The Justice Ginsburg lecture Series Features distinguished leaders who like Justice Ginsburg have committed their lives to furthering equality and human rights. It is an opportunity for our graduating students to hear from a giant in the law as she reflects on her career and offers advice to them as they graduate. And we are truly fortunate that the first speaker in this series will be, of course, Justice Ginsburg. Another round of applause. [applause] Justice Ginsburg is a legend in the law and in life. She has served with the greatest distinction on the Supreme Court andthe past 25 years, even if she had never been a judge or justice, she would still have learned a great place in legal history for her groundbreaking work in her advocacy to promote gender equality. A great justice, a great advocate, and who else has come become a cultural icon . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg has been honored by scores of followers with, to name only a few, a rap nickname. [laughter] numerous books including several coloring books, childrens books, and, of course, an exercise book and two upcoming movies. That thisvery fitting lecture series will be at georgetown law center, where we have been most fortunate to have a very special relationship with the justice. Ginsburghusband, marty , was, of course, a beloved tax professor and scholar of georgetown law for many years, and we have a professorship named in his honor. The justice is a longtime friend of our womens law and Public PolicyFellowship Program, and each year, invite the fellows to the court for tea and conversation. And our own professors mary , hartnett and Wendy Williams who will be in conversation with the justice today are , Justice Ginsburgs authorized of aaphers and coauthors recent book. Given all of these connections, instead of giving you an introduction to Justice Ginsburg, a long introduction, we are going to flash back 15 years of the 20th Anniversary Dinner for the womens law and Public PolicyFellowship Program when professor Marty Ginsburg introduced Justice Ginsburg as a keynote speaker. When Wendy Williams and Mary Hartnett asked me to speak at what they said was appropriately what they termed my favorite subject, naturally, i prepared a lengthy discourse addressing the Supreme Courts performance in tax cases. [laughter] sadly, wendy reacted with an expect and hostility. [laughter] , i am going to speak a few minutes only about my wife, honorable ruth. ,ut you are the losers, because i promise you, the Supreme Courts performance in tax cases is exceedingly funny. [laughter] [applause] we travel a lot. Our travels, like in the affordt of columbia, memorable moments. In december of 2000, just after bush against gore, ruth and i were in new york city to see a play. After the first act intermission, as we walked down seasts, ito our seemed like the entire audience began to applaud. Many stood, ruth being one. Two, and over and whispered loudly, ive that you didnt know there was a convention of tax lawyers here. [laughter] without changing her bright smile, ruth smacked me right in the stomach. [laughter] but not too hard. I give you this picture because it fairly captures our nearly 50year happy marriage, during up ani have offered astonishing number of foolish pronouncements with absolute ruth, almost everyone. [laughter] a few years ago speaking of , ruth, who in 1972 was a Columbia Law School tenure, my hire, my father, a former dean and president of columbia commented that he had known ruth , it had begun long before any of us was with cultivating. [laughter] i am not sure that is entirely true, but a certainty fits the ending. We met as undergraduates at Cornell University on a blind date in 1950. She nearly arrived, and i one year ahead. The truth is it was a blind date only onn ruths ruths side. [laughter] i asked a classmate to point her out. She is really cute, i perceptibly noticed. [laughter] , boy, she is really, really smart. And of course, i was right on both accounts. In the intervening 53 years, nothing changed. I will skip over those intervening years. [laughter] because you are old friends. And you know about us, and not an oldyou are friend, you likely know the essentials, courtesy of an interview our dear daughter jane ever there was, volunteer to the press a decade ago. All smiles, professor jane and as she had grown up in a home in which responsibility was equally divided. Her father did the cooking, she explained, and her mother did the thinking. [laughter] it was janes statement that convinced me that children should not be allowed as a defense in defamation. [laughter] in celebrating ruths then 50th birthday, a asked lots of ruths friends and acquaintances to write what i think of Justice Ginsburg. To put in a compilation. Jane, for example, contributed what she described as mothers extraordinary pot roast recipe. It was horrifyingly accurate and extraordinarily funny. Ruth is no longer permitted in the kitchen. [laughter] this by the demand of our children, who have taste. [laughter] to my mind, however, the very best letter was contributed by anita, my wonderful secretary from preteaching days, when i was a new york city lawyer. Anita, who i should explain, was the worlds fastest typist, she had in a worldclass stomach or dancer, think about that a worldclass flamenco dancer, if you can think about that. Whatnyway, she wrote of was the special and personal experience and the impact of advance970 efforts to gender equality. I propose to read it in its entirety, this rigorously unpublished grand testimonial to my wifes prejudicial influence on american life. When i think of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, i think of the words sexual and gender. Waserbased discrimination a book i typed for her when i arrived in new york. I had been in new york only a very short time. Born in arizona, i lived most of my life in spain and south america. My family needed the money, and i got a job in a law firm typing tenohe stunt no thes pool. Morning, her husband walked in and handed me 100 pages of handwritten material dealing with sex discrimination, abortion, and so on. I was horrified. [laughter] the words female and male leaked loomed out at me, i had never seen or heard them used the way she used them. [laughter] i had never even thought about those distinctions. I started typing. Over the next few months, there with his yellow pad of handwritten notes of these sexensical subjects, of discrimination. I kept typing. The shortsleeved lawyer announced, my wife is coming in. I thought, good god, here she comes. The lawyers wife. [laughter] in walks this little five foot, 100 pound woman with a soft green. Wearing she and i thought, it cant be the same woman. She is not supposed to look like that. [laughter] she is supposed to look like georges sand. Wheres the cigar . [laughter] i kept typing. Seville, spain on vacation with my family, where i have a home. We were invited to a large cocktail party, and the room was full of males and females. In walked and nita with her husband. Don marioented him as. He then said, this is my woman. My chest out and said, i am not your woman i am a person. [applause]. Ame is anita from the back of the room boomed 80 euros america , vivaa i had been converted through typing. Whether through typing, reading, theening, ruths worked in 1970s as a teacher and litigator converted multitudes, including, as we all know, a majority of the Supreme Court. 1980, at age 47, bonbons,o tv and she would enjoy a significant place in 20 century history, although without bonbons. She did not retire or get fat. She went on to better work. ,3 years on in the d. C. Circuit where to take but one example, her efforts on behalf of the icc child rape doctrine will never be forgotten. [laughter] part rather more important of the past 10 years is her efforts on behalf of everyone. Everyone, i guess, except the icc. Thisl events, we celebrate evening, a grand performance, born of great intelligence, find judgment, personal warmth, unremitting hard work, and marriage. [laughter] [applause] expected. Ust what i i asked her on our second date 53 years ago, the neck decade, with only a little luck, i am sure will be even better. I introduce to you the honorable ruth ginsburg. Dr[applause] so, Justice Ginsburg how you first met him and a little bit about your relationship and his influence on your life and work. Justice ginsburg as everyone can appreciate, he was a very funny guy. [laughter] how did we meet . 18. I was 17, he was we had friends in common at cornell. I had a boyfriend at Columbia Law School, he had a girlfriend at smith college. The week was long in between. [laughter] so our friends thought, we might like each others company. The two of us work together. I found out in very short order that marty was a boy like none i had ever met. This was a young man who really. Ared that i had a brain these were the not so good old the degree that women were supposed to get was an mrs degree, at cornell, there were four men to every woman. Parents of girls thought, what if sheplace to send her, cant find a man there, she is hopeless. [laughter] anyway, that is [laughter] that is how it all began. Host this audience tonight is mostly comprised of third year law students. And if you look out at them, we see a lot of females and also a lot of males. [laughter] wasnt the case when you went to law school. When you were at harvard, you were one of only nine women, and columbia, one of 12 women. We wonder if you could share with the audience a little bit of what that was like, being one of so few women in law school, and what law school generally was like for the women . Justice ginsburg in no a firstyear class, there were nine women and over 500 men, divided into four sections. Most of us had one other female companion. We felt that all eyes were on this, and that if we were called on in class and we gave a dumb answer, people would think, well, what did you expect from a woman . So we were super prepared. [laughter] and the difference was noted by a colleague of mine at columbia middleool, now into the 70s. Women were showing up in numbers in law school. He admitted to having a certain longing for the not so good old days. Why . Because he said when the class was moving slowly, and you needed a crisp right answer, you called on a woman. She would tell you what you wanted to hear and you could proceed. Nowadays, he said, there is no difference. The women are as unprepared as the men. [laughter] host and i think you have talked to us before about the deans dinners. These arent the kinds of dinners that dean trader had. Would you like to share . Justice ginsburg this is the famous dean griswold, who would invite all the women in the first year class home to dinner. And each of us had an escort. Mine was a professor who was visiting from columbia that year. Had the dinner, it was not a distinguished dinner. There was no alcohol served in the griswold home. He brought us into his living room, arranged the chairs in a semicircle and asked each of us in turn to tell him what we were doing at the law school occupying a seat that could have been held by a man. I must say, the dean didnt ask that question to wound. Dean griswold was not noted for his sense of humor. He had been one of the people who most strenuously urged the admission of women to Harvard Law School for the first time in 1950, 1951. What would it cost to admit women to Harvard Law School . They had to install a womens bathroom, and it was going to cost 25,000. [laughter] but it is too hard to contend with his faculty. Distinguished teachers who thought that the school had made an egregious error to admit women. So heasked the question could tell his colleagues, they have plans to use their law degrees to do good things. That was his reason. Course, the nine of us were unaware why the question. [laughter] host it came time to use your law degree, you are an exceptional law student, top grades, top of your class, larvae. When it came time to find that first job after moscow, you would think new york firms would be lined up trying to recruit you. Did that happen . There was nourg law prohibiting discrimination on race, religion, national origin, gender. Firms were totally upfront in telling you, women are not wanted in this workplace, or, we got a woman once and she was dreadful, how many men have you had that didnt work out . Job aroundng for a firms wereen some just beginning that they might take a chance on a woman. And i had an added liability, that was jane. She was four years old when i graduated from law school. If a firm was living on taking a chance on a woman, they were not yet prepared to take a chance on a mother. Get a first legal job, or we wouldnt be sitting here together. What happened . Justice ginsburg it was a great beginning. Federal District Court judge. When i got that judge, i didnt notice until years later when the professor wrote about it, he was in charge of getting fellowships for colombian law students and he was determined to get one for me. So he called a judge who had always taken his clerks from columbia. The judge was himself a colombian undergraduate and law school alum. And the judges answer was as expected i have had a woman clerk before. This is anok intense job and sometimes i will need her to come in on a saturday, to stay late. I cant risk it. So the professor said, i have a deal for you that you cant refuse. And if shechance does not please you, there is a young man in her class going to a downtown firm, he will jump in and take over. That is the carrot. There is a stick as well. If you dont give her a chance, i will never recommend another. Olumbia student [laughter] for women of my generation, getting that first job was allimportant. You just had to get your foot in the door. If you got the job, and you generally performed at least as well, in many cases better than the men, but you needed to get that first job to be set on your way. This is professor Jerry Gunther . Justice ginsburg who was then with columbia, then transferred to stanford law school. So you worked for judge polly arey. Did it work out . Justice ginsburg he was able to she thethers that best a clerk ive ever had. She will be here even on a sunday. We thought we would ask you to give a bit of advice to those who are here. Have smalle you, children, or hope to start families in their busy, Early Practice years. I wonder if you can share how it worked with you with the worklife balance thing, or the question can you have it all . Justice ginsburg can you have it all . Not all at one time. [laughter] havemy long lifespan, i truly had it all. In a marriage, you accommodate to each other. Sometimes one person has it all, and responsibility for raising the children and taking care of the home. Other times, different stuff. That was true in our life. When marty was eager to become a partner in five years, that was his goal. I those years, i would say did most of the child rearing. To my familys disappointment, most of the cooking. [laughter] but then in the late 60s, when the Womens Movement was all over the country, he realized something important was going on. Without having discussion about it, the balance turned the other way. I often attribute my success in law school to jane. She was 14 months when i started. For most of my classmates, that first year of law school was an allconsuming experience. My life was different. It did have balance. Home,the babysitter went and that was janes time. We went to the park, played games, and sang silly songs until she went to sleep. By that time, i was ready to go back to the books. I regarded each part of my life as a respite from the other. Periodthis was a time when a lot of people, society assumed the mother would be primarily responsible for the children. Including some School Administrators when they called home to discuss their childrens activities. Could you share how you handled getting a lot of phone calls . Justice ginsburg my son, who today is a a truly fine human. [laughter] thats what his teachers called was what his teachers called hyperactive. I called him lively. [laughter] calls, generally once a month when it comes to the school i came to the school to hear about my lively sons latest escapade. [laughter] and wasown there lectured. One day, i was particularly weary. I was sitting in my office at columbia, and responded that this child has two parents. Please alternate calls. [laughter] its his fathers turn. [laughter] schooly went down to the , and was confronted with three stone faces telling him your son on the elevator, it was an old handheld elevator where the operator went out to have a cigarette, he takes his fourth grade classmates, and they dared him to take the kindergarten class from the ground floor to the top floor. [laughter] so this very bad thing my son had done, his response was so he stole the elevator . How far could he take it . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg i dont know whether it was his great sense of humor, or more likely, if the school was far more reluctant to take a man away from his work. James behavior did not change swiftly. Barely once a semester. Think beforeo calling their father away from his work. Balance, you have quite a physical fitness routine. We are not going to ask you to demonstrate too elegantly, but could you describe it for the audience . Justice ginsburg i can describe how it began. It was the year 1999. I had just gotten through a miserable year of overcoming colon cancer. , and nineive surgery months of chemotherapy, and makes weeks of daily radiation. I was quite wiped out. Marty said you look like the survivor of a concentration camp, youve got to do something to build yourself up. So i asked around, and got some recommendations. The chemistry didnt work. Someone on the District Court, she recommended Brian Johnson to me. Thoughther trainer and he would be just right. So he was, and so he is. We have been together since 1999, we meet twice a week. Its good for me. Most people would not prefer it. From 7 00 until 8 00 in the evening. A dual purpose, i can go through the routine and watch the news hour at the same time. Credit Brian Johnson for keeping me in good shape. How many pushups can you do . Thence ginsburg we do 10, i breathe, and we do 10 more. [applause] she does planks. Id like to make a point about these pushups. One thing Justin Ginsberg does not use is her knees for any of her pushups. The other story is when i was introducing the justice at an event, i said she could do 20 pushups. Saidi sat back down, she this tells you about her modesty and physical fitness, she said mary, i think that might be exaggerated, because i do 10 and i breathe, then i do 10 more. I think that tells us plenty. Justice ginsburg i recently was interviewed by stephen colbert. The entireough routine with me. We are doing up to the pushups, and i see hes on his knees. [laughter] we dont have time to also talk about his parasailing escapades, but i can tell the audience Justin Ginsberg has been parasailing. Not that long ago, and loved it. One last question before i turn the flow or the floor over to wendy. You then took the bar exam. A lot of people will be doing that this summer. Tell us a little bit about that. Justice ginsburg it was a nightmare. I didnt get a notice. Had taken this course, and i didnt have my admission ticket. All of the women in the city of new york were taking the bar exam and put in one place. To the center. Why . Have a they needed to use theif you need to facilities during the exam. Have somebody accompany you. Making sure you are not checking on the cheat seat. So they put us altogether. It never occurred to them that whether there was discrimination operating, it certainly gives the appearance that there might be, because you knew where other women were sitting. But it took until sometime in exam to70s for the bar appreciate they should disperse women in all the places they gave the bar exam and not gather them together in one place. And your results . Justice ginsburg somehow, we got to the right person and i got my admission ticket. I took the bar. And . [laughter] Justice Ginsburg and you passed. [laughter] there is another exam you took a few years earlier that you didnt pass the first time. The first time i heard the story was when you were reassuring a student who hadnt passed the bar exam the first time and encouraging them. I think thats what you told the story. Im kind of putting you on the spot, but if you are willing to share that . Justice ginsburg i feel the doubters. I feel the primetime. A many, but i had to get second learners permit. Tience was infinite. A long and happy marriage. Attack, ihad a gout was not permitted to drive in the car. I dont know if this was the actual driving test, not the written test that you failed five times perfectly. [laughter] went and showed the audience a picture before. One of our favorite pictures from the book is Justice Ginsburg working out at the Supreme Court in wearing her super diva sweatshirt. Reviewedice ginsburg the manuscript for this book my sheila that the caption i had drafted, and i mistakenly said Justice Ginsburg was on a treadmill. In fact, it was an elliptical. It was corrected. Wendy took this picture. So thats your life, but not your life of the mind. We will do a little life of the mind, just because this is a law school and this is what we are supposed to do. Here we have a class who is going to soon graduate and go on to greater things. And i know you have read some of her opinions along the way somewhere. Wonder, what do you think your favorite one is . The one. It, thats i thought because this case has a special place in Justice Ginsburgs heart, maybe she can still have fun and do a little serious talk. So this is it. We are going to talk about it if thats all right with you. Justice ginsburg its fine with me. Mary is wellequipped to talk on this, because she was with me. It was supposed to be the anniversary of the decision. It was the 21st year. Schoolee that it so long, we did ago. Many of them were in the engineering program. Was so proud of the women cadets. At first, they didnt have a hearty welcome. First, they were stubborn. They decided the women would get no at all. In the sameive spartan corridors, which they still do. They accept that. They would also have their head shaved when they entered. But the school got over. Now they had women on the faculty. And they had upgraded the pool. Notably, by accept in women. And you never doubted that would be the case . Justice ginsburg i knew it would be a big success story. The main dissenter, justice scalia, predicted it would go down the drain if it isnt. The time i think the caption is revealing. United states against virginia. It was the government of the United States telling the state of virginia you cannot operate a that excludes half of the population. Women were admitted to the academies, that was the result of litigation. Against thelawsuit air force academy. Lawsuit,ddle of that the government decided it would rather switch the fight. Itthe time the case came up, was 10 years of experience with women at west point and in annapolis. Academy submitted a brief . Justice ginsburg yes. Uninformed, we need to say a little bit about the specifics of the case, which is the basic challenge. It has to do with human rights of women and equal protection clause. Justice ginsburg perhaps it would be worth going back martys comment when the court decided the vmi case. He said it took you 20 years to win it, but you finally did. What was the broad simon case . Philadelphia had two schools with different children. One was called central high, the aser was called girls high, the names told the story. Had inferior science and math facilities youd certainly superior inferior playing facilities. Decided she liked wanted tod math, and go to central high, not girls high. I got involved in that case when they lost in the third circuit. She had prevailed in the District Court, lost to the women in the third circuit. The Supreme Court affirmed the wrong decision by a uniquely divided court. This was 19 . Justice ginsburg in the middle 70s. So what the court was not prepared to do then, it was prepared to do in 1996. A lot of commentators said that this case is tremendously important, just looking at the Supreme Court history. Before we get you to talk about what that case did to move things forward, first, maybe would say just a little bit about why it was that this was a special case in your view . Having to do with what marty described, your decade of litigation and what came of that. Tell us a little bit about that. We can start with the base line and the baseline is that in 1970, when your students persuaded you you needed to start thinking about sex discrimination and please teach a course and you set up a course and started working on cases, at that point in time, 1970, what had the Supreme Court done . Justice ginsburg it never found a genderbased classification that it did not like or did not measure up to the National Standard for judging legislation against the equal protection clause. In short, there had never been a case in which they had held in favor of womens equality under the equal protection clause. Justice ginsburg the way they rationalized it laws that disadvantaged women were thought to protect women so the Supreme Court it was very different from racial discrimination, everyone knew that was odious. Gender discrimination was that it is in womens favor. We do not put women on juries because they are the center of home and family life and to and we do not want to distract them from their homemaking. The state of michigan passes a law that says women cannot serve as bartenders unless the father of the woman or her husband is the owner of the establishment. Bartending, i do not know this until i looked up little bit about the case, it came to be something quite acceptable for women during world war ii when the young men were fighting the war and the women were taking jobs they had never held before. It came about that the mother owned the tavern and the daughter was her bartender. This law in the state of michigan put them out of business. When the case came to the Supreme Court, it was a rather grim opinion, there were jokes made, and that it was explained that some unpleasant things go on in a barroom and the legislature cannot shield women from that unpleasant barroom. Never thinking about who were the plaintiffs and what was the law doing to them . The exciting moment came for you when you took up the challenge of trying to get the court to change its position on gender discrimination and that was your first effort in the Supreme Court, reed v. Reed, decided in november of 1971. Justice ginsburg it was a swift decision. The term begins in october and this decision was out in november and it was unanimous. The court did not admit to doing anything new, but it had turned in a different direction. It was the first case. Justice ginsburg sally reeds case is interesting because of what the law was. Sally had a young son. She and her husband divorced, she got custody of the boy when he was of tender years. When the boy became a teenager, the father applied for custody because he said now this boy needs to be prepared to live in a mans world. Sally fought that because she thought the father would be a Bad Influence on her son. She turned out to be right. The son was in his fathers custody, he became depressed and one day took out one of his fathers rifles and committed suicide. Sally wanted to be appointed administrator of his estate, not for economic reasons. There was precious little there, a small bank account, a record collection. For sentimental reasons. The judge told sally, im sorry, but the law settles this, i have no choice. It reads ties between persons entitled to administer a deceased estate, males must be preferred to females. We had a situation mast with this law. The law was a hangover from the premarried women property act days. The premise was that if she was a woman she was likely to be married and if she is married she cannot sue and be sued in her own name, cannot hold property in her own name, cannot contract in her own name. If the court has a choice between an able man and a disabled women, of course the man should be the person chosen. Our country has long since passed married womens property act, but the law had not caught up with the change in time. We saw that as the likely turning point case if the court could move in a new direction and start to apply the equal protection clause in a way that genuinely protects women and not in a way that protects jobs from womens competition. Theres a big story there and we do not have time to go into it, but when reed came out, it was a bit of a disappointment. You made the comparison to the race situation and argue the standard should be the same. Knowing that was a long shot, you had your fallback position and what the court did Justice Ginsburg the court said almost nothing. It cited decisions from the anything goes days. People who were alert understood that something new was going on. It was in the next case that we made the argument that sex could be declared a suspect classification. That was your first oral argument. Justice ginsburg we do not expect that position to prevail. We expected the other to win. Our notion is that we bring a series of cases showing how arbitrary gender lines in the law was and when the court had five or six of them it would say theyre all arbitrary and should not be. We introduced the suspect classification in reid. Four people bought it. I was told by the then head of the aclu let they are on board for suspect classification. I said, oh no. The justice should have waited for more cases when he would have time. Now we have four and we are not going to get a fifth. We had to work with an elevated standard of review. Youre probably taught at the some of the members of the court call it the middle tier. By that time, you were associated with the aclu because you were working in effect the working head of the womens rights project with the aclu created and asked you if you would take charge. You now had a Good Platform going forward. Did you quit teaching and devote yourself to litigation . Justice ginsburg i taught a clinic that columbia, using the case that i was litigating. That was to help advance the movement, to show my colleagues i thought that was worth expending half my time on. There is one thing you need to understand about ruth ginsburg. This is the true secret. She does not sleep at night. She could hold two fulltime jobs and never blank. She could study all night and play with her daughter at 4 00 in the afternoon. She is an incredible person. Go ahead, sorry. I got carried away. Justice ginsburg what was so exciting to me in those times as we would try to generate litigation. Once people saw the possibility of freeing themselves from these arbitrary classifications, they were out there. Sally reed was a woman who made a living by caring for elderly and infirm in her home. These were every day people who thought they had experienced unfair treatment and we had a legal system that could right the wrongs that were done to them. So there was a near miss on the higher standard but you certainly had a solid maturity for holding a chair. Justice ginsburg there was only one dissenter in front to narrow, it was then Justice Rehnquist before he became chief. If i may Say Something about that aclu time. When i was thinking about what i might do to contribute to this cause, i deliberately chose the aclu because it was the number one human rights advocate in the country and because it included men as well as women. It was important to me to show that this is not just womens business. It should be high on any human rights agenda. That meant that men had to care about it. I think the people who wanted to keep things the way they were would have been happy if the women gathered in their own groups with no men and nothing much was going to happen. That was one impetus. There were people at the aclu, one i wanted to mention in particular, this is a woman who in 1960 wrote an article called jane crow and the law in which she listed all the laws that kept women in their place, that held them back from achieving whatever their talents would allow them to achieve. In those days, few people knew her name. She was a graduate of the Howard Law School in the mid1940s. She organized the students to have sit ins in the lunch places around howard university. These areas were desegregated long before other places in washington, d. C. That idea she had of jane crow she was just before you, on the aclu board. Justice ginsburg one of the people who was the strongest supporter of starting a womens rights project. Back to vmi quickly, and then we are out of time. We are probably already out of time. This is what you are working with in the 1970s, and there are more cases we could talk about endlessly. By the time vmi came to you and you got assigned to write the majority opinion, where do things stand and what did vmi contribute to the flow of the equal protection for women situation . It came about as close to the most intense inspection we could get. I want to Say Something about another great lady. That is justice oconnor. When vmi was assigned to me i was not very senior. You are second from the bottom. Justice ginsburg how did i get to write that opinion. Justice oconnor said ruth should write the opinion. She was the first women on the court and had done one case herself which you are able to build upon in the vmi case. Justice ginsburg hogan. The year before i got there. Hogan against Mississippi University for women. Hogan wanted to go to the best Nursing School in the area in which he lived. That happened to be Mississippi University for women. He was turned down. The case came to the Supreme Court. Justice oconnor wrote the opinion for a sharply divided court. The minority thought that it was proper to reserve the mississippi for women to women because it was a kind of affirmative action for women, making up for all the places that excluded women. Justice oconnor, having grown up a woman, understood that if you wanted to upgrade the nursing profession, if you wanted to see higher pay for nurses, the best thing to do is to get men to do the job. She did it skillfully, between the lines, it was clear that cannot be justified as affirmative action favoring women. I cannot resist one last question. It is sort of a question. There is an opera that you may be familiar with called Scalia Ginsburg. You know the operas. It features arias by the ginsburg person and the scalia person and you are at loggerheads and you are two different philosophies of interpreting the constitution of the United States emerge in what feels like a big battle. When i read vmi, i see that battle going on in that case, especially on Justice Scalias side. He was appalled. He was the single to center. He was appalled by your decision in that case. Justice ginsburg he fully expected it. [laughter] i know we are running out of time, but the flavor of the Scalia Ginsburg opera. His entering aria is a rage aria that is a true handelian in style, it goes the justices are blind. How could they spout this. The constitution says nothing about this. I enter and in my lyrics i sing you are searching for solutions to problems that do not have easy answers. The great thing about our constitution is that like our society it can evolve. That sets up the difference. Toward the end, there is a duet and the duet is scalia is being locked in a room being punished for dissents. I am to help them take the test he has to pass to get out of the room. They say why would you want to help them, he is your enemy, and i say he is not my enemy, he is my dear friend and then we sing we are different, we are one. Different in our approach to the interpretation of the text, but one in our reference for the u. S. Judiciary and our fundamental instrument of government. Amen. [applause] we are not quite finished. There is one more surprise that Justice Ginsburg does not know about. This has been a big year for Justice Ginsburg. 85th birthday in march. You will be celebrating 25 years on the Supreme Court this summer and you welcomed your new baby greatgranddaughter, who was born on january 1 in paris. She is not the surprise. Im going to give you a hint. When you are a law clerk, sometimes you had an interesting carpool arrangement. You would drive home with the judge in the driver seat, you were in the back seat, and judge hand was in the passenger seat and you would go home. Sometimes, i understand that judge hand would sing. Is that true . Justice ginsburg he would sing at the top of his voice, often gilbert and sullivan and sometimes sea shanties and some racy songs. [laughter] i said to the man, you will not consider me as a law clerk because i will inhibit your speech but in this car you say anything that comes into your head. He said young woman, im not looking at you. You guessed part of the surprise. The gilbert and sullivan Georgetown Society is performing ruddigore this week and they would like to serenade you with a song from the show called my eyes are fully open. Let the record reflect that the justices eyes are fully open. [applause] i have been asked by the cast to read to you the scene setter. We now take you to the castle where robin has just assumed from his brother the title of baronet. As a bad baronet, robin must commit one crime a day or perish by the ghostly hand of his ancestor. Without further ado, here is my eyes are fully open for Justice Ginsburg. My brother, i call you brother still despite your horrible profligacy and i incurred you to abandon the course you have set for yourself. I have done no wrong yet. My brother, i still call you brother. You forget that in the eye of the law youve been a bad parent. You are responsible in the eyes of the law for all the misdeeds committed by the unfortunate gentleman who occupied your place. I never thought of that. Was i very bad . Awful, wasnt he . Ive been like this for how long . 10 years. Think of the atrocities you have committed. Remember how you trifled with this poor childs affections, how you raised her hopes on high only to trample them into dust. Sir, fie, she trusted you. What a scoundrel i must of been. Dont cry. It is all right now. I have married her. I say i have married her. Im glad of that. My mind is made up. I will defy my ancestors. I will refuse to obey their behest. I can hope to atone for the infamy of my career. If it is it doesnt matter. If it is it doesnt matter. Matter. Matter. Matter. It really doesnt matter. It really doesnt matter. My opinion doesnt matter. Her opinion doesnt matter. [applause] [applause] from first to last, what an unforgettable first inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg lecture. A round of applause. [applause] Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died from complications of metastatic and create a cancer. She argued cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s, was appointed to the d. C. Circuit court by president carter in 1980, and was nominated to the Supreme Court and confirmed in 1993 as the second woman ever to serve on the high court. She died at her home in washington, d. C. At the age of 87. President trump and former Vice President joe biden are set to debate tuesday, september 29. Biden supports police cutting, and has pledged to end cash bail. Accepted the endorsement of the program of an antipolice portland District Attorney who has a policy of releasing rioters, vandals, criminals, and violent extremist without charge. He lied to the american people, he knowingly and willingly lied to the threat imposed to the country for months. He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. How all this deadly disease ripped throughout love our nation. He failed to do his job on purpose. It was a lifeanddeath betrayal of the american people. Watch live coverage of the first president ial debate, tuesday, september 29 on cspan at 9 00 p. M. Eastern, and watch our debate coverage live or ondemand at cspan. Org debates. Quickly find all past president ial and Vice President ial debates from cspans video library. Theres also a link to our campaign 2020 website with campaign videos, candidate information, and election results. Go to cspan. Org debates, or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Cspans campaign 2020 continues with President Trump holding a rally in minnesota. Its a little less than two hours. Gentlemen, please welcome the 45th president of the united ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 45th president of the United States, donald j. Trump. [applause]