Distinguished lecture series. We would ask that you please silence your cell phones. A little activity there. Let me begin by first lifting up those who have been impacted in our giving and are dealing with hurricane dorian. If you are able, please consider supporting relief efforts. Clintonrd dean of the school, and on behalf of at t, the Clinton Foundation, and the Clinton School, we are glad youre here. Special thanks to catherine and compurisrue and dean for establishing this series honoring their parents. What a gift. [applause] and what a tribute to your mom and your dad. Just please know how grateful we are. I want to recognize the new class of Clinton School students. Stand up, guys. [applause] as well as our returning students, our faculty, our staff and our very talented group of alumni, right over there. [applause] also joining us, congressman french hill, university of arkansas system president don, and his wife, susan. System Vice President for academic affairs, current and former members of the board of trustees, several members of the federal and state judiciary, the staff of the national archives, many elected officials including little rock mayor, frank scott. [applause] and guests from all over the region. We are pleased to welcome the students from a Philander Smith college, and several other campuses including the constitutional law class at university of arkansaslittle rock school of law. This event could not have happened without the long hours and hard work on the Clinton Foundation and Clinton School staff, along with the support of many dedicated volunteers. Thank you all very much. [applause] a few months ago, i heard a 10yearold anna Lee Castleberry deliver a personal and inspiring speech. In her remarks, she listed people she most admired and in addition to her family members, she proudly said, and i quote, rbg. [applause] this evening, she is here, sitting with us. As a salute to the many young people who are also inspired by Justice Ginsburg. Lee, we are glad to have you here. Again, thank you all for joining us, and thank you for making all this possible. [applause] good evening. I am also thrilled to be here with all of you at our largest compuris distinguished lecture ever. [applause] we knew that Justice Ginsburg would draw a large crowd. Larger than the centers great hall could hold. We were right. We have enough people here tonight to fill 40 great halls. [applause] as a young white house staffer, i had the honor of being in the rose garden on a very sunny day in june 1993. When president clinton announced his nominee for the United States Supreme Court. Although i was somewhat familiar with the judge ginsburgs accomplishments, she had already achieved so many firsts, i was not prepared to be awestruck. Her remarks that they were poignant and powerful and have stayed with me all these years. As she was wrapping up, she thanked the many people who had helped her along the way and she saved the last thank you for her mother, cecelia bader. Justice ginsburg described her as the bravest and strongest person she had ever known. She said, and i quote, i pray that i may be all she would have been had she lived in an age when women could aspire and daughters could be cherished as much as sons. I believe your mother would be very proud. You have accomplished so much. [applause] and you are cherished by so many. It is now my honor to introduce is cherished by so many of us. For hisecting the site president ial center, president clinton said, one reason he chose his beloved home state was because he would have never become president without the support of the people from arkansas. [applause] as congressman french hill shared with a group of educators shared at the Clinton Center last month, the Clinton Center has made a lasting educational and economic impact. It is the gift that keeps on giving. [applause] and 15 years after we opened our doors, the clinton president ial center continues to give back to our community and our state. I think this program tonight is a good example. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome the 40th and 42nd governor of the great state of arkansas, the 42nd president of the United States, and the founder of the Clinton Foundation, bill clinton. [applause] clintomr. Clinton thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank stephanie and skip for the work they do at the Clinton Center, at the Clinton School of public service. I want to thank the family for sponsoring this lecture series. And thank you. [applause] fmr. Pres. Clinton i want to thank all of you. I tried to entertain Justice Ginsburg for a few moments before we came over here by telling her a story of my adventures and misadventures in her politics. In arkansas politics, back when we thought of each other as people, as threedimensional human beings, before we realized we were just twodimensional cartoons. [applause] and as is fairly well known now, i had not actually actually met Justice Ginsburg until that memorable sunday evening in june of 1993, when she came to see me at the white house. I had already interviewed two other people and it immediately leaked to the press. I had a lot of young aides who worked hard, and were good people, but if a reporter called them, they were more afraid to say, i dont know, than anything else, so i got a big kick out of it. I sneaked who is now one of the most famous people in the world into the white house and nobody knew. [laughter] less been president for than a year, and i already had a Supreme Court appointment to make. I wanted to do a good job. Then, was one of three people still in the running. Judge ginsburg was one of three people still in the running. They were all excellent candidates. I carefully reviewed their resume but also their life stories. Hillary and a lot of other people had already to me that i needed to take a hard look at ruth bader ginsburg. Hilary had met her grand daughter, because she went to a preschool event not long before i announced her appointment. Her granddaughter was a pretty good advertisement for her grandmother. She told me you need to know about this person, because she actually lived what she believes. For those who havent seen the recent film about her mark of a life, a very short version she grew up in brooklyn in a family of modest means and as you heard stephanie say, thanks to her mothers relentless early encouragement, she attended Cornell University and then harvard law, where she helped her husband and partner marty through Cancer Treatment while raising a daughter and earning a degree. When he took a job in new york, she left harvard. Now, that was a big sacrifice. There were than 500 people at Harvard Law School, and she was one of nine women. [applause] fmr. Pres. Clinton today, most students in law school are women. [applause] after she graduated from law school, she went on to cofound the womens rights project at the aclu and began her career as a judge. Still, when the legal field was not particularly open to women. From the start of our first conversation in 1993, i got why so many people were hoping i would appoint her. She was both brilliant, and had a good head on her shoulders. She was rigorous, but warmhearted. She had a great sense of humor and a sensible, achievable judicial philosophy. She also kept the moral compass and the mental toughness that guided her from humble beginnings. I was so engrossed with her story, i just kept peppering her with questions. The i suddenly felt that i was really not interviewing somebody for the Supreme Court at all, i was just a guy talking to somebody that i really liked, and that i hoped could be a part of our future. Constitutionalht law, and i knew how much the Supreme Court mattered. Even to people who didnt know it, i knew that it affects all of america, sometimes very personally and deeply. I always thought a Supreme Court justice should have the heart spirit, talent, common sense and , wisdom to translate the hopes of the American People and a for fairitimate desire in all thereatment cases presented to it, and to an enduring body of constitutional law that would preserve our most cherished values and still enable the American People to move forward. When i ran for president , i promised the American People that kind of justice. I think i cant that promise. That promise. Ept [applause] appointed Justice Ginsburg for three reasons. First, she proved to be one of the nations best judges on the bench, progressive and outlook and judgment, balanced and fair in opinion. Second, she had a lifetime of pioneering work on behalf of women, and she had a truly historic record of achievement there. Before she was a judge, she argued six cases involving gender discrimination before the Supreme Court and won 5 of them. That is a better average than most people have. [applause] fmr. Pres. Clinton finally, i thought she had the ability to build, and ground in a country that was our day becoming increasingly polarized. To find a way whenever possible for the court to be an instrument of our common unity and fidelity to the constitution. She had already proved herself to be a hero. Time and again, our moral imagination had cooled the fires calling for discord. She ensured that jurists kept their right to dissent without entangling the court in endless animosities. In short, i liked her and i believed in her. I just knew that she was the right person for the court, but i have to say, in the last 26 years, she has far exceeded even my expectations. [applause] she has written landmark opinions advancing gender equality, marriage equality, the rights of people with disabilities, and the rights of immigrants. [applause] and she is almost as wellknown for her amazing dissenting opinions. [applause] , she offers an alternative vision about how america ought to work for everybody, how it ought to be. How votes ought to be counted, not discredit. How districts should be fair. I could go on. There are seven or eight of those dissents that i just read every now and then when i am bored, and want to be reminded about why i still believe in americas constitution. [applause] but i have to say this. One thing i did not see coming when i nominated her is her ascendance to popculture icon. [laughter] her workout routine is marveled at. [laughter] hillary got me a book, the rbg workout, and said i bet you cant do it. Yeah, i can. I am just a kid. Just 73 years old. I can do this. [laughter] i had to work out on my weight machine and do other stuff for two months before i could complete her workout. [applause] regularly, she is portrayed on saturday night live delivering. Er blistering ginsburns [laughter] now you can see her image and her quotes on tshirts, tote bags, coffee mugs the world over. You could become resentful of such a person. [laughter] but you are not. We like her because she seems so totally on the level. In a world hungry for people who are not trying to con you. She is on the level. [applause] she spent a lifetime trying to give other people from the get go the opportunity she spent her early life struggling to reach. In one of her law review articles, she wrote figures of the american judiciary with open but not empty minds. The people willing to listen and learn have exhibited a readiness to examine their own premises, liberal or conservative, as thoroughly as those of others. She has lived her life doing that. And somehow, she has also found the time not only to attend just about every opera ever produced, and shelly, if yo actually appeared on the stage of some of them as well. Not very long ago, i had the honor of going to the university of virginia, to a special symposium on the presidency. Define it seems you can the presidency of everyone who served by having answer to questions connected to the oath of office. You have to promise to protect and uphold the constitution, and those two questions can be found in the first page of the we the people of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union. The same could be said of Supreme Court justices. The two questions are, who is in we, the people, and what does a more Perfect Union mean . I believe for ruth bader ginsburg, we the people is all of us. And i believe [applause] that in her more Perfect Union, all of us are on equal terms at home. [applause] she will be interviewed tonight by nprs remarkable Legal Affairs correspondent, and i think we have reached the stage in her life where i can admit without hurting her career, one of my favorite journalists. Nina totenberg. [laughter] [applause] now, here is the last thing i want to say, and i am confident i speak for everyone in this only one person here appointed her, and one person, senator david pryor, voted for her, but all of us hope that she will stay on that court forever. [cheers and applause] fmr. Pres. Clinton ladies and gentlemen, Justice Ginsburg and nina totenberg. [applause] all Justice Ginsburg thank you. Thank you. [cheers and applause] [chanting] rbg rbg rbg Justice Ginsburg thank you, thank you thank you rbg rbg rbg ms. Totenberg thank you all for coming. I think Justice Ginsburg and i have never, ever, appeared before an audience this large before. [laughter] [cheers and applause] i understand that normally this is, i guess, recently the worldwide wrestling entertainment [laughter] we are not going to wrestle each other. [laughter] we are going to try to entertain you a bit and inform you. You have heard president clinton describing why he picked Justice Ginsburg, but i think i should start this interview asking you about that interview. So let me set the stage. The year is 1993, the new president is flirting with all manner of potential Supreme Court nominations, and the names keep getting leaked to the likes of me. [laughter] and behind the scenes, martin the inimitable Martin Ginsberg is doing everything in his power to promote his tiny but officious wife. And finally, you get a call from the white house counsel, and it is a call that you had long hoped for, but you are in something of a fashion dilemma. Tell us about how you got the call that day calling you to the white house and what your fashion dilemma was. Justice ginsburg i was called on a saturday in vermont, where i was to attend a wedding. Bernie nussbaum said the president wants to meet you. Please come out to d. C. And i said, well, ive come all this way to attend a wedding. Can i come tomorrow morning . [laughter] and he said, fine. Youll go right from the airport to the white house. And i said, but ill be wearing my traveling clothes. Well, that is ok. The president would be just coming off a golf course. So i arrive in my plainclothes, handsomemes a very president wearing his sunday best, because he had just come from church. [laughter] ms. Totenberg so what was the conversation like . What kinds of things did he ask . And did you have a good time, or were you in interview agony . Justice ginsburg i didnt hear that did you have a good time . Justice ginsburg i had a wonderful time. It was very easy to talk to the president. We talked about constitutional law. After all, he was a constitutional law professor. We talked about family. We talked about many things. I found the experience with some men that they have certain discomfort talking to a woman. That was not that way with president clinton. [laughter] [applause] ms. Totenberg i was told after that interview by a number of white house aides that he just fell for you hook, line and , sinker. When we were talking, he said in five minutes, i had just fallen for her hook line and sinker. [laughter] when did you get the word, do i recall that you got a call from Bernie Nussbaum when you were in the bathtub or Something Like that, that night . Justice ginsburg [laughter] it was rather late on sunday it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was absolutely on cloud nine. And then the president said, and tomorrow morning, we will have a little ceremony in the rose garden and we would like you to make a few remarks. So i had to come down from the cloud, sit at my writing table. I liked the remarks. It was the only time in that entire episode one there was no time for white house handlers to go over what i was going to say. [laughter] it was my own words unedited. Ms. Totenberg you then went into a confirmation process. I think in the end you got i am not sure about this i think there were only Justice Ginsburg 963. Ms. Totenberg 963. [cheers and applause] ms. Totenberg republicans today often cite the ginsberg rule. When i go back and read the transcripts, i read about what your rule was, but it strikes me that in light of modern confirmation hearings, nominees are considerably less responsive, of all political stripes, not just republican nominees. You actually answered questions about abortion and the death penalty, and all kinds of things. Justice ginsburg the ginsberg rule was, please do not ask a question that may come before the court, because then, i would have to disqualify myself if i gave you an answer. A judge is not supposed to react off the top of her head when a question is presented to us. We read first of all the decisions that were written by the courts below, the trial court, court of appeals, and then we read the briefs that are anything but brief. [laughter] filed byinsburg the lawyers, and we read the relevant precedent. So, to give an answer to a question without the benefit of all that reading and briefing is not what a judge should do. Still, there was a lot out there that i could be asked about, because i was 17 years a law teacher, 13 years a judge in a court of appeals, so i had written hundreds of opinions, many articles, and anything that i had already written was fair game. Ms. Totenberg you arrive at the court, you are the woman. Secondjustice Sandra Oconnor had been there for 12 years without you. What advice did she give you . Justice ginsburg she told me just enough to enable me to navigate those early weeks. She didnt douse me with a bucket full of information. Just enough to get by. She was, i think, very pleased at the change the court made when i was appointed. Justice oconnor was the lone woman on the court for 12 years. In our robing room, there was a bathroom, and it says men. For Justice Oconnor, when she needed one, she had to go back to her chamber. When i came on board, they rushed a renovation. They created a womens bathroom equal in size to the mens. [applause] ms. Totenberg your first opinion assigned to you was not quite what you expected, and you went to her. Justice ginsburg yes. The legend is that the new justice, the junior justice will get a single issue case in which the court is unanimous. Chief Justice Rehnquist gave me in my first assignment a miserable case. An erisa case, it was the employment, retirement and security act. One of the most complex statutes congress ever wrote. The court was not unanimous. It was divided 63 and Justice Oconnor was on the others. She was one of the three. So, i came to her and said, you were not supposed to do that to me. [laughter] her response, this is typical of Justice Oconnor, she said, you just do it. Just do it. Get your opinion draft in circulation before he makes the next set of assignments, otherwise you will risk getting another miserable case. [laughter] ms. Totenberg i could never understand why lawyers that appeared before the court and not people who are not accustomed to the court, but some very seasoned lawyers would get these two women mixed up. Oconnor was day or five foot you claim to be over five feet eight. Tall. [laughter] she was a western ranch girl with a western twang. You were a new yorker, a brooklyn girl. I do know that it was a brooklyn twang, but you are certainly an easterner. She didnt wear the hair the way you do and still people kept calling you Justice Oconnor and her Justice Ginsburg. , why . Justice ginsburg much more often, i was called Justice Oconnor. The lawyers had learned there was a woman on the court and her name was Justice Oconnor. So when they heard a womans voice, it had to be Justice Oconnor. She would sometimes respond, i am Justice Oconnor, she is Justice Ginsburg. There was a lot of attention paid to the two of us and how we interacted. One day, i think it was in usa today, there was a headline was, rude ruth interrupts sandra. [laughter] sound or had asked a question in argument, i thought she was finished, and she said, just a minute, i have followup questions. I apologized to her and she said, ruth, dont give it another thought, the guys do it to each other all the time. [laughter] ms. Totenberg i think there was a tshirt presented to the two of you at the time, i think by some group of women and one side said i am sandra, not ruth . Justice ginsburg it was the National Association of women judges. They had a reception for the two of us. And they gave her a tshirt that said, i am sandra, not ruth. And mine, i am ruth, not sandra. Fastforward, i could tell you, that doesnt happen anymore now that we are three. [applause] ms. Totenberg what kind of a difference does it make to have three . Justice ginsburg one is the public perception. We have a 10minute line, often schoolchildren coming in and out of the court, and if they see three women, because of my seniority, i sit next to the cheese, Justice Sotomayor is on one side, Justice Kagan on the other, so we are all over the bench and as you will affirm, my sisters in law are not shrinking violets. [laughter] they are very active in the on in thehat goes oral arguments. When Justice Scalia with this with us, there was kind of a competition between Justice Sotomayor and Justice Scalia, which one would ask the most questions in oral argument. [laughter] ms. Totenberg you were the lone woman justice after Justice Oconnor retired from 2006 until pretty near the end of 2009. And i have the sense that you were not a very happy camper at that time. Justice ginsburg it was a lonely position. Viewing the court, there was something wrong. With the picture. The public would see these eight rather well fed man coming on the bench [laughter] [applause] and then there was this rather small woman. Ms. Totenberg and did you find that even there on occasion, when you were just one, did you occasionally see that phenomenon of you Say Something and nothing , and then 10 minutes later or five minutes later, one of your brethren says the same thing, and everybody goes, that is a very good idea . Justice ginsburg that happened at conference more than once. When i would make a comment, no reaction. Then one of my male colleagues would say basically the same thing and people would react. Thats a good idea. Lets discuss it. Developedit they had that you dont expect very much from a woman so you tune out when she speaks. But you listen when a male speaks. Now, i can tell you that that experience, which i had as a member of a law faculty, as a member of the court of appeals, now that i have two sisters in happen. Doesnt [cheers and applause] ms. Totenberg i am going to pause and asking the question on peoples minds. You have had a lot of areas threats to your serious threats to your health this year. You were operated on for lung cancer in december, you have just completed three weeks of radiation treatment for an additional cancer. So, how are you feeling, and excuse me, i am really thrilled that we are here, but why are we here . You finished radiation treatment at the end of august. Justice ginsburg yes. [laughter] august 23 was the last session. But i had promised the Clinton Library that i would be here, and i just was not going to [cheers and applause] Justice Ginsburg thank you. Thank you. I am pleased to say that i am feeling very good tonight. [applause] ms. Totenberg how do you keep going . I mean, you have i took a ton of briefs with me on the plane here, and i managed about an hour and a half, and then i was ready for a break. You did this when you are sometimes feeling really rotten in the last year. How do you keep going . Justice ginsburg i think my work is what saved me, because instead of dwelling on my physical discomfort, if i have an opinion to write, or i have a brief to read, i know i have just got to get it done, and so, i have to get over it. This is another instance where i got very good advice from Justice Oconnor. Justice oconnor had a mastectomy and she was on the bench nine days after her surgery. She told me in my first cancer t with Colorectal Cancer ruth, you schedule your chemotherapy for a friday, then you can get over it saturday and sunday and be back in court on monday. [applause] ms. Totenberg but you have done this really all of your life. Cancer is not a stranger to you. Your mother died the day before your graduation. Your husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer when you were both at Harvard Law School and you had an 18 month or twoyearold child at the same time, and you were on law review i think i often get, just to describe what a day in your life that awful year was like before marty survived and beat the odds. Justice ginsburg we took it day by day. We always believed that we would prevail. That we would beat the cancer. It was not an easy time. After he had surgery, he had massive radiation, because there was no chemotherapy in those days. So, he would come home, be sick, go to sleep, get up about 12 00 midnight and whatever he ate for the day, he would eat then, then he would dictate a paper to me. I had note takers for all of his classes. My routine was, i would go to my classes in the morning, the hospital in the afternoon, come home, play with my daughter who was then three years old. Put her to bed. After dinner, which was at midnight, i would then go back to the books and prepare for the next day. So i was getting along on two hours of sleep a night. For weeks on end. But we always had a positive live. De that we would [applause] ms. Totenberg for your last year of law school, because marty was a year ahead of you, you moved to new york to be with him for his job, you graduated tied for first in your class at columbia law school, but you couldnt get a job. He and Justice Oconnor used to talk about how lucky that was in hindsight, that you couldnt get jobs when you graduated at the tops of your respective classes. It is aninsburg well, example of how something that luckeem dreadful, very bad , turns out to be the most fortunate thing that ever happened to you. Justice oconnor put it this way, she said, suppose we had graduated from law school at a time when there was no discrimination, when women were welcomed at the bar, what would we be today . We would be retired partners from some large law firm. But that route was an open to us, so we had to find another us toand that path led become Supreme Court justices. [cheers and applause] ms. Totenberg you are recommended for many clerkships, Supreme Court clerkships, nobody would interview you, because those days, they were all men. He finally did get a clerkship back then thanks to the rather assertive intervention of one of your professors, who basically said to your judge, the judge take her you, if you and it doesnt work out, i have a guy who i will send to you, he is at a law firm now, but if you dont, i will never send you another columbia grad. So, he went to work for judge palmieri for two years, despite the fact that you had two strikes against you where you are not only a woman, you were a mother. But one of the charming stories of this period of your life is that one of the judges would turned you down and was not interested in you was judge famous,hand, a very famous judge, and he turned you down because he said he couldnt swear in front of you. [laughter] ms. Totenberg so you pick up the story from there. Justice ginsburg judge leonard lived one block away from judge palmieri. Judge palmieri often drove him home. When i was finished in time, i would ride uptown with them, sitting in the backseat, and this great jurist would say anything that came into his head. Words that my mother never taught me. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg and i asked him, you say you will not consider me as a clerk because it would have to censor your ieech, and yet in this car, dont seem to inhibit you at all. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg and his is ons was, young lady best his response was, young lady, i am not looking at you. [laughter] ms. Totenberg for those of you , or thenot seen rbg sex, on the basis of i recommend both. Provide a good view of you in your career for becoming judge and later Supreme Court justice had what used to strike me when arguments, was how you had tailored your arguments. You had an allmale Supreme Court, and you tailored your gender discrimination cases, the arguments in those cases, to appeal to different justices in different ways. And you often had male plaintiffs. And one of those male plaintiffs was stephen wiesenthal, whose died in childbirth, and he was denied Social Security benefits for his remaining child who survived, even though his wife was the principal breadwinner. Won, but there are basically three arguments that succeeded. I want you to talk about how each group of justices saw it. Justice ginsburg first, let me tell the audience how stephen wiesenthal came to my attention. He had written a letter to the paper in his local edison, new jersey, and he said, i have been hearing a lot these days about womens lib. Let me tell you my story. Died of an embolism just after our son was born. And i knew that there were benefits available to us all surviving parents who had a young child. O take care of so i went to the Social Security office to claim those benefits, and i was told we are very sorry, mr. Wiesenthal, these are mothers benefits, they are not available to fathers. Now, it was obvious to me that although the plaintiff was a man, the discrimination was against the woman as wage earner. She paid the same Social Security taxes the men would pay , but her contributions did not know for her family the same protection. Was the dominant view of the court that this is really discrimination against the woman as wage earner. A few of the justices said, it is discrimination against the mail as parent. He doesnt have the option the male as parent. Amountld earn the same and still get the same Social Security benefits. If you arent over the limit, the benefits would be reduced dollar by dollar. Once he figured out, i can do parttime work, or a certain amount and keep those benefits. Said, itf the justices is discrimination against the male as parent, he has no choice but to work fulltime. He doesnt have the option to care personally for his newborn. And then, there was one who later became my chief, thenJustice Rehnquist mahood said, it is totally arbitrary from the point of view of the baby. Why should the baby have the opportunity for the care of a full surviving parent. Female,the parent is and not if the parent is male . So it was a wonderful illustration of how genderbased discrimination hurts everyone hurts women, hurts men, and so on. [applause] ms. Totenberg there was a case you had that you wanted to take to the Supreme Court but you couldnt, because the case ms. Totenberg the case involving the army or air force, pregnant women. Hoped that that would be the first reproductive choice case that the court would hear. In the case of rose in 1971, when the captain was serving in the air force, she was serving abroad when she became pregnant. Pregnancy in those days was mandatory grounds for discharge. The base commander said to her, 1971, two years before roe v. Wade, you can have an abortion on base. We provide those for women in service and wives of men and service. If you do, you can remain in the air force. But if you choose to go through the pregnancy, you are discharged. No exceptions. Susan struck said, i am a roman catholic, and i cannot have an abortion. But i made arrangements to have the child adopted at birth. I will cost the taxpayers nothing because i will use my accumulated leave time for the birth. She said, here we are, at the air force base where some of my male colleagues get hooked on alcohol or drugs. And you do not mandate their discharge. If they report themselves, they can be in a Rehabilitation Program and you will keep them much longer than the time i am going to take off for the birth. It does not make any sense. Pregnancy is a mandatory ground for discharge. And that was that. Susan brought her case into Federal District court. She lost. By the way, she was very well represented. So she got a stay of her discharge every month, so she was in, fighting to stay in, not out, trying to get back in. Anyway, then it went to the court of appeals. She lost again, but there is a very good dissenting opinion. Then i wrote a petition to the Supreme Court to hear her case. The Supreme Court said yes, we will take it. And then, both solicit general at the time who had been dean of the law school i first attended asked to have a meeting with the top military people, who said, this case has lost potential for the government. You should waive the captains discharge and then change the rule so pregnancy is no longer an automatic discharge. [applause] Justice Ginsburg and the air force did, and then immediately, the government moved to have the case returned to the court of appeals for determination whether it was no longer live, because she got what she was seeking, she remained in air force officer. So i called captain struck and set, is there anything you are missing so we can claim the case is still alive . She said, i have all of my pay and allowances, so there is nothing there. But, there is one thing. This conversation was going on in 1972. She said, all my life, i have dreamed of becoming a pilot. But the air force does not give Flight Training to women. We laughed, because we knew in 1972 it was much too early, still an impossible dream to win that case. The difference between then and now is one of the reasons why i am optimistic about the future. Today, it would be unthinkable to deny Flight Training to women. [applause] ms. Totenberg Justice Ginsburg, this may be a little i think it is important to talk about. The notion of originalism versus a living constitution. It majority of the Current Court believes, to one degree or another, in the notion that judges should interpret the constitution as it was meant by the Founding Fathers when it was written in the late 1700s. That the original intent is what matters, and the text as it was written and what it was intended. You and most of the justices you have served with, at least until now, have a somewhat different take. That the constitution was written to be elastic enough that Justice Kennedy put, to accommodate changes in society. Can you talk about that . Justice ginsburg president clinton said it so well in his introduction. A constitution begins with the word, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union. Think of how things work in 1787. Who were we the people . Certainly not people held in human bondage. The original constitution preserved slavery. [applause] Justice Ginsburg and certainly not women, whatever their color. [applause] Justice Ginsburg and not even men who did not own property. So it was an elite group, we the people. But i think the genius of our constitution is as Thurgood Marshall said. He says he does not celebrate the original constitution, but he does celebrate what the constitution has become well over two centuries. The concept of we the people has become ever more inclusive, so people who were left out at the beginning, slaves, women, men without property, native americans were not part of we the people. [applause] Justice Ginsburg so all of the ones left out people, a lot of the political constituency. We are certainly a more Perfect Union as a result of that. [applause] Justice Ginsburg the original constitution preserved the slave trade until 1808. One of the provisions is an embarrassment, it said, if someone held as a slave escapes into a free state and the master asks to get the slave back, the slave must be returned to the master. The fugitive slave clauses were in the constitution, but then there is a star next to it saying, changed by the 14th amendment, it says. There will be a star next to it saying changed by the 14th amendment. [applause] ms. Totenberg the first time i met Justice Ginsburg, it was by phone. We were young women, compared to now. I was a brandnew Supreme Court reporter reading about the first case claiming that discrimination against women was a violation of the 14th amendment. The first case in the Supreme Court. And ultimately the case the court first said it was a violation of the 14th amendment. I do not understand this. The 14th amendment was enacted to cover slaves and africanamericans, and it does not say anything about women. I called you up at you gave me an hourlong lecture. [laughter] ms. Totenberg i am going to ask you for a 62nd version. 60second version. Justice ginsburg you said, i thought you said the 14th amendment was about race. I said, it is, but the 14th amendment means no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the law. [cheers and applause] Justice Ginsburg the first time the Supreme Court heard such an argument was in the 1870s. A woman wanted to vote, and she said she read the constitution and it said no state shall deny any person equal protection of the law. The courts response to her was, you are indeed a person, and you are a citizen of the United States. But so too our children, and no one would suggest that children should have the right to vote. The court has come along way since then. [cheers and applause] Justice Ginsburg the turning point case that you asked me reed v. Reed. Ed d, and about sally ree she had a great tragedy in her life. She had a son, she and her husband divorced. When the boy was young, sally was appointed custodian of the child. When he reached his teens, the father went to the family court and said, now he needs to be prepared for a mans world, so i should be the custodian. Sally thought that would not be good for her son, to live in his fathers home. But she lost. Sadly, she turned out to be right. The boy was depressed, and one day he took out one of his fathers many guns and committed suicide. So sally wanted to be appointed administrator of his state and take care of what he left behind, which was little. A bank account, a guitar, some records. That was it. She applied and her former husband applied two weeks later and the Probate Court said to sally, i am sorry, but the law gives me no choice. It reads, this was the law in the state of idaho, as between persons equally entitled to administer a deceaseds estate, equally entitled, the male must be preferred to female. Sally was an everyday woman and made her living caring for elderly or disabled people in her home. But she thought and injustice had been done to her. She also believed that our legal system would right the wrong. On her own dime, she took the case through three levels of the idaho court and then i got involved and wrote the brief for her. She prevailed with a unanimous decision. It was the first time, the case was decided in november, 1971, the first time in history the Supreme Court ever had a genderbased classification on the constitution. [applause] Justice Ginsburg after that precedent, we were on a roll. Case after case, challenging genderbased classifications. And on the basis of sex and rbg, speaking of children for a moment, i want to lighten things up before i close with conversation about your relationship with Justice Scalia. But can i get you to tell the story of the elevator speech . Justice ginsburg my son must have been 11. My son was a lively child. I called him lively. His teachers called him hyperactive. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg his school had a hand operated elevator. The hand operator went out to smoke a cigarette. One night, my sons classmate dared him to take the kindergartners from the ground floor up to the top floor. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg my son did that and was greeted by three stone faces. The room teacher, the school principal, the school psychologist. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg and i was called. I was getting calls about once a month to come down to the school to hear about my sons latest escapades. One day, i was in my office at columbia law school, feeling particularly weary because i had stayed up all night writing a brief. I said to the caller, this child has two parents. Please alternate the calls. [laughter] [cheers and applause] Justice Ginsburg it is his fathers turn. [laughter] so marty, myurg husband, went down to the school and was told, your son stole the elevator. My husband, who had a wonderful sense of humor, said, he stole the elevator . How far can he take it . I suspect the school was very hesitant to take a man away from his work. There was no quick change to my sons behavior, but the calls came barely once each term because they had to think twice before calling a man away from his work. You and the late Justice Scalia used two talk extensively about originalism versus a living constitution. But you were great friends for many decades who served on the same court of appeals. You knew each other at the university of chicago briefly. Let me start with the personal friendship. People seem surprised that Justice Scalia, this iconic conservative, and Justice Ginsburg, this iconic feminist, were such good friends. And i know you really loved him. What did you love about him . Justice ginsburg he had a marvelous sense of humor. He would sit next to me and whisper something during the argument that absolutely cracked me up. I had to avoid bursting out into hysterical laughter. One thing we have in common, we both work very hard. We try to write so at least judges and other lawyers and hopefully the public could understand what we were saying. Justice scalia was the son of a latin professor at brooklyn college, and his mother was a schoolteacher. He was an expert. He would sometimes come to my chambers and say, ruth, you made a grammatical error. I do not want to embarrass you by sending you a note that would be circulated to our colleagues. [laughter] i would callurg him and say, this opinion is so strident, you will not be as persuasive as you would be if you would tone it down. He never took that advice. [laughter] we also, weburg really cared about family, we spent every new years together. He had many more children than i did. Whatever children wanted to come along. And Justice Scalia and i shared a passion for opera. We were extras at a couple of opera performances. Ms. Totenberg am i making this up, or did you sit on his lap . Justice ginsburg the sopranos sat on his lap. She knew he was going to end this song, but did not know he would give her a big kiss. Ms. Totenberg and you traveled together. There is a funny picture in your chambers of the two of you. Justice ginsburg we traveled to india for a judicial exchange. The two of us broke away from the pack for a couple of days. There was a famous picture where in the palace, it was the palace of the last maharajah. There was an elegant elephant, beautifully painted elephant. We were taking a ride on the elephant, and i was sitting in the back, and scalia is in the front. My feminist friends said, what are you doing sitting in the back of the elephant . I explained it had to do with the distribution of weight. [laughter] [applause] ms. Totenberg Justice Ginsburg there is an opera, as you would expect, a comic opera about the two of us. It is called scalia ginsburg, and again, why is scalia first . Because he was appointed some years before i was. The opera tries to betray the difference between us, and scalias opening aria is a rage aria. How can they spout this . The constitution says, absolutely nothing about this. And then i answered, dear Justice Scalia ms. Totenberg you come in through a Glass Ceiling. Justice ginsburg oh, that is later. Ms. Totenberg thats later . I am sorry. I screwed up the story. Justice ginsburg there are different ways we approach the legal text. I said, you are searching for a bright line solution to problems that do not have easy answers, but the great thing about our constitution is that like our society, it can evolve. Like jazz, riff with it, let it grow. Justice scalia is locked in a darkroom being punished for excessive dissenting. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg that is when i enter through the ceiling to a Glass Ceiling to help him pass the test he needs to pass to get out of the darkroom. [laughter] Justice Ginsburg then a character is appalled. He says, why would you want to help him . He is your enemy. And i explain, he is not my enemy, he is my dear friend. And then we sang a wonderful duet, titled we are different, we are one. Different in our approach to reading a legal text, but one in our reverence for the constitution and for the institution we serve. [applause] ms. Totenberg Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg, the are notorious one, we thank you for a wonderful evening. [applause] [cheers] ms. Totenberg i think there are some closing remarks, and everybody is coming up here extremely slowly. [laughter] ms. Totenberg we have to tap dance until they get here. This has been a spectacular program, i hope you will help me thank our host, president clinton. [laughter] [applause] ms. Totenberg come on up here. Thank you. Thank you, president clinton, for putting the Clinton Center in arkansas so we can have programs like this. Do you agree . [applause] ms. Totenberg thank you to our terrific moderator, nina totenberg. [applause] ms. Totenberg and of course the remarkable, the notorious r. B. G. , Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. [applause] ms. Totenberg on behalf Clinton Foundation, that Clinton School of public service, thanks to all of you who are here and who watched us online. We hope to see you at the president ial center very soon, good night. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable Satellite Corp 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Wednesday morning well look at the disaster andonse on the local, state federal levels. Michael green comes to us from maryland and of then well talk about the republican party, campaign 2020, an Washington Examiner executive editor philip klein. Shea, the attorney for immigrant children, discussing the new agreement and administrations move to hold families indefinitely. To watch cspans and join in urnal the discussion. Senator ted cruz shared his rews on Foreign Policy and National Security at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute washington, d. C. He addressed National Security threats from russia and china as his belief that the state and treasury departments are working to interfere with policy idents foreign in iran. 1 05. Is [applause] sen. Cruz thank you very much, thank you to hudson for hosting me and thank you for the terrific work that yall are doing. These are challenging times in across thestates and world. We have to be candid that we enemies in the world. Countriesegorized the we face in the world in four groups. Enemies, allies, problematic rivals. And lets talk about
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