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 . Let me ask you a question at the beginning. How does it feel to get up in the morning and know that 330 million americans want to know the state of your health that day . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg how does it feel . Encouraging. [laughter] as cancer survivors know, that their disease is a challenge, and it helps to know that people are rooting for you. Now, its not universal. [laughter] when i had pancreatic cancer in 2009, there was a senator, whose name i dont recall, but he said i would be dead within six months. That senator is now no longer alive. [laughter] [applause] david but you cant remember his name . Justice ginsburg no, i dont remember his name. David but your current view is that as long as youre healthy, and able to do the job, you intend to stay on the court. Is that correct . Justice ginsburg as long as im healthy and mentally agile. [applause] david ok, so, now, Justice Stevens and previously Justice Oliver wendell holmes, they retired when they were 90. Would you like to break their record . Have you given any thought about that . Justice ginsburg i spent the first week of july with Justice Stevens in what turned out to be the last week of his life. He was remarkable. He was 99 years old. Since he left the court at age 90, he has written four books. So yes, hes my role model. [laughter] david so, today, many people think that the court is very political, that people appointed to the court by democratic president s and those appointed by republican president s tend to follow the political desires of the republican or democratic party. Do you think thats a Fair Assessment . And why do you think, if its not fair, people have that view . Justice ginsburg people have that view because agreement is not interesting. Disagreement is. So the press tends to play up 54 or 53 decisions. But if we could take just last term as a typical example, we had 68 decisions after full briefing and argument. Of those, 20 were 54 or 53 divisions. But 29 were unanimous. So we agree more often than we disagree. And thats something i would like the audience to take away, that the divisions, yes, they are on some very important questions, but our agreement rate is always higher than our disagreement rate. David so if you have a 54 perspective decision, does one of the justices go to another justice and say, why dont you change your mind . Does that work very much . Justice ginsburg no. [laughs] theres no horse trading at the court. David nobody says, if you vote for me on this one, ill vote for you on that one. That doesnt happen . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg it never happens, but we are constantly trying to persuade each other. And most often, we do it through our writing. Every time i write a dissent, or for, i am hopeful that i can pick up this vote. David many people are surprised that the civility that exists between justices, even though they write not such favorable things about each other. So, for example, Justice Scalia used to say not such wonderful things about your views, and you then still went to the opera with him. Was that a little awkward or hard to do . Justice ginsburg not at all. Justice scalia and i became friends when we were buddies on the d. C. Circuit. What did i love most about him . His infectious sense of humor. When there were three judges on the court of appeals, hed sometimes whisper something to me. It would crack me up. [laughter] i had all i could do to contain hysterical laughter. But we had much in common. True, our styles were very different, but both of us cared a lot about writing opinions, so that at least other lawyers and judges would understand what we were saying. David both of you were, and you still are, a great opera lover. Where did you get your love of opera to begin with, and where did the opera Scalia Ginsburg come from . Justice ginsburg ill take the first question first. [laughter] my love of opera began when i was 11 years old. I was in grade school in brooklyn, new york. My aunt, who was a middle school, junior high school, english teacher, took me to a high school in brooklyn where an opera was being performed. It was not a likely choice for a first opera. There was a man at the time, named dean dixon, Whose Mission in life was to turn children on to beautiful music. And he had an allcity orchestra who took opera performances around to various schools, condensed them into one hour, narrated in between. There were costumes, bare staging. So, my introduction to opera was thanks to dean dixon in 1944. David so the Scalia Ginsburg opera was written by a Law School Student . Justice ginsburg he was then a Law School Student. He was a music major at harvard and a masters in music from yale. Derrick wang is his name. He decided it would be useful to know something about the law, so he enrolled in his hometown law school, the university of maryland. And in his second year, he took a constitutional law course. He read these dueling opinions, scalia on one side, ginsburg on the other, and decided this could make a very funny opera. [laughter] so ill just give you a taste of Scalia Ginsburg. It opens with scalias rage [laughter] its very hungarian in style. And he sings, the justices are blind. How can they possibly spout this . The constitution says absolutely nothing about this. [laughter] and then in my soprano voice, i answer, dear Justice Scalia, you are searching for bright Line Solutions to problems that dont have easy answers. But the great thing about our constitution is that, like our society, it can evolve. So that sets up the difference between us. The plot of Scalia Ginsburg is roughly based on the magic flute. [laughter] scalia is locked up in a dark room. Hes being punished for excessive dissenting. [laughter] i then emerge through a glass ceiling. [laughter] [applause] to help him pass the test he needs to pass to get out of the dark room. Then a character left over from don giovanni, the commandatore, is astonished. He said, hes your enemy. Why would you want to help him . And i say, hes not my enemy. Hes my dear friend. And then we sing a wonderful duet that goes, we are different, we are one. Different in our approach to reading legal texts, but one in our reverence for the constitution and for the institution we serve. David you are extremely wellknown around the country now, but you werent when you went on the court. But now youve become, more or less, a rock star, rbg Justice Ginsburg when i was asked, well, what in the world do you have in common with the notorious b. I. G. . , i said, its obvious. [laughter] david so, most justices of the Supreme Court are relatively not recognized by the public, i would say. Maybe in recent years that has changed a little bit. But you are extremely wellknown around the country now. But you were not when you went on the court. But now youve become, more or less, a rockstar, r. B. G. [laughter] you have movies about you, on the basis of sex, and other things. So, why do you think this has occurred . And is this something you dont really enjoy that much, or something you just think comes with the territory now . Justice ginsburg how was the notorious r. B. G. Created . [applause] it was the idea of a second year student at Nyu Law School who was very disappointed in the courts decision in the Shelby County case. And that was the case in which the court declared unconstitutional the key provision of the Voting Rights act of 1965. An act that had been renewed time and again by overwhelming majorities on both sides of the aisle. But the Supreme Court struck down the formula. The way the voting act worked was, if you were a state or a city or a county that kept africanamericans from voting in the notsogoodold days, you could not make any change in voting legislation unless you precleared it with the department of justice, civil rights division, or with the threejudge District Court in the district of columbia. So that advanced check suppressed many laws that would have discouraged African Americans from voting. The Supreme Court said, well, the formula for who was discriminating in 1965 is now out of date. Congress needs to do it over, because jurisdictions that were discriminating in 1965 may have clean hands today. The political problem was what member of congress, what senator, what representative, would stand up and say, my state or my city or my county is still discriminating, so keep it under the surveillance that the Voting Rights act provides . It just wasnt going to happen. The act itself had a bailout provision. So if a state, city, county indeed had clean hands for several elections, it could bail out. And that device, i thought, was all that was needed. But in any event, this student was disturbed about the courts decision. She was angry. And then she said to herself, anger is not a useful emotion. Im going to do something positive. And what she did was she took the announcement of my dissent that i read from the bench in Shelby County, and she created this blog, heading it the notorious r. B. G. , a name she got from a wellknown rapper, who was called the notorious b. I. G. [laughter] and when i was asked, well, what in the world do you have in common with the notorious b. I. G. . , i said, its obvious. [laughter] both of us were born and bred in brooklyn, new york. [applause] david so, now, you were born and bred in brooklyn. You have still a bit of a brooklyn accent, you might admit. You were played in a movie by felicity jones, who is not jewish or from brooklyn. So how do you think she did . Justice ginsburg i thought she was fantastic. When i first met felicity, i said, you speak the queens english. How are you going to sound like a girl born and bred in brooklyn . But she listened to many tapes of my speeches, my arguments at the court, and she was wonderful. David so, in recent years, you have also gotten a lot of attention for your exercise routine. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg right. David so when did that start . And you have your own trainer, and are you still lifting weights, or whatever youre doing . Justice ginsburg as recently as tuesday. [applause] ive been with the same personal trainer since 1999, when i had my first cancer bout. And my dear husband said, after going through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, i looked like a survivor of auschwitz. He said, you must do something to build yourself up. Get a personal trainer. And thats when i started, in 1999. Sometimes i get so absorbed in my work, i just dont want to let go. But when it comes time to meet my trainer, i drop everything. And as tired as i may be in the beginning, i always feel much better when we finish. David did martys mother ever give you any advice when you met her, about how to be happily married . Justice ginsburg she gave me some wonderful advice. We were married in her home. A and she said, dear, id like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage. David ok, so you met your husband, marty. You were married for 56 years. Justice ginsburg yes. David you met him at cornell. Is that right . Justice ginsburg yes, we met when i was 17 and he was 18. David and what is the likelihood of a woman at cornell meeting somebody they marry, and that person wants to take care of childrearing, and also cooking, as well as sharing all the other burdens of being married . Is that a very common thing in your observation . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg it is extraordinary at any time, but particularly in the 1950s. Cornell, by the way, had a fourtoone ratio, four men to every woman. It was the place parents want to send their daughters. [laughter] if you couldnt find your man at cornell, you were hopeless. [laughter] so then i met marty, and he was, in fact, the first boy i ever knew who cared that i had a brain. He was always my biggest booster. The cooking, that began i had two years between college and law school when marty was in service. Those two years we spent in fort sill, oklahoma, the principal artillery base. I got pregnant during the first year. And when i went back to new york to give birth, my cousin sent marty a copy of a cookbook in english translation, and said, this will give you something to do while your wife is away. So marty had originally been a chemistry major at cornell. And he treated this cookbook like a chemistry textbook. [laughter] he started with the basic stuff and worked his way through it. He gave up chemistry because it interfered with golf practice. Marty was a great golfer. And then he switched to government, which was my major. He attributed his skill in the kitchen to two women, his mother and his wife. His mother, i think, that was an unfair judgment, but he was certainly right about me. [laughter] i had one cookbook. It was called the 60minute chef. And that meant from when you enter the apartment to when its on the table, no more than 60 minutes. [laughter] i had seven meals that i made, and after we got to seven, we went back to number one. [laughter] david so did martys mother ever give you any advice when you met her about how to be happily married . Justice ginsburg she gave me some wonderful advice. We were married in her home. And she said, just before the ceremony started, dear, id like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage. Id like to hear it. What is it . Every now and then, she said, it helps to be a little deaf. [laughter] which was such wonderful advice. I follow it religiously to this very day, if im dealing with my colleagues [laughter] if an unkind word is said, i just tune out. David so, as a result of your marriage to marty, who was a distinguished law professor and tax lawyer as well, you have two children, jane, your daughter, who teaches at columbia. Justice ginsburg she is a morton l. Janklow professor of literary and artistic property law. School. Bia law [applause] david and as i understand it, you and she were the only motherdaughter team to ever actually be elected to the harvard law review. Is that true . Justice ginsburg so far. [laughter] david so far. And you have a son whos in the music business . Justice ginsburg james makes exquisite compact discs. James grew up with a passion for music but no talent as a performer. So when he went to the university of chicago, he was a classical disc jockey on the student radio station. Then in the years he was dropping in and out of law school, he was also making recordings. One day he told us he liked what he was doing much more than his law classes. So we said, fine. Thats what you want to do. And today, he labeled a cd, and his recordings are gems. David do you have any grandchildren . Justice ginsburg i have four grandchildren, two step grandchildren, and one great grandchild. [applause] david ok, and do your grandchildren call you . R. B. G . Or what do they call you . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg i am a jewish grandmother, so i am called bubbe. David ok. In 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. [ sigh ] not gonna happen. Thats it. Im calling kohler about their walkin bath. My name is ken. How may i help you . Hi, im calling about kohlers walkin bath. Excellent happy to help. Huh . Hold one moment please. [ finger snaps ] hmm. The kohler walkin bath features an extrawide opening and a low stepin at three inches, which is 25 to 60 lower than some leading competitors. The bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. Kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. Are you seeing this . The kohler walkin bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. Everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohlercertified installer. And its made by kohler americas leading plumbing brand. We need this bath. Yes. Yes you do. A kohler walkin bath provides independence with peace of mind. Ask about saving up to 1500 on your installation. Getting job offers. Three strikes against me. Did you think you have a chance to be on the Supreme Court . I did not think it was likely i would be a Supreme Court justice. When you first got there, where the other justices like happy to see you . Lets go have dinner together . Justice ginsburg Justice Oconnor was the most welcoming. She gave me some very good advice. Would you fix your tie, please . David well, people wouldnt
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.