What we can VERIFY about Kamala Harris calling 18- to 24-year-olds ‘stupid’

A video clip of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has gone viral appearing to show the vice president calling young people “stupid.”

“Remember, age is more than a chronological fact. What else do we know about this population of 18 through 24? They are stupid. That is why we put them in dormitories, and they have a resident assistant. They make really bad decisions,” Harris says. 

The 21-second video has racked up millions of views across social platforms, with some claiming the clip shows Harris recently talking about voters. Several VERIFY readers, including Jant, asked us if it’s a real video. 

THE QUESTION

Did Kamala Harris really call 18- to 24-year-olds stupid?

THE SOURCES

• Original video from the Ford Foundation from May 2014
• California Department of Justice press release from May 8, 2014
• InVid and RevEye, video and photo forensics tools

THE ANSWER

Kamala Harris did call 18- to 24-year-olds stupid in a 2014 speech, but the clip is being shared without context. Harris was talking about young people in relation to prison recidivism. 

WHAT WE FOUND

The video clip of Kamala Harris calling 18- to 24-year-olds stupid is real, but it is being shared out of context. Harris appears to have made the comment in jest while explaining how she chose which age group to focus on when creating a reform program aimed at reducing prison recidivism.

Harris made the comment during a May 8, 2014 speech at the Ford Foundation’s Renewing Communities symposium while she was serving as California attorney general. Harris was talking about Back on Track, a prison recidivism reduction pilot program aimed at young adults who have been arrested on low-level charges.

Harris first launched Back on Track in 2005 in San Francisco when she was the city’s district attorney. The program was created with the goal of providing low-level offenders with higher education opportunities and re-entry services like employment and life skills training. Those who finished the program would have their original charges dropped or cleared.

While speaking at the symposium in 2014, Harris was talking about how the program was developed with 18- to 24-year-olds in mind because that is a “prime phase of life” for learning and development. 

Harris’s full remarks can be heard at around the 16:30 mark in this video. Here is a segment of her speech, with the portion heard in the viral video clip in bold:

“So, we designed this program around the 18 through 24, mostly, but it was usually up to 30 for … first time, low-level drug sales offender … We recognized the fact that 18 through 24, when I was at Howard University and we were in college, we were 18 through 24, and you know what we were called? College kids. But when you turn 18 and you’re in the system, you are considered an adult. Period. Without any regard to the fact that, that is the very phase of life in which we have invested billions of dollars in colleges and universities knowing that, that is the prime phase of life during which we mold and shape and direct someone to become a productive adult. What’s the other thing we know about this population? And it’s a specific phase of life, remember, age is more than a chronological fact. What else do we know about this population of 18 through 24? They are stupid! That is why we put them in dormitories and they have a resident assistant. They make really bad decisions! So, we focused on that age population.”

VERIFY reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.