What happens when a journalist and a teacher take an irreverent dive into landmark civil rights cases? It’s not boring.
If anyone can turn dark assaults on civil rights and dry legalese into accessible, irreverent and inspiring romps through landmark legal cases, it’s audio journalist Shereen Marisol Meraji and podcast partner, schoolteacher and YouTube creator Matthew Beat. The pair are the hosts of the just-launched American Civil Liberties Union podcast “Let the Record Show,” which explores the defining legal moments for rights and freedoms in the United States. On the country’s 250th anniversary and at a time of sobering threats to civil rights and civil liberties, “Let the Record Show” brings listeners to the people and particulars behind legal battles and big court wins — from Marbury v. Madison to United States v. Wong Kim Ark — that enabled many of the freedoms Americans enjoy today. We talked with Marisol Meraji about her thoughts on today’s launch of “Let the Record Show”:
Q. What compelled you to co-host “Let the Record Show” for the ACLU?
SMM: The ACLU has been at the center of so many important moments in our country’s history — from fighting for racial and gender justice to defending the rights of immigrants. And right now, there’s so much noise about what is happening to our civil rights and liberties that it can be hard to understand what matters most and why. We need a podcast like “Let the Record Show” to help us decipher what’s at stake and figure out what we can do about it.
Q. What does a journalist bring to a discussion about landmark legal cases?
SMM: I’m a journalist, but I’m also an educator, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help people understand complicated things — without talking down to them — and without using a bunch of jargon. And the law can feel especially inaccessible. We refer to lawyer-speak as legalese for a reason, it’s another language altogether. And, I don’t think we should have to be fluent in legalese to understand how the court’s decisions shape the way we live our lives.
When the ACLU came to me with this idea, I loved it immediately. I thought, ‘Oh, this could be really fun.’ We can tell these incredible stories and make constitutional law feel accessible — not like you’re sitting in a law school classroom, but like you’re hanging out with two of your favorite nerdy friends.
Q. Which episode are you most excited about? Which was most powerful for you?
SMM: This is hard because they’re all powerful for different reasons, but White v. Crook really stays with me. And, it’s the very first case I looked into for “Let The Record Show.” It took place in a federal courthouse in Alabama, where Black men were being systematically excluded from juries, and women of all races were legally excluded from serving on juries. The case collides with the murder of a voting rights activist, which raises the stakes in an unimaginable way. And it features a lawyer most of us have never heard of — someone who was way ahead of their time in imagining how the law could be used to expand who gets protected.
I really hope it reaches people who would never think, ‘You know what I need in my life? A podcast about constitutional law.’
Q. What’s one thing you’ve learned recording this podcast that you want listeners to know?
SMM: How much of the constitutional protections we take for granted were not inevitable. Rights can feel permanent once we have them. You look back and think, ‘Well, of course women should be allowed to serve on juries,’ or ‘Of course undocumented children should be able to attend public school.’ But then you actually go back and look at these cases and realize: No. People fought over this. There were incredibly powerful arguments on each side. And, things could have gone very differently. And, if they had, we’d be living very different lives. The law isn’t something that was settled by people in the past and handed down to us. It’s constantly being interpreted, challenged and reshaped.
Q. What kind of audience do you hope ‘Let the Record Show’ speaks to?
SMM: I really hope it reaches people who would never think, ‘You know what I need in my life? A podcast about constitutional law.’ You shouldn’t need a law degree to understand the decisions that shape your rights and your life. So I hope people who are curious about history, politics, race, immigration, gender, etcetera, etcetera, can come to the show and feel like there’s a place for them. I also teach journalism at UC Berkeley, so I’m constantly thinking about younger people. I want someone in their twenties to understand how these cases are directly connected to the issues they care about most and the fights that are happening right now.
Q. Why do you think this podcast is important for your students? How does doing this real-world podcast strengthen your teaching?
SMM: I am in the industry, and I know what’s expected of journalists right now and it’s ever-evolving. Just on the technological side….this is not just an audio podcast. I have done everything in audio and now video is a huge part of what we’re doing in the “audio” space. I am learning how to not only talk into a microphone but also engage with a camera. I think it’s good for them that I know what’s expected of them in the industry and can share my experiences.
Q. How would you describe the vibe of the podcast? And the vibe with your co-host?
SMM: I genuinely like Matt as a person. So the vibe really is two curious friends who didn’t go to law school trying to make sense of history-making court cases.
Matt and I come at these stories from different places, which is part of what makes it fun. He’s a history teacher, and I’m a journalist. Matt is really good at taking us back in time and helping us understand the world these cases came from. And I’m often asking: What part of this story got left out of the mainstream historical record—and why? And how does this history help us understand the news today? The goal: ‘Come hang with us. We’ll tell you an incredible story, and you just might come away understanding something happening in the country right now in a completely different way.’
Q. The podcast is so relevant for our times as we face what we’ve seen as ‘givens’ slipping away. Can you speak to why this podcast is so important right now?
SMM: One thing this history gives us is a roadmap to success. How did people win back then, when things were ALSO incredibly difficult and polarized? People fought for the Constitution to protect them under unimaginable circumstances. People were being killed for trying to vote and for registering Black people to vote in the South. RFK was assassinated. MLK was assassinated. People’s political heroes were being murdered. So, yes, we’re up against a lot right now. But what people were up against in the 1960s was, in many ways, even more daunting. And they kept fighting. I think we’ve forgotten what this country has been through—and how hard people have fought to make sure the protections of the Constitution actually apply to all of us, not just white men with property. This history is a reminder that those protections didn’t just happen. People fought for them.
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Find “Let the Record Show” here and anywhere you get your podcasts.
UC Berkeley Journalism’s Shereen Marisol Meraji joins Dean Michael D. Bolden, Lecturer Jamil Smith and other dynamic faculty from across the UC Berkeley campus as speakers at “America at 250: Reimaging Who We Are” on Oct. 30 at Berkeley Law. RSVP here.
