David i dont consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . David when you went to cornell, your grades were obviously very good. You applied to law school at harvard. You got into Harvard Law School. Was the class half women and half men or . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg in those ancient days, i went to law school from 1956 to 1959. In my entering class at Harvard Law School, there were over 500 in the class. Nine of us were women. A big jump from martys class, he was a year ahead of me. There were five women in his class. And today, the Harvard Law School has about 50 women. [applause] david in your Harvard Law School class, you did extremely well, and you got onto the harvard law review, and you were near the top of your class, maybe first or tied for first in your class. But then when your husband needed to move to new york, you wanted to transfer to Columbia Law School, and the dean of the Harvard Law School didnt think that was such a great idea, if you wanted to be a harvard graduate. Is that correct . Justice ginsburg yes. He said i had to spend my third year at harvard. The reason i didnt was marty was diagnosed with a testicular tumor in his third year of law school. Those were early days for cancer cure. There was no such thing as chemotherapy. There was only massive radiation. We didnt know whether he would survive. And i didnt want to be a single mom. Jane, my daughter, was 14 months when i started law school. So, we wanted to Stay Together as a family. Marty had a good job with a firm in new york. And so i asked the dean, i thought it would be an easy answer, if i successfully complete my Legal Education at columbia, may i have a harvard degree . Absolutely not. You must spend your third year here. I had the perfect rebuttal. Because there was a cornell classmate of mine who had had her first year of law school at penn. She transferred into our second year of class. And i said to the dean, well, she will be will have her second and third year and will earn a harvard degree, but its, i think, universally understood that the first year of law school is by far the most important. She has year two and three. I have year one and two. It should make no difference. But i was told, a rule is a rule. And that was that. David so you went to Columbia Law School, and your law degree is from columbia, correct . Justice ginsburg yes. David and you did extremely well at Columbia Law School in the review there, as well. Justice ginsburg yes. David so, from the harvard law review and the columbia law review, you were flooded with job offers from the major law firms . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg there wasnt a single firm in the entire city of new york that would take a chance on me. I have said i had three strikes against me. One, i was jewish. And the wall street firms were just beginning to welcome jews. Then i was a woman. But the absolute killer i was a mother. Because my daughter was four years old when i graduated from law school. So employers who might take a chance on a woman were not prepared to take a chance on a mother. David so, one of your law professors, professor gunther, got you, after many efforts, a clerkship with judge palmieri. Justice ginsburg yes. David was that easy to do for him, because you were a mother . Justice ginsburg he had no qualms about a woman. He had had a woman as a law clerk before. But he was concerned. The Southern District of new york was a busy court and sometimes, he would need a law clerks aide, even on a sunday. So professor gunther, i found out about this years later. I didnt know at the time. The professor said to judge palmieri, give her a chance, and if she doesnt work out, theres a young man in the class who is going to a Downtown Firm who will jump in and take over. And that was the carrot. There was also a stick. And the stick was, if you dont give her a chance, i will never recommend another columbia student to you. David wow. Justice ginsburg thats how it was for women of my vintage. Getting the first job was powerfully hard. David so after your clerkship, you ultimately got a position as a law professor at rutgers . Justice ginsburg yes. It was an interlude while i was working for the columbia project on international procedure. David and how did you get connected to the aclu and your trailblazing efforts in gender discrimination and gender law . Justice ginsburg it came about first from my students at rutgers, who wanted a course on women and the law. So, i went to the library, and inside of a month, i had read every federal decision ever written about genderbased distinctions in the law. It was no major feat. There was precious little. And at the same time, new complaints were coming into the new jersey affiliate of the aclu, complaints of the kind the aclu had not seen before. One group of complainers, who were Public School teachers who were put on socalled Maternity Leave when their pregnancy began to show, because the School District worried, we dont want the little children to think their teacher swallowed a watermelon. [laughter] these women were the leave was unpaid, and there was no guaranteed right to return. They began to complain. So it was the two things coming together, the students wanting to learn about womens status under the law and these new complainants coming to the aclu. And for me, it was such a tremendous stroke of good fortune. Because up until the start of the 1970s, it simply wasnt possible to move courts in the direction of recognizing women as people of equal citizenship stature. David when president clinton became president , you were obviously somebody being considered, and president clinton said, well, women dont want her. Justice ginsburg i had written a comment on roe v. Wade, and it supported, that decision. David you won a number of cases for the aclu on gender discrimination and became quite wellknown. You later taught at columbia. But you were asked to go on to the u. S. Court of appeals, the district of columbia, by president carter. Were you surprised to get that appointment . Did you want to be a judge, or were you happy to be a professor . Justice ginsburg president carter deserves enormous credit for what the federal bench looks like today. When he became president , he noticed that the federal judges all looked like him. That is, they were all white and they were all male. And carter appreciated that that is not how the great United States looks. So he was determined to put women and members of minority groups on the federal courts in numbers, not as one at a time curiosities. I think he appointed over 25 women to District Court judgeships and 11 women to courts of appeals, and i was, i think, the last of the 11. David so you served 13 years on the court of appeals, the district of columbia. Justice ginsburg yes. David and after 13 years, did you think you had a chance to be on the Supreme Court, or did you think this was something that might never happen . Justice ginsburg no one thinks, my aim in life is to be a Supreme Court justice. It just isnt realistic. There are only nine of us. And luck has a lot to do with who are the particular nine at a particular time. So, growing up, i never had an idea of being any kind of a judge. Because as i said, women were barely there on the bench. When carter became president , there was only one woman on a federal court of appeals. She was Shirley Hufstedler on the ninth circuit. He made her the first ever secretary of education. And then there were none again. Carter changed that, and no president ever went back to the way it was. Reagan didnt want to be outdone by carter, so he was determined to put the first woman on the u. S. Supreme court. He made a nationwide search and came up with a spectacular choice in Justice Sandra day oconnor. David when president clinton became president , you were obviously somebody being considered, and then president clinton talked to somebody who was pushing for your appointment, Daniel Patrick moynihan, and president clinton said, well, women dont want her. Now, how could that have been the case when you were the leading lawyer in gender discrimination . Why would women have not wanted you or some women not wanted you on the Supreme Court . Justice ginsburg just some women. Most women were overwhelmingly supportive of my nomination. But i had written a comment on roe v. Wade, and it was not 100 applauding that decision. What i said was, the court has an easy target, because the texas law was the most extreme in the nation. Abortion could be had only if necessary to save the womans life. It doesnt matter that her health would be ruined, that she was the victim of rape or incest. I thought roe v. Wade was an easy case, and the Supreme Court could have held that most extreme law unconstitutional and put down its pen. Instead, the court wrote an opinion that made every abortion restriction in the country illegal in one fell swoop. And that was not the way that the court ordinarily operates. You know, it waits until the next case and the next case. Anyway, it was that some women felt that i should have been 100 in favor of roe v. Wade, and because i wasnt. David ok, so president clinton met with you, and obviously you had a good meeting, and he offered you the appointment, and the confirmation went pretty well, would you say . Justice ginsburg 963, yes, id say that. [laughter] [applause] david so youve now been on the court for 26 years, and therefore in total, youve been on the federal judiciary for 39 years. So 26 years in the Supreme Court. When you first got on the court, were the other justices saying, were happy to see you here, lets go have dinner together, lets socialize, or were they just kind of standoffish a bit . What was your relationship with Sandra Day Oconnor like when you got on the court, as the second woman on the court . Justice ginsburg the court wasnt an unknown territory to me. I mean, i had worked at the court of appeals just is a few blocks down the road. And every once in a while, a judge, who was quite senior, would call me in and say, ruth, were going to cronheim for lunch. Who was cronheim . He was the biggest liquor distributor in the d. C. Area. [laughter] and before we went to his warehouse, we would stop at the Supreme Court and pick up Justice Brennan and justice marshall. I knew Justice Scalia from our court of appeals days together. I knew Justice Clarence thomas, who was also on the d. C. Circuit. But sandra was as close as i came to having a big sister. You know, i did have a big sister, but she died in my infancy, so i never knew her. Justice oconnor was the most welcoming. She gave me some very good advice. Not only when i was a new justice, but during my first cancer bout. Because Justice Oconnor had had breast cancer, and she was on the bench nine days after her cancer surgery. David wow. Justice ginsburg so she was very clear about what i had to do. She said, ruth, you have your chemotherapy on friday. That way, youll get over it during the weekend, so you can be back. [laughter] david now, the best way to win a case, if youre arguing one before the Supreme Court, is to write a great brief, to write a to be a great oral advocate. Does the oral argument really make a difference, or does the brief really make a difference, or what is the best way to win a case in the Supreme Court . For somebody who might want to argue a case. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg if you have a case that is strong on the merits. An oral argument at the court is not a debate. I would say of the two components, the brief is by far the most important. It is what we start with and what we end up with when we go back to chambers. Oral argument is fleeting. David if somebody wants to be a Supreme Court clerk, do you just send in a letter applying, or how does that work . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg we get hundreds and hundreds of applications. David now, the court meets from october to june, more or less. So, what do the justices do in july and august . Do they sit around reading briefs, or do they do other things . Justice ginsburg one business that follows us all over the world throughout the year is the Death Penalty business, which the court treats like a firing squad. Very often, when an execution date is set, theres an 11thhour application for a stay. No one justice is responsible for the final vote. We all are polled wherever we are in the world. But in addition, most of us take some time off to teach. David so today, when you are thinking about the court, what is it that gives you the greatest hope for the future about the court and the way it works . Justice ginsburg i think that all of us revere the institution for which we work, and we want to leave it in as good shape as we found it. David and if somebody wants to be a Supreme Court clerk, each justice gets, i think, four clerks. Do you just send in a letter applying, or how does that work . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg we get hundreds and hundreds of applications. My best source for law clerks are other judges, other federal judges. Law professors tend to write glowing letters of recommendation. Everyone is the best and the brightest student that ever graduated from this law school. [laughter] but my colleagues on other federal courts will tell me the straight story. So, very often, ill get a call from another federal judge saying, i have a clerk this year who i think would be just right for you. So, those are my best recommendations. David so, we have a few questions from people who are attending today. If you could change one thing about the constitution, what would it be and why . [laughter] so, i guess you probably, if you were a founding father, founding mother [laughter] what might you have put into the constitution that didnt quite get in there . Justice ginsburg i would add an equal rights amendment. Amendment to the constitution. [applause] and ill explain it this way. When i take out my pocket constitution to show my granddaughters, i can show them the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. But i cant point to anything that says women and men are persons of equal citizenship stature. Every constitution in the world written since the year 1950 has the equivalent of that statement men and women are persons equal in stature before the law. So, i would like my now greatgrandchild to have a constitution that includes that statement, that this is a fundamental premise of our society, just the way freedom of thought and expression. David what gives you the most hope for the future . Justice ginsburg my granddaughters. [applause] david ok. Justice ginsburg im very proud of my eldest granddaughter, who is a lawyer. Cares a great deal about our country and about its highest values. She, and other young people like her, i think, will help us get back on track. [applause] david ok. And what do you think is the biggest threat to our democracy . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg a public that doesnt care about preserving the rights we have. You know that great speech on liberty . And he said, if the fire dies in the hearts of people, there is no constitution and no judge that can restore it. So, my faith is in the spirit of liberty. David so, when you go to a restaurant these days, can you actually have dinner without a selfie request or people coming up for autographs . Is it possible for you to do that anymore . Justice ginsburg [laughs] its amazing. I am 86 and a half years old, and Everyone Wants to take a picture with me. [laughter] [applause] david Justice Ginsburg, i want to thank you very much for a very interesting conversation. [applause] thank you for your service to our country over 39 years. [applause] these days you need faster internet that does all you expect and way more. Thats xfinity xfi. Get powerful wifi coverage that leaves no room behind with xfi pods. And now xfi advanced security is free with the xfi gateway, giving you an added layer of network protection, so every device thats connected is protected. Thats a 72 a year value. No one else offers this. Faster speed, coverage, and free advanced security at an unbeatable value with xfinity xfi. Can your internet do that . David so why do you think some people do not believe that there is such a thing as Climate Change . Bill you know, they must not have taken enough science courses or something, i dont know. [laughter] david if you met with president trump, you could convince him on paris, to maybe get back in, or is that beyond your capabilities to do that . Bill someone else should do that. David so are you worried about the power of a. I. To disrupt our civilization, to put people out of work, those kinds of things . Bill the increased productivity that will come from a. I. Will create dilemmas. Would you fix your tie, please . David i thought people would