Everyone, please be seated. Good evening and thanks to Justice Ginsburg for joining us tonight. Record,oking at your Justice Ginsburg, and i noticed you have had a lot of name changes over the years. You went by ruth. Then you became professor ginsb finallyge ginsburg, and Justice Ginsburg. You have this new moniker of rbg. Can i just call you Justice Ginsburg . You can call me ruth. Georgetown law school, i know these are two institutions of which you have had long association. You are here tonight to 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. Your career has focused on equality more broadly. You said he wished your mother could have lived in an age when mothers good is and achieve and daughters were treated equally to sons. And cherished. What do you imagine your mother would have been or done had she lived in such an age . Is it true that she marched on behalf of the 19th amendment . Whens, my mother was 18 the 19th amendment became part of the constitution. 16, she took15 and part in the parades in new york, you asked what she would have done. My mother was one of the brightest people i knew. Universityave been a professor or university luminary,or legal but those were so far beyond her reach. She grew up in a large family. Siblings survived into adulthood. She graduated high school at age 15. Only one person in that large family went to university, and that was the eldest son. Age 15er went to work at to help support the family because they would not have any income from the eldest son. If any child would have the 19th amendment merely gives the vote to women. And i know that your dissent in suggest that you might have a the menust view of what it means in terms of Voting Rights. In terms of Voting Rights. In your view, what is the legacy of the 19th amendment . Justice ginsburg it was the First Step Towards equal citizenship stature for women. Some of the suffragists had high hopes for the 19th amendment. Strictly, it says the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. But if women were to have equality in the political domain, that is if they were part of the political constituency and could vote, then how could you abide subordination of women in the civil domain . For example, if a woman wanted a loan, she had to get her husbands permission, or he had to sign for it. The courts interpreted the 19th amendment strictly. So it gave the women the right to vote and just that. One of the controversies was about women serving on juries. And in the not so good old days, women were not called for jury duty. Another was running for office. In some ways, the 19th amendment was a miracle, because everyone who voted for it in congress and in the states, it was all men. So suffragists had to sell votes for women to an all male audience, and that was no easy task. But they had hoped that it would be more. I mentioned jury duty and running for office. The National Womens party was the more radical wing of the suffrage movement, and their idea is, if the 19th amendment is going to are interpreted restrictively, we need something else. So they introduced the equal rights amendment in 1923 and almost every year thereafter until at last, congress let it out. But their idea was the 19th amendment was the beginning. That women should have equality all fields of human endeavor, so we needed an equal rights amendment, and at least in my view, we still do. Going back in time i think in 1973, you actually wrote in the journal that we needed an equal rights amendment, and one of the reasons you gave was it would be great for your granddaughters to pick up the constitution and see this equality in the constitution. Justice ginsburg i have been asked many times, well havent you through the vehicle of the 14th amendment equal protection clause got into the place, about the same place where you would be with the era . And my answer is, not quite, although there is a startling difference, if you pick up law once, state or federal, riddled with gender based differentials, almost explicit gender based differentials are now gone. Every constitution in the world written since the year 1950, even afghanistan, has the equivalent of an equal rights amendment, and we dont. My notion was, i would like to show my granddaughters that the equal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental human right. It should be right up there with free speech, freedom of religion, ban on discrimination based on race or national origin. So i think that the Constitution Order tothe people, in form a more perfect union, the union will be more perfect. That simple statement that men and women are people of equal statures is a fundamental instrument of government. Evenif that ar if that argument is largely symbolic, it is very important. Why should the rest of the world have the equivalent of an equality guarantee and the United States does not . As you also point out, there is a distinction between equal protection clause and then having an actual amendment that lays it out. Years ago, i was involved in some litigation involving the extension of a deadline in the equal rights amendment, and we recently had virginia passing equal rights amendment. So leaving aside whether any deadlines could be extended, what is your prognosis on when we will get an equal rights amendment on the federal level . Justice ginsburg i would like to see a new beginning, i would like to start over. There is too much controversy about latecomers, Virginia Long after the deadline passed, plus a number of states have h john the ratification have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, we have changed our minds . You had mentioned women on juries, and i take some pride in being from wyoming, which was the first territory and the first state to grant women the right im told and you can tell me if this is true. Wyoming didburg that because they wanted women to come out there and marry the man in subtle. Well that is one reason. [laughter] we like to say how the west was won, but in fact the west was part of the east coast state by state territory by territory in adopting the right to vote, but there were several reasons, not all of them good. One was they would like to have but in fact,rry, women were actually populated in the territory quite significantly. One of the other reasons is at least one of the Political Parties was losing, and they thought maybe their only hope was to get more voters, and the only way to get more voters was to give women the right to vote. So sometimes good things come out of bed motives, i suppose might be one way to say it. Justice ginsburg im sure you know that another state early on to give women the right to vote was utah. Yes. Yes. There is a great story actually about the 19th amendment in and tennessee being the last to give the right to women, and there was a particular legislator who was inclined to vote against it, but his mother that morning put a little note in his pocket and basically said do the right thing. Justice ginsburg be a good boy. [laughter] so i think it pays to listen to your mother, because he ultimately voted, and then of course that pushed the amendment over the line and we got the 19th amendment. So, its interesting when you look at the language of the 19th amendment, of course, it doesnt say anything about women at all, it talks about the right of citizens of the United States should not be denied or abridged of the United States, to vote, should not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Justice ginsburg but it was modeled after the 15th amendment. Exactly, so it talked about citizens, not about women, and this catchphrase on account of sex also has some similarity on the basis of sex, but language with language we see in the discrimination statute. So the public is quite familiar with this phrase now on the basis of sex because the movie title on the basis of sex of which you are the star, although you are not in it directly, and it was based on the First Federal court case you had, morris versus the commissioner of the irs. So my question is, going back to the notorious rbg moniker, you have become quite famous in addition to your work on the court, you have taken on kind of a movie star fame that is probably somewhat unusual for a justice. How does one, i wouldnt say reconcile, but how do you deal with all of this . Justice ginsburg it is amazing. [laughter] soon to be 87 years old, and Everyone Wants to take a picture with me. [laughter] if youre willing, i think all of them would like to come down for a photo, as well. Justice ginsburg the notorious rbg was created by a secondyear law student. It was the year the Supreme Court decided the Shelby County nullified the key revision in the Voting Rights act of 1965. The law was passed in 1965, it was renewed periodically with large majorities on both sides of the aisle, and it had renewed. Been it was attacked on the ground that the formula the way the Voting Rights act worked was, if you had a record of keeping African Americans from voting, you could not pass any new election law without preclearing it either with the Civil Rights Division of the department of justice, or a threejudge Federal District course in d. C. That provided a check on laws that were aimed at suppressing minority voters. You couldnt pass the law unless you got it precleared. The law was attacked as obsolete. The argument was that some states that might have discriminated in 1965 are no longer denying African Americans the right to vote. There was a built in check in the statute to take care of that kind of situation. It was a bailout provision. It said that if you had a clean record for x number of years you can apply to be released from preclearance. But the majority of my court thought the formula was obsolete, it needed to be done over. One of the points that i made in my dissent was, what member of our congress is going to stand up and say my state or my city or my county is still keeping African Americans from voting so please keep us under the gun of the preclearance system. That was not going to happen. If you think about, who knows a little more about the political world, the congress or the court, the Congress Said we want the Voting Rights act, it is working well, and the court said, you cannot have it. If you talk about judicial activism, here is a law that Congress Overwhelmingly passed and the court nullified it. This second year student was angry about the decision, he decision. She thought here is a piece of legislation that is really working and the Supreme Court stopped it. And then she thought some more, and decided that anger is a useless emotion, it just gets riled up but it does not move you forward. So she wanted to do something positive, and she took, not my opinion, but the announcement of my dissent that i read from the bench in the Shelby County case, and put it on some kind of blog or tumbler. Not quite the same thing, but Justice Ginsburg anyway, it took off into the Wild Blue Yonder from there because i think young people wanted something positive, something inspirational, and then they went on from whatever it was, what is the difference, by the way . [laughter] they are both communication tools. Justice ginsburg anyway, the second year student paired with a journalist and they wrote a book called the notorious rbg, which is now an exhibition that is traveling around the country. It was most recently in philadelphia, and currently it is in chicago, it will be some months from now in new york. So now there is a notorious rbg for adult readers, and notorious rbg for young readers, and many childrens books, coloring books. Well, it is probably true that Many Americans would have trouble naming a Supreme Court justice, except they would have no trouble now because of all of this publicity. Become, ally become an icon, i think, for children, women, the public. How has it changed your life . I think it has changed my slife assistant [laughter] ginsburg because i get flooded with invitations. I could be getting an award every day of the week. [laughter] well, we dont actually have an award for you tonight, but we are just happy to have you here. Justice ginsburg i should Say Something that you didnt mention. Before on the basis of sex, which, the scriptwriter for that, by the way, was my nephew, and when we asked him, why did you choose the morris case because it was not reviewed by the Supreme Court, and his answer was because he wanted the film to be as much the story of a marriage as the story of the development of a legal strategy. I think he succeeded in that. But before on the basis of sex there was a documentary called rbg done by betsy west and judy cone, years before, those two women had done a special for pbs about the Womens Movement, the revived Womens Movement starting in the late and thes continuing through 1970s. They interviewed all kinds of people for it, people on both sides. So there was an interview with haffley,safely, saf who singlehandedly brought down the equal rights amendment, and steinem, manyia people. And i was one of the people interviewed for makers, so the people who created that documentary decided they would like to do one that focused on the american civil liberty litigation efforts in the 19 70s to invigorate the equal protection clause so that it worked for women and men. I just want to let you know see i took my law clerks to both of these movies, actually. But you mentioned on Shelby County, the dissent, and one of the outflows of the notorious rbg has been a whole series of paraphernalia and related items that one can buy including a little pin called the sand collar pin. Would you share with us youre thinking about the descent dissent collar . Ginsburg the button or the collar itself . The collar itself. Justice ginsburg i do have a dissent collar. Years ago, Glamour Magazine gave me a Lifetime Achievement award and it was a bag filled with goodies and one of them was that dissent collar, i thought it looked just right for dissent. [laughter] nowadays i get a call or at collar at least once a week, i get two things, i get collars and i get scrunchies. [laughter] i hope you are not replacing the dissent collar in any way, it will keep its status and position in your chambers and around your neck. Justice ginsburg my majority opinion collar has changed, there is some variety in that. And some variety in the scrunchies as well. Justice ginsburg yes. Well, going back to the suffragettes, one of the things to raise they did money was to sell cookbooks. There was sort of a double entendre to the whole thing. They wanted to show that women could have a role in the kitchen and outside the kitchen and i know that in your family that marty had a particularly prominent role in the kitchen as the chef, and maybe your role was a little less illustrious, but you did raise two amazing children and you do hear this buzzword now, work life balance, which i do not think had come into the lexicon when you are were raising your children. Would you share how you navigated your home and professional life as you moved through your various stages . Justice ginsburg i will start at the end. Marty was a superb cook, and when we were married we spent the first two years and he was in military service, in oklahoma , and thenillery base marty, who had originally been a chemistry major until golf practice interfered with chemistry labs. So then he switched to government, which was my subject. An ousin sent him as a joke english translation of the great chefs cookbook. Marty started with a basic stock and he worked his way, i still have the book, food stains all over it, but we had an arrangement where i was the everyday cook. Marty was the weekend and company cook. I was never allowed to cook for company. For anyone who wasnt in the family. I had seven things that i made, they all came out of a book called the 60 minute chef, 60 minutes from the time you enter your home until the dinner is on the table, that was it. It was a rotation. It got to seven and went back to one. And jane, my daughter when she is in her high school years, she becomes increasingly aware of the enormous difference between cooking, and she decides daddy beonly should the weekend and company cook, but the everyday cook as well. Sawyero me, was like tom getting the fence painted. I havent cooked a meal, we have been living in washington d. C. Since 1980, i have not cooked a meal in all of those years. When marty died, my daughter jane felt responsibility for having fazed me out of the kitchen so she comes once a month, cooks up a storm, makes individual dinners for me which we put in the freezer, and then we do something nice in the evening. So, when marty died, the wife of Justice Alito decided that the tribute that would be just right for him was a cookbook, and it is called supreme chef, that is marty. Each section is introduced by the spouse of another justice in seniority order. So, it starts with maureen scalia, and it is one of the best selling books in the Supreme Court gift shop. [laughter] i think that is quite an achievement to say you havent cooked a meal for decades. Justice ginsburg something else, the supreme spouses meet quarterly for lunch, and they rotate catering responsibilities. Marty was always the number one pick to be cook. For good reason. Well, the aba commission on the 19th a