so what you call the children's rights movement that you're. Critical of it or is this separate topic.

You know it's a wonderful set of questions. I do see this as part of it that is at least as being if this metaphor is acceptable analogy bedfellows. The children's rights movement has contributed to the McMartin prosecutions because it's allowed us to focus on ways that we can protect children and the children's rights movement has helped that along. But you're exactly right those are serving other agendas in the name of children and that the complication here is that it's not serving children it's hurting children. And yet we go to bed at night feeling better about the ways in which we're doing well in our society for children. What what we did in the process was frightened of putting their kids in daycare centers. You know what's that all about. You know we want

parents to have a culture in which you can't do well anymore with a single income earner in a two parent home. And yet we don't find easy ways to solve that riddle. It's your problem. We are a private society. We don't tell you how to live your life but you know the minute something goes wrong your the bad parent. It's very complicated and instead of tackling these problems we look for crises of the sort that you mentioned but certainly you wouldn't confuse someone like Marian Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund with the kind of mentality that prosecuting these these daycare and parent molestation cases. Bill Berry and Wright Edelman's work is the kind of work that frankly I think reminds me more of the progressive work that is she's focused on how to get legislatures to to be more generous

with respect to matters of children and their needs. And what about those who are working for universal health care for children and so on and so forth. I mean that's exactly. I mean how did the telephone who who is it you're focusing on here I mean what are they are you have to talk to sions are there professional organizations are you the American Bar Association the. You go you go look on websites for children's rights organizations and what you'll find are law offices throughout the country. Fifty hundred and fifty of them and their principal focus is on protecting children from their parents and going to court to try to sue over you know things around that. It what it's done to the U.S. people I'm really focused as a lawyer and a law professor and the legal profession it's a narrow but

very very large part of focus of the Children's Rights Movement. And is this a help generating movement I mean in other words are they proactive are they are they do they have and do they have an agenda Do they have a program are they or are they simply responding to cases that come to court. Or I mean how do you how does all this work well. It's complicated a little of both but what I've found over the past 25 years is as I meet new students coming to law school in high school and college today the word is out there that there's a great field of children's rights in law and I think what we've done is we've drained some progressive folks from other fields and sent them into law to advance children's rights and law has done very very little to accomplish that over the past 40 years.

So you think it's primarily negative not just a kind of mixed bag in terms of what they did but accomplished. Well it it it it is a mixed bag and earlier caller talked about the degree to which children are harmed when they're in state supervised. Care arrangements. I think it's a good thing that we have some lawyers addressing that problem. Another was I would not be happy to know that when kids are state wards Dola just worried about the harm that they are exposed to. They often don't get adequate health care they often don't get proper education. Not to mention that they are sometimes sexually and physically abused. So but. But that's odd we've spoiled the Children's Rights Movement contributed to 500000 kids being in foster care and now we need a children's rights movement to monitor the state wards. OK that's a complicated story but it's still not getting at the question of why or 500000 children in foster care in the United States. The land of the free and the wealthy. It's because

we're allowing that to happen as a culture. The children's rights movement is doing very very little to address that problem. So are you part you advocating fundamental changes in the nature of our social classes tomorrow. The patient system our educational system does provide a basic level of income for families that provide the kind of support and that would be necessary for families and especially single parents to you know to maintain their their children in adequate circumstances I mean do you see the fundamental quaff a class based analysis here. I'm happy to have this conversation and talk about what we should do but that's not the primary focus of this. Look at my work today which is it stead to suggest that those are the right questions to be asking instead of the questions we're now asking which is what rights should children have when should they

have lawyers when they go to court and the like in what what it what what we've done in the United States is refused to emulate Western European answers to. Supporting vulnerable families with free government services and a higher tax base. We we've we've rejected those solutions. But then along came people who said we don't care enough about children and the American response has been yes we do. We'll charge their parents without fitness when they are unable on their own to care for their children and we demonstrate our love for children by putting them in foster care. OK. Thanks Your Highness. Well let's it seems that that we have made two basic points here. We we've been talking in two areas one in the caller's help illustrate the point that there are lots of people pursuing a lot of agendas in the name of child welfare.

When in fact Child Welfare may be secondary to what it is that they're actually trying to achieve. And that what we ought to do is do more than just give lip service to the idea of family well-being and actually give it more attention and more money. That's all that's all well and good but let's come back to the to the legal arena which is after all your me your primary area of concern at least in as far as the book is concerned. In what way. Assuming that change will be glacial in what way would you see it possible to at least change the way that we approach child welfare in the legal arena. Perhaps then to give at least a little bit greater voice to to the social workers to the people who are aiming at representing the interest of the child through that avenue and not simply. Make this a business of

lawyers. I'm not sure I have an easy answer to that. I think that's a difficult nut to crack. We have to change the conversation. We have to challenge you know especially as we become a sound bite society that answers questions in less than 15 seconds. Talk to any American who is familiar with a tabloid or talk television inquiry. What do we need to do more to protect children. The answer is we've got to be more aggressive in our pursuit of child abuse in the home. I don't know. I don't have a terrific answer for how to change that perception. But experts know that's not the right answer. That's not that's not the truth. That's not the case of what's wrong in America.

But most bills passed in the state legislature and in the Congress that deal with children in child welfare in the past 30 years have been concerning foster care and removal of children from their parents home with the words child abuse and sex abuse widely used in this conversation. But health care family leave and all the other things that are less popular for election and whatnot are back burner issues even though they play a much more dramatic role in child welfare. Well you made the point a couple of times now in the conversation that people people think wrongly think that the greatest threat to the well-being of America's children is that they would

be abused by their parents. And while it is true that there are some parents who abuse their children perhaps we and I guess I start thinking about the way that media reports on families. Maybe we have maybe we have done too many stories on child abuse or the way that we have done them has. Have we. Given have we contributed to this belief that people have that that's the biggest biggest problem we have the biggest threat to kids is that they'll be abused by their parents. Well sure I think so though I think yes the media will cover stories and make headlines over the death of a child at the hands of a parent. Statistically extremely rare event but it stays in our mind. It's a horrible story and we remember it well. But it does tell it tells us very

little about the real problems of American family. In this our focus 580 introduce our guest we have about five. I have six minutes left. We're talking with Martin Guggenheim He's professor of clinical law at New York University and is recognized as an authority on Law and children. His the author of the book What's wrong with children's rights. It is published by the Harvard University Press. It is just out now questions and comments of course welcome home wants to call in real quick I'm sure we can get one possibly two in the time that remains here in Champaign Urbana. The number to call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that is go to anywhere that you can hear us. And that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana. And we do also have a toll free line again. Good. Around Illinois in Indiana if it would be a long distance call and that number is 800 to 2. 2 4 5 5 we do have another caller here couple of callers will go to Champagne next. Line 1.

Hello. Oh yes. Yes I'm sorry apologise when I've heard the entire conversation but the statement On ago it sounded as if you were kind of downplaying the sexual abuse and what not in the home. And I listen to a show called Love Lines pretty frequently and I'm always amazed at the sheer number of callers who admit to having been sexually abused whether by their parents or a family friend or whatever but it doesn't sound like that's not a major major problem in this country and not necessarily always their parents it can be a neighbor or what have you. But it sure seems like there has to be some sort of epidemic given I mean you know it seems like 50 to 75 percent of the people call in have been sexually or physically or psychologically abused. And I was wondering if there was a correlation between the fact that even if you have a high school diploma in this country when you find these cases of these children being attacked or killed or what have you these people don't have the basic

education you know I mean we're not talking about Rhodes Scholars here. So I was I guess I would just ask did you. Got any kind of a relation between the breakdown of the American educational system to sort of prepare people to be adults and to be capable of raising children. Thank you. I'll just hang up and some variants. I'm afraid I can't answer that. I don't know the self-reporting that you describe is as you describe it. I don't know what to make of it I don't know if that means it's been going on for thousands of years or only the last 40 or I don't know it's a hard question and I I don't want to pretend to answer something I don't know. Fair enough. Let's go to line two this is also champagne. Hello. Hi I didn't hear the beginning of it but I'm seeing this is in light of what happened with the Michael Jackson thing. Got a couple questions on that. Did that did they have to convict on

all the accusations on all the accusations that he had or that they had a few of the accusations or are one and the other thing is it seem like the jurors the base or judgment on the credibility of the witnesses and have you to me I think the parents should be just as much trouble for putting them in the situation like that I think the system is to be looked at amat cases are presented because as jurors you know went on the case of lack of reasonable doubt and like me it seemed like that they had some doubt they might have wanted to convict anyway. Well we have not been talking about criminal prosecutions that raises a whole different set of inquiries on the civil side when parents are accused of sexually abusing their children or failing to protect their children which could have been a charge brought against the parents of the boys in California for letting their children stay over at Neverland or whatever. You don't have the

requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt it's only a preponderance of the evidence the same. About of proof you need to win an auto automobile tort action for damages. It's much easier for the civil prosecutor to find a parent unfit then it is to convict somebody for criminal misbehavior. The consequences for civil prosecution of child abuse or neglect is that the state has the right to remove children from parents and even to terminate parental rights. That's another mood we didn't talk about in this hour but one of the signal victories of the Congress in 1990 It's seven seven supported bipartisan Lee with President Clinton leading the way was to redirect American goals of. Child

welfare from returning children to their parents as a primary first hope to becoming neutral and allowing adoption of children into voluntarily by terminating parental rights as an equally appropriate result. When children have been in foster care for more than 15 months and as a consequence we are a nation that is that voluntarily destroys parental rights and creates orphans. By court order. We do that more than any country in the world and that is seen as an example a prominent example of advancing children's rights. I question whether we should agree that that advances children's rights. So unfortunately now we're going to have to with more we're going to have to stop and my apologies we have a couple of callers that we can take a guess I find myself feeling unsatisfied

with where we end up. But I gather that you feel the same that you feel the same. Well I do both because this is a complicated conversation that could continue and because I don't have the answers as I indicated to a substantive question earlier. So much is I think we need to work harder on finding those answers. Well I want to thank you very much for giving us some of your time this morning we certainly appreciate it. Thank you. And our guest again is Martin Guggenheim Guggenheim He is professor of clinical law at New York University he's leading authority on children and the law and if you're interested in reading more on this subject you can take a look at his book it's titled What's wrong with children's rights. It is published by the Harvard University Press.