Symposium we wish to express our deepest appreciation to Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg we will cover and listen to reflections this afternoon also to express our gratitude to the honorable Robert Katzman the chief judge for the Second Circuit to make this extraordinary symposium possible. And from the Georgetown Law Center professor hartman and william r. The authorized biographer seven coauthors of a recent book my own words. So dr. Bernstein who works in the areas of regulation personnel and administrative reform from serving as the founding dean as the Woodrow Wilson school of International Affairs as president of brandeis and for the last seven years of his life at the school of Foreign Service. We are deeply grateful to those who have generously supported the symposium in enabling us to bring a steamed guest including Vice President al gore and tim russert and justices Justice Sotomayor and Justice Breyer to take place in this forum that honors dr. Bernsteins many contributions to our community and understanding of the system. One buses the confirmation to the accord nearly 25 years ago with the distinguished service on the bench heavy are deeply honored to share insights with the Georgetown Community and appointed to the federal bench in began his service 14 years lady later by his namesake but dead katzman is engaged member of the Georgetown Community having taught at the professor of government and currently serves with a loss center and also one of the founders with the Brookings Institution of the institute from the American Political Science Association and then to have the Chesterfield Smith award and the recognition of the else standing dedication to their pro bono work including programs and the creation. Justice ginsberg guide him as special counsel from Patrick Moynihan and for the Supreme Court. It is wonderful to welcome you back to campus and with the sustained commitment please join me to welcome the honorable Robert Katzman. [applause] one eyed and for the efforts to promote understanding and difficult issues the confront our society. The adn that to create the bridge between the law Center Downtown to make that a reality and that beneficiary loewys be grateful to him. So the bernsteins symposium bring some campuses together and a program this afternoon of the main campus in the Georgetown Law Center faculty and bin and we participate the purges of patients in previous years to come to the department and then for all the wise counsel one in the memory there is some music out there that speaks to each of us something universal so it is the distinct proforma to understand universal values. So with that Washington National opera at the kennedy center. The Washington Post or a paisley vest not only as a performance but her writing as well for timing isnt material of delivery were all more polished. Injustice prevails. So i think you know, where im headed. With the Supreme Court bench reactions to one of the well crafted speeches to university the Washington Post tory is a review of Justice Ginsberg already acknowledgement as a rock star and also an actual opera star. With reid adulation for turn every opportunity bin and another Washington Post headline. And also a National Icon with this subject of books and the movie Starring Natalie portman. It is true. In part, Justice Ginsburg is celebrated as the judge the second woman ever on the court marking contributions and with the elegant prose. With the trail blazing role to be on behalf of womens rights. Pdf to have the character in the value and a connection with her in to witness the connection first candid handedly in the summer of 1993 when she was first thrust into National Celebrity accompanying her her capital hill. With daniel Patrick Moynihan of so of the confirmation hearing in response to a of a question and how would she want American People to think . That i would like to be thought of as a person who cares about people to do the best she can with a talent she has to make a contribution to a better world. A person with limitless capacity matter the burden of daily life someone of conviction and a determination with a true sense of the static with the pleasures of what life has to offer whether an aria or the horseback ride and her partner marty. And her accomplished children in the entire family to have a sense to make each of us appreciate what is truly important. Justice ginsberg has prodigious work habits so the public observes someone that her life is in the law continues to be working to ensure that each of us can realize the potential to struggle through the obstacle to secure a Better Future for those of us here know so in this age with selfpromotion somebody whose virtues were very real and early on as persons of all ages to agree with friendliness to cut the intellectual powerhouse to draw a huge crowd in pop culture. The occasion the around own work. Is of great read and i cannot recommend it enoughs. Pdf but as a collection of thoughtful writing to with that commitment to protect outsiders with uh discourse from renquist damn brandeis to others that work with her. To be precise and a varied structure like the beautiful piece of music. Joining me in conversation now is Justice Ginsberg and her two colleagues on the project with International Womens rights and the professor of law of various best known for her work on the subject of gender and law. Please join me know as we both of her and her colleagues onstage for a conversation. [applause] [cheers and applause] might never heard such applies in a university institutions. So if we can begin this book of readings ratings would. To write my authorized biography voss started the year 2004 . The s somebody will write about you so you might as well designate people that you trust and the volunteer so i agreed that they would write the biography and as a supplement of my writings 2004 became 2010 so why not do the book of writings first and then did a biography . And they were enthusiastic about that idea and so was the publisher of laugh so someday maybe they can tell you win of the biography. It is such a best seller as it is. No pressure. So tell us about the process of gathering and choosing material to be published. The for if coming biography cannot be published baker issue will not cease to do Amazing Things and we cannot cover them all. [cheers and applause] but selecting the material i have to tell you it was not easy Justice Ginsberg is a prolific writer and speaker thought not just delaware law professor the for the first piece in the collection to go back 70 years for that piece that she wrote in eight grade. And to be the editor of first School Newspaper that was call of highlight carol then the next piece she wrote in a parade other items in the School Newspaper but she wrote about the tend the ten commandments, bill of rights , declaration of independence and the United Nations charter that was adopted. [applause] to understand that enormity so we met with Justice Ginsberg and then 28 drops of the align with the same thing working with her if she has a phenomenal memory. You may want to consider that version. To talk about brown v. Board of education and. And for those that were aided in that. Those that were speaking last year to be literally wallpapered with Justice Ginsberg every stage of her life with marty and her family. And giving us those for the book. And that was introductory material and then to have that challenge with a few of the key parts for the future just a few words first of all, i have to do a shot out a shot out she keeps me on track and on time which is in incredible job in this the gobetween between the three of us. And that certain things cannot go into the book because they have a paid to limit. But i think it is fair to say one of the goals that we would make it accessible not just for the lawyers but the general public as well. Qb the judge of that. The course the is to capture the essence and substance and somehow boiling down to the essence but i want to say not just her own words and one of them you already know that she loved the opera she was the star. Maybe not the star but the problem this she could not sing very well. [laughter] if she could she would be a diva but she did a pretty good job as the Supreme Court justice. One part that was included in the book it was called sylvia ginsberg. It was an opera about the Supreme Court but what i am especially fond of is the excerpts from the two speeches from the justice. Justice ginsburg, before you are on the Supreme Court you litigated in front of the Supreme Court. In the 1970s you are ahead litigator in the womens rights project of the aclu. You pardoned 34 cases before the Supreme Court. You 15 out of six cases youve argues there. Can you talk a little bit about how you developed your legal strategy . Those were the good old days, the legal strategy was clear. The first was to convince judges that there was such a thing as genderbased discrimination. By the 70s, through. [inaudible] they tended to think of differential treatment of women as operating benignly in womens favor. The Supreme Court never saw a gender discrimination case that was regarded as anything but favor to the woman. We will go back to illinois 1872 or 73. Anyway the court could rationalize it by saying sometimes things go on in courtroom and a lady wouldnt want to be present, or the next one, it will be reenacted at the Supreme Court on monday. This is a 1948k spread the michigan Supreme Court, the Legislature Passed a law that said women may not tend bar unless they are the white for the daughter of the bar owner. In that case, the opinion was rather dim and there were talks about things going on at taverns and saloons and it was best to keep this dainty little woman out. Even later in 1961, it was the case of gwendolyn who stood trial for the murder of her philandering, abusive husband. There were no women on forgerie forgeries. The Supreme Court saw that as a favor to women. Women were the center of home and family life therefore they should not be distracted by being called away from the home for jury duty. The objective was to let the court understand that these classifications favor everyone , not on a pedestal but in a cage. That was the thing to persuade trial if there was genderbased discrimination. The media target that Wendy Williams describes so well has clearly separate spheres for people. There was the woman who took care of the home and the children and the man who took care of the economic wellbeing. Many were written with that and how life should be organized. The effort was to say theres something wrong with that picture of the world. There are many women who are not particularly good at the home job, but might be a really good firefighter or police officer, all those that were off limits to women at the time and there are men who genuinely care for children. The law should talk about parents rather than mother or father. The object was to break down all those explicit genderbased distinctions so people could be would be free to be you and me. [inaudible] is called equal right advocates. Still going strong. It was an amazing ten years that Ruth Ginsburg led the Legal Movement in this country for women. Part of the strategy was that she taught law on top of being the Supreme Court litigator and she was schooling the justices rather than attacking them. She tried to get the court to understand that while race this termination and sexual discrimination is not synonymous. They need to be scrutinized by court. She tried to get the court to do that and character list characteristically when the Supreme Court didnt do that, she picked the middle approach and brought them along. Then, in the end, she went on the Supreme Court and got to write an opinion called frontier versus richardson. If i might, let me ask you about your views of the senate. There is a very thoughtful reading in the book about the role of the sentence, you discussed the importance of respecting and opponents view even when publicly disagreeing , as you exhibited in shelby versus holder. The Voting Rights act and you talk about the sense how the justice would not publish it, they would talk about the dissent but not publish it. Can you give us a sense of your philosophy of the sense, how do you think about them when you write them . I think it was holmes who said if i descended in every case where i thought the court got it wrong, no one would read it. I will save them for the ones that really matter. I keep, on my desk, the unpublished opinions, these are opinions that in the end wouldnt do any harm so he would bury it. It would become a graveyard dissent so his view was that his voice would be all the more compelling if he had saved his dissent for when it really mattered. A great law professor. [inaudible] very often, when it came down to the published opinion, suppressed his vote at conference. Many times he voted one way at the conference and joined the opinion going the other way, always on the view that what the court was doing would do no harm. It was okay. And so, i will take every opportunity to dissent. I do try to save them for when it counts, when it really matters. Can i jump in for one second. I taught course on the role of dissenting opinions and we had a surprise guest lecturer one evening. [inaudible] i thought we were going to have to administer cpr to half of the students when they realized it was ginsburg. You include in your book the rose garden acceptance speech. I remember well and your Senate Confirmation hearing Opening Statement what stands out about the nomination confirmation experience. Vivid memory of a very bright young man who was appointed by Patrick Moynihan and he took me around the hall of the congressional office. He would say this is what hes interesting it in. It would be wise not to talk about this that and the other thing. What i remember from the hearings of that entire process, i was nominated june 14, 1993 and i was confirmed on august 3. There is a truly bipartisan spirit in the congress. My biggest supporter on the Judicial Committee was on hatch. The vote was 96 3. Nevermind i had been on the board of the aclu and cofounder of the womens rights project in one of four judges councils, not a single question was asked about my aclu connection. For Justice Breyer who came one year after, it was a collegiate atmosphere. I wish there was a way that i could wave a magic wand and get back to the way it was in the way it should be. We can only hope. What i remember about that process is the white house brings in experts to talk to the nominee and Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew more about each subject and the expert. It was a humbling experience for all those coming in. That was the best week for me because i could choose a law professor i respected to bring me up to speed in various areas of the law. I realize how popular she wa was, not just when people would come up to her and i ask for an autograph, but the senators across parties all wanted a photo out. We would go in to talk to a senator and it became clear that what they really wanted was a picture to send back, and i also remember very fondly senator grassley and they were putting on some ice cream demonstrations in the capital and he said to judge ginsburg, would you mind coming with me to this ice cream demonstration and we went. It was a different time and we have now. It was the dairy farmers. Right, exactly. It was the most sic spectacular selection of ice cream with every flavor. It was delicious. I remember. You have a new colleague as of a couple weeks ago. How does the court change when the composition changes . Every time we have a new justice we have a new court and that means we get a photograph of the new court which i will give to my law clerks when we have it done. I think the person who is happiest to welcome a new justice is the departing junior justice, Justice Kagan, no longer a junior justice, he has a job of opening the door if anyone knocks during the conference, answering the telephone, but most wanting of all, staying after we leave and giving all of our decisions, what cases did we grant reviews and whatever actions we took. She relays these to be on trust in the Clerks Office and the legal office, and then junior justice has had one more assignment to serve on the cafeteria committee. That wasnt uphill battle with Justice Kagan but she did succeed in getting up frozen yogurt. Then theres Musical Chairs and everything is done by seniority the court. You asked about change when a new justice comes on board. I think the biggest change in the 24 years ive been there is when Justice Oconnor retired. Theres been other changes, but not as significant. Thats from a personal point of view. There were two of us and we didnt look alike, we didnt talk alike, but when Justice Oconnor left, there were these eight, most of them well fed men, and a small little woman. It was altogether wrong. Now with three of us we are spread all over the bench and thats much better. It was lonely when she left. Much better. Let me ask you, Justice Ginsburg, most of the people in our audience are college students. When you were in college in the 1950s, which classes and professors had the biggest impact on you . Ive talked about my european literature professor who literally changed the way i read in the way i write. He was a magnificent teacher. Listening to what your said when you made that extraordinary fine introduction, to courses i took at Cornell University that stayed with me and enriched my life, music 101 and 102 and fine arts 101102. For any of you who are college students, i would recommend whatever is your main interest. Do take courses in music and art. I agree. Youve met a lot of great decisions in your life and it goes back to something that wendy has mentioned, surely a great decision was to marry marty ginsburg. Can you tell us something about that decision . Marty and i met when he was 18 and i was 17, he was in my second year end i was in my first year at cornell. He had a girlfriend, i had a boyfriend at columbia law school, but his friends thought it would be, that we would probably like each other and i could go to the movies with him and thats how we started, as just friends. Then when he gave up his chemistry major because it interfered with golf practice. In fairness, he was on the golf team. Yes he was. He then switched to government and he would ask what courses are you taking and he would find out the same. Somewhere along the way i realized he was the first boy, probably the only boy i had known that cared that i had a brain. A friend of mine, a College Classmate said ruth you are fantastically lucky because he is so secure about himself that he will never regard you as any kind of competitor or threat. For all the 56 years we spent together, he was always my biggest booster. My first year of law school, he was bragging to his classmates that his wife was going to be. [inaudible] it was strictly based on grade and the only woman, he said i looked at you and you were this little twerp and your husband is bragging about you, and of course i did make the review. I said marty was my biggest booster. Another great thing about him is he said he learned early on from two women that it would be good for him to develop skills in the kitchen he said those two women were his mother and his wife. I think it wasnt fair what he said about his mother but it certainly was his wife. We had an arrangement where i would do the everyday cooking and marty would the weekend and company cook. I was never allowed to cook for guests. My daughter in her Early High School years notice this enormous difference between dads cooking and moms cooking and decided mom should be phased out so mommy became the only chef in our family, and when i moved to the Supreme Court and the spouses met quarterly for lunch and they shared catering this possibility, marty was always the number one pick to do the lunch. Theres a book you can get at the bookshop and its a collection of his recipes. It was inspired by a very good cook and when marty died she thought the best tribute it could be to him was to have a cookbook of his recipes. The thing about him is he was so remarkable in so many ways. If you just thought about him as a tax lawyer or as a professor of tax he would be extraordinarily distinguished in those ways, but all these other talents, golf, chef, he really was a unique person and it was a privilege to be his friend and to be his colleague. You include some wonderful writings by marty and you have a favorite . Its a great introduction, one of those is in martys own word, in the audiobook. Its a fellowship program, we have a program of that. Another was a speech that he had written and was planning to give to the tenth circuit judicial conference in the summer of 2010. He died in june of that year but his speech was already written out. I went to the tenth circuit and i read martys speech and it wasnt quite the timing that he would have but it was okay. That talk is the basis for this film that will begin in august. One last question before we turn it over for the audience and that is, as wendy and mary pointed out, in the book there are u experts from the opera and weve had excerpts from it at our Second Circuit conference, there have been performances in virginia and glimmer class. Thats the summer. Its august 4 and 13th. Can you tell us something about your decision to includes those excerpts, Say Something about the opera, anything youd like about your relationship with Justice Scalia before we turn it over to the students. The opera was written by derek who was a music major at harvard and has a masters in music from yale and then decided it would be helpful to know a little bit about the law so he enrolled in his hometown law school, the university of maryland and when he was in constitutional art class, he was reading these from time, these dueling opinions, scalia for the court, ginsburg in dissent, and vice versa. He decided this would make a very funny opera. In addition it would Say Something a little bit about the law. It opens with Justice Scalias rage and it goes this way. The justices are blind, how can they possibly spout this. The constitution says absolutely nothing about this. That sets up scalia and then i add, i tell him he seeking Frontline Solutions to problems that dont have easy answers, but the great thing about our constitution is that like our society, it can evolve. So that sets it up. Its roughly based on. [inaudible] he has had to go through many trials and was locked up in a dark room for excessive dissenting. [applause] i entered to help him get through these trials. They asked me how can you come to his assistance. He is your enemy. I said no hes not my enemy, hes my friend. That is really the theme of the opera where two people think differently about some very important things can nonetheless genuinely like each other, enjoy each others company. One of the things that Justice Scalia would do, it would be one of my opinions, whether he would use it or not, he would call to correct my grammatical errors. Never on paper but always on a cell phone call. Chip was someone Justice Scalia, when he disagreed sharply in the Virginia Military institute case, the question whether they could maintain a facility that offered great advantages. We went back and forth. It was like a pingpong game. They came to my chambers and said this is just my draft of my dissent in the bmi case. Its not yet ready for court, but i wanted to give you as much time as i can to enter. We were into june already in the clock was running out. I took this draft on the plane to albany. I was going to the conference in lake george and it ruined my weekend when i read it. But, i was grateful he gave me the extra time to respond. I think my opinion in the case is ever so much stronger because i had the benefit of Justice Scalias criticism. One quick footnote, i called that case by accident. So the case which is officially entitled the United States versus virginia is the case in which he pulled it all together. He was down there last month, a couple months ago to celebrate the anniversary of that decision and there was a crowd even bigger than this and up there, a huge group of people in identical uniforms gave her a standing ovation. There were women up there among them. And now i have a photograph in my chambers of the women who are doing very well in the school now realizes and made a very wise decision. Here now from the audience, some questions, we have a hard stop at 515. I knew this was going to happen. This is great if you ask, ask your question please, be brief. This is just for the Georgetown Community. Questions from the Georgetown Community. Tell us your name and what year you are in. I am allie ross, class of 2020 and this is the best moment of my life right now. My question is just for all the young women in this room, what do you see as some of the Biggest Challenges they will face and what advice would you give them if you are going to sit down with them . The challenges is more daunting than the ones that we faced. I spoke before about explicit gender lines in the law. Women can be firefighters, cant be police officers, cant be pilots of planes. Those doors are now open to you, but whats left is what is called unconscious biased. My best illustration is the symphony orchestra, when i grew up you never saw a woman in the orchestra and the music critics thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing a violin and a man, same for other instruments. One day somebody came up with the brilliant idea, lets drop a curtain so the people who are doing the testing dont see the people who are auditioning. With that simple device, the drop curtain, women began to show up and symphony orchestras in numbers. Sadly we cant repeat that with every area. My favorite decision and not mine was our antidiscrimination line, a case against at t for not promoting women into middle management jobs. The women dig great on all the standards. Criteria, but they flunked the last test, the total person test which wasnt interview for promotion. It wasnt a deliberate attempt to screen out women, but the interview had a certain Comfort Level facing someone who looks like themselves. If he were confronting the member of a Minority Group there was a strangeness. He felt uneasy. Its getting over that remains a problem. If you have whats called a worklife balance, how do you arrange work so people can have a family life as well as a worklife. I think those are the two biggest hurdles. My advice is to find allies among men as well as women who want to change things, and think of yourself, as bob said i did, as a teacher. Dont react in anger because thatll be counterproductive. If you call someone a sexist pig, you will be turned in. People asked, was it difficult arguing before the Supreme Court in the early 70s. I said i forget felt more like a Kindergarten Teacher than anyone else. The knowledge that i had that they didnt have and i had to try to communicate in a way they would find appealing. Thank you so much. It was an honor to hear you speak today. Im a grad student in the school of Foreign Service focusing on security and im wondering if someone is interested in joining the Legal Profession at some point, hopefully both men and women can make equal contributions in all areas of law. Are there areas in which you think women should become more involved or would be able to make more of an impact going forward. Women can excel in any area of the law that interest them if they are willing to put in the hours and work that it takes to become expert in one area. With no doors being closed, these women should choose what they feel is theres and what they are best equipped to do. Would you like to add to that . In a way. There are areas in the law, maybe youre referring to this are asking this question, theyre still predominantly male by practice. Yes, thank you. And i am sure there are, but remarkably the general trend has been to include women everywhere and much is owed to Ruth Ginsburg but the law also requires now that you not be discriminated against on the basis of your sex. We could see men doing legal jobs which were perhaps thought to be for the women back in the day and you could be a lawyer doing Security Work for the United States. One extra clip, something that Justice Ginsburg speaks about a lot, no matter what area you go into, if you do, try to give back somehow too either changing the law that makes the world a better place for others or tutoring someone, they are all sorts of ways to do it, Public Interest work, pro bono, its something they often speak about thats a profession and we are privileged to be in it. In a sense we owe a debt back to society to carry on that direction. I would like to say hes been a great leader and not regard. They would need lawyers to represent them and he would immediately contribute to this project. How many lawyers do have. We have women in justice who are in the field and they have 78 fellows. In two and a half years it has served over 28000 immigrants and their families. If you look at our fellows, it turns out most of them are women. A lot of them are firstgeneration americans. They are well represented in terms of the representative justice core, and if youre interested as college students, when you graduate, there is something called a Community Fellows program for College Graduates who can work in communitybased organizations. A large part of the problem is that immigrants live in fear and you can really do something substantial if you try to make their lives easier by giving them a sense that an American Dream can be their dream too. The commitment for the fellows, what is it. Its two years, its a guaranteed fellowship with the prospect of a thirdyear, and the fellows are trained in a boot camp, they then get to work with nonprofit organizations. A number of the organizations deal with problems of women and children. The justice core has had a Rapid Response team in texas that has helped over 1000 women and their children. Its remaking the immigration bar and providing a whole new generation of leaders. Its been a real inspiration to work with these people. Its a serving example of seeing, bob had nothing when it began and now its a flourishing fellows program. I would like to mention another effort to do what my dear colleague, doing something outside yourself if you are a true professional. Justice oconnor saw a need for the children to learn about government. so yes i do think there is a need to give high uncertainty to any class of people spinnaker we have time for one last question. I am a student of chemistry i was wondering you have an impression impressive tenure on the chorus would leave most impressed of. That is like asking which of my six grandchildren is my most proud of. All of them. I love my jobs every case is important. I could not single out anyone case as my favorite i do think i case but gave me great personal satisfaction when people first aspired to become military the Airforce Academy did not invent them. So against the military academy was by those who thought they had the necessary qualifications but were excluded by the time they get to the vmi cases they are no longer seeking to get in although they were it was United States government who has the antidiscrimination that you cannot exclude people simply on the basis pdf of their gender if you exclude the mail from the nursing college. So the United States government said that is the policy of the United States but they were with me and it was the most exhilarating to meet and talk to those that would be engineers and Nuclear Scientist that is one decision of which i am very proud of. [applause] i was on the losing side of the decision but i thought my colleagues at misinterpreted title seven. So to describe but the case was really about my tagline was the ball is in congresss court in in very short Order Congress as a majority of bullseye passed the fair pay act. And adopted the position the defense should be in that case. Justice ginsberg it has been an extraordinary honor for all of us thanks for being here here is the book we can get a closeup of it. Our also like to think Georgetown University president chairman of the department for toasting the symposium in all those for their support and is noted in your program headed to the Campus Ministry hallway in order to see the copy feature to bring along the ticket located in your program thank you for coming. Have the good evening. [cheers and applause] [inaudible conversations] mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell the funding