Podcast Ep215 David Tatel
Didrik Johnck: Welcome, welcome to the No Barriers Podcast hosted by Erik Weihenmayer. You'll hear from him in just a minute. In this episode, Erik engages in a profound conversation with Judge David Tatel, a leading figure in American law, whose career has shaped civil rights and justice in our country. Judge Tatel's journey, not only through blindness, but also through decades of work on landmark cases and the evolution of our legal system, invites us to rethink our assumptions about limitation and resilience.
Together, Erik and Judge Tatel discuss stories from his memoir, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice. They reflect on the realities of discrimination and consider the future of democracy and justice. If you're ready for a conversation that challenges, informs, and inspires, you're in the right place.
I'm producer Didrik Johnck, and this is the No Barriers Podcast.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's easy to talk about the successes, but what doesn't get talked about enough is the struggle. My name is Erik Weihenmayer. I've gotten the chance to ascend Mount Everest, to climb the tallest mountain in every continent, to kayak the Grand Canyon, and I happen to be blind. It's been a struggle to live what I call a No Barriers life, to define it, to push the parameters of what it means, and part of the equation is diving into the learning process and trying to illuminate the universal elements that exist along the way.
In that unexplored terrain between those dark places we find ourselves in and the summit exists a map. That map, that way forward, is what we call No Barriers.
Hey, everyone. This is Erik Weihenmayer. Welcome to the No Barriers Podcast, and David Tatel, Judge David Tatel, wow, this is so cool to have you on. I've been anticipating this for a long time, and, uh, you came out to Denver, promoting your amazing book, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, and, uh, you talked all about that book, and you talked about your career.
It was amazing, and we got to say hello quickly at that point, and, uh, now you're on the show, so good morning.
David Tatel: Good morning, Erik, and it's a real treat for me. I've admired you from a distance for years, and, I really welcome this opportunity to talk to you.
Erik Weihenmayer: Awesome. Yeah, yesterday we were chit-chatting just a moment, and you were you made me laugh so hard because you asked me whether, uh, my guide dog, uh, climbed Mount Everest with me, which is a, a common question a lot of people ask.
David Tatel: Well, it's actually on a website. Yeah. That's where I found it.
It says- I couldn't- That's what it says ...
Erik Weihenmayer: I, I couldn't find an oxygen mask to fit the dog- ... her snout, so. And you have a beautiful dog, Vixen, I know.
David Tatel: Yeah. She's a German shepherd. Yeah. She's a very special dog.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And she's from Fidelco, which is the place that I, the school that I, I use as well for my guide dogs.
David Tatel: Oh, I don't think I knew that. Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. I- You're Fidelco, right?
David Tatel: I love Fidelco. Fidelco's, they're, they're just so fabulous to us- Yeah ... Erik. In fact, I was on the phone with them just yesterday about some stuff, and we've ... Have you ever visited the place?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Yeah. In Bloomfield, uh, Bloomfield, Connecticut.
Yeah.
David Tatel: We were, we were up there last fall. In fact, we went for their Fall festival, and, uh, we saw the Puppy Olympics, and, um, it was really fun.
Erik Weihenmayer: They still only train G- uh, German shepherds 'cause they feel that German shepherds are the steadiest, like- Yeah ... kind of guide dogs that love working and have- Yeah
great memories and have a devotion to, to people Yeah. Yeah. So I've had five guide dogs now. That's- Five? That's how you know how old you are as a blind person, how many guide dogs you've had. Yeah.
David Tatel: Except for people like me who get a guide dog late. Well, you started late
Erik Weihenmayer: with your guide dog.
David Tatel: I started late.
Yeah. Vixen's my first dog, and I'm a lot older than you, Erik.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey, I have a question about your, um, your book. You recorded the intro of your book. Yeah. That was your voice. Yes. How do you do that? Do, are you reading braille, or are you- No ... doing that system where you're listening, to lines through a h- through a headset and then- Yes
kind of reciting them?
David Tatel: Yeah. it's a teleprompter, but it's an audio teleprompter. Right. So I have it in my ... I have a braille computer here.
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm-hmm.
David Tatel: And I, what I do is I break up the sentences- ... into fragments.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: And then, and then I just repeat it, and that's also the way I give speeches. You know, I give lots of speeches, and I break them up into these fragments, and then just hit the button on the computer to go to the next line. So it's like an audio audible teleprompter.
Erik Weihenmayer: Funny, that's what I'm doing right now. So I have earphones on, and I have all- Yeah ... my notes. I mean, if you read my notes, you wouldn't even understand them. They're just, like, little phrases, little scraps of- Yeah ... of lines that just prompt my memory,
David Tatel: Yeah. I do the same thing, Erik. Yeah. I do exactly the same thing. Yeah. Right.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey, so I loved your book so much. I just listened to it on, on BARD Mobile, which, uh, you know, is talking books.
Yeah, right.
uh, amazing. We'll talk about that a bit later. But, um, you know, blindness aside, your career is amazing. Like, if you had written a book and you weren't blind, and you just wrote a book about your career, it would stand on itself.
it was so good. The, the cases and the, and the, all the Civil Rights stuff that you've done- Yeah ... especially. like, I was blown away by these Civil Rights stories of, like, Port Gibson, Mississippi. Yeah. Um, d- you know, that was way back in the '60s, right? Do you wanna just tell that story real quick?
David Tatel: Yeah, sure, I'd be happy to. I'm so glad to hear your reaction to the book. Port Gibson is a little tiny town above the Mississippi River in, uh, in central Mississippi, and it's famous because, when, General Grant's army moved from Vicksburg to Jackson, and they went through Port Gibson, he sent an order to his troops saying, "This town is too beautiful to burn," and they never burned it.
And that's the name of the chapter about my Port Gibson case. It's called Too Beautiful to Burn. And to make a long story short, Erik, in the '60s, the NAACP throughout Mississippi organized boycotts of white merchants because the merchants in these little tiny towns wouldn't hire Black people- Right
although they wanted them as their customers. And so they boycotted them for years, and the merchants retaliated by filing a state antitrust action seeking damages for the harm they were doing to their businesses, and they won. For the lost business Yeah, they won. And they won in a Mississippi court.
They won a million-dollar judgment, which was a lot of money back in the '70s. And the NAACP and these individual boycotters, they didn't have a million dollars, and under Mississippi law, you can't appeal a judgment without either paying or posting a bond, and the NAACP couldn't do that. So I had worked with the NAACP for many years, and they asked me to come down and help.
And I went into federal court, uh, this Mississippi damage award was in state court, and I went into federal court and got a federal court to rule that, that the requirement to post a bond violated the NAACP's First Amendment rights because it denied them to right, the right to appeal. And, so that was a huge victory, and it cleared the way for the case to get to the Supreme Court, which held, in a case that's still cited today, that boycott activity of that kind is protected by the First Amendment.
So it's a great story.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Uh, it's an important case, but it also relates to my blindness, Erik, because, when I argued the case in the '70s, I was not using a cane. And yes, I was still having ... You know, I was getting help moving around. and I tell the story in the book about this wonderful judge I argued before.
Obviously, he was a white Southerner. He was just a really s- a man who took his oath of office seriously, and I could tell he, he sort of knew. He never asked me why I needed help getting to the lectern or why I had no notes when I got up there, but this man sensed that I had a visual problem. And when I went back to chambers with him to go over the order, he read it out loud to me- Mm
and told me what change ... It was a kind of a lovely moment
Erik Weihenmayer: for me. Isn't that wonderful, though? That, that before there were, like, laws around discrimination and everything, just, like, human decency- Yeah ... can prevail, right? Like, you don't need all these laws if humans are just good and normal. Yeah. And, and kind.
And,
David Tatel: and this man, his name was Judge, his name was Judge Orma Smith.
and, you know, he grew up in segregated Mississippi.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: And I'll bet he didn't know ... He may not have known any blind people.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. But
David Tatel: this man sensed that I had this thing, and he just responded in such a gentle, respectful way, Yeah. It was really pretty impressive.
Erik Weihenmayer: Now, when you look at a ... As a judge and a lawyer, like, when you look at, like, those laws back then, it gives me, like, pain in my gut. They're so flagrantly unfair. Uh, you don't get that probably anymore, do you? I mean- Well, those laws are now-
your sense of justice, you know?
David Tatel: Yeah, but the ... . the '50s and '60s in places, in Mississippi and Alabama- Yeah ... you know, that was American apartheid.
The segregation laws were rigid. And, you know, fortunately, we, the country has passed some very important civil rights bills, and that history is over.
But the le- the legacy of it still remains-
in many ways. The merchants were, you know, th- there were whites-only signs on all the doors and- uh, and Black people, they really wanted them as customers, but they- Yeah ... didn't want them to work there. And- But that was true all through Mississippi
Erik Weihenmayer: You moved on to the Office of Civil Rights, I think, and then, um, you went down and, like, kind of mediated these, like, educational, challenges, right? School systems, right, some down South were fighting, uh, integration, and so you- Yeah ... you would go down there and try to work with them.
And, and- Yeah ... I was kind of blown away again. Like, there were some schools that would rather lose federal funding than, than just integrate and do the right thing. They just fought it, right? Yep. Tooth and nail.
David Tatel: They fought it- And others- ... tooth and nail. Yeah. But in the end, Erik, the money made the difference.
Right. In the end, they wanted the money, and they took it and desegregated reluctantly.
But you know what the Southern school districts did was, they, you know, they were ordered to desegregate, and they fought it and fought it and fought it, and they finally did it when the Supreme Court gave them no choice.
But then, then they integrated the schools, but they put all the Black kids in special ed classes, and they disciplined them. In other words, they segregated the school.
Yeah. They, they- Mm ... there was... That's why it's called massive resistance.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And I was also really fascinated that you made a good point. We think of discrimination, and we think of down South mostly. But, like, Chicago school, public school system and St. Louis, I mean, like, discrimination was all over at that time.
David Tatel: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right?
David Tatel: That's exactly. Yeah. The only difference was that in the South, it was required specifically by state law.
You know, the s- the law said that, uh, Black students and white students have to go to separate schools. That wasn't, uh, true in the North. But in places like Denver, you know, and I worked on that case, too, kids were, s- people were... schools were segregated basically because people lived in segregated, separate communities.
But the school officials, the school boards, and the superintendents, they adjusted school attendance boundaries and did other things to reinforce the segregation. That is, to protect white people from having to have their children go to school with Black kids. So in the North, there wasn't...
there weren't laws, but they were just as unconstitutionally segregated.
Erik Weihenmayer: Wow. Yeah. So- I read books a lot. I listen to tons of books, and my partner Heather, the oth- you know, maybe like a year ago said, "You know, hey, like I notice that you read a lot of books where they're very black and white, like concrete.
You know, like right prevails over wrong, and j- justice prevails over unfairness." You know, you wanna see the hero win, like Luke St- s- you know, Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, he w- you know, prevails in the end, right? Right. It's, so we all have this kind of like sense of justice that we have in our hearts, right?
Like, that we wanna see the, you know, good prevail over evil, right? And so w- I'm just curious, like w- you must have had a sense of that when you were growing up, right? Y- where did you get that profound sense of like right and wrong where you said, I wanna do something about this"? I know originally you were, uh, more of a, of an engineer and scientist, but just curious about, you know, some of those foundational- Yeah
beliefs when you were a kid.
David Tatel: So, yeah. I'd say, you know, one of the interesting things, Erik, about writing a memoir, you've written books and-
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah ...
David Tatel: so you've experienced this, is that it gives you time to think back about your life and, reach conclusions that, you know, maybe you weren't aware of before you actually spent the time to think about it.
And during the three years I wrote this book I gave me a time to think back a lot, and I thought a lot about just that question that you asked. And I, I'd say there were two, two answers, two reasons for that. One was my parents.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: my parents were ... my father was a scientist. my mother was a, was a community activist and, they were progressives.
They cared about justice, and it was a topic at our dinner table all the time.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: Uh, my, my parents were, paid attention to public, to current events and they told, we talked about it, my sister and me and my parents. We would talk about it at dinner and, you know, I, I ... They were a huge influence on the way, what I learned.
And then, um, when I went off to the University of Michigan as a science engineer major, it was right at, in the middle of the civil rights movement-
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm-hmm ... in the
David Tatel: South. And, you know, I was, I was galvanized by that. It just struck me as As moving and important. And it, it really changed my life because I decided as a result of that to switch to political science because- Mm
I said, "Okay, I wanna be a civil rights lawyer. I wanna be just like those other lawyers who are going to Mississippi and Alabama and arguing these really big cases." And then and at, and at the same time, I had summer jobs in Washington in the... The... Here's a story that very few people know about, Erik.
The Kennedy administration. You know, President Kennedy believed in public service. He thought public service was really important. They invited- You met him once,
Erik Weihenmayer: too.
David Tatel: Yeah, I did. They invited 10,000, I think, students, college students, each summer to Washington to work in various government agencies.
And I had a job in the Department of Labor, of all places. Yeah. And I got paid. But the reason I mention all this is, I was there in 1963 and w- marched in the March on Washington with-
Erik Weihenmayer: ...
David Tatel: you know, a quarter of a million other Americans, I heard. I sat there with my feet in the Reflecting Pool, it was a really hot day, and heard Martin Luther King give his "I Have a Dream" speech.
So I was really motivated and inspired by-
Erik Weihenmayer: ... the civil
David Tatel: rights workers and the judges and that. So it's my parents and that, that experience that really did change my life.
Erik Weihenmayer: Well, you know, there's so much civil rights around Black and issues around Black and white and, and ethnicity and so forth. But, you grew up Jewish, so I was just curious.
You didn't really mention that too much in the book. did, it's not that easy being Jewish in America either in the '70s. No.
David Tatel: it... So my fa- my mother grew up in a very Orthodox Jewish community, family in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: Her, her father, his father, they were all Orthodox Jews, and that's what she grew up in.
My father was a very secular scientist.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: Jewish, but, but not observant. And I've always thought that they had a deal. That is, that my mother would be responsible for my religious upbringing until my bar mitzvah. But then I think my dad said at that point, "David gets to make his own decisions." And so I did have a religious upbringing.
I did s- Hebrew school and, a bar mitzvah, the whole thing. Um, but when I turned 13, I made my own decision. And although I am, am Jewish and- Yeah ... feel deeply Jewish, I'm not especially observant. listen, I, I've been fortunate. I don't think I've been knowingly a victim of antisemitism, but antisemitism remains a serious problem in our country.
Yeah. And it's, it's getting worse right now. We- That's for sure ... we see that on, throughout the country. particularly on the right, antisemitic activity is growing and getting more dangerous.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. 44 It never ends, does it? Thousands
David Tatel: of years. Never ends. , Erik.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. It's just, uh, continuing to pursue and perfect, right?
Yeah. Right. with this imperfect system.
Yeah.
And I, and I thought there was a really interesting part of your book where you said, like some... And it was just a brief statement. You said some scholars and politicians and so forth feel like the '60s were kind of the root of all our modern problems, but you don't feel that way.
David Tatel: No. I am... I'm a product of the 1960s. I'm a product of the, the values of the '60s, which were fairness and equity. a- now, were there problems? Yes. There were, you know, in the, particularly in the anti-war movement in the latter part of the '60s, there was extreme behavior that, on the left, that was just as inappropriate- Right
and dangerous as the same thing, on the right today. So it wasn't perfect, but I think the values of the civil rights movement and the Kennedy administration were the... they were good values. They were... I say in the book, they weren't liberal or conservative values, they were American values.
So I'm a proud product of the 1960s.
Erik Weihenmayer: I don't know. I guess maybe this is my cynical self coming out, but I feel when people say, "Oh, the '60s and the civil rights were the, you know, beginning of all modern problems," they're just kinda mourning the loss that, of when, you know, white men k- you know, kinda ruled and didn't get second-guessed and- Right
were on top of the world.
David Tatel: Yeah. Well, look what we're facing now. I mean- Yeah ... what we're facing with the Trump administration is an effort to roll back- Yeah ... all those and re-empower white men. That's what it's all about.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
Didrik Johnck: Hey, listeners. There's a bunch of in-person No Barriers events coming up that need to be on your radar.
Let's start in northern Texas, the first weekend in June with world-renowned blind painter John Bramblitt. He'll share his stories during a guided painting experience where you'll walk away with your own 11 by 14 masterpiece. The next day, join an all-abilities indoor climbing session with United Rocks.
Come for one day or both and be a part of a weekend built on connection, creativity, and possibility. Now, Grand Junction, Colorado, the last weekend in June is up next. Join Erik and friends for an evening of community and connection as he screens his film Soundscape And hosts a live Q&A. We'll carry that inspiration into the next day for an all-abilities hike at Powderhorn Mountain Resort.
All right. Lastly, come September, join all of us at the annual What's Your Everest event at Winter Park, Colorado. This is a chance to push your limits, connect with others, and be a part of something unforgettable. Learn more about all of these amazing events at nobarrierspodcast.com.
Erik Weihenmayer: I want to switch to, um, some of your thoughts around your blindness.
So when you were growing up, I mean, and a lot of your career actually, even though you had this ins- this stunning career in law, you were in denial a lot of your life, right? And, uh-
Oh, yeah. Right
Which is so true for most blind people. I mean, I was in absolute denial, right? It's too painful to think about this thing that's happening to you, right?
Right. It's so overwhelming, the easiest mechanism is just block it out, right? Deny it all.
Yep.
And that makes total sense. and you had all these cov- you called them, uh, coverup excuses. Yeah, strategies. Yeah, tell me about some of those, some of those coverup strategies.
David Tatel: Okay, I will, but I just want to pick up your first point, Erik- Yeah, yeah
about how we all cover it up. You know, when I was covering it up, I thought it was just me. I thought it was me. but one of the most profound things that's happened to me 'cause of the book- ... is
I've had hundreds of emails from people Uh, conversations, emails, letters, and they all say, "I read Vision and it tells my story too."
Mm-hmm. And you just told me you did the same thing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Of course.
David Tatel: I didn't know that. And this isn't just people like you and me who are blind. It's people with hearing disabilities and mental- Yeah ... and physical. Every- it turns out it's just human, and you put your re- you put your finger on it, right? w- it's, you know- And that's why I get nervous
Erik Weihenmayer: even interviewing, uh, somebody who's- Yeah
so similar, 'cause I keep going, every, like,- Yeah ... page I turn I go, "Wait, that happened to me. Wait-" Yeah. "... that was me."
David Tatel: See? See, Erik, that, I really, I, I, r- writing this was, as I said, a profound experience, but the most profound was the conversation you and I are having right now. Right. To discover that I wasn't alone, that every, that it was human to do what you and I did.
I, last September, I'm gonna answer your question in a minute. Sure. Go for it. Last September I did a joint book talk with Justice Sotomayor in Washington because-
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh my gosh ...
David Tatel: she's writing children's books, and we're doing a children's book about vision. And so we did a joint book talk, and we were interviewed by Nina Totenberg, you know, from NPR.
Yeah, of course. And Nina asked me the question you did, which is, "Give me an example." So I told her the story about, I read from the book the story about what I did in, when my, I'd go to the movies with my buddies on Saturdays. So instead of saying to them, "Would you guys get the popcorn? I can't see in the dark," I'd go get the popcorn and I'd count the seats down to the row- to the aisle, and then I'd count the rows up to the lobby and buy the popcorn and then count backwards and get back to my seat and hand out the popcorn. And I had lots of tricks. Anyway, so I read that part of the book.
And N- Nina then turned to Justice Sotomayor, and you know what she said? She said, "I hid my diabetes too."
Erik Weihenmayer: Huh. Yeah, right. I
David Tatel: mean, it's a universal story, right, Erik?
Erik Weihenmayer: That's what's so powerful.
David Tatel: So anyway, and I had all kinds of tricks, you know- Oh, yeah ... which I talk about in the book. some of them are funny, some of them are sad as I look back on them. And would I have been better o- you know, okay, so why did I do this?
I think the reason why I did it when I was 15 was different than 10 years later when I continued doing it. When I was 15 I wanted to be, I didn't wanna be different from my friends. Of course. And I was a little embarrassed, right? Right. Suddenly I'm told, we're told we have this disease, right?
So you're embarrassed about it.
But then as I, went through school, graduated, went to law school, then I began to worry that, wait, who's gonna hire a judge or a- ... lawyer who has a visual disabilities? So I hid that as much as I could. And, you know, I often say to myself, I wonder, I wonder whether I would've behaved differently if the ADA had been passed then Or I wonder if I would have behaved differently if there were some role
Role models were very important to me. Right. But I had no blind role models at all. None. There were no blind judges.
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh, if you grew up today, I bet it'd be a, a lot easier. A lot easier. Well, one of the reasons why we- Yeah, 'cause we talk about things now, you know?
David Tatel: Yeah. You and I, we do it publicly, right?
Right. And that's what I hope this book would do. I hope that this book would inspire, ... When I did the book, book talk at Boulder, y- you were off climbing- Yeah ... your mountain, I think. A young man came up to me afterwards, and he said, he was a first-year law student, and he said, "I wasn't sure I could go to law school."
Oh, h- he had RP, just like us. But he said, "I read your book and decided I could do it." I felt so good about that. Mm-hmm. Right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Yeah. of, you know, back to this universal-
David Tatel: Yeah ...
Erik Weihenmayer: stuff that we all experience, you know, I remember s- like, one of the most painful experiences for me was I went off on this fun trip with my friend in eighth grade.
We were, uh, got permission from our folks to go down to my grandparents' house, and we were gonna go to this amazing amusement park. And I was going blind to the point where I couldn't walk through an amusement park independently. And in eighth grade, I did not have the ability to say to my friend, "Hey, I can't see.
Can I grab your arm?" I, that, to me, that was like climbing Mount Everest. I couldn't do it. Yeah. And somehow, just this unspoken thing between us, like, he just let me grab his sleeve, and, we didn't even talk about it. He just kind of-
David Tatel: But he knew.
Erik Weihenmayer: He kind ... Yeah, he knew. Of course he knew. But in eighth grade, I mean, that's like
You know? Yeah. We don't really have the maturity. A- another universal- Yeah ... thing I thought was interesting was that you didn't ask for help. You wanted to you would wait- Right ... for people to offer help, and that's another one. I, I got on a wrong bus one time and went, like, the opposite direction because I refused to ask somebody the number of the bus.
David Tatel: hey, Erik, that's so familiar. I, I have all these memories of taking the bus home from work when I was practicing, when I was a young lawyer in Chicago, and the challenge of being able to be in the right place to be able to see the, sign on the front of the bus, you know? Right. And when the sun went down, I could see it much better 'cause it was lit.
But, uh, if it was light, I ... And I, and sometimes I would just say to people, "Is this the L4?" Now, I, they must have thought I was kinda weird, but otherwise I would have gotten on the wrong bus. But here's the other thing, and I'll bet this is true of you. I interviewed a bunch of my old friends when I wrote this book.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And
David Tatel: said, "When did you first notice?" And they noticed long before I ever told them. My friends were onto me. They knew something was going on, but they respected my desire not to talk about it,
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: So it was this silence for years.
Erik Weihenmayer: Uh, you had just mentioned your cane, and you didn't use a cane for a long time.
And- Yeah ... and that's a catch-22 in a way because you're thinking, I guess, "If I use this cane, it looks weak. You know, people are gonna judge me unfairly. First impressions," all that kind of stuff. But the sad part of that story when I read it was that you were right. They w- if you had held a cane at that time, they would look at you negatively.
Exactly. I mean, that's the sad mirror of it all, right?
David Tatel: That's exactly right. Yeah. No question about it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Um- So like your p- your f- fears weren't unfounded. You know what I mean?
David Tatel: I don't think so. Not at all. I think I was perfectly justified in the- Right ... 1970s and early '80s not to want to be seen as a blind person.
Erik Weihenmayer: Another thing that I thought about as you're going through law school and y- and y- you have to just read incredible amounts of material, reams and reams of material, man, that must be so challenging with a visual impairment, Yes. Another thing I related to so profoundly. Did you- Like, yeah, like in, in college trying to like read, figure out how to read books that- Yeah
weren't recorded. I remember my girlfriend sat in the college bookstore with me before finals and would literally be sitting on the carpet, like reading me these books so that- See, you- ... I, I wouldn't fail the test. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
David Tatel: Well, I really admire you, Erik, and everybody else who went through high school and college that way.
I could still read when I was in college and law school.
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I
David Tatel: didn't have that challenge. It was hard to read. Right. You know? I was ... I, I had to be in the right place with the right light.
And sometimes I couldn't see the blackboard, and, uh, I guess we don't call them blackboards anymore, whatever they are.
Yeah, right. So, but, but I didn't have the challenge you did. I was able to read everything myself even though it was slow. Um, so I consider myself fortunate in that my RP was slower than, than others. And it wasn't really until I was in my mid-30s that reading became impossible,
Erik Weihenmayer: And then you had secretaries and things and, and- Yeah
d- different ways of, Yeah ... we'll get to this, but I mean- I had a lot of support ... you started learning how to use technologies and so forth. Yeah. Yeah.
David Tatel: Yeah. I had a lot of support.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right. That's amazing.
David Tatel: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: In fact, one of the things that I, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but one of the things that I thought was funny, it's not even that important, but you used to use Dictaphones.
My dad, I remember- Right ... I remember my dad- Uh, in his Wall Street office doing, you know, these Dictaphone messages- Right ... to his secretary that would then type up everything. Yeah. The world's changed so much. It's so crazy- It really is ... when you look back on these things. Yeah. That,nobody under 40 would even know what a Dictaphone is anymore.
Yeah. Or 50, I would say.
David Tatel: I had a whole collection of them. Yeah.
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Erik Weihenmayer: So tell me about the story of accepting blindness, of accepting using a cane, of, you know, getting onto this path where you began learning braille and- Mm-hmm
all these skills of blindness.
David Tatel: Okay, I think there's sort of two stages to it. the, you know, the crisis stage was in my mid-30s when suddenly in about six months my vision declined dramatically. Mm. You know? And I couldn't read. I started g- getting my secretary to read to me, and, uh, I found a braille tutor.
I figured I better learn braille. And, I started using, you know, Library of Congress audiobooks.
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm.
David Tatel: Remember, that was then when they came on records. Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: and they gave you the records.
David Tatel: I remember those, those floppy
Erik Weihenmayer: records, right?
David Tatel: Well, this was pre-floppy, Erik. Oh. This was, this was solid records, and they came with this clunky record player.
Yeah. Um, so I listened to lots of books, and, as I s- and I, and at that point I started ... You know, the people in my office, I was at the Lawyers Committee at the time, you know, I told them what was happening because, r- it wasn't safe for me to travel by myself, so I would travel with them. But I still went back and forth to work myself.
You know, I knew the streets pretty well. Right. And still. And then finally, I remember, I had to go on a, to a conference in South Carolina, and I didn't have anybody to go with me, and I really wanted to go to the conference, and I thought, "Okay, you've just gotta get a cane." And I tell the story in the book about how Edie found a blind tap dancer in the community center who taught me how to use a cane, but only at night, 'cause I didn't wanna be seen walking around with a cane.
but what I immediately discovered was how much better things were with the cane. There was no more misunderstanding. Right. There was no more bumping into people or people wondering, "What's with this weird guy?" I could ask questions and get answers. the cane was, even though it was a big step to use it, it was liberating because it avoided all the embarrassment about not seeing people, not saying hello to people, getting lost, having to explain to someone I needed to get somewhere but couldn't see.
it was just so complicated. But the cane solved all that. So that was the first big step.
Erik Weihenmayer: Before you were, uh, like living with this invisible, disability in a way because, yeah, as, as you just mentioned, like people don't know what your challenge is, so they just are like- Mm-hmm ... "What's wrong with this guy?"
Yeah, exactly. The cane
says, "Hey, I am blind." Yeah. And it's, it's so much easier for everyone, right?
David Tatel: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Well, when I interviewed some friends of mine as I was writing the book, some of them did say, "Well, we just thought you were weird." Right. You know? I mean, I remember one guy said, "You know, I came up to you at the theater and stuck out my hand and you ignored me."
Erik Weihenmayer: Right. I don't like to be ignored. I thought you were mean or rude.
David Tatel: Yeah. So that-
Erik Weihenmayer: Somebody once told me, they said, "I wasn't sure whether you were blind or stoned."
And I said, "Well, I live in Colorado, maybe I'm both."
David Tatel: You're both,
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah.
David Tatel: All right, so that, that was then. And then, then, but even after that, Erik, you, you know, as I talk about in the book, I didn't talk about my blindness. I was determined to be known as a judge- Right ... who happened to be blind, not a blind judge.
I didn't wanna be a blind judge. I wanted people to think I got my job on the merits and that I was a good judge period, and that the blindness had nothing to do with it. Well, so why, why am, why did I take the next step? I mean, why am I ... you speak a lot around the country. I've had over 100 events about the book.
Why am I appearing before crowds of people I don't know and talking about blindness? I think there are two reasons. One is writing the book. Writing the book was liberating. Yeah. Because it forced me to deal with these issues. You know, my wife, Edie, it was a very important part of writing this book, and, you know, blindness affects her as much as it does me, just in a different way.
And so the more we talked about it, the more I got comfortable, a- about it, and I wrote things in the third year of writing that I never would've written in the first year of writing. I just got more comfortable with it. And the second thing is Vixen. Hmm. You know, Vixen, my guide dog,when you have a cane, people People don't ask you about the cane.
But when you have a guide dog, everybody wants to talk to you. But you can't be, you can't have a guide dog and be uncomfortable talking about blindness. And also, she gave me- The
Erik Weihenmayer: perception of us being ax murderers is much reduced- Yeah ... when we have a guide dog.
David Tatel: W- particularly a beautiful German shepherd-
like you and I do. Right. Yeah, exactly. And also, I think, again, this is, these are ideas that came to me as I wrote and thought.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: The independence Vixen has given me. Yeah. My ability to do things myself, I think helped a lot also. You know, I, when we're done with this, our conversation, I'm gonna, Vixen and I are gonna go for an hour and a half walk on these dirt roads.
Yeah. And, you know, five years ago I couldn't do that myself. I, that's really empowering.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. That's amazing. So that's my story.
David Tatel: Yeah. Yeah. Sweet
Erik Weihenmayer: Vixen, I can't wait to meet her. Yep, you're
David Tatel: gonna meet Vixen, her, yep.
Erik Weihenmayer: The irony of it is that I remember when you interviewed at a law firm and you had to come clean about your visual impairment, the guy interviewing you just said, "No big deal."
Yeah. "What do you need?" isn't that funny? So funny. That you just built it up- Isn't that crazy? ... in your mind like, "Oh, my gosh, it's gonna be awful," and I, and I- Yeah ... it's this huge step to admit this thing, and then the, the way it's perceived is like, "Cool, what do you need?"
Didrik Johnck: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Tell us that story just quick, 'cause I didn't tell it too well.
David Tatel: Yeah. Okay, so the story is that, so I was, I was a director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and, you know, my friends at the Lawyers' Committee knew that I had this growing visual disability, but nobody else knew.
Uh, and so I was, uh, this law firm, Hogan & Hartson it was called, and wanted, offered me a job.
And I agonized and, about it, and, you know, Edie had always been encouraging me to, be more forthright about it. And I decided, I can't mislead this law firm. They're gonna hire me, at least I want them to, and they're gonna take me in as a lawyer. I can't mislead this law firm." Yeah. So I summoned up all my courage and I said to the partner who was interviewing me, you know, "Look, I, I ought to be candid with you.
I'm, I have RP and, I'm gonna probably end up losing a lot more sight." And that's the first time I ever said that to anybody other than my wife. And, uh, and h- you know, his reaction was just so reassuring to me. He said, "Oh." I say in the book, you know, he, he didn't even f- he didn't even seem to feel sorry for me.
He just said- ... "Okay, what do you need?" I mean, that was the end of it. It was like, okay, um, I c- I'm really tall, so I need a big desk.
it just ... And the firm gave me everything I needed. It wasn't an issue. I needed an extra dictaphone, an extra dictaphone showed up. I needed an extra person to read to me, an extra person to read to me showed up.
It was great. Which again is just- And as it should be ...
Erik Weihenmayer: this is just like, we overcomplicate this thing sometimes, you know? Like, it's just, "Hey, what do you need? How can I support you?" And- And because- Yeah, but here's the
David Tatel: thing, Erik. I talk to a lot of law students. Not a lot, there aren't that many blind law students.
And they're struggling, you know. The, and these are some of the best students in the, I mean, these are the top of their class- Mm-hmm ... these kids. And they're struggling in law firms. the difference for them and me is when I finally came clean-
and went to this law firm, I was already an established lawyer.
I had been practicing law for 15 years.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: People knew I was a good lawyer.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yes.
David Tatel: Whereas these students- the law firms don't know what they're getting, and none of them have had any experience with blind people. So they're saying, "Wait a minute. How's this gonna work?"
and they're not coming in with recommendations from other lawyers.
And so it's, that's, that's the challenge. So interesting. Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, 'cause you had the- That's interesting ... you had the reputation already. Right. you had built your career-
David Tatel: Yeah ...
Erik Weihenmayer: a- you know, as blindness was progressing. Yeah. That is a big difference, isn't it? Yeah.
David Tatel: It's a huge difference. It's a huge difference.
I, I was very fortunate i- in that sense. I mean, it, you know, life is a combination of luck, but also making things happen.
And, I was really fortunate not to lose my sight until after I had a reputation of being a, a, a g- a good lawyer. So that it, it didn't s- it wasn't a risk for people to hire me, you know, or clients to- Mm ... hire me. Whereas it's very different today for kids coming out of law.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, for sure. Another thing I loved is that, you know, the story. You'd mentioned Edie. It's a bit of a love story there when you talk about her. Yeah. Uh, and even admitting your blindness to her, or, or admitting the fact that you will possibly be blind someday.
Yeah.
And, uh, that, I thought that was a cool story too.
Yeah.
David Tatel: Well, she wasn't the first person.
Erik Weihenmayer: She didn't, she didn't seem to balk.
David Tatel: No. We were dating. I, I suddenly realized, hey, I really like this girl. This could be serious. I sh- I need to come clean with her. And I tell the story, we were both in Chicago at the time, and we went for a walk along Lake Michigan, and I sat down and I said, "Edie, I have something I have to tell you."
And, you know, we weren't engaged or anything. She could've walked away.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: But she didn't, fortunately for me. And, you know, hey, look, we were really young. falling in love, the world was an exciting place. And besides, I mean, did I think ... I mean, they told ... They didn't guaran- ... They didn't say, "You're gonna lo- go blind."
They said, "You might," but they didn't say- Right ... I would. And so we're, we're 21 years old and optimistic, and who wants to con- who wants to construct their lives around, "Oh my God, I'm gonna lose my eyesight?"
Erik Weihenmayer: Right. I
David Tatel: probably hoped that it wouldn't ever happen.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Right? Yeah, for sure.
David Tatel: I'll bet you went through the same thing, right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, yeah, of course. I, I hoped and hoped. You did exactly the same thing. Yeah. And, and then reality happens. Yeah. Yeah. I also liked the idea that you've talked about that you're not one of these folks that's like, "Hey, I'm glad I'm blind," right? Like, I feel the same way. Like, I'm not happy I'm blind.
I'm not like- Yeah ... "Hey, I'm so happy I went blind because," you know- No, I agree ... "it, it made my life great." No. But yes, there are gifts, that come along with blindness, of course, and you wanna find those and live a meaningful life. But you were fully, admitting that y- you miss cumulus clouds, and playing tennis, and, uh, seeing the faces- Yeah
of your grandkids. I thought that was really good honesty there.
David Tatel: Well, I'm glad. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you probably feel the same way. I just ... You know, here's what I think about that. Blindness is a very personal thing, and e- everybody deals with it in their own way. And, I know about, I've read the books about people who celebrate blindness and the blindness world, um, and that's fine if it works for them.
It's just not me.
And like you, I, as I say in the book, I would rather be able to see. Getting on airplanes first is not enough of a compensation for being blind. Or
Erik Weihenmayer: getting to the front of the lines at Disney World. Yeah, Right.
David Tatel: So yeah, you, I suspect you and I think exactly a lot about all these things.
Erik Weihenmayer: you started learning these great technologies of blindness. Uh, you learned how to use a, uh, a first, a, a Perkins Braille writer. I still have one of those sitting in my cabinet, these giant, metal- Aren't they funny? ... dinosaurs that type- Right ... out braille onto pages. Yeah. Right. Hilarious, right? Yeah.
They're hilarious.
David Tatel: I still use
Erik Weihenmayer: mine from time to time.
David Tatel: You do?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Uh, when I- Uh-huh ... wanna have some braille notes in front of me.
David Tatel: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: and then you learned to, uh, you learned braille. Yeah, uh, you- Yeah ... learned to use a Kurzweil machine. Yeah. Talk about some of those cool technologies that you began to embrace.
David Tatel: Yeah. Well, you just mentioned them. Um, so I mean, the main one was ... I'm not very good at braille- Me either ... Erik. I can't ... I mean, I can read it letter by letter. I use it mostly for typing. I can type Braille. Yeah. But unfortunately, it's all Braille one. I, I should have learned Braille two. It would've been much faster.
but so I just use a Typtaphone. For me, uh, yeah, I was an early user of a Kurzweil machine, which was liberating. It was great.
Erik Weihenmayer: And that for people, so they don't know, is like you lay a piece of paper onto this screen, and it translates that into, uh, a voice synthesizer. Exactly, yeah. So essentially it's reading your documents.
David Tatel: Yeah. It reads it out loud. Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: I mean, you could do that with your iPhone now, but back then that was like a huge invention.
David Tatel: Yeah. That was a very big deal, text-to-speech. That was- Yeah ... and Ray Kurzweil's the guy who did it. So I'd say the t- two big innova- the things that really helped me was first of all, the Braille computer.
I got an early Braille 'n Speak. Remember those?
Erik Weihenmayer: I had one.
David Tatel: Yeah. Okay. I had ... I used one for 15 years. I use ... the Braille 'n Speak was wonderful for me because I finally could type my notes, I could give speeches. It was really awkward to send an email, so I hardly ever did that.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: But I got really good with my Braille 'n Speaks.
And, you know, near the end when they stopped servicing them, I remember I, I went on, I went onto eBay and I found a bunch of Braille 'n Speaks and bought them just so I'd have a backup. And then- They were
Erik Weihenmayer: simple, and they were easy to use. Yeah. I loved them.
David Tatel: Yeah. And then I, you know, they, uh ... What was the name of that place?
Blazie Engineering.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: you couldn't get them repaired, but I found this guy in New Hampshire whose hobby was fixing Braille 'n Speaks. And so I'd send them up to him, and he'd fix it and charge me $100. So I kept these things going as long as I could. And then, I got a new, I got a, um, I forgot what it was called, uh, maybe 15 years ago.
Erik Weihenmayer: The next iteration. Yeah.
David Tatel: Yeah. No, but not Blazie. But now I use a, um, a Braille Sense from HIMS.
Erik Weihenmayer: I have one too. Yeah. I find it a little bit complicated still. I haven't taken enough time to really dive into it. Me too. It's- I use maybe- Like I'm kind of more in the Braille and Sense loss because ... By the way, for people who aren't blind, these are these br- small Braille computers that you type with, uh, in Braille, and it, a- and you're reading a screen.
It's like an embossed screen with Braille on it. So they're really cool.
David Tatel: Actually, mine didn't even have embossing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: It didn't have any of that. It just- Right, in the beginning ... you just listened. You stuck a headset in, you stuck- Yeah ... a headset into the jack. My kids called it Dad's br- uh- toy because- Yeah
it was bright red with yellow buttons or something. So anyway, but the, the really big innovation for me and for you and everybody else has been, you know, the world went digital, and so I didn't need paper anymore. And with text-to-speech technology, uh, suddenly ... Here, here, I wa- I try to expl- when I went on the court, Erik, I had, in addition to my four law clerks, I had an additional reader.
And i- in fact, I had a halftime reader also. I had one and a half people, and they were in my office all day.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Eight hours a day, reading to me. Everything. Yeah. Letters, briefs, memos. In my last couple years on the br- uh, court they, they read to me maybe 1% of the time, 'cause I could read everything myself.
And now with the iPhone, you know, my ... The iPhone is my declaration of independence. I can do all kinds of things with this that I didn't used to be able to do. And so, uh, you know, it's a lot easier to be blind now than it was 30, 40 years ago. I'd still rather not be, but it's definitely easier now.
A lot easier now. I can do s- let me put it this way, 'cause I'll bet you feel exactly the same way. The goal for me, this blind person, is independence.
I wanna do as much as I can by myself. I can't drive a car, okay. Somebody's gonna have to drive me around. But I wanna do everything else myself, and that's what text-to-speech technology does.
I don't have to call up my office and get someone to read me anything anymore. Sure, I might have to call up and have them send me a document that I can then read on my iPhone, but I don't need another human to read it. And now, thanks to Vixen, I can go off and walk by myself too. So although she doesn't like it when I say I'm walking by myself because I'm really not.
I'm walking with Vixen.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah,
David Tatel: for sure. The whole goal is we wanna do it ourselves, right? Yeah. Be independent.
I hate it when the technology goes bad and I have to ask Edie for help. Oh my gosh. She doesn't mind. Still happens. She loves it, right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: But there's so many times when, something goes wrong and I have to ask for help again.
I don't really like that,
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey, everybody. This is Erik, and I wanna take a little break from our interview to tell you about No Barriers. Obviously, we're interviewing these amazing No Barriers pioneers, but behind this podcast is an organization called No Barriers, predicated on the idea that what's within us is stronger than what's in our way.
Our mission at No Barriers is to help people with disabilities to break through barriers, to tap into the light of the human spirit, and to reclaim their lives, sometimes to reclaim their potential In the business of shifting mindsets, and it's proud work, and I hope you'll get involved. Learn more about us.
Check out our newsletter, NoBarriersUSA.org, nobarrierspodcast.com.
... Dave, you had a lot of mentors and door openers, but you briefly mentioned some discrimination that you face as a blind person. You know, like you talked about getting kicked out of a, a Lyft, I think, uh, which is still- happening to blind people. Um-
David Tatel: Happened to me last week with Uber this time.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, and it's amazing that still happens. So I guess my question really is ... Well, one is, like, you said your blindness, like those discrimination episodes in your life, they c- they can't really influence your judging. You know what I mean?
Like, I thought that was really interesting, like your personal feelings like of discrimination can't influence the way you judge, right? Bec- because- Well, I- ... it, it's not about that, right? It's not about you. It's not about your personal opinions and, and- No ... experiences, right?
David Tatel: Yeah, you ... W- as a judge, you have to set aside your personal views- Yeah
and your personal experiences and apply the law. Right. You can't let your ... So I, and I, I-
Erik Weihenmayer: That must be hard to do, though.
David Tatel: It is hard. It's a real- Yeah ... challenge. It's the hardest thing about being a federal judge. But I, and I talk about that a lot in the book. I have a-
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah ...
David Tatel: section that says, "Well, did blindness affect your judging?"
And I write about that.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: And i- that's another thing that, you know, I hadn't thought much about that, Erik, when I wrote the- until I wrote the book. But my editor at Little Brown, he said to me, he asked me that question. He said, "You know, you should really write about whether your blindness affected your work."
And I said, "I don't wanna write about that." And he said, "Well, do you want people to read your book or not?" Right. Uh-huh.
Erik Weihenmayer: All right. there's a lot of flaws in the judicial system, but one I will tell you, and I just wanna get your thoughts here since I have you in front of me. So every blind person has ex- has experienced, discrimination.
I was in a restaurant in New York City. My partner goes in. She goes ... guy says, "Yep, there's a table right there for four." And I was out there with my dog 'cause I know that if I walk in with a dog, they're gonna say there's no table. And so I walk in, and I sit down. The dog's very politely sits in the corner, out of the way.
The guy says, "I'm not serving you, not serving you with that dog."
David Tatel: Really? When did this happen?
Erik Weihenmayer: Like a year ago. A year. "I'm not serving you," uh, and, and I s- with that dog. He said, "You gotta get out of here." And I said, "Well, I'm not moving." and I sat there for like 45 minutes, and I said, uh, we- I'm just gonna sit here till you serve me," and he wouldn't serve me.
So eventually I called the po- police. I c- and I said, "Hey, this is a non-emergency, but I'm being discriminated against with my guide dog, and it's a clear-cut case. Could you have the police just come by and just read them the law? I don't want them, anyone arrested or anything, just read them the, tell them that this is unfair."
And the police said, "Hey, this is not a criminal case. This is a civil thing. You gotta get a lawyer, and you gotta go and fight and do all this stuff." And I'm like, wait a second, so the onus is on me as a blind guy when I'm totally mistreated to, like, now I have to go hire a lawyer and go through this complicated process?
You know what I mean? Like, I-
David Tatel: Yeah, that's ridiculous.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. So, so tell me what your thoughts are, like, around that. Like, what, what could someone do? You know, what, what-
David Tatel: Well, you have to decide ... I mean, I remember two years ago, Edie and I were, went out for dinner. We walked in this restaurant we hadn't been in.
The guy said, "You can't come in with the dog."
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: And I s- in fact, it happened twice in two different restaurants, and, I said, "Oh, you know, screw you," and I left. I just ...
Erik Weihenmayer: Part of me is- You never said, "Dude, I'm a federal judge."
David Tatel: No, I didn't do that. Edie, Edie wants to explain it to them. Edie will say, "Look, this is a guide dog.
You are legally required-" Right ... "to let the guide dog in here." She wants to have a conversation with them, and she's done that with a bunch of Uber drivers.
like, I got, I got excluded from an Uber just a couple weeks ago in Berkeley. Yeah. And I file complaints with Uber and everybody else, but nothing ever comes of it.
But here, I'll tell you what I have done, and I've taken legal action, Erik. Well, I haven't done it yet, so I'll just tell you what I'm about to do. I'm not an opera person, but last year we went to two operas in New York at The Met. Mm-hmm. Are you an opera person? Have you been to operas? I've been to
Erik Weihenmayer: one.
David Tatel: Okay. Yeah. Well, I've been to two.
And these were in Italian. Yeah. And of course, there was translation on the little screen, right? Right. For people to ... But you ... But they didn't convert it into speech.
So there I was sitting there for three hours, I paid $100 for a ticket-
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah ...
David Tatel: and I couldn't listen to it, so I'm gonna take legal action about that.
I feel really strongly about it. And, you know, I think you did exactly the right thing in the restaurant, but I can't believe the police said what they did. That's outrageous.
Erik Weihenmayer: Well, you know what I did? I wound up standing up. I was so embarrassed. My friends were embarrassed. But I stood up in front of the entire restaurant, and I did the thing where you bang your glass with a, a, a spoon.
Yeah. And I said, "Hey, everyone, I just want you to know that I'm blind and I'm being absolutely discriminated against with my dog here. And, uh, and so I, I don't think any of you should be, giving business to this restaurant. I think this is just-" "... really poor behavior." And I did, like, this speech and then I walked out.
At least I felt like- And did ...
David Tatel: What did people ... How did people react?
Erik Weihenmayer: They l- they, kinda looked down at their menu and, and- Oh, yeah, right ... just hid their faces. They didn't wanna get involved. Yeah, right. It's New York City, you know. But, uh- Yeah, ... so you had lots of interesting disability and discrimination c- cases that you judged.
I thought one really interesting one was, uh, around the US dollar, US money that you recused yourself of, I think. Yeah. Because ... But if you think about it, okay, so just a quick explanation, right? Like, US cash, when we actually used to use cash, they're all ... The bills are all the same size. If you go to any- Yeah
almost any other country, there are different sized bills, so therefore blind people can say, "Okay, that's a smaller bill. That's, you know, a certain denomination." But in US you can't do that, right? Right. Seems like that's kind of like a clear-cut case of, like, Americans with Disability Act, right? Like-
David Tatel: Well-
you should- ...
Erik, the law requires the Treasury Department to make dollars accessible.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: The c- Congress already passed that law.
Erik Weihenmayer: Really?
David Tatel: It says ... It directs the Treasury to make currency accessible to blind people. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And the case, the reason I had the case is the American Council of the Blind and other groups- sued the Treasury Department 'cause the Treasury Department wasn't doing it. Right. They were refusing to do it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: And i- in the federal courts you're, assigned to cases randomly. Judges don't pick the cases they serve on. Right. And I was one of the three judges on the case. And I recused myself, not because I thought I couldn't judge it fairly.
I knew I could. I knew I could apply the law- And reach the decision that was correct even though I was blind. I had no problem with that. But I worried that the public would wonder whether the, my court in ordering, eventually ordering the Treasury Department to spend lots of money making currency accessible.
I, I worried that the public would think, "Well, they just did that 'cause there's a blind guy- Right ... on the j- on the court." And so, I didn't do it... I did it for the integrity of the court- Of course ... and, and the political process. So I t- I ran into a, a lawyer who does disability work a year or two ago, and she said, "I love your book, but you shouldn't have recused yourself." So I still think I did the right thing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. So why aren't bills then at this point different sizes? Or-
David Tatel: Because the, the Treasury won't do it, and the courts have ordered them, and they keep getting extensions of time. And you would think Congress would hold hearings- ... and make it clear to the Treasury they want them.
But Erik, we don't really have a Congress anymore-
Erik Weihenmayer: Right ...
David Tatel: that does its job. Yeah. And the courts, the courts have done what they can, but in the end, it has to be the Treasury Department. They keep saying they're working on it. Mm-hmm. You know, now you know what they do? You can go online, and you can get a, uh, one of these little devices that will read you what bill it is.
Well, who needs that? Right. That's ridiculous.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. They'll
David Tatel: give you one if you want
Erik Weihenmayer: it. Right.
David Tatel: Oh, interesting. Who wants that?
Erik Weihenmayer: Got it. So that's their way around it. Yeah. I see.
David Tatel: Yeah. They give you this little device.
Erik Weihenmayer: But you had fascinating cases. Like you... I think there was, like, a deaf woman who was in a medical facility, and they wouldn't, uh, you know, do sign language with her.
And the court- Yeah ... just, like, looked away and said, "Hey, you know, like-"
Yeah "...
she doesn't need sign language." She... well- No, that's not, not that ... how... Yeah, tell me, t- Yeah, but- Yeah, tell me the story. Okay.
David Tatel: First of all- Get it right ... it wasn't my ca- it wasn't my case.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: It was the Su- it was in the part of the book where I'm beginning to criticize the Supreme Court, and this was an example I used.
Yeah. So what happened in the case was that this ca- there, there was a woman, uh, who needed a hearing interpreter. She was eligible for government-funded, physical therapy. And she said, "Okay." She went to this contractor that did it, you know, had a program for physical therapy. She said, "You know, I need an sign language interpreter so I can understand what I'm supposed to be doing in these classes."
And they said, "Nope." They said, "Just read lips. Watch what other people are doing." And that's what they made her do for a couple of months. It was embarrassing, right? So she sued, and everybody agreed that she had been discriminated against.
The lower court agreed that she had been discriminated. Even the Supreme Court Agreed she had been discriminated.
But she hadn't suffered any loss of income, so she asked for damages for emotional suffering. She said, "This was-- They made me miserable. It was insulting. It was embarrassing. I felt excluded. I felt isolated in the class."
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
David Tatel: "I felt like people were laughing at me, and I want the compensation for my emotional damage."
Well, the Supreme Court said, "Okay, yes, you've been violated. You've been discriminated against, but it's not fair to the employer to make him pay for emotional damages 'cause he never expected that he would have to." Ah, so the Supreme Court, instead of applying the law to promote Congress's purpose- namely to prevent discrimination and provide remedies, turned it upside down and said, "Well, we're worried about the employer here."
That's what's wrong with the Supreme Court, or one of the things that's wrong with it. So it's in my book. It's called Cummings versus somebody.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right. Well, you really love and respect and honor this idea of judicial collegiality.
Yeah. And I loved that part of your discussion.
Music: Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: You know, just the idea that you're not, like, trying to, like, stand out and, like, always dissent. You're, you're actually trying to, like, come to some kind of truth or common ground- Yeah ... with the other judges, and that's, like, a sign of, of the system working, right?
And- Yeah ... is that dying? No. well- I know, I know it's dying in Congress ... first of
David Tatel: all, Er- first of all, I'm really glad you asked me about that because- Yeah ... collegiality is critical to the judicial process- Right ... for judges working together, respecting each other, listening to each other, and as I say, sometimes even changing your mind.
That's really important. but it's breaking down in our judicial system. It's,it's breaking down. Judges are, uh, much more ideological now than they used to be, and the court decisions are divided along political lines. You know, as I say in the book, the public could be forgiven to think-- for thinking that judges just vote with the president who appointed them because they do. So it's very destructive of our judicial system.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. David, I, I have no business asking this because I am an English major.
Oh, good.
Yeah. Uh, I, you know, and but whenever I look at these, uh, this idea of originalism, it kinda throws me off. I don't get it as a, as just a non, uh, expert.
I think- Yeah ... the forefathers were brilliant When they're building the Constitution. But they can't see, like, hundreds of years into the future and, and understand all the complexity of everything that we're dealing with and struggling with- Yeah ... today. They can't see, like, issues around the internet.
I mean, slavery was happening at, at that time. So, so yeah, it's just a foundation, but it's kind of an ad- a- a- an adapting document or relevant document to today, right? Like, but h- how do you look at that?
David Tatel: uh, when I went to law school- Yeah ... no one talked about originalism.
It wasn't, uh, it wasn't in law school. and it wasn't taught in law school for years after that.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Originalism has been developed as a interpretive tool to produce a result the judges want.
That's what originalism is.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: There's no constitutional basis for originalism. I was on the court for 30 years.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: I did my best to interpret the Constitution as written.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: And to understand what the words meant, I looked at what the Federalist Papers said about it. I looked at what the Supreme Court said about it. I tried to do my best to apply the Constitution as the Framers wrote it. I say in the book, I've been an originalist all my life, but I never had a title.
But originalism today is, as I said, it's a tool. It's a invented doctrine to produce the results you want. So just take gun control, for example, The Supreme Court says, "Well, Congress can only enact limitations that existed at the time of the founding."
Because that's what the Second Amendment says.
Well, there's no historical basis for that rule, but it gives the court a basis for invalidating gun regulations. I see. Right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: That's, that's what it does. And so the other thing is that the judges who are originalists aren't consistent about it. If originalism doesn't produce the result they want, then they find something else.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. So
David Tatel: it's a made-up doctrine, which, uh, which I think- Okay ... by even calling it originalism Is an insult to those of us who have been actually trying for years to apply the Constitution correctly, as if we weren't doing it, right?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Now, here's the trick. you have to distinguish between interpreting the Constitution and interpreting it in a way that it really should be changed through amendment, right?
I mean, we have an amendment process to make major changes. So there are things, there are... Y- you know, you can't just willy-nilly interpret the Constitution to accomplish anything you want. There are limits.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hmm, fascinating. A- a- and I know you, we've, we're kinda talking about some of this, some of our systems breaking down in America.
what happened to the Office of Civil Rights? Like, i- isn't it kinda being destroyed right now?
David Tatel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the Office for Civil Rights. When I was there, it was the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, but that was broken up into HHS and Education. Yeah, Trump has closed the Office for Civil Rights.
The only thing it's doing is going after school districts and universities for allowing bathrooms that both men and women can use. I mean, they've totally closed it. Has Congress done anything about it? No, nothing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. So talk about the Supreme Court. , I loved the part of your book, I learned a lot, where you talked about judicial restraint and judicial precedence.
Yeah. Are those what the Supreme Court is,flouting, those two- Yeah ... principles? Yeah. Yeah, tell me- So the whole point- Yeah, tell me- The whole point- ... why things are breaking down.
David Tatel: Yeah, okay. The point of my book, my book is not as much about the results of decisions.
Sure, I do talk about those, but it's about the way in which the court is getting there.
We have three branches of government, and they're supposed to check and balance each other.
That's the way the Framers figured it. And the courts are different from the other two branches of government 'cause we're appointed for life, and we can declare laws unconstitutional, and we can prevent the president from acting.
So if the courts aren't careful, they could overwhelm the other two branches of government. And so w- why hasn't that happened? It hasn't happened because of a doctrine called judicial restraint, and that is courts, courts have been very careful over the centuries to adhere to the Constitution and the statutes Congress passed, respect the other two branches of government, who, who also take oaths of office, oaths to uphold the Constitution, uh, respect your precedent.
All of these rules of judicial restraint keep the courts confined to the judicial process and not meddle in the affairs of the other two branches of government. That's what's breaking down. This Supreme Court is five-four or six-three decision by six-three decision, steadily, dramatically increasing its own power over the Congress.
And, uh, although it's been enabling the president With respect to the Article 2, that is the executive branch, it's been strengthening its power there also. And that's our problem. And when you read Supreme Court opinions today, what you don't see is the use of these important principles of judicial restraint.
You see the court misinterpreting the Constitution, ignoring what Congress really intended in a statute, failing to respect its limited jurisdiction. It's really breaking down in a serious way. And that's why the last chapter in the book is called The Future of Democracy.
Erik Weihenmayer: So we keep seeing these systems, these, crucial parts- Right
of democracy being stabbed in the heart- Yeah ... right now, I feel. And so, so I guess, like, honestly, just what, it... Is the damage done? can we rebound? What's your sense of optimism? Well,
David Tatel: I think I'm optimistic because of the political process. Right. I say in my book, I say in the last chapter, you read it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: The most important tool we have is vote. And hopefully, the electoral system, the political process will rebalance things, but it's gonna take a long time, Erik. Trump and his judges have done a huge, huge damage to our country. Right. And it's gonna take generations to fix it.
Erik Weihenmayer: and again, being the English major I am, I feel like the, um, the, one of the solutions is education, right?
Like, we have to become a more educated country- Right ... right? So that we can- we can discriminate. We can say, "Hey, that's, that's- Right ... false. That's fake. That's not true." You know? I can sift through information and kinda make my own, you know, logical decisions- Yeah ... right? If you, if you-
David Tatel: That's why.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
David Tatel: Yeah. No, you're totally right. And that's why in September and October and November of this year, this fall term, I went to the local high school- Right ... and I volunteered to be the government teacher, senior class government teacher's assistant. I went in twice a week-
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh my gosh ...
David Tatel: just to talk about the Constitution. And I talked to the kids about the Constitution. Edie and I took them to see the Supreme Court. I figured, "What can I do as a retired judge?" I can do what you just said, Erik, and that is, help in my small way here in rural Virginia to help ensure that high school kids, when they graduate from high school, have a better understanding of the Constitution.
Then maybe when they vote, they'll, they won't vote for a president who says, "I'm gonna appoint judges who will accomplish certain things." They'll appoint... they'll vote for a president who says, "I'm gonna appoint the best judges I can find." And they'll instead of-- and they'll vote for congressmen and senators who will exercise their constitutional authority to check the other branches.
Maybe I can help get a couple of those kids to understand that and be better citizens.
Erik Weihenmayer: Beautiful. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And in a year, I hope we're starting to get on a better track as a nation.
David Tatel: Yes, me too. But
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah.
David Tatel: Me too.
Erik Weihenmayer: Well, David, thank you so much for spending over an hour with me, really,illuminating and, uh, I'm just so impressed by this incredible career that you've had and- Thank you
all you've contributed- Yeah ... uh, and the book that you wrote, which is just amazing, and I learned so much from it. and I can't wait to spend more time with you over- Yeah ... the next year.
David Tatel: I'm really looking forward to that. But I wanna thank you, Erik, for reading the book so carefully. It means a lot to me that people not just read it, but read it carefully.
And your questions were fabulous, and I really enjoyed our conversation and hope this is just the beginning of many more.
Erik Weihenmayer: Cool. Thank you, David.
No barriers to everyone.
Didrik Johnck: The production team behind this podcast includes producer Didrik Johnck, that's me, and audio engineer Tyler Kottman. Special thanks to the Dan Ryan Band for our intro song, "Guidance." And thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, share it, and hey, we'd be thrilled for a review.
Show notes can be found at nobarrierspodcast.com. There's also a link there to shoot me an email with any suggestions or guest ideas for the show. Thanks so much, and have a great day.
Music: The anger's in their voices. The
voices, they're colliding. Our minds, they are a-changing. And soon they will be fighting. To see the rain, it catches
all the light and the-
