Gentlemen, please welcome the provost. [applause] good evening, its my great pleasure to welcome you to Memorial Church for the last lecture on a Meaningful Life. We are deeply honored to have, as our speaker, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [applause] [cheering] this event, as you know, has a rich history at stanford. Lecture afterin a a law professor decided to give it about the meaning of life. On the last day of his law class, one spring, the lecture was such a spirit a such a success that it turned into an theal tradition until professor retired. It was revived in 2008, supported by a generous gift by the foundation for global community, which established that henry and emilio rathbun fun for exploring what leads to a Meaningful Life. Visiting fellow is selected to come to stanford to deliver this lecture and to spend time with our faculty, students, and staff. Timebusy world, and in a of great change in our country, this lecture provides us a welcome moment for self reflection and moral inquiry. We are so fortunate this year to have Ruth Bader Ginsburg as our wrath fund as our visiting fellow. Many know her by another moniker rbg. The notorious rpg started several years ago in a tumbler blog put together by an admiring law student and it took off from there. Today the justice finds herself not only a member of our nations highest court, but a cultural phenomenon. Brooklyn, she received her bachelors from Cornell University and her law degree from Columbia Law School area she was a professor of law at 1963 touniversity from 1972. In 1971, she cofounded the womens rights project of the American Civil Liberties union. As the aclus from 1973 to 1980. She was appointed to the United States court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit in 1980. President clinton then nominated her and she took her seat on the court in 1993. Closebiographical nowhere to adequately describing the person who is with us tonight. There really are not sufficient words to describe the impact she has had on the law, and on the advancement of womens rights in america. Daringazing, pioneering,. They are all true. But they dont capture it. Very few women went to law school 19 did. She faced enormous challenges in the 1950s. She faced enormous challenges. She turned her career to the ball the calls of battling discrimination on behalf of women and family and families everywhere. She became the first tenured female professor. At the womens rights project she argued six cases before the Supreme Court. She played an absolutely central role in establishing contemporary law on equal protections as it relates to equality between the sexes. Many have called her the Thurgood Marshall of womens rights. The second woman to join the United StatesSupreme Court, serving at the time with Justice Sandra day oconnor, who has also been a visiting fellow here at stanford. Justice ginsburg will be in conversation tonight with dean jane shaw. The professor of religious studies here at stanford. Professor shaw previously taught history at oxford and just before coming to stanford she was the dean at grace cathedral. We look forward to an insightful and engaging conversation. If you will, please join me in welcoming to stanford, justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [applause] [cheering] thank you. Sburg please, be seated. Please. Please be seated. Thank you. Thank you very much. But please be seated. I thought it might be an appropriate beginning for me to tell you a little bit about my life. And what im going to say to you comes from a book called my own words. Its the preface all in my own words. Did you always want to be a judge . Or more exorbitantly, a Supreme Court justice . School children who visit me at the court, as they do at least weekly ask that question more than any other. Is a sign of huge progress judgeshipdays youth, as an aspiration for a girl is not at all outlandish. Days, 1956, ancient when i entered law school. Women were less than 3 of the lawyers in the United States. Only one woman had ever served on a federal appellate court. Appointed by franklin appointed toelt the sixth circuit in 1930 four. By the time i got to law school she was retired, and then there were none. Today about half the nations law students, and more than one third of our federal judges are women. Including three of the nine seated on the u. S. Supreme court bench. Of u. S. Ld more than 30 Law School Dean ships and serve as general counsel to 24 of fortune 500 companies. In my long life, i have seen great changes. How fortunate i was to be alive, and a lawyer, when for the first time in u. S. History became possible to urge successfully before legislatures and court the equal citizenship stature of men and women. There is a page out of place, please bear with me a moment. It should not be too far from here. Onit is skipped, we will go to the next point. Where i speak about teachers who influenced or encouraged me in. Y growing up years at Cornell University, european literature professor vladimir nabokovugh vladimir change the way that i read could. Aint pictures choosing the right word in the right order could make a difference in conveying an image or an idea. From constitutional law Professor Robert e cushman and , irican ideals professors have learned of our nations enduring values, and how our themess was straying from in the red scare years of the 1950s. But also how lawyers can remind constitutiont our seals the right to think, speak, and write without fear of reprisal from government authorities. At harvard law school, professor benjamin was my first and favorite teacher, he used the socratic method in his civil procedure class to stimulate, never to wound. He was the model i tried to follow in my own law teaching until 1980. 963 at Columbia Law School, the professor of constitutional law, who later served on stanfords faculty for many years, he was determined to place me in a federal courtship federal clerk or chip come federal court clerkship. On graduation i was the mother of a fouryearold child. After heroic effort he succeeded in his mission. In later years he litigated cases heading to the Supreme Court. I became an aid in dealing with legal issues. And he never failed to help me find the right path. Another often asked question when i speak in public, do you have some good advice you might share with us . Yes i do. [laughter] from my savvy motherinlaw, advice she gave me on my wedding day. In every good marriage, she it helps sometimes to be a little deaf. I have followed that advice assiduously it not only assiduously not only at home through 56 years of marital partnership, i have employed it in every workplace, including the Supreme Court of the United States. When a thoughtless or unkind ,ord is focused is spoken best not to react in anger or annoyance. It will not advance ones ability to persuade. Advice for my fatherinlaw has also served me well, he gave it during my cap years in night , when my husband marty was fulfilling his obligation to the army as an artillery officer in oklahoma. By the end of 1954, i pregnancy was confirmed. We look forward to becoming three in july of 1955. But i worried about starting law school the next year with an infant to care for. Advice, ruth, if you dont want to start law school, you have a good reason to resist the undertaking. Nobody will think the less of you if you make that choice. But if you really want to study worrying, andstop you will find a way. , by engagingi did a nanny on school days from 8 00 to 4 00. Many times after, when the road was rocky, i thought back to way tosdom and found a do what i thought was important to get done. Worklife balance was a term not when my children were young. But it is descriptive of the Time Distribution i experienced. My success in law school, i have no doubt was due in large measure to baby jane, my daughter. I studied diligently until 4 00 in the afternoon. The next hours were spent playing silly games, singing funnys calm funny songs, reading picture books and aa feedingems, bathing and her. Afterwards i would return to the law books, each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion. A classmate trained only on the its. Acked i have had more than a little but of luck in life, but nothing equals my marriage to martin ginsberg. I do not have the words to describe my super smart, ever loving spouse. Early on in our marriage, it became clear to him that cooking was not my strong suit. To ther lots everlasting appreciation of our children, we became four in 1965, marty made the kitchen his and became ship supreme in our even at loan to friends the court. Marty coached me through the birth of our son. He was the first reader and critic of articles and briefs that i drafted. Inwas at my side constantly and out of the hospital during two long bouts with cancer. I betray no secret in recording , i would nothim have gained a seat on the u. S. Supreme court. That associate white House Counsel rob mclean said of my nomination that i would say definitely for the record, Ruth Ginsburg should have been picked for the Supreme Court anyway. She would not have been picked if her husband had not done everything he did to make it happen. That everything including gaining the unqualified support of my home state senator, Daniel Patrick monahan, and enlisting the aids of many members of the Legal Academy and the practicing bar familiar with work i had done. I have several time said that the office i hold, now nearing bothars, is the best and most consuming job a lawyer anywhere could have. Is tourts main job repair fractures in federal law, to step in when other courts have disagreed on what the relevant federal law requires. Because the court grants review hastly when other provided. The questions we take up are rarely easy. Have indubitably right answers. But by being together at our conferences, and with more depth and precision through the circulation of an responses to draft opinions, we ultimately agree far more often than we divide sharply. To 2016, we were unanimous on the bottomline casesnt in 25 of the 67 after the full briefing and argument. In contrast we divided 53 or 43. Justice scalias death reduced the number of justices. And we divided sharply only eight times. Believe thatices they got it long, she is free to say so in dissent. I take advantage of that prerogative when i think its important, as do my colleagues. Disagreementsrong on issues, for example the control of Political Campaign ballot, access to the affirmative action, access to , wetion, samesex marriage genuinely respect each other and even enjoy each others company, collegiality is key to the success of our mission. We cannot do the job the constitution assigns to us if we did not use one of Justice Scalia is favorite expressions Justice Scalias favorite expressions, get over it. All of us revere the constitution and the court, we to leave the court in as good of shape as it wasnt we joined it. Earlier i spoke of great changes i have seen in womens occupations. But one must acknowledge the scale the still bleak part of the picture. Most people in poverty in the United States and the world over are women and children. Womens earnings here and abroad with the earnings of men comparable education and experience. Our workplaces do not adequately accommodate the demands of childbearing and child rearing, and we have yet to devise effectively to ward off Sexual Harassment at work and Domestic Violence in our homes. But i am optimistic that the Movement Towards enlisting the talents of all who compose we , aspeople will continue expressed by my colleague, the first woman to serve on the u. S. Supreme court, Justice Sandra day oconnor, for both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others. And then to put on an impressive show. As women achieve power, the barriers fall. As societies see what women can do, as women can see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things and we will all be better off for it. To that expectation i can only say amen. [applause] dean shaw Justice Ginsburg, its a huge honor to have you with us. And you for accepting my invitation to be our sitting fellow. I do know the rest of the program is designed to foster thinking about what it means to lead a Meaningful Life. He spoke about that already. Could you encapsulate what it means to lead a Meaningful Life for you . Simply,ginsburg to put it means doing something outside. F yourself students if you are going to be a lawyer, and just practice your profession, you have a skill, see you are very much like a plumber so you are like a plumber. If you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside of yourself. Something to repair tears in your community. Something to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. Thats what i think Meaningful Life is, one lives not just for oneself, but for ones community. Dean shaw thats wonderful. Do you think thats the same as a purposeful life . Justice ginsburg yes, the purpose is what you aim for. Playedaw how has family a part in your own life and your own meaning in your life . Justice ginsburg it plays a very large part. Its one of the things that drew Justice Scalia and me together. We care a lot about families. Change in life in the United States between the birth of my daughter in 1955, and my son in 1965 when my daughter jane started school, i was one of a very few working moms. 10 years later there had been an enormous change. It was not at all unusual to by the middleies 60s that made me realize it would be possible for the first time in history to move the law in the direction of what i thought equal citizenship stature for men and women and what i saw as equal citizenship stature for men and women. Dean shaw talk about your experience that led you to that work. Justice ginsburg in the days that i went to law school, when i was entering class at harvard, there were 500 students. Only nine were women. There were no antidiscrimination laws. So employers were totally we dont wanting any lady lawyers here. Or we once hired a woman, she was dreadful. And how many men have you hired that did not live up to your expectations . [laughter] anyways, things we did not complain about. Harvard law school had nine women, there were two teaching buildings at that time. Only one of them had a womens bathroom. , but ifu are in class youre taking a three or four hour exam, you had to make a mad to the building. But we never complained. It was just the way things were. 60s, the feminist movement had revived in the United States, in part as a result of the civil rights movement, but also as part of a worldwide movement, the u. N. Had declared in connection with womens year, things were changing all over. Possible to break down what is referred to as the separate spheres mentality, that is the womans place was with the family, taking care of the home, and the mans place was outside. He was the representative of the family outside. Of our laws were designed to fit that model of the stayathome woman and the work the day man. So in the decade of the 70s, almost all of the laws of that kind were like that. Dean shaw would you like to talk about one or two cases that are important . Justice ginsburg the first was the turning point case. If you go back up until 1971 the Supreme Court never saw a genderbased classification that it did not think was ok. The point against gainsta the hoyd a florida case. Her abusive and philandering husband had one day humiliated her to the breaking point, she saw her young sons baseball bat in the corner, lifted it up and with all of her might she hit him over the head and he fell on the stone floor. Then began the murder prosecution. In those days, in new borough county, they did not put women on juries. Thought that a jury that included women might better understand her state of mind, not that they would have acquitted her, that her rage at that moment and they maybe would convict her of the lesser crime of manslaughter instead of murder. When the case came to the Supreme Court challenging the absence of women on the jury roles, the courts attitude was gwendolyn we dont call them for jury duty, but if they come into the Clerks Office and sign up, we will put them there. How many men do you think would signup if they had the choice . So the Supreme Court didnt get it. The case before that, it was a case of a woman who owned a tavern, and her daughter was a bartender. The state of michigan, perhaps with the encouragement of the bartenders league, passed a law that said a woman couldnt tend bar unless she was the wife or daughter of the bar owner. The Supreme Court treated that case as part of the backing away from attempting to put down economic and social legislation. And thats how the case was taught when i went to law s