Transcripts For CSPAN3 A Conversation With Supreme Court Jus

Unmanned aerial drones are allowed to deploy in theater but 99 infantry units. Theyre only allowed to stay back with artillery units. There is still even amongst the most advanced countries in overcoming these hurdles, hurdles still remain. So its a little bit naive to think that all these issues are going to go away immediately in part because a lot of these developments are tactically driven. And so im very excited that came up as a point of conversation. My own Research Deals primarily with irregular armed groups, rebel groups, et cetera. Insurgencies. And what weve seen is that a lot of the developments in developing world military, so for example the Sri Lankan Military formed an all womens unit in response to the high levels of female participation in the tamil insurgency in sri lanka. So the degree to which these developments are being externally driven from our engagement in conflicts like iraq and afghanistan versus internally driven through changes in American Culture or perceptions of the role of women in the workforce is something id like to see you speak on. Because there does seem to be this tension in the conversation with this panel about whether its about manpower and manpower shortages and getting full Staffing Levels or its about acknowledging as owen harding said earlier that were all people and were all equal and we should all be able to participate in these same roles. So your view on whether this is an externally or internally driven development would be very hel ful. Thats an interesting question. Does anyone want to take a crack at it . I can start perhaps. It is a great question. And its but youre opening a pandoras box here as well. The short is its both. We havent talked at all about u. N. Security Council Resolution 1325, the u. S. National action plan on women, peace and security, which are you could say a more rightsbased arguments, that this is the right thing to do, we have to empower women, gender equality, et cetera, et cetera. But at the same time, those come from an understanding that the existing order isnt working and that we can improve the way we create peace, development, humanitarian affairs by high representativeness of women. So even there its a combination. Operational experience from the last decade is hugely important. Weve learned a lot of lessons there. So they all combine. So the way i try to avoid that issue of deciding whether its the right thing to do or the smart thing to do is to say that theres a difference between that sort of very difficult fundamental chicken and eggs sort of discussion versus how we sell this as an agenda to a highly reluctant organization. And there the rightsbased arguments to me simply do not work. They will acknowledge that it is really important with gender equality and improved opportunities for women. But were in the business of war. So we cant deal with that within the military. Is the response you get. But if you do explain it with examples, scenarios that indicate where it has an impact on operational effectiveness, you will have their ear for a little while and you can sort of crack a door or at least gain access to the organization and explain yourself. I find that that argument always gets their attention at least when youre focused on operational effectiveness. So i would encourage to you do that not because its the real reason why were doing this but because its the most effective in terms of organizational change, which is what were approaching. But youre also touching upon a number of how questions. So how do we go about this integration process . And you asked a really good question to the last panel about the female Engagement Teams, cultural support teams, et cetera, et cetera, that are necessary capabilities. I think most would agree with that these days, that were never going to fight a war where those capabilities are irrelevant. So how do we do that . Now, we can create female moss. We can create female Engagement Teams with those specific functions that fills the gaps of the existing organization. But this is the panel on unit cohesion. We all agree that unit cohesion is a very important thing for military effectiveness and unit performance. So if you have ad hoc solutions, if you bring in a woman to the special operators or if you add a female Engagement Team to an existing platoon when they go out on a patrol, thats always going to be a liability because they will not be as cohesive and trained together as they will be if that platoon has those functions baked into it. So i would always say first of all get the women into the units if they need them rather than add that as a specific sort of addon to the units. Apart from the fact that having female moss, et cetera, will always then create the risk of feelings of different standards, for example. So if you have a ranger platoon where you hypothetically have physical standards that no women have so far passed and you add a few women because they need, it its always going to be seen as a secondrate ranger even though they might be performing extremely well. So i would avoid that. But again, as they highlighted in the last panel, they have to look at all these standards and rethink them. Unfortunately we have to wrap up the conversation so we can move on with our program. I would encourage everyone to continue it outside where the cliff bars and the cocacola are. But thank you very much to our panelists for joining us. And thank you to all of us for being part of this conversation. [ applause ] is it easier for you if i sit coming up shortly, our programming on women in the courts, politics, and the military. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leads off with her comments at a meeting of the american constitution society. After that, former texas state senator wendy davis and her observations on women in politics. From the university of california berkeley. And then a look at women in combat, part of a conference hosted by women in national security. The cspan cities tour visits sites across the nation to hear from authors and leaders every other weekend. And this month with congress on its summer recess, the cities tour is on cspan each day at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Today lincoln, nebraska, where well look at the design ofcapi present of the first peoples of the plains and talk with nebraska governor pete ricketts, starts at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight at 8 00 the reverend al sharpton, arnound arne dunca National Urban League Conference in ft. Lauderdale, florida. Heres attorney benjamin crump. They are passing all kinds of laws to disenfranchise our community to stop the souls to the poll, to stop the early voting to make the voter i. D. , to put Police Officers at the voting polls to intimidate us and stop us from voting. What we are focused on were going to challenge them and were not concerned about our rorpt sponsorship, not concerned about our status because the fundamental right in america is your right to vote and vote for the prosecutor, vote for the judge. We get confused sometimes with the president ial vote and think thats the most important vote. Man, you go down to that courthouse, the most important vote in many instances is that d. A. , because hes going to decide whether your child goes to jail or not. You dont even get to the judge, roland. If the prosecutor comes to court and same offense, bailiff home with his parents and judge in jail. You tell me you talk about jury duty . Thats right. Man, yall, the vote in jury duty, just one person being in that back room, just one person, in florida we got six and st. Louis they have 12, but one africanamerican who has the courage to say im going to be on this jury, answer every question appropriately and be fair and go back in that room and im going to decide the fate of this young black person today makes all the difference in the world, because your vote really do count when youre on youry duty. The National Urban League Conference including discussions on africanamericans killed by police, the 2016 election in the Voting Rights act and education, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern time. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will soon be the subject of a i would yo graphical movie starring nationally portman. Talk about her life, on juice and equality. Hosted by the american constitution society. Good afternoon. My name is kelsey brown cochran. I first became involved with acs because i believe in its mission, like ics i believe that law should be a force to improve the lives of all people and it is a privilege to support acs in its efforts to make that happen. Over the years i developed a deep appreciation for everything my acs membership has given me, countless professional Development Opportunities and a fantastic network of colleague and friends. At this particular moment i am deeply grateful to acs for the opportunity to introduce our final featured speakers of the convention two extraordinary jurorists. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs biography is wellknown. She served on the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit and prior to becoming a judge she was a law professor at rutgers. She has been an unwavering advocate for women on the bench and as one of the founders of the womens rights project for the aclu, where she served as general counsel and the National Board of directors for nearly a decade. I have the extraordinary honor of clerking for Justice Ginsburg which was as amazing and life changing an experience as you would expect. Among my fondest memories were champagne and cupcake birthday parties that the justice would host for each of her clerks and secretaries. So fully aware of just how crazy it is to have a Birthday Party with Ruth Bader Ginsburg my coclerks and i would plan for days in advance trying to come up with the perfect list of questions to ask her. We did pretty well. We heard Amazing Stories about her summers in sweden where she was learning and writing about swedish civil procedure. We heard about her First Supreme Court argument, her confirmation hearings and her beloved husband, marty, a distinguished tax attorney and chef supreme whose love and support for the justice is legendary. He would have started the notorious rbg blog himself. [ applause ] but when the clerkship ended i had a deep sense of remorse when i thought about questions we didnt get to ask and stories we didnt get to hear. This next hour is a dream come true for me. One more chance to hear about the incredible life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Like Justice Ginsburg justice lou was a law professor before joining the bench. He is an expert in constitutional law, educational policy and the Supreme Court. He was a popular and acclaimed teacher winning the uc berkeley laws distinguished Teaching Award and became the associate dean and was also on the board of directors for acs for a number of years. [ applause ] but long before all of that justice lew was a law clerk first for judge david on the d. C. Circuit, a long time friend for acs and then for Justice Ginsburg. He is perfect for this job because i know he has a long list of questions left over from the chambers birthday parties. I am excited to listen. Please join me in welcoming justice lu and Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. [ cheers and applause ] welcome everybody. Thank you all for being here on a saturday afternoon. And most especially thank you to Justice Ginsburg. It is obviously a busy time at the court as june often is. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us here. You are finishing your 22nd term on the Supreme Court. A lot of people have noticed in recent years you have had quite a substantial public presence. You have a huge fan base everywhere you go. [ applause ] people call you a rock star, an icon. There is an opera about you and Justice Scalia. There is an emoticon that looks like you. There are the t shirts with the notorious rbg meme. Some of them also say i love rbg. My personal favorite is you cant spell truth without ruth. [ applause ] and then there are even the young women who have tattoos of your likeness. Now, thats love. Thats real. All of this i think is unusual for a supreme Court Justice. Justice scalia gets out, too, but i dont think anyone has a Justice Scalia tattoo. Not even at the federalist society. I want to start by asking you how did this happen . Its amazing. To think of me an icon at 82. I attribute it all to an nyu law student who started the notorious rbg. At first i didnt know what to make of this because i didnt who notorious b. I. G. Was. And then my law clerks explained you two have something in common. You were both born in brooklyn, new york. I should explain right away criticism. A number of my family and friends have raised. Ginsberg comes before scalia alphabetically so why is it scaliaginsberg. And to answer you know how important seniority is in our work place. So im getting a sense of that. So scalia was appointed some years before ginsberg so the opera is scalia ginsberg. There is also going to be a biography of you in the near future called the notorious rbg, life and times of ruth bader ginsberg. And then there is also a bio pick scheduled called on the basis of sex with Nathalie Portman starring as you. Are you in on these projects . Do you know much about them . Are you cooperative conspirator . I cant claim credit for notorious rbg but i like it and so do my grandchildren. On the basis of sex, is that what the biopic is called . This is how it began. I have a nephew, the son of my husbands sister, who is a script writer. And he asked if he could write a script about a case in which marty and i were involved in 1971. And i said, yes, if you would like to spend your time doing that. The case is interesting because it was the case i hoped would be paired with wrigley reed as the turning point case in the Supreme Court. The case was charles e. Moritz, commissioner of internal revenue. He was a man who took good care of his mother, though she was 93 at the time we argued the case in the 10th circuit. It was historic. There was a babysitter seduction available to any woman, widowed or divorced man. The babysitter deduction covered elder care as well. Charles e. Moritz didnt get the deduction because he was a never married man and he was left out. So, he appeared pro se in the tax court. And his brief was the soul of simplicity. It was simply,fy were a dutiful daughter, i would get this deduction. Im a dutiful son. It makes no sense. So one day marty came into a room where i was working away on something i was writing. And said, ruth, read this. And i turned to him and said, marty, thats a tax advance sheet. You know i dont read tax cases. And he said, read this one. And told the story of charles e. Moritz and we said, lets take it. Marty would write the tax part and i would write the constitutional law part. So, a part of this is about the case and about our argument in the 10th circuit in denver. And then it includes the aclu and some women who were saying the same things that i was saying in the 70s, that at a time when no one was prepared to listen, so dorothy kenyan has a role in this. I think it will go into production in the beginning of 2016. Maybe by the end of the year it will be out. Natalie portman came to talk to me about this. And we had a very good conversation. And one thing interesting that she insisted on and held up the project for a while, she said, i want the director to be a woman. There are not enough women in this industry. There are many talented out there. And they do have a woman director. [ applause ] well, we look forward to it. You mentioned matter y hes been mentioned many times. Let me take you back a little bit. For many years, i think, youve been described as shy and reserved, especially compared to your gregarious and very loving husband, as kelsi said, was an outstanding chef and very quick with a joke. Some people called him a serial wise cracker. But first of all, do you think marty would be surprised at your celebrity today . I think he would be delighted. He was always my biggest booster. [ applause ] i saw a picture for and you marty, which was not long after you were married. You met marty during your first year of college at cornel, is that right . And you said in the past that he was the first boy you ever dated who cared that you had a brain. Yes. I like that. And the two of you had two kids, jane and james. And you also had a twocareer marriage. Two lawyers, in fact, which was unusual. At the time. Can you describe a little bit about that period and what kind of social pressures you faced with respect to your marriage, your family life and your career . There was a big change in the climate from my first child jane, born in 1965, and the second one, james, in 1965. When jane was small, there were very few women who worked outside the home. By the time james was born, it wasnt unusual to have a twoearner family. What was it like . Its hard for todays students to imagine what the world was like for women not all that long ago. I think when i started law teaching in 1963, maybe 3 of the lawyers in america were women. There was no title vii when i graduated from law school, so men up front didnt want any lady lawyers. They had a woman once and it was dreadful. How many men did they have . Ill tell you sandra day oconnors story, she graduated top of her class in stanford. She was a few years ahead of me. She couldnt get any job, so she volunteered to work for a county attorney and said, if you think im good enough, after four months you can put me on the payroll. Thats how she got her job. My first job was as a Research Deals<\/a> primarily with irregular armed groups, rebel groups, et cetera. Insurgencies. And what weve seen is that a lot of the developments in developing world military, so for example the Sri Lankan Military<\/a> formed an all womens unit in response to the high levels of female participation in the tamil insurgency in sri lanka. So the degree to which these developments are being externally driven from our engagement in conflicts like iraq and afghanistan versus internally driven through changes in American Culture<\/a> or perceptions of the role of women in the workforce is something id like to see you speak on. Because there does seem to be this tension in the conversation with this panel about whether its about manpower and manpower shortages and getting full Staffing Levels<\/a> or its about acknowledging as owen harding said earlier that were all people and were all equal and we should all be able to participate in these same roles. So your view on whether this is an externally or internally driven development would be very hel ful. Thats an interesting question. Does anyone want to take a crack at it . I can start perhaps. It is a great question. And its but youre opening a pandoras box here as well. The short is its both. We havent talked at all about u. N. Security Council Resolution<\/a> 1325, the u. S. National action plan on women, peace and security, which are you could say a more rightsbased arguments, that this is the right thing to do, we have to empower women, gender equality, et cetera, et cetera. But at the same time, those come from an understanding that the existing order isnt working and that we can improve the way we create peace, development, humanitarian affairs by high representativeness of women. So even there its a combination. Operational experience from the last decade is hugely important. Weve learned a lot of lessons there. So they all combine. So the way i try to avoid that issue of deciding whether its the right thing to do or the smart thing to do is to say that theres a difference between that sort of very difficult fundamental chicken and eggs sort of discussion versus how we sell this as an agenda to a highly reluctant organization. And there the rightsbased arguments to me simply do not work. They will acknowledge that it is really important with gender equality and improved opportunities for women. But were in the business of war. So we cant deal with that within the military. Is the response you get. But if you do explain it with examples, scenarios that indicate where it has an impact on operational effectiveness, you will have their ear for a little while and you can sort of crack a door or at least gain access to the organization and explain yourself. I find that that argument always gets their attention at least when youre focused on operational effectiveness. So i would encourage to you do that not because its the real reason why were doing this but because its the most effective in terms of organizational change, which is what were approaching. But youre also touching upon a number of how questions. So how do we go about this integration process . And you asked a really good question to the last panel about the female Engagement Team<\/a>s, cultural support teams, et cetera, et cetera, that are necessary capabilities. I think most would agree with that these days, that were never going to fight a war where those capabilities are irrelevant. So how do we do that . Now, we can create female moss. We can create female Engagement Team<\/a>s with those specific functions that fills the gaps of the existing organization. But this is the panel on unit cohesion. We all agree that unit cohesion is a very important thing for military effectiveness and unit performance. So if you have ad hoc solutions, if you bring in a woman to the special operators or if you add a female Engagement Team<\/a> to an existing platoon when they go out on a patrol, thats always going to be a liability because they will not be as cohesive and trained together as they will be if that platoon has those functions baked into it. So i would always say first of all get the women into the units if they need them rather than add that as a specific sort of addon to the units. Apart from the fact that having female moss, et cetera, will always then create the risk of feelings of different standards, for example. So if you have a ranger platoon where you hypothetically have physical standards that no women have so far passed and you add a few women because they need, it its always going to be seen as a secondrate ranger even though they might be performing extremely well. So i would avoid that. But again, as they highlighted in the last panel, they have to look at all these standards and rethink them. Unfortunately we have to wrap up the conversation so we can move on with our program. I would encourage everyone to continue it outside where the cliff bars and the cocacola are. But thank you very much to our panelists for joining us. And thank you to all of us for being part of this conversation. [ applause ] is it easier for you if i sit coming up shortly, our programming on women in the courts, politics, and the military. Supreme Court Justice<\/a> Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> leads off with her comments at a meeting of the american constitution society. After that, former texas state senator wendy davis and her observations on women in politics. From the university of california berkeley. And then a look at women in combat, part of a conference hosted by women in national security. The cspan cities tour visits sites across the nation to hear from authors and leaders every other weekend. And this month with congress on its summer recess, the cities tour is on cspan each day at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Today lincoln, nebraska, where well look at the design ofcapi present of the first peoples of the plains and talk with nebraska governor pete ricketts, starts at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight at 8 00 the reverend al sharpton, arnound arne dunca National Urban<\/a> League Conference<\/a> in ft. Lauderdale, florida. Heres attorney benjamin crump. They are passing all kinds of laws to disenfranchise our community to stop the souls to the poll, to stop the early voting to make the voter i. D. , to put Police Officers<\/a> at the voting polls to intimidate us and stop us from voting. What we are focused on were going to challenge them and were not concerned about our rorpt sponsorship, not concerned about our status because the fundamental right in america is your right to vote and vote for the prosecutor, vote for the judge. We get confused sometimes with the president ial vote and think thats the most important vote. Man, you go down to that courthouse, the most important vote in many instances is that d. A. , because hes going to decide whether your child goes to jail or not. You dont even get to the judge, roland. If the prosecutor comes to court and same offense, bailiff home with his parents and judge in jail. You tell me you talk about jury duty . Thats right. Man, yall, the vote in jury duty, just one person being in that back room, just one person, in florida we got six and st. Louis they have 12, but one africanamerican who has the courage to say im going to be on this jury, answer every question appropriately and be fair and go back in that room and im going to decide the fate of this young black person today makes all the difference in the world, because your vote really do count when youre on youry duty. The National Urban<\/a> League Conference<\/a> including discussions on africanamericans killed by police, the 2016 election in the Voting Rights<\/a> act and education, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern time. Supreme Court Justice<\/a> Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> will soon be the subject of a i would yo graphical movie starring nationally portman. Talk about her life, on juice and equality. Hosted by the american constitution society. Good afternoon. My name is kelsey brown cochran. I first became involved with acs because i believe in its mission, like ics i believe that law should be a force to improve the lives of all people and it is a privilege to support acs in its efforts to make that happen. Over the years i developed a deep appreciation for everything my acs membership has given me, countless professional Development Opportunities<\/a> and a fantastic network of colleague and friends. At this particular moment i am deeply grateful to acs for the opportunity to introduce our final featured speakers of the convention two extraordinary jurorists. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a>s biography is wellknown. She served on the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit and prior to becoming a judge she was a law professor at rutgers. She has been an unwavering advocate for women on the bench and as one of the founders of the womens rights project for the aclu, where she served as general counsel and the National Board<\/a> of directors for nearly a decade. I have the extraordinary honor of clerking for Justice Ginsburg<\/a> which was as amazing and life changing an experience as you would expect. Among my fondest memories were champagne and cupcake birthday parties that the justice would host for each of her clerks and secretaries. So fully aware of just how crazy it is to have a Birthday Party<\/a> with Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> my coclerks and i would plan for days in advance trying to come up with the perfect list of questions to ask her. We did pretty well. We heard Amazing Stories<\/a> about her summers in sweden where she was learning and writing about swedish civil procedure. We heard about her First Supreme Court<\/a> argument, her confirmation hearings and her beloved husband, marty, a distinguished tax attorney and chef supreme whose love and support for the justice is legendary. He would have started the notorious rbg blog himself. [ applause ] but when the clerkship ended i had a deep sense of remorse when i thought about questions we didnt get to ask and stories we didnt get to hear. This next hour is a dream come true for me. One more chance to hear about the incredible life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a>. Like Justice Ginsburg<\/a> justice lou was a law professor before joining the bench. He is an expert in constitutional law, educational policy and the Supreme Court<\/a>. He was a popular and acclaimed teacher winning the uc berkeley laws distinguished Teaching Award<\/a> and became the associate dean and was also on the board of directors for acs for a number of years. [ applause ] but long before all of that justice lew was a law clerk first for judge david on the d. C. Circuit, a long time friend for acs and then for Justice Ginsburg<\/a>. He is perfect for this job because i know he has a long list of questions left over from the chambers birthday parties. I am excited to listen. Please join me in welcoming justice lu and Justice Ruth Bader<\/a> ginsburg. [ cheers and applause ] welcome everybody. Thank you all for being here on a saturday afternoon. And most especially thank you to Justice Ginsburg<\/a>. It is obviously a busy time at the court as june often is. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us here. You are finishing your 22nd term on the Supreme Court<\/a>. A lot of people have noticed in recent years you have had quite a substantial public presence. You have a huge fan base everywhere you go. [ applause ] people call you a rock star, an icon. There is an opera about you and Justice Scalia<\/a>. There is an emoticon that looks like you. There are the t shirts with the notorious rbg meme. Some of them also say i love rbg. My personal favorite is you cant spell truth without ruth. [ applause ] and then there are even the young women who have tattoos of your likeness. Now, thats love. Thats real. All of this i think is unusual for a supreme Court Justice<\/a>. Justice scalia gets out, too, but i dont think anyone has a Justice Scalia<\/a> tattoo. Not even at the federalist society. I want to start by asking you how did this happen . Its amazing. To think of me an icon at 82. I attribute it all to an nyu law student who started the notorious rbg. At first i didnt know what to make of this because i didnt who notorious b. I. G. Was. And then my law clerks explained you two have something in common. You were both born in brooklyn, new york. I should explain right away criticism. A number of my family and friends have raised. Ginsberg comes before scalia alphabetically so why is it scaliaginsberg. And to answer you know how important seniority is in our work place. So im getting a sense of that. So scalia was appointed some years before ginsberg so the opera is scalia ginsberg. There is also going to be a biography of you in the near future called the notorious rbg, life and times of ruth bader ginsberg. And then there is also a bio pick scheduled called on the basis of sex with Nathalie Portman<\/a> starring as you. Are you in on these projects . Do you know much about them . Are you cooperative conspirator . I cant claim credit for notorious rbg but i like it and so do my grandchildren. On the basis of sex, is that what the biopic is called . This is how it began. I have a nephew, the son of my husbands sister, who is a script writer. And he asked if he could write a script about a case in which marty and i were involved in 1971. And i said, yes, if you would like to spend your time doing that. The case is interesting because it was the case i hoped would be paired with wrigley reed as the turning point case in the Supreme Court<\/a>. The case was charles e. Moritz, commissioner of internal revenue. He was a man who took good care of his mother, though she was 93 at the time we argued the case in the 10th circuit. It was historic. There was a babysitter seduction available to any woman, widowed or divorced man. The babysitter deduction covered elder care as well. Charles e. Moritz didnt get the deduction because he was a never married man and he was left out. So, he appeared pro se in the tax court. And his brief was the soul of simplicity. It was simply,fy were a dutiful daughter, i would get this deduction. Im a dutiful son. It makes no sense. So one day marty came into a room where i was working away on something i was writing. And said, ruth, read this. And i turned to him and said, marty, thats a tax advance sheet. You know i dont read tax cases. And he said, read this one. And told the story of charles e. Moritz and we said, lets take it. Marty would write the tax part and i would write the constitutional law part. So, a part of this is about the case and about our argument in the 10th circuit in denver. And then it includes the aclu and some women who were saying the same things that i was saying in the 70s, that at a time when no one was prepared to listen, so dorothy kenyan has a role in this. I think it will go into production in the beginning of 2016. Maybe by the end of the year it will be out. Natalie portman came to talk to me about this. And we had a very good conversation. And one thing interesting that she insisted on and held up the project for a while, she said, i want the director to be a woman. There are not enough women in this industry. There are many talented out there. And they do have a woman director. [ applause ] well, we look forward to it. You mentioned matter y hes been mentioned many times. Let me take you back a little bit. For many years, i think, youve been described as shy and reserved, especially compared to your gregarious and very loving husband, as kelsi said, was an outstanding chef and very quick with a joke. Some people called him a serial wise cracker. But first of all, do you think marty would be surprised at your celebrity today . I think he would be delighted. He was always my biggest booster. [ applause ] i saw a picture for and you marty, which was not long after you were married. You met marty during your first year of college at cornel, is that right . And you said in the past that he was the first boy you ever dated who cared that you had a brain. Yes. I like that. And the two of you had two kids, jane and james. And you also had a twocareer marriage. Two lawyers, in fact, which was unusual. At the time. Can you describe a little bit about that period and what kind of social pressures you faced with respect to your marriage, your family life and your career . There was a big change in the climate from my first child jane, born in 1965, and the second one, james, in 1965. When jane was small, there were very few women who worked outside the home. By the time james was born, it wasnt unusual to have a twoearner family. What was it like . Its hard for todays students to imagine what the world was like for women not all that long ago. I think when i started law teaching in 1963, maybe 3 of the lawyers in america were women. There was no title vii when i graduated from law school, so men up front didnt want any lady lawyers. They had a woman once and it was dreadful. How many men did they have . Ill tell you sandra day oconnors story, she graduated top of her class in stanford. She was a few years ahead of me. She couldnt get any job, so she volunteered to work for a county attorney and said, if you think im good enough, after four months you can put me on the payroll. Thats how she got her job. My first job was as a District Court<\/a> federal District Court<\/a> law clerk. How did i get that job . Well, jerry langford, who later went off to stanford, who was at Columbia Law School<\/a> at the time, was in charge of clerkships. He called every judge on the 2nd circuit, every judge in the Eastern District<\/a> and Southern District<\/a> of new york. The answer was, well, we might take a chance on a woman, but we cant risk a mother. Her daughter is 4 years old. So, jerry called judge edmund palmieri, who always took his clerks from Columbia Law School<\/a>. And the judge explained, well, her record is good, but sometimes we work on saturdays, even on a sunday. How would i count on her . And jerry said, give her a chance. And if she doesnt work out, then theres a young man in her class who will leave his wall street law firm and finish up the clerkship. So thats the carrot. Then there was a stick. The stick is, if you dont give her a chance, i will never recommend another columbia law student to you. Well, armed with that, i got the job. And women of our generation, you got a job, you did it as well, probably better than anyone else, so the second job wasnt hard, but opening that first door was powerfully difficult. Now you have had many clerks yourself, who were parents at the time, is that right . Is that unusual at the court today, do you think . Not today. Ive had a number of clerks with two children. The first law clerk i hired who was the primary custodian of his children was a man. This was david post, whos now teaching at temple law school. He in his application he explained that he was going to georgetown at night because his wife was autonomous for the international fund, i think. She had a fulltime day job. He took care of the children during the day. So, that i mean, thats my dream for the world. Fathers take care of our children as much as mothers. There was Something Else<\/a> about david post that made him irresistible. His writing sample was not his draft of law review nor his moot court brief. It was his first year writing writing section essay. And it was on the theory of contract as played out in ring cycle. So, thats actually a good segue to the next question. Youve seen feminism change and go through many transformations from the time you were since the time you cofounded the aclu womens right movements, four decades to today. And because of the work you did there, we now have the elimination of most overt forms of gender discrimination. From your vantage point, what do you think are the most pressing challenges left now for gender equality . First, i will actually say i dont think the meaning of feminism has changed. It has always been that girls should have the same opportunity to dream, to aspire, and achieve to do whatever their godgiven talents enable them to do, as boys. And that there should be no place where there isnt a welcome matt for women. People misunderstand what feminism is. I know in some quarters its called the f word, but thats what its all about. Women and men working together should help make the society a better place than it is now. [ applause ] current challenges . Well, as you said, goodwin, all of the overt gender classifications, almost all, theres a couple the Supreme Court<\/a> have left standing, and thats unfortunate, but for the most part, the statute books that were once riddled with overt sexbased classification, in the decade of the 70s, almost all of them were gone. It was a combination of legislative change, plus litigation, to push that that change along. Whats left and is harder to get at is what i call bias. Sometimes its a device that works to overcome unconscious bias. My example of that is the symphony orchestra. When i was growing up, you never saw a woman dropping anything other than a harp. Someone had the idea to drop the curtain so people auditions didnt know if it was a woman or a man. With that simple change, the dropped curtain, almost overnight women started to show up in symphony orchestras overnight. I was talking about this last year, scalia ginsburg, they said you left something out. Not only do we audition behind a curtain, we audition shoeless. Well, that device cant be duplicated in every area. But its its hard to get at. My favorite case in that line was a title vii case from the 70s. The lawyer was harriet grad. It was against at t for not promoting women to middle management jobs. There were several criteria. The women did at least as well as the men up to the last test. That was called the total person test. It consisted of an interviewer, meeting the candidate, and then doing an evaluation. Women flunked disproportionately at that stage. Why . Because the women conducting the interview was generally a white male. And anyone who was different made the interviewer feel slightly uncomfortable. Looked at a person who looked like him, he was comfortable. But with a member of a minority group, a woman, they were strangers. It wasnt a case of, im deliberately setting out to avoid promoting women. It wasnt that at all. It was this unconscious bias that operating. You know, you now sit on a court that has three women on it. I actually sit on a court that has a majority of women on it, including a woman as chief justice. Do you think that the law would be much different if there were, say, four or five women on the u. S. Supreme court . I think its pretty good that we have three now. Three makes a big difference because were all over the bench. I sit toward the middle because ive been around so long. And Justice Kagan<\/a> is at my left, and Justice Sotomayor<\/a> is at my right. If you come to watch the court, you know my new follies are not shrinking violets. Very active in their questioning. Ive also questioned what gene quoted from the minnesota Supreme Court<\/a> said, and at the end of the day, a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same judgment. And yet there are some cases that, at least i think, would have come out the other way if there were five women. Or more. And one of them is Lilly Ledbetters<\/a> case. Every woman understands lillys problem. Another is the carhart case, the birth abortion case. Another two cases involving children with parents who were not married and become they become citizens if their mother was a u. S. Citizen, not the father. The Supreme Court<\/a> was wrong about that twice. So, there are there are cases where i think its fair to predict that the result would have been different. But for the most part, in the years that david souter and i served on the court together, we voted more alike than any two other justices, even more than Justice Thomas<\/a> and Justice Scalia<\/a>. [ applause ] i look forward to the Souter Ginsburg<\/a> opera. Well, a couple months ago you appeared on time magazines 100 most influential people on the world list, which is quite an honor. We have some pictures of that. These are the shes looking for you. Oh, yes. You should see this lovely picture they have of you from your first year at cornell, which is just a beautiful picture. The inscription that accompanied your listing was written by your colleague, Justice Scalia<\/a>, who said this, i quote, Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> has had two distinguished legal careers, either one of which alone entitle her to be one of times 100. One, of course, is your career as a judge, first on the d. C. Circuit, and now of course on the Supreme Court<\/a>. The other is your earlier career as a professor and a lawyer. And so i guess ill ask you, what did you learn from your experience as a lawyer that best prepared you for your role as a judge . The importance of having a sense of humor. And then some advice i told many audiences was the advice that my motherinlaw gave to me on our wedding day. Marty and i were married in the home in which he had grown up. And his mother said, dear, id like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage. And that is, it helps sometimes to be a little hard of hearing. [ applause ] and i found that such good advice, especially dealing with marty, who was a very funny fellow. But in dealing with my colleagues even. So, president clinton nominated you for the Supreme Court<\/a> in june of 1993 to fill the seat that was vacated by Justice Byron<\/a> white. Some pictures of that. Byron wh. Here are some pictures of that. And you were confirmed by the senate exactly 57 days later on august 10th, 1993 by a vote of 933. Must have been nice. Im just saying. Other than a happy outcome, what do you consider the most valuable part of your confirmation process . The bipartisan spirit that existed in that congress. Probably my biggest supporter was orrin hatch. My biggest problem, the white house handlers. They would put questions like, you were on the s year so and so, and that year they passed resolution x. How did you vote and would you defend that position today. My answer was, stop, there is nothing you could do to persuade me to bad mouth the aclu. I think they are Vital Institution<\/a> in our society. And then, not a single question was raised about my aclu question. Justice breyer was similarly fortunate the next year. Now, how do we get back to that . I dont know what the magic will be. I was a beneficiary of what happened with the Clarence Thomas<\/a> nomination. The committee was embarrassed. They had no women for the thomas nomination, so they added two. And they had a meeting with the committee before the public hearing. It was supposed to be, if theres anything bad in my record, they could bring it out and id have a chance to answer before we went public. In all of my record, nothing in the fbi file, there wasnt one thing questionable so they said, now, tell us what you think we should do to improve the confirmation process. Well, at that point i hadnt yet been confirmed, so i was somewhat hesitant. I still have to this day a supply of Strom Thurmond<\/a> key chains that he gave me and voted against me when i was nominated for the d. C. Circuit, but he was in my corner for the Supreme Court<\/a> nomination. Since being on the bench, on the u. S. Supreme court, youve been a very vigorous voice on a whole range of equal protection cases not only sex discrimination, but in the Racial Discrimination<\/a> area, disability cases. Most recently in the shelbey county case, you penned a very lively descent about the Voting Rights<\/a> act. I want to stop and ask you, youve at times compared the interesting progress thats been made so rapidly on questions of discrimination based on Sexual Orientation<\/a> contrasting that with our more enduring difficulties with racial inequality. What do you think explains the difference in how sticky the issue of racial inequality has been. I think that when gay people began to stand up and i is a, this is who i am. When that happened, people looked around and it was my next door neighbor of whom i was very fond, my childs best friend. Even my child. They were people who belonged to our community. It wasnt as today. There was a high degree of segregation in Living Patterns<\/a> in the United States<\/a>, in schools. So i think its the difference of this we, they picture when it am coulds to race, but for gay people once we find out they are people we know and love and respect, and they are part of us i think thats what accounts for the difference. In the years gay people hid who they were, there was a kind of discrimination that began to break down very rapidly once they hid in the corner or in had a closet. Can you tell us a little bit about what went into your thinking process on the Voting Rights<\/a> case, that was a much quoted dissent. Your famous line about throwing an umbrella away in a rainstorm, because youre not getting wet. Tell us a little bit about your thinking process in that case. It was very much the view that i had of a School Segregation<\/a> case some years before. I think it was jenkins, it was about Jefferson County<\/a> kentucky that for years and years had been under a federal court decree to desegregate. And then the court said now that the county is up to speed, they dont have to be under the thumb of a federal judge any more, so im going to dissolve the injunction. The people in that county said we liked the plan that was kept in place by the injunction. We would like to keep it. And the Supreme Court<\/a> said, no, you cant, because thats discrimination on the basis of race. In the shelbey county case, it was one of the most successful pieces of Legislation Congress<\/a> ever passed. And it passed by overwhelming majorities on both sides of the aisle. The Voting Rights<\/a> act, i think most of you know work this way. If you had had a bad record of keeping people from voting, then any change you made in the system had to be precleared, either by a threejudge District Court<\/a> in the district of columbia or by the attorney general. There was a mechanism to get out if you showed you had a clean record for x number of years, you could bail out on a county by county basis. You didnt have to wait until the whole state was up to speed. They had a built in mechanism for getting out. The Supreme Court<\/a> held that the coverage formula was outdated. That from 65 until 2000, things had changed. So congress had to redo the formula. But practically what senator or what representative is going to stand up and say my state or my county still discriminates. Its impossible. It was impossible to come up with a new formula for that reason and yet there was the bailout mechanism that would work when there had been a genuine change. And politically it wasnt impossible to do the kind of revision that was needed. And so this most successful piece of legislation is largely inoperative. So youve written a number of quite memorable in in the sense especially in recent years, ill name a few of them, you wrote a separate opinion of the Affordable Care<\/a> act case, the first one on the Commerce Clause<\/a>. You wrote a very vigorous descent in the hobby lobby case. Which congress listened to and acted upon. We talked about gonzalez versus car heart, the partial birth abortion case. The case, whos a supervisor under title vii, i think you may know that saturday night live recently did a couple exits about you on their weekend update. This is slide nine, if you could show them. And the comedian, Kate Mckinnon<\/a> plays you as a hip, sassy judge whos dishing out these feisty one liners and then dancing after everyone. Im not going to ask you to dance for us. But feel free to bring it if you have it today. But what i really want to ask is how do you go about writing your dissents in terms of tone and style. Your tone is not sassy. Its respectful, but it also makes a point. How do you think about the right balance . We have a lot of colorful writing from the Supreme Court<\/a>, which spans a broad range of styles. How do you think about yours. Is as you know, when its time and im on the dissent side. I try to have the dissent drafted before i get the majority opinion. That way i dont get trapped into writing not so. I tell the story affirmatively, and the biggest putdown i have for the courts opinion is to deal with it in footnotes. But you will remember from your term clerking, to me it was quite a term. That was the year of bush versus gore. All the tshirt business began that year. There were tshirts that said, i dissent, people were struck that i didnt say i respectfully dissent. What they never noticed is i never say respectfully dissent. Think of my colleagues that criticize the courts opinions as being profoundly misguided. Or from scalia, this opinion is not to be taken seriously and then after saying that, you end it, youve shown no respect at a all. I never use respectfully. I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals or came out the other way, reverse the decision. So now because of your seniority on the court, you have the assignment power both in majority opinions when you happen to be senior and then in dissenting opinions when you happen to be senior. What goes into your thought process with respect to assignments . Not majorities yet. When we split 54, we need assignment. Ive succeeded to the role that John Paul Stevens<\/a> had when you were clerking for me. I think theres a consensus that in the case of the health care, the Commerce Clause<\/a> portion, hobby lobby, shelbey county, that as the most senior person on the dissent side, i should write the dissent and for the rest, i try to be as fair as i can to distribute them evenly and there hasnt been much grumbling from my colleagues about that. When you think about your two decades now on the Supreme Court<\/a>, do you think there are things you feel more sure footed about today than you did when you first began . When i was a new judge, i had been on the d. C. Circuit for 13 years, and so i wasnt too quiet. By the very first sitting in october, i asked a lot of questions at our oral argument. By then i decided i had been a little smart alecy. At the end of the city, instead of giving me what is traditional for the junior justice that is an easy one issue unanimous decision. He gave me a most miserable erisa case, where the court divided 63. I went to the justice to complain. Hes not supposed to do this, is he . She said, ruth, you just do it. Just do it and get your opinion in circulation, before he makes the next set of assignments, otherwise youre likely to get another dull case. And that was her attitude toward life. Whatever was put on her plate, she just did it. That was the beginning of my relationship. In that first year, its interesting you mention the supervisor case, in my first year on the bench, the question was, were nurses, supervisors and they were unable to organize under the nlrb. And i said, of course, they are employees, not supervisors. That was for four people. I think that and then coming around the other way now, its very hard to be a supervisor under had the decision. You mentioned you arrived, when you arrived at the court in 1993, you were only the second woman, of course, ever to serve on the highest court. Your colleague, Justice Oconnor<\/a> was appointed by president reagan 12 years earlier. When you think back to that time and your experience now for 22 years working with the very wide range of colleagues. What do you think youve learned about the art of persuasion . Is it possible to persuade ones colleagues . And if so, how . Im really interested. Possibly. Possible, yes. Is it something that happens often . No. I can remember one dissent that John Paul Stevens<\/a> assigned to me, the dissent came around, the vote at conference was 72. The opinion came out 63, but the two had swelled to six. And that was some heady experience turning a dissent into a comfortable majority opinion. Were trying to persuade each other all the time. Conference vote is one way, you try to write your position as persuasively as you can, and hope youll be able to peel off one or another vote. Most of the time that doesnt happ happen. Do we try, yes, we do. I can say with assurance up to this very term when people, are closely divided and the author of the majority or of the dissent is trying to pick up one more vote. In your experience, how does that persuasion happen . Is it on paper or in person or how did the justices apart from sitting around the conference table which happens after argument. It is largely on paper. It is read my dissent, read it carefully, you should be persuaded by it. Theres no as you know, theres no vote trading. If you side with me in this case, ill side with you. That never happens. So weve mentioned chief Justice Rehnquist<\/a> a couple times. Its well known you have a very warm relationship with Justice Scalia<\/a> as kind of an interesting polar opposite. But its perhaps less well known that you also had a very warm relationship with chief Justice Rehnquist<\/a>, who among other things took the meaningful step of assigning you the vmi decision. And eventually himself wrote the majority decision in the hibbs case, upholding the family leave provision of the fmla. Can you describe a little bit about your relationship with chief Justice Rehnquist<\/a> . How did the two of you have such Good Chemistry<\/a> . Id say it was cool at first. It began to improve when we were talking about what to do about the ladies dining room. This the court is a traditional institution, so there was a ladies dining room. We came to him with a proposal. Wed like to rename it the Natalie Cornell<\/a> rehnquist dining room. The chief had a very happy marriage, his wife sadly died, and he. Well, he couldnt resist. It would be the Natalie Cornell<\/a> rehnquist dining room. He had seen her suffering from cancer. The year that i had my first bout with cancer, he could not have been more supportive. After the surgery he called me into his chambers, he said, ruth, ill give you something light for this assignment. I said, no, chief, not this one, im okay now. Wait until the chemotherapy and radiation start then id like to be kept light. He said, which case do you want . I had my pick. So i told him which one, and then he said, thats the one i was going to assign to myself. But he assigned it to me. I watch his relationship with his granddaughters, when his daughter had been divorced. He was kind of a substitute father to those girls. He wanted them to keep in tune with their swedish heritage, so he would take them to a festival at the swedish ambassadors residence. They loved him dearly. That was a side of him a lot of people didnt see. I consider him as the chief in mid passage. Then he gets the family medical leave act. I brought home that decision, marty said, ruth, did you write this . It was the chief. So as long as one lives, one can learn. When you think back across these couple decades, what do you think have been the biggest changes youve seen in the court, whether its Public Perceptions<\/a> of the court, the lawyers who appear before you or the nature of the docket. What do you think are the biggest transformations. Right now the public is down on anything that has anything to do with government, the Supreme Court<\/a> has slipped but not nearly as much as congress has. Is thats a safe statement. Is the big change in the courts composition came not when we had a new chief, but when Justice Oconnor<\/a> left us. And i have said many times the year that she left, every time i was among four rather than five, i would have been five if she had remained with us. She was a big loss in many ways. Let me ask you of another sort of big picture question about your approach to judging. I think many observers and were now seeing some books being written about your corpus of work. Many people have described your approach to judging as incrementalist. And indeed at your confirmation hearing, heres what you said. Isnt it terrible . People quote your confirmation hearing back to you. In in your case, its very, very its very good. You said my approach, this is you. Is neither liberal nor conservative, rather it is rooted in the place of the judiciary of judges. In our democratic society. So in other occasions, youve spoken out against judicial activism, noting that the Current Court<\/a> is one of the most activist in history, if you measure it in terms of willingness to overturn legislation. Youve written long, long ago that roe versus wade perhaps went too far too fast. In contrast to the step by step approach that characterized much of your litigation approach as a lawyer. I want to ask, have your views about gradualism changed at all in in the course of your two decades on the Supreme Court<\/a>. Has it reinforced your sense that gradualism is the right approach. I don the know if i would use the word gradualism. I do think its healthy for our system if the court and the congress can be in in dialogue. I think of some great examples of that. When the court in the 70s said discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is not discrimination on the basis of sex, there was a coalition form to pass the pregnancy discrimination act. People from all parts of the political spectrum were on board for that, that was repeated again with lily ledbetter. If its a question of statutory interpretation, there can be a healthy back and forth between the Supreme Court<\/a> and the political branches. Let me put it this way. The court is not in a popularity contest. It should never be influenced by todays headlines, by the weather of today. But as paul said, inevitably, it will be effected by the climate of the era. I think thats part of the explanation of why the Gay Rights Movement<\/a> has advanced to where it is today. The climate of the aera. The court is really out in front. I mean, even in brown versus board, which everyone thinks of a big social change. Well, there was a brief by the u. S. On behalf of the United States<\/a> in that case, it said essentially we were fighting a war against odious racism. And in that war until the very end our troops were rigidly segregated by race, a huge embarrassment and now the soviet union is pointing to the United States<\/a>, this apartheid racist society. Its a constant embarrassment. Its time for forced segregation of the racism of schools to end. That was the position that the United States<\/a> government was taking. Made it easier for the justices. And yet it took them 13 years from brown versus board until virginia, to declare the laws unconstitutional. They had lots of opportunities, but they wait ed until the climate of the era had largely changed. The court can be important in reinforcing a social change. And it can hold it back as well. But it doesnt initiate change. Is do you think thats in some tension with the conventional understanding of the court as a counter majority institution, that it is supposed to the role of the court is supposed to be counter majority and some would argue its unrealistic to expect the court to be at the forefront, even when individual rights are what are at stake. It should be counter majority, when our constitution has a bill of rights that says, these are the rules that congress has to abide by. So the court should be vigorous in enforcing the rights in if the bill of rights, and in the 14th amendment, the court is the guardian. The constitution makes the court the guardian of those rights. So yes the court must be vigilant. We cant do what, say, a Political Party<\/a> can do. Heres our platform, this year were going to try to get through this and that. We have to wait until it has to start with the people. And if it doesnt start with the people, its not going to get to the court. So you have to have a concerned citizenry to press for these rights. Let me take us out of the law for a second","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia801302.us.archive.org\/20\/items\/CSPAN3_20150810_201100_A_Conversation_with_Supreme_Court_Justice_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg\/CSPAN3_20150810_201100_A_Conversation_with_Supreme_Court_Justice_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20150810_201100_A_Conversation_with_Supreme_Court_Justice_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240629T12:35:10+00:00"}