[Senate Hearing 117-552]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-552

                  NOMINATIONS OF MARGARET A. BURNHAM,
                 GABRIELLE M. DUDLEY, HENRY KLIBANOFF,
                        AND BRENDA E. STEVENSON

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

        NOMINATION OF MARGARET A. BURNHAM, GABRIELLE M. DUDLEY,
            HENRY KLIBANOFF, AND BRENDA E. STEVENSON TO BE A
          MEMBER, CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

                               __________

                            JANUARY 13, 2022

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
        
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                             __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-698                    WASHINGTON : 2023                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                   GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                   David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
                    Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
                      Claudine J. Brenner, Counsel
                    Nikta Khani, Research Assistant
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
    Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
Amanda H. Neely, Minority Director of Governmental Affairs and General 
                                Counsel
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                     Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk

                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Peters...............................................     1
    Senator Portman..............................................     5
    Senator Carper...............................................    17
    Senator Ossoff...............................................    20
    Senator Johnson..............................................    22
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    27
    Senator Portman..............................................    28

                               WITNESSES
                       Thursday, January 13, 2022

Hon. Gordon Douglas Jones, a former U.S. Senator from the State 
  of Alabama.....................................................     2
Margaret A. Burnham to be a Member, Civil Rights Cold Case 
  Records Review Board
    Testimony....................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................    29
    Biographical and professional information....................    31
    OGE Form.....................................................    51
    Responses to pre-hearing questions...........................    53
Gabrielle M. Dudley to be a Member, Civil Rights Cold Case 
  Records Review Board
    Testimony....................................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    60
    Biographical and professional information....................    62
    OGE Form.....................................................    82
    Responses to pre-hearing questions...........................    83
    Responses to post-hearing questions..........................    92
Henry Klibanoff to be a Member, Civil Rights Cold Case Records 
  Review Board
    Testimony....................................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    93
    Biographical and professional information....................    95
    OGE Form.....................................................   117
    Responses to pre-hearing questions...........................   118
Brenda E. Stevenson to be a Member, Civil Rights Cold Case 
  Records Review Board
    Testimony....................................................    11
    Prepared statement...........................................   128
    Biographical and professional information....................   130
    OGE Form.....................................................   162
    Responses to pre-hearing questions...........................   164
    Responses to post-hearing questions..........................   173

 
                  NOMINATIONS OF MARGARET A. BURNHAM,
                 GABRIELLE M. DUDLEY, HENRY KLIBANOFF,
                        AND BRENDA E. STEVENSON

                              ----------                              


                       THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2022

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Gary C. Peters, Chairman of the Committee, 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Ossoff, 
Portman, Johnson, Lankford, Scott, and Hawley.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. This Committee will now come to order. 
Today, we are considering the nominations of Margaret Burnham, 
Gabrielle Dudley, Henry Klibanoff, and Brenda Stevenson to be 
members of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix 
on page 27.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I want to welcome each of you to this hearing today and 
certainly congratulate you on what is truly an historic 
nomination. I am grateful for your willingness to serve. You 
are the first nominees chosen to serve in these very vital 
roles, and if confirmed, you will have a solemn responsibility 
to begin this board's very important work.
    The board, which was created in 2019 by a bipartisan law 
inspired by the work of high school students in New Jersey, 
reviews records from civil rights cases for public release, 
including race related murders and lynchings that have 
tragically gone unresolved for decades. This has delayed 
closure for communities and families who have wrestled with the 
pain of tragically unsolved civil rights crimes. They have had 
to wait for far too long for justice to be served and for the 
perpetrators of these crimes to be held accountable for their 
horrific actions.
    I am pleased that this summer President Biden nominated 
four very distinguished and highly qualified nominees to serve 
on the board. Your expertise in history and in law and in 
journalism will help uncover the truth and get much-needed 
answers that will help many families and communities heal from 
these tragic, unsolved murders.
    Once confirmed, today's nominees will begin the difficult, 
but important, work of telling the victims' stories and 
shedding light on this dark chapter of our nation's history. 
Although justice has been delayed for too long for too many of 
these cases, the board's mission to investigate and release 
relevant records will help Americans living today and for 
generations to come uncover the truth of these terrible crimes 
and the racism that drove their perpetrators.
    Thank you again to our nominees for your willingness to 
take on these critical new roles. I look forward to hearing 
more about your qualifications and your visions for the role of 
this important and historic board.
    Next, I want to introduce and I am honored to say that we 
are joined virtually by a former colleague of mine and a former 
member of this Committee as well, Senator Doug Jones, who is 
going to introduce the nominees. As many of you know, Senator 
Jones has dedicated much of his life's work to righting these 
longstanding wrongs. His work to prosecute the men responsible 
for the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that took the 
lives of four young girls finally helped to deliver justice 
after nearly 40 years.
    Senator Jones was also absolutely instrumental in the 
creation of this board, leading this legislation in the U.S. 
Senate. It is an honor to have him join us here today.
    Senator Jones, always a pleasure to see you. We miss you 
here on the Committee and all the outstanding work that you did 
while you were here, but I am glad you are back to introduce 
these amazing nominees. You may proceed with your 
introductions.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GORDON DOUGLAS JONES, A 
     FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

    Senator Jones. Thank you, Chairman Peters. It is great to 
see you and the other Members of the Committee. I know Ranking 
Member Portman is going to be joining a little bit late, but I 
want to thank everybody for allowing me to come today to 
introduce these incredible nominees to the Civil Rights Cold 
Case Records Collection Act Review Board. This was a signature 
piece of legislation for me in 2018, my first year in the 
Senate.
    And you alluded to this, Chairman Peters, but what many 
folks really do not know is some of the back story. If you will 
bear with me just a moment, I think it is really important to 
talk about that just a moment because a year or so before my 
Senate campaign was even on the radar I get a call from Stu 
Wexler, a high school teacher in Hightstown, New Jersey. He and 
his students had been trying to study some of these old civil 
rights cold cases, and they had been stymied. They understood 
and saw the importance of making this information public for 
communities, for families, but they had been stymied because so 
many of the records were either under seal or just protected in 
some way or another. It was the students who had the idea of 
creating a Kennedy assassination-like committee or review board 
to study and to look through these records to see and determine 
to make these public. They really understood the importance of 
this.
    After I was elected--I, of course, endorsed the concept of 
the bill. After I was elected, they called me back and reminded 
me of that phone call, and of course, we got to work.
    I am so appreciative of--along with colleagues Senator 
Cruz, Senator McCaskill, who was the Ranking Member on this 
Committee at the time, and then-Senator Kamala Harris--to 
introduce the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 
2018. I really am grateful to Senator Cruz for partnering with 
me on this legislation to make it happen and our staffs who 
worked so hard. I am appreciative to Senator Johnson, who was 
the Chair of the Committee, and his staff for the work that 
they did in a bipartisan way to get the bill passed through 
Committee and in the Senate.
    I also think it is important to thank Congressman Bobby 
Rush over in the House of Representatives for his great work 
and to thank President Trump for signing this bill and, of 
course, to President Biden for nominating these outstanding 
individuals.
    Mr. Chairman, the experience of prosecuting the 16th Street 
Baptist Church bombing case was truly transformational for me, 
almost 40 years after the fact, to really finally bring justice 
to those families. I saw firsthand how the families of those 
four young girls who died and the fifth young lady who was so 
badly injured, how they suffered, how they were in many ways 
trapped in the past, unable to find peace, forgiveness, 
healing, or reconciliation, unable to find truth or justice as 
long as that crime remained unsolved.
    I learned of so many other cases, so many across the 
country, particularly in the South, hundreds if not thousands 
of where the system of justice just let these victims down, 
cases where the truth had been buried, cases where justice had 
been denied.
    But I also saw how the cold cases can be solved and 
reconciliation can be found. Sometimes it just takes fresh 
eyes, another look by new investigators, law enforcement, 
journalists, teachers, students, members of the public. Those 
can be successful as well even without a conviction. A 
successful prosecution is not always possible in cases this 
old, but knowing the truth can bring a tremendous sense of 
relief and release and can open the door to healing and peace.
    This is the hope behind the creation of the Civil Rights 
Cold Case Records Collection Act. Making these records 
available can help heal families and communities that have been 
struggling with the suspicion, guilt, fear, and loss for too 
long.
    The act creates a review board that specifies that the 
nominees for the board must be distinguished individuals of 
high, national, professional reputation in their respective 
fields, who are capable of exercising the independent and 
objective judgment necessary to fill their role, who possess 
the appreciation of the value of each material to the public 
scholars and government. I cannot imagine a better slate of 
nominees than those before you, two of whom I have known for a 
long time, three of whom have roots in Alabama, but all four 
are uniquely and perfectly suited for the work of this review 
board.
    I met Professor Margaret Burnham over 15 years ago when she 
founded the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project and 
began to examine cold case civil rights cases as part of her 
teaching at Northeastern University School of Law. Born in 
Birmingham, Alabama, Margaret graduated from Tougaloo College 
in Mississippi and received her law degree at the University of 
Pennsylvania. After law school, she spent three years working 
with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). She 
then moved to private practice until 1977, when she became the 
first African American female to serve in the Massachusetts 
judiciary, appointed to the Boston municipal bench by then-
Governor Michael Dukakis.
    She has won numerous awards that are too numerous to 
mention throughout her career, but I will mention one in 
particular. In 1993, she had the honor of being appointed by 
South African President Nelson Mandela to serve on an 
international human rights commission to investigate alleged 
human rights violations within the African National Congress.
    Margaret joined Northeastern University School of Law 
faculty in 2002 and continues to teach there today.
    Gabrielle Dudley grew up in Bessemer, Alabama, just a few 
miles west of my hometown of Fairfield. She is an instruction 
archivist at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare 
Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. After 
obtaining her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in history from the 
University of Montevallo, also in Alabama, she earned her 
Master of Arts (M.A.) in public history and an Master of 
Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) with a concentration 
in archival studies and preservation management from the 
University of South Carolina.
    Gabrielle is a founding member of the Atlanta Black 
Archives Alliance and holds memberships in the Society of 
American Archivists and the Grolier Club. Gabrielle has 
published articles and curated exhibitions related to her 
interest in Black women writers, literary clubs, and print and 
literature cultures of Black southerners in the 19th and 20th 
centuries.
    My old friend and dear friend, Hank Klibanoff, hails from 
Florence, Alabama, in the northern part of our State. I first 
met Hank many years ago when he was a reporter and journalist 
with the Philadelphia Inquirer. Currently, Hank is the 
professor of practice at Emory's Creative Writing Program. He 
co-authored the book, ``The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil 
Rights Struggle,'' and the ``Awakening of a Nation,'' which won 
the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
    Prior to joining Emory, Hank was a reporter and editor for 
more than 35 years, having worked as a reporter at various 
newspapers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Massachusetts, at the 
Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Atlanta 
Journal-Constitution. He holds an undergraduate degree in 
English from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's 
degree from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern 
University.
    Hank also directs the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Case 
Project at Emory University, guiding students as they examine 
Georgia's modern civil rights history through the investigation 
of unsolved and unpunished racially motivated murders. His 
podcast, Buried Truths, won Peabody and Robert F. Kennedy 
Awards in 2019.
    Last, but by no means least, is Professor Brenda Stevenson. 
Brenda Elaine Stevenson is the inaugural Hillary Rodham Clinton 
Chair in Women's History at St. John's College at Oxford 
University as well as the Nickoll Family Endowed Chair in the 
Department of History and a professor of African American 
Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). 
Brenda is a social historian whose work centers on gender, 
race, family, and social conflict in America and the Atlantic 
World from the colonial period through the late 20th century.
    She was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and 
received her undergraduate degree from the University of 
Virginia, where she was a DuPont Regional Scholar and an Echols 
Scholar. She enrolled in Yale's M.A. program in African 
American Studies and began her edition of The Journals of 
Charlotte Forten Grimke while at Yale, and this work became 
part of the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women 
Writers.
    She continued in the Yale Ph.D. Program in American 
History, and her Ph.D. dissertation, Life in Black and White: 
Family and Community in the Slave South, was awarded a Gustavus 
Myers Book Prize as an outstanding book in the study of human 
rights in North America. Another of Professor Stevenson's book, 
The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and 
the Origins of the L.A. Riots, was awarded the Organization of 
American Historians 2014 James A. Rawley Prize for the best 
book on the history of race relations in the United States and 
the 2014 Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism from 
Women's eNews.
    Mr. Chairman, as you can see from their resumes and as you 
will hear from the nominees themselves, not only do they have 
the training and experience to perform the work of this board; 
they have a deep appreciation and passion for the significance 
of the work that they are about to embark on and the collection 
of these incredibly important papers.
    Mr. Chairman, as I close, I want to thank you again for 
allowing me to be here today and for your support of this 
legislation.
    I also want to go back briefly to a comment I made earlier 
and in today's world I really think bears repeating, that 
knowing the truth can bring a tremendous sense of relief and 
release and can open the door to healing and peace. Candidly, 
Mr. Chairman and Members of this Committee, former colleagues, 
truth is a somewhat scarce commodity these days and especially 
right now in our history. In this time, in this place, we need 
to be doing all that we can to seek that truth because knowing 
the truth can bring that tremendous sense of relief and release 
and open the door to healing and peace and justice.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been an honor to be with 
you today.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Jones. It is great to 
see you here again. Again, thank you for your incredible 
leadership with this legislation and this program. Clearly, by 
your introductions, we have four outstanding nominees here 
before us. We are looking forward to hearing their testimony 
and answering our questions.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your opening 
remarks.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\

    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope you can 
hear me OK.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the 
Appendix on page 28.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Chairman Peters. We can.
    Senator Portman. I have gone from a laptop to an iPad to an 
iPhone, trying to come onto this hearing, and so I was 
listening but not able to see you all until I went down to the 
iPhone level.
    I appreciate Senator Jones's introduction of our nominees 
today, and I appreciate what he and Senator Cruz and others did 
to get this legislation moving and then-President Trump for 
signing it back in 2019. That was a while ago, and it is about 
time that we move forward not just with the nominations but, of 
course, with the important work that has to be done. And my 
sense is because a few years have elapsed there may be an 
effort to extend, which I think makes sense.
    I have had the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to interview all 
four of these nominees. We talked a lot about their experience. 
We talked about their objectivity. There was discussion earlier 
about the commitment to the truth. That is what these 
individuals have told me that they are committed to.
    This is a very difficult period of our nation's history 
that they will be unveiling and disclosing, and it is important 
that it be done. But these are stories of real people and real 
families who are still looking for answers, and one hopes that 
by providing this information some of those answers will be 
found and in fact there will be some sense of relief.
    Joining us today are journalists, scholars, lawyers, 
judges. This board, I think, is going to be populated with 
people who have the right experience.
    We talked a lot in our conversation about the need to 
balance public disclosure and privacy interests as these 
records are reviewed. That is no easy task. We also talked 
about the awesome power of a subpoena and how we have to ensure 
that the subpoenas are not abused and also that the Attorney 
General (AG) has the ability to be petitioned by this board for 
the release of sealed records, another power that needs to be 
exercised carefully.
    I thank the nominees for their willingness to serve on the 
board. I look forward to further discussion of these issues and 
again how they plan to use their experience and their wisdom to 
achieve the important mission of this board.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Portman.
    Now it is the practice of this Committee to swear in 
witnesses, so if each of you will please stand and raise your 
right hand. Ms. Stevenson, we cannot see you, but if you 
acknowledge you hear us and you are standing and raising your 
right hand, I would appreciate it.
    Ms. Stevenson. I acknowledge that I hear you and I am 
standing and raising my right hand.
    Chairman Peters. Do all of you swear that the testimony you 
will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
    Ms. Burnham. I do.
    Ms. Dudley. I do.
    Mr. Klibanoff. I do.
    Ms. Stevenson. I do.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. I have heard affirmative 
answers from all four of you. You may be seated.
    Well, welcome, Professor Burnham, Ms. Dudley, Professor 
Klibanoff, and Professor Stevenson. We appreciate your 
appearance here today, and I want to congratulate you once 
again for your nomination to this important board.
    Professor Burnham, you may proceed with your opening 
remarks.

TESTIMONY OF MARGARET A. BURNHAM,\1\ NOMINATED TO BE A MEMBER, 
          CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

    Ms. Burnham. Thank you very much, Chairman Peters and 
Ranking Member Portman. Thank you as well to Senator Jones, 
Senator Cruz, Senators McCaskill, and Harris, who were the 
sponsors of this legislation, as well as Bobby Rush, and a 
special thanks to teacher Stu Wexler and his students who 
brought this finally around to President Trump's desk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Burnham appears in the Appendix 
on page 29.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I also thank President Biden for this nomination and the 
Members of this Committee for the opportunity to appear here 
today. It is a deep honor and indeed a highlight of a very long 
career in civil rights to be nominated and to be considered by 
this August body.
    As you may know, the board will review government records 
to facilitate the expeditious disclosure of documents related 
to civil rights cold cases. The board will consider and render 
decisions on determinations by a government office not to 
disclose or to delay disclosure of civil rights cold case 
records. The board, as set forth in the statute, will decide 
whether a record constitutes a civil rights cold case record 
and whether the record or particular information qualifies for 
nondisclosure.
    All members of this board will meet to discuss how to carry 
out this mission. The members of the board will review redacted 
records, or records for which public disclosure is postponed or 
requests for proposed postponement are made, and participate in 
rendering a report to congressional leadership.
    The board will request or can request, has the power to 
request, that the Department of Justice (DOJ) pursue a petition 
to release information relevant to civil rights cold cases that 
are held under seal by any court in the United States or 
abroad.
    If I am appointed, my priorities on this board would be to 
work closely with our National Archives to assess which records 
and documents are subject to release under the law, to 
establish a schedule for the review of such records, and to 
engage and inform the public about the activities of the board, 
and to develop protocols for the release of qualifying 
documents as appropriate.
    If I am appointed, with my fellow board members and the 
staff, I would work with Congress and representatives of this 
Committee to implement recommendations to improve the review 
board's operations and effectiveness and properly carry forward 
with the intent of this legislation.
    I am eager to serve as a member of this board because I 
believe it can play an important role in facilitating public 
access to government records that are related to civil rights 
cold cases and thereby further the intent of Congress as 
reflected in the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act 
as well as in this legislation, the Civil Rights Cold Case 
Records Collection Act, to serve the public interest in prompt 
disclosure of civil rights cold case records for historical, 
governmental purposes, and also fully to inform the American 
public about the history surrounding these cases. The 
disclosure of these records will serve to respond to concerns 
and questions of the families and the communities affected by 
these events.
    I believe that I, if appointed, would bring unique 
expertise and experience to this position. I am familiar with 
the government records that are the subject of this act, having 
worked with these records as a scholar for more than a decade. 
I am familiar with the community of researchers and scholars 
and civil rights activists and the descendant communities that 
seek prompt and comprehensive release of these documents. I 
have been a member of the bar for 50 years, and I have served 
as a Massachusetts State court judge, as a practicing civil 
rights and criminal law attorney, and since 2001 as a law 
teacher.
    I am very grateful for this nomination and the important 
public service opportunity that it presents, and I ask for your 
support.
    Thank you very much, Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Professor. Thank you for your 
opening comments.
    Ms. Dudley, you may proceed with your opening remarks.

TESTIMONY OF GABRIELLE M. DUDLEY,\1\ NOMINATED TO BE A MEMBER, 
          CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

    Ms. Dudley. Good morning, Chairman Peters, Ranking Member 
Portman, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before you as you consider my nomination 
to serve as a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records 
Review Board. I am deeply honored by President Biden's 
nomination and humbled that the work of this board could mean 
justice for so many families and move our country toward 
healing from the atrocities of the civil rights era.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Dudley appears in the Appendix on 
page 60.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The aims of this board align with my professional ethos and 
yet are also deeply personal. I was raised by Maple and George 
Dudley in Bessemer, Alabama, which is a small suburb of 
Birmingham. As an Alabamian and Black daughter of the South, I 
grew up with the constant reminders of the struggles of the 
civil rights era and knowledge that unsolved cases existed. My 
upbringing and love for my country's history, albeit sometimes 
painful, led me to pursue a career as an archivist. I feel a 
special connection and obligation toward the work of the board 
and, if confirmed, will work with the other nominees to 
appropriately ensure public disclosure of civil rights cold 
case records.
    I am trained as an archivist and have been working directly 
with civil rights era collections for over a decade. In my 
work, I have arranged and described records, handled private 
and confidential materials, provided records assistance to a 
variety of researcher groups, and used primary source material 
to engage audiences in classrooms, exhibitions, and public 
spaces. I understand the balance of providing access to 
critical records while protecting the privacy of witnesses and 
other parties which might be revealed within them. I embody and 
employ the principles of the Code of Ethics for Archivists and 
strive to exercise ethical and professional judgments in all my 
work.
    I recognize the cultural value of these records and realize 
how full access to them can inspire both transformation and 
change. If confirmed, I am committed to immediately working 
with my fellow nominees and government entities to develop a 
schedule for reviewing the records and determining which can be 
publicly disclosed now and which require postponement.
    I consider my role as an educator to be as equally as 
important to the work of the review board as my role as an 
archivist. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the 
teacher and students from Hightstown High School who originated 
the bill that would later become the Civil Rights Cold Case 
Records Collection Act.
    I am encouraged by the potential for young people, 
scholars, journalists, artists, and others to access records 
that could potentially lead to further scholarship and 
understanding of the civil rights era and potentially to even 
solving some of the cases. In my professional work, I coach 
college faculty, K-12 teachers, and other instructors on using 
primary sources, like cold case records, in their teaching and 
advocate for students to use primary sources to better 
understand our country in the present day. I am cognizant of 
the impact that decisions of this board could have on young 
scholars learning about key movements within our country's 
history. The work of this board is timely and will have a 
tremendous cultural and social impact on the ways that the 
civil rights era is taught and discussed for generations to 
come.
    I am deeply honored to speak to you today and thank the 
Committee for considering my nomination. I look forward to your 
questions.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ms. Dudley.
    Professor Klibanoff, you may proceed with your opening 
remarks.
    Mr. Klibanoff. Thank you.

  TESTIMONY OF HENRY KLIBANOFF,\1\ NOMINATED TO BE A MEMBER, 
          CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

    Mr. Klibanoff. OK. Chairman Peters, thank you so much, 
Ranking Member Portman also and Members of the Senate Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Klibanoff appears in the Appendix 
on page 93.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    My name is Hank Klibanoff, and I do direct the Georgia 
Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University, where I am 
a professor of practice. I also teach nonfiction writing and 
ethics in the creative writing program. I am in my 11th year at 
Emory, teaching, after 36 years as a newspaper reporter and 
editor in Mississippi, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and the 
Midwest, and Atlanta. I was born and raised in Alabama, 
attended public schools there through high school and then went 
to college and graduate school in the Midwest.
    In my family, which came to America from Eastern and 
Central Europe, on both my paternal and maternal side, between 
1905 and 1910, personal and professional recognition does not 
get any bigger than this, a Presidential nomination. Now this 
opportunity to have that nomination vetted and I hope validated 
by this Committee and by the entire U.S. Senate, amazing. You 
have my deepest appreciation.
    I am sorry that my parents and grandparents are not allowed 
to be part of this. From my dad, who took over his father's 
family shoe store on one side of the main street, Court Street, 
in Florence, Alabama, and a ladies clothing and shoe store on 
the other side, a day worth remembering was when Senator John 
Sparkman and, later, Senator Howell Heflin would casually walk 
in, say, ``Hiya, Morris'' and chat with my dad as a friend for 
15 or 20 minutes. The conversations, no doubt, were about 
families, the economy, the Small Business Administration (SBA), 
the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was our Muscle Shoals 
region's lifeblood, or the draft because my father was chairman 
of the local Selective Service board. If we five children were 
not lucky enough to be inside the store working and meet those 
August gentlemen ourselves, we would hear about it over dinner.
    So you have my deepest respect individually as United 
States Senators, Members of this Committee, and of the whole 
chamber.
    I was in the Senate gallery the day Senator Jones 
introduced the bill that created this records review board. 
Senator Ted Cruz was presiding and listening as Senator Jones 
spoke. If I have my history right, as Senator Jones was leaving 
the well, Senator Cruz stopped him to say he wanted to join as 
lead Republican sponsor. That was the turning point that 
propelled this bipartisan legislation to create this 
nonpartisan board. I hope it is long remembered that these two 
lawmakers from opposite sides of the political spectrum joined 
forces to do the right and rational thing for the families of 
victims of racial injustice.
    The law you passed and President Trump signed will expand, 
accelerate, and ease access to government-held records about 
racially motivated killings in the South. At this stage, there 
are probably few living perpetrators of these killings from the 
1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. While we are not likely to see many 
opportunities for criminal sanctions, criminal judgments, we 
may well see more opportunities for the judgment of history as 
these records become available, and we may well see more 
opportunities for racial peacemaking among families of 
perpetrators and victims.
    I have seen with my own eyes and my own heart the 
extraordinary good that can come when the families of those who 
were killed sit down with a couple of hundred pages of 
government records and unlock decades of mysteries and myths 
and misunderstanding. I hope to have an opportunity to share a 
couple of those extraordinary moments with you later.
    The law, I believe, is clear and simple about what we are 
to do. We are not scripting new policies or solving whatever 
crimes are disclosed in those records. We are here to review 
and free up the government-held records that may hold clues and 
to make them available to the families of victims, among 
others, who may not even know that the records exist in a 
government file cabinet.
    We do not know how many people were lost to racially 
motivated killings in all those years of the modern civil 
rights struggle, but we know that each killing destroyed more 
than a life. The removal of a father, a mother, or a 
grandparent often meant the erasure of all memory of a family's 
entire history. We have an opportunity to provide the records 
that can enable families to fill in some of those gaps and give 
them the wholeness of history that they have not had for 
decades.
    In closing, there are, and will always be, hidden 
complexities we do not anticipate. I believe our task is to 
navigate those situations sensibly, with open minds and sound 
judgment, and in doing so to fulfill the noble mission you have 
set forth for us.
    I humbly and respectfully ask for your support in approving 
my nomination and moving this mission forward. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Professor.
    Next, we have Professor Stevenson. We know we cannot see 
you due to technical difficulties, unfortunately, but I know we 
can hear you loud and clear. You may proceed with your opening 
remarks.

 TESTIMONY OF BRENDA E. STEVENSON, PH.D.,\1\ NOMINATED TO BE A 
      MEMBER, CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASE RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

    Ms. Stevenson. Good morning. I am deeply honored and 
thankful that you, the Members of the Senate Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs Committee, are allowing me to speak to 
you today regarding my nomination to serve on the Civil Rights 
Cold Case Records Review Board. I am honored by, and grateful 
to, President Biden for this nomination. I am appreciative of 
the Organization of American Historians for submitting my name 
for consideration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Stevenson appears in the Appendix 
on page 128.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As always, I want to acknowledge my family for their 
encouragement and support. I truly thank God from whom all of 
my blessings come.
    As an historian and U.S. citizen, I realize the importance 
of both historical documentation and transparency, particularly 
as related to difficult aspects of our society's functioning 
across time. I grew up in Virginia, a State that has stood at 
the center of democracy and racial conflict, located in a 
region that unfortunately has a legacy as being a site of 
inequality.
    My parents were hardworking, God-guided Americans. My 
father, a longshoreman, and my mother, a homemaker, labored 
tirelessly so that I and my siblings could be well educated, 
get great jobs, and live fulfilled lives. They believed in the 
great promises of the United States as a democracy as well as 
our responsibilities to our Nation, and they implanted those 
ideals in me.
    But one of their tragic truths based on their communal 
experiences was that Black and marginalized people could be 
harmed, denied their constitutional rights, without legal 
recourse. No citizen should bear the burden of the fear of 
inequality. I believe that our nation as a whole has a deep and 
abiding interest in issues related to civil rights, social 
justice, and equality within the context of our justice system.
    The mission of the Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board is 
to assist in the implementation of the Civil Rights Cold Case 
Records Collection Act. If I am confirmed, I will work 
tirelessly to make certain that this work is comprehensively 
and competently completed in the timeframes established in the 
law.
    The National Archives is tasked with collecting, 
preserving, securing, digitizing, and indexing civil rights 
cold cases in preparation for public view and use. The review 
board will aid preparation for public use in several ways.
    The board will determine if a record constitutes that of a 
civil rights cold case. If requested by an originating agency, 
it will determine if the civil rights cold case record or 
information, partial or complete, in that record qualifies 
under the law for postponement of public disclosure.
    The board will resolve how to separate that which can be 
made public from that which cannot, including the provision of 
a summary or substitute record. It is the board's 
responsibility to publish its decisions about record disclosure 
within two weeks of board decisions. These published decisions 
go on to the cold cases originating body, the Federal Register, 
the President, and to Congress.
    Annually, the board must report its activity to the Speaker 
of the House; the House Minority Leader; the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform of the House of 
Representatives; the Majority Leader of the Senate; the Senate 
Minority Leader; this body, the Committee on Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs; the President; the Archivist; and the 
head of any government office whose records have been the 
subject of review board activity. With all of these entities, 
the board also must cooperate.
    These are heavy responsibilities that will take time, 
energy, intellect, experience, and heartfelt commitment, 
cooperation between board members and their staff, as well as 
with U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 
the Congress, the Judiciary, and the White House. These 
responsibilities, along with the promise to the American people 
that the history of the 2018 Civil Rights Cold Case Records 
Collection Act embodies, is the work at hand. I believe that, 
if confirmed, I will be instrumental in fulfilling these 
duties. My educational background, proven expertise in U.S. 
history, the history of race and racial conflict, my successes 
as author, teacher, mentor, administrator, and public-facing 
intellectual, along with my deep personal interest in social 
justice, have prepared me to be especially capable of, and 
committed to, this work.
    Again, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you 
about this important work. I am deeply honored and look forward 
to your queries and comments.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ms. Stevenson, for your 
comments.
    Again, thank you, for all of you, for being here today and 
congratulations on your nominations.
    There are three questions that the Committee asks for every 
nominee, and I would ask that each of you respond with just a 
``yes'' or ``no.'' We will go in the order that you presented 
your testimony, with Professor Burnham first, then Ms. Dudley, 
Professor Klibanoff, and then Professor Stevenson.
    First, is there anything you are aware of in your 
background that might present a conflict of interest with the 
duties of the office to which you have been nominated?
    Ms. Burnham. No.
    Ms. Dudley. No, Senator.
    Mr. Klibanoff. No, Senator. No conflict.
    Ms. Stevenson. No, there is not.
    Chairman Peters. Second, do you know of anything personal 
or otherwise that would, in any way, prevent you from fully and 
honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to 
which you have been nominated?
    Ms. Burnham. No, Senator.
    Ms. Dudley. No, Senator.
    Mr. Klibanoff. No, Senator.
    Ms. Stevenson. No, Senator.
    Chairman Peters. Last, do you agree without reservation to 
comply with any request or summons to appear and testify before 
any duly constituted committee of Congress if you are 
confirmed?
    Ms. Burnham. I do.
    Ms. Dudley. Yes, I do.
    Mr. Klibanoff. Yes, Senator, I do.
    Ms. Stevenson. Yes, Senator, I do.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Wonderful. This is a question for 
all four of you, and for this question let us go with the same 
order that we did at the beginning. I will mix it up for 
another question or two, but we will do this order.
    If confirmed, each and every one of you, as you well know, 
will be the first members of this review board, and you are 
going to be in a heavy responsibility to stand it up. What you 
do in these initial days and weeks and months will set the 
course of this board for the future. I would like each of you 
to describe your initial priorities for getting the board set 
up and running and briefly discuss how you plan to approach 
those goals that form the basis of your priorities.
    Ms. Burnham. Thank you, Senator. I think a first priority 
would be to meet with the staff at NARA to determine which 
government agencies have in fact turned over records for 
inclusion in the collection and to determine what, if any, 
processes NARA has already undertaken with respect to such 
records.
    It would also be a priority to staff the board, to hire a 
chief of staff and such other staff as would be necessary to 
facilitate our early and aggressive engagement in the work 
ahead if we are appointed.
    In addition to staffing and associating ourselves with the 
NARA staff who are responsible for the work to be carried under 
the statute, we would also want to set a schedule for the 
release of records, again in consultation with the Archives 
team, to set a schedule for the release of such records and 
then to set a schedule for ourselves as to how often we intend 
to meet, under what circumstances we intend to meet, and how 
quickly we can get to the work of collecting, of building the 
collection, and responding to the requests of agencies, if 
there are any, to postpone disclosure of the records.
    Thank you, Senator.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
    Ms. Dudley.
    Ms. Dudley. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I 
underscore what Professor Burnham has already said. I think one 
of the initial things that we really need to do, if confirmed, 
is to organize ourselves as a board. One of those first things 
that we should do, I think, is to select a chairperson for the 
board and then also think about the staff that needs to be 
hired to support the work of the board and then, of course, 
working with NARA to think about what agencies have already 
sent over records that can be reviewed and which agencies will 
still need to send records, and once we have sort of that 
initial organization done how can we set a schedule for review 
of those records but then, as Professor Burnham has said, a 
schedule for ourselves. Then I, if confirmed, would be very 
willing to immediately jump into doing that work.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
    Professor Klibanoff.
    Mr. Klibanoff. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. First 
of all, let me just associate myself with the brilliant remarks 
of my potential colleagues, if we are all confirmed, Professor 
Burnham and Gabrielle Dudley, who I had the pleasure to teach 
with here at Emory.
    I want to say in addition to what they have said is that 
most of us are familiar with the National Archives. We are 
familiar with their recordkeeping. We are familiar with--
through the Freedom of Information Act that we have used over 
the years, we know plenty of records have been already 
requested over the years by scholars, journalists, historians, 
families. To use a line that I heard Ms. Dudley mention the 
other day, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that we can go 
ahead and bring in and start to examine even while NARA is 
trying to get other agencies that might be a little bit slower 
in turning the records over to do so.
    We need to get some sense of the scope of the work. The 
clock is ticking, and we know that the time is limited that we 
have under the law. Thus, we are able to get an extension. I do 
think we need to get a sense of how much there is out there, 
the magnitude of the work.
    I will say last that I think we all appreciate this is not 
an honorary board; this is a working board. There is a lot to 
do, and we are all committed to doing it for the same reason we 
have been committed to this work in all the years leading up to 
this.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Yes, very good, Professor. Thank you.
    Professor Stevenson, your comments?
    Ms. Stevenson. Thank you, Senator, very much for this 
question and thank you to my fellow nominees for all that you 
have said. It is nice to come last sometimes and to build on 
that.
    If I am confirmed, I will work very quickly with the other 
members who are confirmed, first of all, to choose a 
chairperson, to meet with NARA, to go over what the landscape 
of this work will look like with regard to the numbers of cases 
and what has to be gotten, collected, and how that will be 
collected.
    We will have about 45 days, I believe, to choose a Chief of 
Staff and to begin staffing the committee as well, which I 
would be working to help to do, as well as we have about 90 
days to set up a schedule for review, how we will review the 
cases. All of this work has to take place right away.
    Then we have to, as a board, organize ourselves with regard 
to setting up advisory committee as well as making decisions 
about how decisions will be made and perhaps even setting up a 
website so that we can have public interface as well.
    All those things have to be done immediately. I am very 
committed, if confirmed, to jumping right into this work and 
doing this very important duty for the Nation.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. Thank you, Professor.
    It is clear that all of you have thought about this and you 
realize that you have a big job ahead of you and I certainly 
appreciate you all speak enthusiastically about the job and are 
excited about tackling it. Thank you for that.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your 
questions.
    Senator Portman. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I would first like to comment on the working board rather 
than an honorary board. This is a working board. Clearly, you 
all are viewing it this way. We talked about this in our 
earlier discussions, and one thing I mentioned is that under 
the statute you have 90 days to publish a schedule for review 
of all civil rights cold case records in the Federal Register. 
That alone, even if you were not shortchanged on time generally 
because it has taken so long to get the nominees up and to get 
you confirmed, once you do hit the ground, you have to hit the 
ground running. I will just stipulate that, that my sense from 
talking to all four of you is you understand the importance of 
that it is a working board for sure.
    The two issues that again we have already discussed some, 
but I want to hear you talk about it in this public hearing 
context is, one, balancing this interest of public disclosure 
and privacy and protection of those named in the record, such 
as witnesses. As part of that, how would you handle this 
responsibility of subpoena authority and the ability to 
petition the Attorney General?
    Then the second question I have is with regard to 
impartiality. Some of you have made political contributions. 
All of us have personal political views. My sense from talking 
to you all is that you acknowledge that this is not a political 
appointment in the sense that this is an apolitical board and 
that impartiality and objectivity is key. I would like you to 
talk a little more about that, too.
    I am giving you a lot to do in the five minutes or so 
remaining here. Let us start in the reverse order. Professor 
Stevenson, if you can address one or all of those issues, and 
then we will go to Professor Klibanoff and then Ms. Dudley and 
then Professor Burnham. Professor Stevenson.
    Ms. Stevenson. Thank you, Senator, for your question. I 
would begin with impartiality. As a trained historian, what I 
am trained to do is to be impartial in terms of the use of 
documentation in providing information to my audience, whether 
my audience, a reading audience, or it can be a student-based 
audience, or it would be a radio audience. I am here to, in my 
work, to be impartial. That is the most important thing a 
scholar can do, and so I am very much committed to that and 
have been for my entire career.
    I am very much encouraged by the impartial way in which 
this law was established and was voted on and has been 
supported. That really will guide us if we are confirmed in our 
work, that this really comes out of the good will of all the 
political forces in our nation and that it is an honor to work 
on something and to keep that tradition going. I look forward 
to--if confirmed to being, if possible, a beacon of 
impartiality and--in the committee.
    With regard to balancing. Thank you for that question as 
well. The law is very specific about what can be disclosed and 
what cannot be disclosed and what reasons why an agency may not 
want to disclose certain materials. I do believe, if confirmed, 
and with the fellow nominees, that we will work diligently to 
understand what the law means and what it means to the people 
of the United States. I will commit myself to following very 
carefully the details of the law with regard to the information 
that is exposed and our attempts to get information that may be 
helpful to us in our decisionmaking.
    Senator Portman. Thank you for those answers. I am going to 
go on to the next witness and say that you have answered the 
questions well, but there are a couple out there I want to be 
sure others have a chance to answer, too.
    One, Mr. Klibanoff, is as to the subpoena authority and to 
the power the board has to ask the Attorney General to petition 
a court to release sealed permission.
    Mr. Klibanoff. Yes. The law that the Senate and the House 
passed and that President Trump signed does give us some 
subpoena authority in certain situations. It is not something 
that I anticipate we will be using randomly. I do not 
anticipate we would be using it recklessly. I think that this 
is a very serious responsibility, and I think we know that.
    We understand that there are reasons along the line 
historically that certain records have been held off-limits, 
that certain records have been sealed. We need to find out what 
those reasons are before we move to try to countermand that. I 
think you will find us to be very reasonable about that.
    I think that you know that we will be discussing this with 
the Attorney General, with the National Archives. I think we 
probably need some advisor, an advisory committee of lawyers 
who deal in the world of privacy and First Amendment issues in 
order to make sure that we are not stepping in something that 
is bigger than we want to get into.
    Senator Portman. Thank you for that. I want to make sure we 
get to the other two members.
    Let me just briefly, on the advisory committee, you do have 
the authority to do that under the law. That is one of the 
questions that I would have asked if I had a little more time, 
but that is an interesting use of the advisory committee, would 
be to have lawyers who have trained and, day to day deal with 
this balancing of public disclosure versus a privacy issue.
    Ms. Dudley, thoughts on any of these questions?
    Ms. Dudley. Thank you, Senator. I will say, as I mentioned 
in my opening statement, that I really do embody and employ the 
Code of Ethics for Archivists, which I strive to exercise 
ethical and professional judgments in all of the work that I 
do.
    I should say, in my day-to-day work in Rose Library in the 
university, one of my targets is to balance access and privacy. 
I work in public services. We are providing access to 
researchers but also making sure to honor the agreements that 
we have with donors that have donated their materials and have 
certain stipulations. I am very comfortable with doing that in 
my professional role, and then also could bring that to this 
board, if confirmed.
    Senator Portman. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. If I could just jump in, Ranking Member, I 
have to jump off to get an Armed Services question in. You may 
continue your questions.
    Then, Senator Carper, you will be recognized after the 
Ranking Member is done and have the gavel until I return.
    Senator Carper. Would that happen today?
    Chairman Peters. That is right now, yes.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
    Senator Portman. Professor Burnham, any response to those 
questions? Then we will go on to allow Senator Carper to take 
over the panel.
    Ms. Burnham. Thank you, Senator Portman. On the subpoena 
power and the question of balancing interests in nondisclosure, 
or concerns that might lead to nondisclosure and our interest 
in disclosure, I would say that the statute is really well 
drafted in that it lays out exactly what issues might give rise 
to nondisclosure, and so we will just follow along the lines of 
the statute. The statute, of course, echoes lots of law out 
there about reasons why government records ought not to be made 
generally available.
    Subpoena power. I agree with my colleagues that, if 
appointed, we would all use our best judgment to obtain records 
without having to resort to subpoenas, but if it appeared that 
records were necessary to complete the collection we would then 
be guided by the judgment of the Attorney General and whatever 
counsel are advising the board.
    On the question of impartiality, of course, I would be 
completely impartial on these issues. This is, as Professor 
Klibanoff has indicated, a completely nonpartisan and impartial 
board although it reflects the views across the parties and in 
the country. I would, of course, be impartial here.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Professor Burnham.
    I appreciate those answers and in our private conversation 
and also what you all put in the record publicly. I wish you 
all well with the important mission and look forward to 
checking in, assuming you are confirmed, with the progress of 
the board and the results of your work.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and back to you.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

    Senator Carper [presiding]. I am not Mr. Chairman, but I 
used to be. I find this a hand-off. But, Senator Portman, 
thanks very much.
    I would just say to our witnesses, before I ask a couple 
questions, I want to acknowledge the high school students who 
are responsible for this legislation which created the review 
board. I do not know what Senator Portman was when a high 
school student, and what he was focused on, and what I did 
certainly was not anything nearly as important or as heavy as 
this. I take my hat off to those students.
    As my colleagues know, we talk a lot in the Senate about 
the word cloture--with respect to moving from one item of 
business to another. We do not talk a lot about closure.
    Both Senator Portman and I once served in the House. He 
went on to do a lot of other things, and I have been fortunate 
as well. But I focused a lot on closure.
    In 1991, I was visited by a number of veterans groups as a 
Congressman, who came to talk to me about closure for families 
whose loved ones remains were never recovered during the 
Vietnam War. They were MIAs, and years have gone by since they 
disappeared. In some cases, they had been in airplanes, some 
cases in ground forces, but there were literally thousands of 
them.
    I was privileged to lead a congressional delegation, a 
bipartisan congressional delegation--I think it was 1991--at 
the urging of then-President George Herbert Walker Bush, in his 
administration, to find out what happened to as many of those 
thousands of MIAs as we could and, ultimately, a very 
successful mission.
    We worked in conjunction with a couple of our Senate 
colleagues, including John Kerry and John McCain, to not only 
find out what happened to those folks whose bodies were never 
recovered, who were listed as MIAs, but we also were able to 
move toward normalizing relations between the United States and 
Vietnam. Now they are one of our strongest trading partners in 
that part of the world. We were able to provide closure to 
literally hundreds, hundreds of American families, as to what 
happened to their loved ones.
    The word closure, I have thought a lot about that, and I 
understand from that earlier experience just how important it 
can be.
    I have a couple of questions if I could. I would say to our 
witnesses, Judge Burnham and Mr. Klibanoff, when it comes to 
finding solutions for tough problems, oftentimes my colleagues 
have heard me say, find out what works, do more of that.
    I would just ask, Judge Burnham, I understand you founded 
the Northeastern University's Civil Rights and Restorative 
Justice Project.
    Mr. Klibanoff, I understand you have experience starting 
the Civil Rights Cold Case Project at Emory that examines 
unsolved or unpunished racially motivated murders in Georgia.
    Given that the board is newly established, what are some 
best practices that both of you intend to bring to the board to 
help guide and facilitate its work, if confirmed? Judge 
Burnham, why don't you go first and then Mr. Klibanoff?
    Ms. Burnham. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. First of 
all, what we do at the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice 
Project is we take each case, one case at a time, and we look 
for the family members or anyone else who might have been 
affected by these events. We seek them out and obtain their 
stories and find out from them what they remember about the 
event, how the event affected them, how it affected their 
family legacies and their family histories. We combine that 
with the documents and research that our students are able to 
unearth mostly from government documents, from DOJ documents, 
FBI documents.
    I would say that our job is really to make this available--
if appointed, the job of this board would be to make this 
material available to the American public. Then they will have 
at it. The family members, the communities, the historians, 
they will all have at this material and make sense for 
themselves.
    For each community, that may be a very different thing. In 
some of our situations, we have had exhibitions at museums. We 
had an exhibition at the Mobile Museum, where we brought 
together the family members of those who had suffered losses as 
a consequence of Jim Crow violence in the 1940s. The processes 
by which this material will be absorbed into American history 
generally, but more specifically into the family history, the 
history of each family and community, will differ across the 
country.
    The first, the most important thing at this point for our 
country, I do believe, Senator Carper, is disclosure, is making 
the information available, much as you did with respect to MIAs 
in Vietnam. Find out what we know. Find out what we know and 
make that information available. Open it up. Give it some fresh 
air.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    I have about another minute. I am going to ask Mr. 
Klibanoff to respond briefly to the same question. What are 
some best practices that you intend to bring to the board to 
help guide and facilitate its work?
    Mr. Klibanoff. Sure. The work that we do in our teaching is 
very different from the work we are going to be doing on this 
because we are not researching cases here. This is not us 
reexamining, reviewing, adjudicating guilt or any of that sort 
of thing.
    However, what we teach are research methods. We teach about 
the everyday--Ms. Dudley knows this better than anybody as an 
archivist. Every day, more and more archives are being 
unearthed and are becoming digitized, and they are being 
available. We arm our students with knowledge on how to access 
those records.
    As Professor Burnham said, we go to the scene. We do a lot 
of fieldwork, and it was through that, by the way--I will tell 
you very quickly. It is because we had access to the records of 
a man named Isaiah Nixon, killed in 1948 from voting in 
Georgia, that we were able to find out why we had been able to 
get his death certificate. It is because he died two counties 
away from where the men shot him. The two men shot him because 
he voted; that is why they shot him. He had to be rushed two 
counties away because it is the only hospital that would take a 
Black patient. OK?
    That is where we found his death certificate, which led to 
my students finding his gravesite 67 years after the family 
lost track of it. OK? Down in a clearing in the woods in 
Georgia, in southeast Georgia.
    It allowed his daughter, Dorothy, who may be watching 
today--and I hope she is--to be reunited with her father at 
this gravesite that the family had not been able to find for 67 
years, which in turn led the nephew of the two men who killed 
Isaiah Nixon to come forward and to say, I want to apologize to 
the Nixon family for what my uncles did back in 1948.
    Best practices is, as Professor Burnham said, disclosure, 
unearthing the records that could allow all these sorts of 
wonderful things to happen.
    Senator Carper. Thank you very much for that.
    I am not going to have time to ask on the record\1\ here 
today questions that I have for Ms. Dudley. I am going to 
mention the questions and will ask you to respond for the 
record if you will. Ms. Dudley, a question for you. Given your 
expertise as an archivist with a focus on the culture of Black 
southerners in the 19th and the 20th centuries, how will you 
approach this important mission of the board to provide 
transparency that will bring closure, hopefully, for victims 
and families and communities, and help the American public 
better understand this part of our nation's history?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Ms. Dudley responses to questions for the Record appear in the 
Appendix on page 92.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A question for the record\2\ that I would ask Dr. Stevenson 
to respond to will be: How will you draw on your experience as 
an educator, as a scholar, and as an administrator to carry out 
the board's heavy responsibilities, as you mentioned in your 
opening statement?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Dr. Stevenson responses to questions for the Record appear in 
the Appendix on page 173.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Those would be my questions. I would ask you to respond for 
the record if you will.
    I would say for the record, my sister and I were born in a 
coal mining town in West Virginia, Beckley, but we grew up in 
Danville, Virginia. Danville, Virginia was the last capital of 
the Confederacy, and so these are issues that are close to our 
hearts as well.
    Grateful to these high school students for the work that 
they have done in raising this flag and following through and 
also grateful to those who have been nominated and are 
witnesses before us today. Thank you all. God bless you.
    I think next in line to ask questions is one of our oldest 
members, actually one of our newest fathers, from Georgia, 
Senator Ossoff. He has been smiling for a couple weeks now 
since the birth of his first child. We are very happy for him. 
I yield to Senator Ossoff.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF

    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
those kind words.
    Thank you to our panel for your willingness to serve in 
this vital mission. It is so important that we continue to 
pursue these cold cases. It is so important that we help bring 
closure to families and communities, that we continue to 
unearth documents, that we support these efforts to pursue 
justice decades later.
    Of course, this is vitally important in my State of 
Georgia, and Mr. Klibanoff, of course, you and I have met and 
spoken in the past. I am grateful for your work at Emory 
University, with the whole Emory community, for the support 
that you have provided families across the State, to help them 
seek justice and closure and truth. I look forward to 
supporting your nomination for this position.
    In Georgia, as you know, Mr. Klibanoff and the rest of the 
panel, there remain cold cases, open cases, unsolved murders, 
justice yet secured, of victims like: Alphonso Harris, who was 
a member of the SCLC, murdered in Albany, Georgia, in 1966. 
Caleb Hill, Jr., who was pulled from a Wilkinson County jail in 
Georgia, in the middle of the night in 1949 and brutally shot 
to death by the lynch mob. Ernest Hunter, who was killed in a 
Camden County jail in St. Mary's in 1958.
    I want to urge this Committee and the whole U.S. Senate to 
expedite the consideration and approval of these nominations so 
that this board can instantaneously embark upon this vital work 
of supporting the efforts to secure justice and truth in cases 
like these in Georgia, others across the South and across the 
country.
    Mr. Klibanoff, given your deep experience working in 
Georgia, could you please talk about what you have been doing 
at Emory University with the Emory community, working on cases 
like these, and talk about the importance for communities 
across our State of continuing to pursue the truth in these 
cold civil rights cases?
    Mr. Klibanoff. This is largely a student project. I mean, I 
teach students in my class, and we are doing the fieldwork in 
the class, and we are doing the research in the class. COVID 
has complicated some of that, but we get insights from 
community members when we go down there. We meet with people 
who can take us to places we otherwise would not know because 
the places where something happened had been bulldozed over or 
there is now a road, where there used to be a nighttime place 
where people would go and some of them would be killed. There 
is so much that the community can get involved in.
    I think that at Emory we are fortunate that we have other 
departments that are interested in these cases and can go in 
and do some work with us, whether it is community service work 
or to help bring people along and to--frankly, for many people 
in a community, it is an education. They do not even know this 
happened in their own community. These were not stories that 
were covered in the local newspapers in many cases, not in the 
weekly newspapers. In the Black newspapers, they were, but not 
in the main White newspapers. There is a lot of education that 
we feel like is important to bring to these communities.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Klibanoff.
    To the rest of the panel, I would like to ask you briefly 
for your affirmative commitment to work with communities in the 
State of Georgia, to work with my office, to work with the 
families of victims still seeking truth and justice in Georgia, 
and to give every effort to pursue and unearth the facts and 
records pertaining to those cases, as you will and must for 
cases in all States, should you be confirmed to these 
positions.
    Ms. Burnham. This is Margaret Burnham. Thank you, Senator 
Ossoff. Yes, you have my commitment to work closely with your 
office. Hank Klibanoff and I have worked together over 10 
years, and much of that work has been focused on Georgia. You 
mentioned the Caleb Hill case. That was a case we took up about 
10 years ago, and we have many documents and have met with 
individuals who are deeply familiar with that case. So, yes, 
you do have my commitment, and I thank you for yours.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, ma'am.
    Ms. Stevenson. Thank you very much, Senator. I affirm that 
you have my commitment to work with your State and to work with 
your office with regard to these cold cases. As a social 
historian, I have committed myself throughout my career to 
working with materials that impact communities and families and 
so often in very horrifying ways. I look forward to bringing my 
expertise and my commitment to this work and with the many cold 
cases from your State. I am looking forward to, and commit 
myself to, working very diligently.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, ma'am.
    Ms. Dudley. Thank you, Senator. I am a resident of the 
State of Georgia. I am very committed to working with your 
office but also just very committed, if confirmed, to the work 
of this board to do as you have mentioned for families and 
communities across our Nation.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Dudley. It is an honor that 
we have two Georgians who have been nominated for these 
positions. I appreciate your commitment and the commitments of 
the rest of the nominees.
    I would like to take a few remaining moments here to thank 
Chairman Peters for being such an extraordinary champion for 
the effort to solve and pursue the truth in these cold cases, 
for expediting this hearing, Mr. Chairman, for your commitment 
to civil rights and to truth and justice in these civil rights 
cold cases.
    I want to urge my colleagues on this Committee and in the 
whole Senate, in the interest of pursuing truth and justice in 
Georgia and across the country, to move these highly qualified 
nominees to the floor as swiftly as possible and confirm them 
so they can continue the work they are already doing in their 
communities at the national level.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Peters [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Ossoff, and 
thank you for your leadership as well.
    Senator Johnson, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to 
second the comments of a number of my colleagues, thanking the 
nominees for your willingness to serve. This is a working 
board. I think you are well aware of it.
    I was Chairman when Senator Jones introduced this piece of 
legislation, and this was the committee of jurisdiction. I was 
happy to take up this bill, get it passed in the Committee, and 
shepherd it through the Senate to final passage and signature 
by the President.
    As the Chairman of this Senate oversight committee, we are 
the primary committee that provides oversight, and that means 
disclosure. I have a huge bias toward transparency and 
disclosure, and I really do believe there is way too much 
information classified and kept secret and kept hidden. This 
really was a very easy piece of legislation for me to support.
    I want to make sure that you are all very successful. 
Again, I am very heartened by your comments and by your 
testimony here today in your bias toward disclosure and 
closure, for the purpose of closure. I think the other purpose 
of this is to hopefully help the racial healing in this 
country. We have too far to go, quite honestly, and I would 
like to see greater healing.
    Now there are restrictions, and you know they kind of fall 
under three main headings: not to disclose in case of national 
security, personal privacy, or ongoing law enforcement. As you 
are aware, these are cold cases. I am not sure the ongoing law 
enforcement provision will take an effect too often, but it 
might.
    Again, I have a bias toward disclosure, and it seems like 
all of you do, too. I support that bias, but I guess I am just 
asking, in what cases and what criteria would you use for 
keeping things private? You know, for not disclosing.
    I would kind of like to go starting with Professor Burnham. 
We have heard, obviously, you have criteria in the law. Ms. 
Dudley talks about her code of ethics, use best judgment. I am 
really kind of interested in what criteria you are going to use 
should you come across a situation where you are not going to 
disclose information. We will start with Professor Burnham.
    Ms. Burnham. Thank you very much for that question, Senator 
Johnson. As I said, I think the statute is really quite clear 
and that, obviously, this is a case-by-case determination. For 
example, the statute allows nondisclosure in a case where 
revealing the identity might cause a substantial risk upon the 
living confidential informants.
    Now the cases that we will be looking at, or the material 
that we will be looking at, are cases that were taken up by the 
DOJ, the FBI, or both from 1940 to 1979. When you get way back 
in those 1940 cases, there are not likely to be any living 
confidential informants. If you get to some of the later cases, 
there may very well be informants whose lives could be 
endangered by disclosure. If there is such a showing, under the 
statute, then nondisclosure would have to be the right answer 
there.
    I certainly agree with you that the thrust of the statute 
and the intent of Congress is toward disclosure. That is the 
whole purpose. The rationale of the statute is to collect these 
cases, collect these records, put them in one place, and 
disclose them. But the statute is really quite clear, and as I 
said before, it echoes other statutory provisions in our code 
that favor nondisclosure where disclosure is going to affect 
particular interests.
    We would have to be guided by, first of all, if there are 
any regulations out there, if there are case law out there that 
might help us fill in the gaps in the statute. But the 
language, I think, is really quite clear and comprehensive.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Dudley, do you kind of agree that this 
is going to be relatively cut and dried in terms of if you ever 
do come across a situation where you are not going to disclose, 
or do you think there will be an awful lot of judgment calls 
here?
    Ms. Dudley. Thank you, Senator. I would agree; I do think 
that the statute does lay out very clearly in places where we 
cannot disclose or postponement is sort of the recommendation 
there. But I will also say, to echo some of what Professor 
Burnham has said, that you know, the statute is very clear.
    But I also think that each one of the nominees, if 
confirmed, brings something very different to this board, and I 
think we could rely on each other. I do not think we are going 
to be making any decisions in a vacuum, that we can all sort of 
come together to have discussions about anything if there is a 
case where that is something that might need further 
discussion. I think that we could all come together, if 
confirmed, to have those conversations but then also again rely 
back to the statute and then to any advisory groups that we 
might be able to appoint for help with those recommendations.
    Senator Johnson. Mr. Klibanoff, do you anticipate any areas 
where you are going to have to use your judgment, and can you 
give me your criteria in terms of those judgment calls?
    Mr. Klibanoff. I think----
    Senator Johnson. Or, do you also think it is pretty clear 
cut?
    Mr. Klibanoff. No. I think realistically there will be 
times. I think I said in my opening remarks there will be times 
when there are some hidden complexities we did not anticipate. 
I, too, have a predisposition toward disclosure, and maybe that 
is the old journalist in me, but it does not mean that I 
believe that everything ought to be out there. But I do have a 
predisposition on that.
    If we do not come at this with this idea that we do want to 
disclose more than has been disclosed previously, then you do 
not need us. You might as well go back and rely on the Freedom 
of Information Act and all the exemptions that were there. I 
think that expediting access to information, yet redacting it, 
becomes sort of an exercise in futility for those who are 
trying to get the information.
    I do think we will have some judgments. I do not think most 
of them; we have seen the records before, and we have a sense 
of what is in there. I do not think we are going to have knock-
down, drag-out arguments over these things.
    I will say that what has happened over time--this is an 
organic process. Things that were redacted in the 1970s and 
1980s, removing people, the names of confidential informants 
who have since died--our charge is to protect only living 
confidential informants. I think that is an opportunity to go 
back and re-review things, and I think we will have to get into 
some of the details and some of the weeds of what were the 
extenuating circumstances.
    Senator Johnson. I am sympathetic with not wanting to 
answer a hypothetical question, but I do want to kind of suss 
out just some examples, of where there may be something 
sensitive that maybe it will not be cut and dried, but what 
would some of those sensitive areas where you might say, no, I 
do not want to disclose this? I just want to get some sense for 
that.
    Mr. Klibanoff. It is easier for me to ask those where we 
have run into----
    Senator Johnson. Give me an example.
    Mr. Klibanoff. In 1958, a Federal grand jury in Macon, 
Georgia, that was investigating police shootings of two or 
three killings of two or three people down in Dawson, Georgia, 
in Terrell County, and among the things that happened, one of 
the key witnesses happened to be on the streets of Dawson in 
the days leading up to the grand jury, and the police officer 
who was under investigation by the grand jury saw him and 
jailed him for the entirety of the grand jury. Because we do 
not have access to those grand jury reports, we have no idea if 
anyone ever said: Where is Mr. Goshay? Where is the witness? 
Where is the person? We do not know how that was managed.
    There is a lot of curiosity about the way things were done 
in the past, and in some these communities I think we know that 
it was a group think about these kinds of cases. They all 
stood--whether it was the judge and the police chief and the 
sheriff and the prosecutor were all pretty much on the same 
side, and if they wanted something not to come out they could 
make sure it did not come out. I am not sure these days we want 
those things to be kept from the public.
    Senator Johnson. That is argument for disclosure.
    Professor Stevenson, I realize this is kind of a difficult 
question I am asking here, but do you have anything to add?
    Senator Johnson. Thank you very much, Senator, for the 
question. What I would like to say is that I think my co-
nominees have been very wonderful in terms of the ways in which 
they have looked at the law because the law does give us very 
specific reasons for nondisclosure.
    But as an historian, as a social historian, I do know that 
history is not cut and dry. Oftentimes, there are people--
unintended consequences of disclosure or of nondisclosure, and 
I think we will have to think very carefully about them. We 
will be guided by the law. If approved, we will be guided by 
the law, but we will have to draw on our sense of knowledge as 
well as our ethics, as well as the law, and we will have to 
consult with many different entities if we get into a situation 
where disclosure would mean exposure of people who may be 
harmed, people who are not necessarily the named person within 
the particular cold case but have associations with these 
people, et cetera.
    Things can get sticky and they can get blurred which is 
something that I think we will--if approved, we will face and 
that we will work collectively with, as well as with advisors, 
to try to make the best decision at the time.
    Senator Johnson. Thank you all again for your willingness 
to serve. I guess my final comment is I was glad to shepherd 
this through our Committee because I am for disclosure and for 
transparency, but I am also hoping for greater racial healing, 
and I really hope this piece of legislation--I hope your 
actions--can contribute that.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Johnson, and thank you 
for your efforts in shepherding this through back in 2019. 
Thank you for that. It was a pleasure to work with you on that 
and thank you for your questions here today.
    Again, to all of our nominees, congratulations on your 
nomination. It is clear that this is a working board and you 
are all ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work. You are 
chomping at the bit to get there, which is great, and we look 
forward to moving your nomination process forward as quickly as 
possible.
    All four nominees have made financial disclosures\1\ and 
provided the required responses to biographical and prehearing 
questions\2\ submitted by this Committee. Without objection, 
this information will be made part of the hearing record\3\ 
with the exception of the financial data, which is on file and 
available for public inspection in the Committee offices.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The information of Ms. Burnham appears in the Appendix on page 
31.
    \2\ The information of Ms. Dudley appears in the Appendix on page 
62.
    \3\ The information of Mr. Klibanoff appears in the Appendix on 
page 95.
    \4\ The information of Ms. Stevenson appears in the Appendix on 
page 130.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The hearing record will remain open till 12 p.m. tomorrow, 
January 14th, for the submission of statements and questions 
for the record.
    And with that, this hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:47 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 [all]