Good evening and thank you to Justice Ginsburg for joining us tonight. I was looking at your record and i notice you have had a lot of name changes over the years. You were called kicky bb when you were little then ruth and then professor ginsburg and then judge ginsburg. Then finally Justice Ginsburg. Most would stop there but then you have a new moniker notorious rvg can i call you Justice Ginsburg quick. You can call me ruth. [laughter] with the Georgetown Law School thank you for being here. And to have a Long Association to celebrate the 100th anniversary your career has focused on the quality very broadly for cholesterol about the amendment you said at one point he wished your mother lived in age where women could achieve and daughters were equally to sons. And to be cherished. So is it clear for the 19th amendment quick. Yes. With that became part of the constitution and to take part in the parade. And to ask what they would have done. And my mother was one of the brightest people he knew. Or a legal luminary. Those were so far beyond her reach. She grew up in a large family six of the siblingss survived. And then the oldest son but my mom went to work at age 15 to help support the family because they didnt have income from the elder son. And with that University Education would be the youngest son. So to ask if you think we have achieved that situation. And targeting the 19th amendment and to give the vote to women. And in the voting right case and that you have more robust something of the 19th amendment means with Voting Rights. So what is the legacy of the 19h amendment collects so much of those suffragist had high hopes of the 19th amendment and from the right to vote not on account of sex. And then how could you abide the subordination of women in a civil domain. For example and then to sign for the loan or to get permission. And then strictly who gaveot the women the right to vote. One of the controversies was women serving on juries. But then women were called for juryun duty. The 19th amendment was a miracle because it was all men and then to an allmale audience. So they hoped that it would be more than jury duty and then running for office. And of the suffrage movement. And that is restrictively. We need something else. So to do the equal rights amendment and almost every year and with the 19th amendment that women should haved the quality in all fields of human endeavor. Going back in time and that we needed the equal rights amendment that it would be great for your granddaughters to pick up thehe constitution so with the 14th amendment equal protection clause thats a same place where you would be. And my answer is not quite although it isnt indifferent. And were those differentials have gone. Every constitution in the world and even in afghanistan has the equivalent of equal rights. And then what i would like to show my granddaughters into the stature of men and women. To be with free speech, freedom of religion and discrimination based on race and Natural National origin. And then to form a more perfect union. And so to have the equal citizenship stature. It is very important. To have that equality guarantee. E. Youdo also point out with the equal protection clause. Years ago i was involved in litigation of the extension of the equal rights amendment. And with those deadlines to be extended what is the prognosis when we will get the equal rights amendment cracks i would like to start over. There is so much controversy. Eg if it is a latecomer on the apartheid. You had mentioned women on juries and to be born in wyoming which is the first territory to grant women the right to vote. You can tell me if, this is rstrue. And then to come out and marry the man and settle. They were far ahead of the east coast and to have women come out and they were populating and one of the other reasons the Political Party was losing but they were hoping to get more voters for women to have the right to vote. So give them the right to vote was utah. Theres a great story of e e 19th amendment it is a particular legislature that his mother said basically do the right thing. So it pays to listen to your mother. And then to push the amendment over the line and we got the 19h amendment. It is interesting when you look at the language it doesnt say anything about women at all. That the citizens of the United States should not be denied or abridged. So to talk about Citizens United and this catchphrase also has similarity and because of the movie title also was on the basis of sex all the you are the star you are not in a directly. So the question is going back to the notorious rvg moniker one dash t3 moniker with your work on the court that it is somewhat unusual for a justice. I wouldnt say reconcile but how do you deal with all of this quicks. It is amazing. Teghtyseven years old and Everyone Wants to take a picture with me. [laughter] notorious teethree was made famous by a second year law student from the key provision of the voting rest Voting Rights act of 1965. And with those large majorities on both sides of the aisle and it was attacked on the grounds that the Voting Rights act that if you have a record to keep africanamericans from voting you could not pass any new election law without clearing it with the Civil Rights Division of the department of justice or a threejudge Federal District court in dc. That provided a check to suppress the minority voters. The attack was obsolete. Those that might have discriminated 1965. And to deny africanamericans the right to vote. And then in that situation to say if you had a clean record to be released from preclearance. And then it needed to be done over. One of the points that i made in my dissent was what member of congress would stand up to say my state or my city or my county with the africanamericans who are voting so that just wasnt going to happen. So who knows a little more and to have the Voting Rights act the court said you cantt have it. But then the Court Nullifies it. She thought he was really working in the Supreme Court stopped it. Then to decide anger is a useless emotion. So she wanted to do something positive. She took not my full dissenting opinion that the announcement of my defense from the Shelby County case to put that on a blog or tumbler. [laughter] and it took off into the wild blue yonder. Young people wanted something positive and then day went on from wherever it was. [laughter] with those communication tools. As a secondyear student , as a journalist with the notorious rbg which is now a traveling exhibition around the country most recently in philadelphia now currently in chicago. Then in new york. So now there is notorious rbg for adult readers and Young Readers in Childrens Book and coloring books. Its true that Many Americans with a Supreme Court justice now because of all this publicity you have become an icon for children and women in the publi public. How has it changed your life quick. It is my judicial assistance life. [laughter] i could be getting an award every day of the week. [laughter] we dont actually have an award for you tonight. I should say what you didnt mention before on the basis of sex the scriptwriter for that was my nephew when we asked him why did you choose that it was not review by the Supreme Court but he wanted it to be as much the story of marriage as legal strategy i think he s succeeded. But there was a documentary of rbg and then to do a special firm pbs the Womens Movement starting in the late sixties continuing through the 19seventies. People on both sides there was an interview with the equal rights amendment there was Gloria Steinem was one of the people to interview those who created that documentary to be focused on the americanam Civil Liberties union in the 1970s. It took my law clerks to see both of these movies but you mentioned on the Shelby County dissent the outflow of notorious rbg is a whole series of paraphernalia and related items that someone can buy. So where do you share with us the thinking. Years ago Glamour Magazine gave a Lifetime Achievement award it was a bag filled with goodies. I thought it lookedzi just right for dissent. [laughter] nowadays i get a call at least once a week from all over the world and i get scrunchies. I hope youre not replacing the dissent color. My majority opinion. So going back to the suffragist one of the things they did to raise money it was a double entendre because they wanted to show women could have a role in the kitchen and outside the kitchen. I know that in your family that marty had a prominent role in the kitchen as the chef maybe your role was less illustrious but you did raise two amazing children so now there is the buzzword of Work Life Balance i dont even think that was in the lexicon when you are raising your children so can you share how you navigateds . Your home and professional life moving to your various stages quick. At the end marty was a superb cook. When we were married we spent the first two years when he was in military service in oklahoma. In originally was a chemistry major but then he switched to government which was my subject and my cousin sent him and he worked his way i still have the book that has the stains all over it i was the every day cook he was the weekend in company cook i was never allowed to cook. [laughter] everything that i made came out of the book the 60 minute chef. Sixty minutes from the time you into your home it was on the table. And my daughter in her High School Years she would become increasingly aware of the enormous differences between daddy and mommys cooking. So she decided that daddy should also be the every day cook. [laughter] for me this is like tom sawyer getting thee fence painted. [laughter] we had then dcg since 1980 i have not cooked a meal in all those years. And when marty died my daughter felt responsibility phasing me out of the kitchen so she cooks up a storm once a month makes dinners for me which we put in the freezer and then i eat those in the evening. So when marty died the wife of Justice Alito said it would be just right would be the cookbook is called supreme chef he is marty each section is introduced by another justice in seniority order. It is one of the bestselling books in the Supreme Court gift shop. [laughter] the Supreme Court spouses meet quarterly for lunch marty was always number one but for good reason speak that commission on the 19th amendment takes after the and we will have the digital cookbook to celebrate the 19th amendment so i wonder what he would contribute to that so what would you pick out . My one fish two fish red fish blue fish. [laughter] then there was the ultimate dish and then his crowning achievement was the french baguette he worked one year to get that recipe right and he had the highest grades he could get with the french ambassador to the United States so his was the best outside of france spent the suffragist would be quite proud to achieve some equality because of the contributions inty the culinary world. But i want to talk to you now is your life as an advocate. When i was a student here in georgetown i took my first sex discrimination in class and i was flummoxed about where i was looking for Source Information so i was advised to write professor ginsberg which i did and you kindly supplied me with enough to get through a paper for the end of the semester. Of course things have changed quite a bit now there are number of women in law school. Its over 50 percent and this year they have just done a big celebration including georgetown but they are all women. Since you were one of nine women Harvard Law School didid not begin to admit women until 1950 51. My class had nine. Marty was one year ahead of me. His class had five. There was one woman on law review she was in second year. And i was the loan woman in my class. I never had in all c my University Years in undergrad or at law school a woman teacher. May be a woman physical Education Teacher and that was it. But none in the Academic Field so to me the change is huge. I started law school 1956 they were 3 percent of the lawyers across the country. On the bench, they just were not there the first woman to a federal court of appeals was e pointed by fdr on the sixth circuit 1934. She retired 1959 then there were none again until 1968 when johnson appointed a female to the ninth circuit. The first woman ever to be appointed to a Federal District court was a recess appointee and then got her permanent seat in 49. Talking about the 19th amendment but the general counsel to the National Womens party. She was a softspoken woman from mississippi, but she was made of steel. And the District Court and was responsible with the admission of the first africanamerican to the bar of the dc District Court when i got there she was well into her nineties that she would comer into chambers occasionally. She talked about picketing the white house. She had a day job but that was working with the president and it took him a long while before he became a supporter of the 19th amendment. That said votes for women and of the police try to hassle her she would never be back so she didnt want to risk which could hold up her admission to the bar. And so the womens party and when the government took the property that happened to be a specialist in eminent domain. It was just a ran check although building but it was the society of elder inhabitants of the district of columbia with this building for notorious confederate spies and before that at the capital from the war of 1812. And then to introduce a photograph of a confederate spy who happened to be a woman. And she had the largest condemnation United States have ever faced up until that time. She was very active of the american bar association. That is when there was opposition to the equal rights amendment and take away the protective labor legislation that the protective legislation. So if you serve tables add restaurant attire at night and during the day. So if you want to earn double time or time and a half but you are protected. There were many occupations filled by women and one was bartending that a woman cannot tend bar unless the establishment is owned by her husband or her father. R in that case mother owned the tavern daughter was the bartender and put them out of business immediately. That case goes to the Supreme Court 1948. So that they saw from the beginning with the socalled protections that were not real. You argued on the Supreme Court at a time when there were few women advocates and of course you argued a number of these upside down cases of discrimination in terms of women arguing in the Supreme Court but you probably know a lot more now than when you argued your first case with the supremede court. So now to be on the other side of the bench what would you like to convey to advocates before the court . What i knew then was reaffirmed over and over it was the hot bench every justice was to be used ueeffectively. Thats not true of all appellate benches. I remember one argument. And i start to argue and then i can sense early on that they hadnt even read the opening brief so i had to go back to being a Kindergarten Teacher to leave them in the direction i wanted them. That would be very disillusioning to the advocate. But the opposite of that is when advocates are making an argument and some of the more recent studies suggest both the female justices and the advocates are interrupted more than the male counterparts in the even suggested the mail justices interrupt the female justices three times as much. Sometimes that pattern has been reversed in the gender related cases. Why is this happening in 2020 . I will tell you fundy a funny story of interruptions. There was a headline in usa today brood ruth will interrupt Justice Oconnor very often asked the first question and then i thought she was done. She wasnt. She had followup. So at lunch i said im so sorry. Said it is okay. The guys do it to each other all the time. So they wrote a story about me interrupting sandra so i invited himch to see if they invited the men to see and after time elapsed he said yes they do. And i didnt notice it when it comes from then but i did notice it with two women. But then there was a woman but she tried to explain how this happened she said Justice Oconnor is the girl of the golden west ginsberg is a fast talking jew with a different style. That she had two words to my every one. But it was goodup that article was written about interruptions because it was largely unconscious the that was in that regard so one of the things i found out about the increase is women enrollment is minority women but when it comes to law clerks with the ninth circuit we get much more african men than women in those advocates that appeared before us i think it is 20 percent. That is still a huge improvement from where it once was. The first woman ever to clerk for the Supreme Court was in the forties. The west coast knowing that they would recommend to him. And said have you considered women and said if you have one thats brilliant i will consider her. That was a very successful clerkship but not until 68 and she had a special entree because well known democratic operative because in one weekend the justice gave the clerk petitions to say digest these over the weekend and then she explains her father was a widower and had to go to a number of Party Functions and he needed a woman to come with him so she was the woman. But not until the seventies that women showed up and then Justice Douglas again had to clerks so the west coast dean recommended to women for Justice Douglas. And then going on to write a book from the university of washington. But i want to go back to Justice Oconnor obviously the first two female justices but one time sheg asked you where would we be if there was no discrimination and you said we would be retired partners on a bigger law firm. [laughter] which is not a bad place to end up from most peoples perspective and sandra was very high in her class at law school. She volunteered to work for free and said at the end of the month you can put me on the payroll. I also clerked for a district judgee because then teaching at columbia called every judge from the Second Circuit who was a Columbia College graduate and Columbia Law School graduate and always took his clerks from columbia. And i had a four year old daughter i could not risk it. Sometimes i need my clerk even on a sunday. So he said give her a chance. And if she doesnt work out there is a young man in her classma going to a Downtown Firm who will jump in and take over. So if you dont give her a chance i will not recommend another columbia law student to you. So that was a tremendous hurdle if you got the job and you did it so the second job was not the same impediment. I would invite you to continue to take a look at your clerkship opportunities in the ninth circuit it is a complement of mail and female clerks. We are seeing the male applicants it does it mean that those percentages are holding true but let me go back to another discrimination point. We have this great bobble head. Representing a number of things. , the Supreme Court does not have the last word. I thought my colleagues had err ed, egregiously. The tagline of my dissent in the case was thatr the ball is in congresss court. O correct the error there was a ground swell to pass that Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act. Again, in the acts large majorities, republicans, democrats, Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act was the first piece of legislation that president obama signed when he took office. At aas an area manager Goodyear Tire plant. It was a job dominated by men. In the 1970s. Rd she didnt want to be viewed as a troublemaker. She didnt want to rock the boat, so she just did her job. Someoneut a slip of paper in her mailbox. It was a series of numbers. She recognize what those numbers meant. They were the pay of every other and she saw that the young man she had trained to do the job was getting more than she was earning. She said, ive had it. I will sue. Lawsuitn a title vii and succeeded in the district course. It was a jury case. She got a good verdict. By the time i got to the supreme said lilly,ourt 54 you sued too late. Title vii says that you must ocle a complaint with the ee within 180 days of the discriminatory incident. And here a dozen years later my you are way out of time. Dissent, i try to explain what i said before she didnt want to rock the boat. If she had said early on they are paying me less because i am a woman, their answer would have been almost certainly, it has nothing to do with lilly being a woman, she doesnt do the job as well as the men, but when she has been working there year after year and getting good performance ratings, that defense that she doesnt do the job as well as the man is no longer available to them. She has a winnable case but the court says that she sued too late. The solet was simplicity. I said that the discrimination that she encountered is repeated every month because it is reflected in every paycheck she receives. So as long as she sues within 180 days of a paycheck, her suit is timely, and that is exactly what the amended title vii to say what i thought congressman congress meant all along. Common sense. That relates to another case of statutory interpretation, also title vii. When the Supreme Court reached the remarkable conclusion that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is not discrimination. N the basis of sex if the world is divided into two kinds of people, there is the nonpregnant people and that includes many women, and then there are just these pregnant people [laughter] le to compareno ma them to so it cannot be sex discrimination. 1978. As in pregnancyassed the discrimination act. Should have been evident. On the basis of pregnancy is discrimination on the basis of sex. Sometimes they mean what they say in congress. If its a question of constitutional interpretation, we do have the last word. Of thes a question constitution, the writer is writing for a future court, and we have seen a long history of dissent that eventually become the law of the land. Even if you go back to the worst case that the court ever decided, the dred scott case, there were two dissenters. All of the civil rights cases in the 1980s, plessy versus Justice John Marshall first justice hall, cases. Ed in those today they mark the proper interpretation of the first amendment. You are writing a dissent for a wille court that you hope how thenderstand constitution bears out particular conduct. You have indicated that your hoping over time, you hope the court will see it the way that you do, and thats why you are writing for a future age. Justice ginsburg most immediately, im trying to get one more vote. Dissent is my first hope but that is often disappointed. Often, there is always a chance. I remember being assigned a colleague,my senior the vote was 72 at the conference. In the fullness of time, the opinion was released. It was 63, the two had swelled to six, and the seven hedge had shrunk. You are not always writing the dissent. Our bobblehead here has another great case. This one where you wrote for the majority, for the Virginia Military institute, you cant see this, although you can look online. That Justice Ginsburg is towering over the campus at the Virginia Military institute. Obviously, the majority struck maleonly admissions policy. Your good friend, an opera colleague, justice scalia, wrote a rather spirited Justice Ginsburg spicy. [laughter] like to say writers dissent. What do you think of Justice Scalias prediction . Justice ginsburg he was entirely wrong. He thought that it would be the end of bmi as we know and love it. The bmi faculty was cheering. Something revealing about the case. The title is the United States against virginia. It is the United States government suing the state of virginia saying you cannot make an Educational Opportunity available to one sex only. Saw that thisy was an opportunity to upgrade their applicant pool. Many people have said to me what woman would want to go through the ratline and subject herself to that rigorous, brutal progra m, that spartan existence. I said, well, i wouldnt. If you were a man, you probably wouldnt either, but there are some women who do want that experience, and are well equipped to pursue it. Back, we were supposed to go back for the 20th anniversary, and it turned out and20th was the 21st, everyone was so proud of the women cadets. You still have the ratline, butl have spartan quarters, these are women who wanted to beat nuclear engineers, nuclear scientists. It was a great success. That is why you are standing on the campus of bmi but now women are standing on the campus as students as well. Justice ginsberg i was visiting west point when they announced they were lifting the combat restriction for women. Cheering cadets were that decision. One of the things you have to your name or association is a workout book which may not be totally common among the justices. They dont have a book about working out. What do you actually do to keep in shape . Workoutollow that rbg book . Justice ginsberg i follow the author, Brian Johnson. He has been my personal trainer since 1999. It was the year i had colorectal cancer. My husband said you look like a survivor of a concentration camp. You must do something to build yourself up. Knowed around and, did you u. S. District a court judge. She said, i have the right person for you. He works at the clerks office. Hes my personal trainer and he would be good for you. He has been with me all these years. Nowone asked him to do a Brian Johnson rbg workout book. Theres a calendar. Book, notgood workout that im qualified to recommend one, but i look at that book and think he has encapsulated carefu lly what you need to do to keep in shape. Let me ask you, i know that we have a couple of questions from students before i close. One of the things you have er giving you a zest for life that you might not have had before, would you share how being a survivor has shaped you as a person and as a justice. . Justice ginsberg it does give you a zest for life that you didnt have before. Every day is precious. I have had four cancer bouts since i joined the court. I was able to get through without missing any case. Thereatest lung cancer, was one month when i could not physically be at the court, but i listened to the arguments on tape and had an assignment from that sitting. My colleagues rallied around me and helped me get through some very trying days. Justice oconnor, who had a benchtomy, was on the nine days after her surgery. She gave me great advice. She said, you will have chemotherapy chemotherapy. Schedule it on a friday, that way you can get over it saturday and sunday and be back at work on monday. Think you have been a remarkable hero to many who have had cancer and survived it, but iso, your indomitable spirit something that keeps other students,ng and law many of whom are here. I have two questions from law students that i wanted to ask you, and then hopefully we can close, although we dont like to. The first question relates to the equal protection clause. Gender satisfied that should only receive intermediate scrutiny under the equal shouldion clause or gender classifications be subject to strict grooming . Justice ginsberg i tell law students on more than one do. Sion, watch what we students like to have secure handholds so there is rational basis and intermediate, but then sandra wrote an opinion that but notrict yes for necessarily fatal which people thought it was at that time. A number of statutes have been held invalid under the rational basis test. The bottom is moving up, the top is moving down. Justice Thurgood Marshall had it right when he said we are not these three tiers. There is a sliding scale and it depends on the strength of the government, interest, and the importance of the right that the person is asserting. Deny to anyont person equal protection of the law are working very well, but there was an attempt to deny the burning issue of the day, slavery. The second section of the 14th amendment, for the first time, the word male appears in the text of the constitution. Amendment, there was an effort to stop the Southern States from barring africanamericans from voting. Keepechanism was, if you people from the polls, then you the extent that you are not allowing them to r representation in congress will shrink in proportion to the people that you have kept from voting. It didnt work so they passed the 15th amendment. Since we started talking about the 19th amendment, the 15th follows the wording. Ored15th amendment was hon in the breach for so many years. The concerns on the part southernf the politicians was, does that mean that we will have africanamerican women voting . That was a serious concern. Barriersned out, the to minority voters continued and it affected women as well as men. Initially, the 19th amendment gave white women the right to vote. Theook a measure like Voting Rights act to break that. That higher question came from aaron oneill, one of the members of the law journal here at georgetown, one of my incoming clerks. Told not to read the tea leaves. We are supposed to decide casebycase but we are always reading the tea leaves bfrom the Supreme Court. Whatever we can interpret for cases to come. Heres a related case. This one comes from max kramer, one of my incoming law clerks. He talks about the fact that all the women formally won the vote many years ago, that many young women of color are still disenfranchised, particularly through restrictive voting laws. Wahat is your comment on that in we talked about the one Voting Rights act case. Where are we going . Justice ginsberg i am pleased that one of my former law clerks is spending a good deal of her time getting 18yearolds e, especially vot minority women, going with them place. Registration young people are going to make a difference. What the government does will be affecting their lives, so they should care deeply about exercising the right to vote. Efforthould be a great try tothat when they vote, they are registered properly, as they should be. Obviously, registration is an important thing. Nondiscrimination is also important. In have spent your life defense of equal protection. For us it is a privilege to have ,ou here tonight at georgetown to talk about many of these things. Ihave 2000 more questions but will shorten it and let you have the last word. On the subjectg of the 19th amendment, there is a very good exhibition at the archives. Visit it . E last week . Told and is accessible as could be. I have some things that are very funny like the letter from the woman in iowa. The troopsto lead and be a soldier and women could do this and that and the other thing but they shouldnt vote. There were such inconsistent arguments. One of them was they are just going to do what their husbands tell them so it wont make a difference. Causeher was this will dissension in the home and it will lead to divorce, neglect of children. There are cartoons of men taking care of screaming babies so that their wives could go vote. Was 1848. Ls it is now 70 years later, so we have to be patient. Anthony never got to see the 19th amendment ratified but she knew that it would happen. I recommend that exhibition, and in my long life, i have seen such positive change. There are things that make us like our Dysfunctional Congress with the parties so strongly divided, but think of how it was not that long ago in 1993 when i was nominated and confirmed 963. Asked about the questions served with my time, and one of the four general councils to the union, justice lot as he had written a a law professor so he was a known quantity. The vote for him was unanimous. Justice buyer followed me by a 1990s. So in the been that way for the last set of nominations. Hopeful that there will be leaders on both sides of the , its time to say get together and work for the good of the country. That is my hope. And i would be content if i could see it happen in my lifetime. Thank you for your time, Justice Ginsburg. [applause]