But i had a wonderful professor at Columbia Law School who later moved to stanford, jerry gunther. He was in charge of getting clerkships for columbia students, and he called every federal judge on the Second Circuit, in the southern, eastern districts of new york, and he was not meeting with success. So he called a columbia graduate, judge edmund palmieri, who was a columbia undergraduate, Columbia Law School graduate and always took his clerks from columbia. And he said i strongly recommend that you engage ruth Bader Ginsburg. And palmieris response was ive had women law clerks, i know theyre okay, but shes a mother, and sometimes we have to work on weekends, even on a sunday. So professor gunther said give her a chance, and if she doesnt work out, a young man in her class whos going to a Downtown Firm will jump in and take over. So that was the carrot. It was also a stick, and the stick was if you dont give her a chance, i will never recommend another columbia graduate as your law clerk. [laughter] [applause] and thats the way it was in notsoancient days for women. The big hurdle was to get that first job. Once a woman got the job, she did it at least as well as the men. So the second job was not the same obstacle. Theres a wonderful book this is a meeting about books, so let me mention it its called with firsts. And its about, its a biography of sandra day to conner. She was very Sandra Day Oconnor. She was very high e in her class at stanford law school, but no law firm would hire her. She was asked do you type, and maybe there would be a place as a legal secretary. So what did she do . She went to a county attorney and said i will work for you without pay for four months, and then if you think im worth it, you can put me on the payroll. Thats how Sandra Day Oconnor got her first job. But even after your clerkship, you couldnt get a job in a law firm. You ended up being a law professor. I could have gotten a job. In fact, i was going to a firm when a professor, another professor from columbia, al schmidt, said how would you like to write a book about the swedish judicial system . Well this is a part of her life you will not hear generally discussed, so youre in on a question that normally doesnt come up. Anyway, this was an irresistible offer because here i was in my 20s, before i turned 30 i would have a book between hard covers. Marty and i married the same month i graduated from cornell, so i had never lived on my own. I went from a College Dormitory to being married, and i had what might be called the eightyear itch. [laughter] i wanted to see if i could manage on my e own. And the deal was i would go to sweden. My daughter jane would be taken care of by her father for about six weeks, and when she finished school, she a came and joined me in sweden. And i got that out of my system. I never again yearned to live on my own. [laughter] oh, and then there was the opportunity to learn about a culture and to learn a language that i knew nothing at all about. Wendy, one of you, did you go back to did you go to sweden with her . I did. Mary, you she went back to sweden this year. This year. It was the 50th anniversary of my Honorary Degree from the university. And you saw there what did you see on the street . Your picture. Yes. [laughter] there were posters up and down the streets of one of the many, many [inaudible] that the justice did in sweden. We kept trying to see the posters. The car was zooming through the streets, and it was like that scene in the movie french kiss where they never see the eiffel tower . We kept looking and looking, and finally driving to the airport, remember . We turned and there it was. Wendy, youve been working on this book for 15 years with mary. Did you interview all of the justices she served with . How often did you interview her . What do you do when you have 15 plus years . What is your agenda . Wendy, before you answer, let me tell you how [laughter] all this began. Youre not going to get wendy and mary came to see me, and they said inevitably people are going to write about your life. So why dont you make it your official biography, people you really trust. And i certainly trusted wendy and i were in the trenches in the 70s when for the first time in history it became possible for courts to accept, the equal protection clause meant that women were people, equal in stature to men. [applause] so i knew wendys strategy and mine were pretty much the same. I knew that she understood what we were trying to accomplish. So i said yes without hesitation. In fact, when we, when we came to her to talk about it, she sat us down at a little table. And on the table, there was a stack of documents and opinions and other things about this high, and she said, oh, heres a Little Something that you might want to look at. [laughter] thats how we knew we were in, so to speak. [laughter] so did you, in fact, interview all of the justices shes served with . I did not interview any of the justices that she served with, but mary did. Between the two of you, you interviewed them all. We did. Actually, not all of them some of them refused to be interviewed. Well, and there are some newer additions we still plan to interview. But most of them. And how often did you sit down with her for an extended interview . Im assuming its a lot. Well, its a lot. We started out in that little moment in time after she was done with her summer and just before she had to knuckle down and prepare for the coming term, and every year in august most often in the last week we sit down with her for three days in a row in the late afternoons. So we have our own big stack from that. And she and this year it was a little different. We went up to new york where she was getting her radiation treatments, and it was amazing. How could you anyway, so we sat with her twice up there, and she, she remembered everything. She was perfectly normal except she was very tired, which she has never let stop her, and she wasnt letting it stop her then. And that was, and that was, that was a new experience for us in new york. But then we came back down for one day, day before yesterday, and did our third day. So every year we do that. And then we do a lot of things in between to keep track of her. [laughter] so let me just say this to do you two here in front of god and everybody. Justice brennan famously had an authorized biographer who got Writers Block after he died, and somebody else eventually had to take over the project. Yes. And im getting old, is that what youre saying . [laughter] im saying to you, you better not get Writers Block. We all want to see that. [laughter] everybody here, some of whom are a great deal younger than me, want to be able to read the product of your labor. Well, we do too. [laughter] [applause] you know, im taking for granted, this is a very educated and curious audience. Im taking for granted that everybody in this room has seen rbg at least once [applause] and on the basis, and on the basis of sex. So im not going to go through all of the cases and the strategy and all of that of Justice Ginsburg, because there are other places where youve seen this, but there are also a lot of young people in this audience, men and women. And i wanted to ask Justice Ginsburg in light of that and in light of all of the conversation that we have these days about a balance between work and family life, could you tell us the story of the elevator piece . [laughter] the elevator thief was my lively son. It was when he was in the sixth grade. I called him riley, his teachers called him hyperactive. [laughter] lively. And i would get calls about once every month to come down to the school to talk about my sons late escapades. One day i was sitting in my office at Columbia Law School, the phone rang. It was the headmaster, we need to see you immediately. Now, ive been particularly weary that day because i had stayed up all night writing a brief. So i said this child has two parents [laughter] please alternate calls, and its his fathers turn. [cheers and applause] so they called marty who had been the head of the tack department at a Tax Department at a large law firm. He came down and was told your son stole the elevator. [laughter] and martys Immediate Response was, he stole the elevator . How far could he take it . [laughter] so i dont know if it was martys sense of humor and, by the way, the theft was it was one of those oldfashioned hand held elevators . The operator went out for a smoke, one of james classmates challenged him to take the kindergarten class up to top floor. [laughter] which he did. [laughter] so after that episode, the calls came barely once a semester. [laughter] there was no quick change if my sons behavior in my sons behavior, but the school was much more reluctant to take a father away from his work than a mother. So the suggestion to alternate calls did the trick. [laughter] [applause] so i want to let me just add that that son is today a fine human [laughter] hes not in prison anywhere. Hes a great parent to the two girls. And because she wont do it, i will. He has he runs a thing called sedilla records, and they produce magnificent classical recordings. Okay, thats my that would be inappropriate for you to do but not me. [laughter] so lets talk about your time on the Supreme Court. You were appointed by president clinton, and within three years of getting to the Supreme Court, you were still a very junior justice, youre assigned to write the Virginia MilitaryInstitute Case striking down their policy of exclusion of women. And you would not have gotten that assignment but for your female colleague, Justice Oconnor, right . Yes. Seniority is very big in our workplace, so Justice Oconnor wouldnt have been way ahead of me as a chosen opinion writer. But sandra said ruth could write e this opinion. So its thanks to Justice Oconnor that i got to write the decision in the Virginia MilitaryInstitute Case. So you wrote in that case that most, most women indeed, most men would probably not want to meet the demands, the rigorous demands of the portfolio m. I. , but those extraordinary individuals who can meet those demands and want to meet those demands should be permitted to. So you were invited to vmi a little over a year ago, i think, to give a speech. How did that go . In fact, they had invited me to come toll vmi at the 20th to come to vmi at the 20th anniversary of the decision. My calendar was too crowded, so it turned out to be the 21st anniversary. And you were with me yes. For that. The change in that school has been enormous. The Commanding Officer was so proud of his women cadets. They live in the same quarters that the men live in, but they were so enthusiastic. Many of them were in the engineering program. One wanted to be an atomic scientist. The school, by admitting women, they were able to upgrade their applicant pool considerably [laughter] [applause] wendy, what did she leave out . Well, she left out a Ginsburg Scalia moment. To begin with. Because Justice Scalia found her opinion fairly outrageous, and he was very upset about the whole thing. And his last sentence of his opinion said Something Like this is going to destroy vmi. He used the word destroy. And i asked Justice Ginsburg about that later, and she said to me with perfect this was not so long after the opinion, i think. She said to me with the utmost confidence, vmi will be a better place if there are women. And it wont be destroyed, and the wonderful thing about that was when we were there for the 21st anniversary, people there were so proud and excited to have you in person come there after you had transfigured the place. There was an audience almost as big as this, and back there there were what do you call them bleachers. Bleachers, bleachers. All the cadets were there in their uniforms, and for Ruth Ginsburg they all stood up and applauded. It was just remarkable. [applause] as it turned out, justice is scalia was the sole dissenter in the vmi case. Yes. [laughter] Justice Rehnquist didnt join my opinion, but he did join the judgment. Justice thomas was recused because his son attended vmi. He couldnt participate. So that left scalia all alone. [laughter] Justice Scalia knew i felt deeply about the case, as he did the other way, and he came to my chambers one day, took out a sheaf of papers and said, ruth, this is the penultimate draft of my dissent in the vmi case. Im not yet ready to circulate to the court, but the clock was ticking, and he wanted to give me as much time as he could to answer husband rather strident dissent. [laughter] you were going to the Second Circuit meeting yes. I was going to the judicial conference in lake george. I was on the plane, opened up his dissent. It absolutely ruined my weekend [laughter] but i was certainly glad to have the extra time to respond. So talking about vmi reminds me that when you get to the court, Justice Oconnor, of course, was the first woman justice. Shes there, shes been there for quite a while twelve years. By herself. And as you would later learn, thats no fun, because you had to be the only one for a while too. And, you know, she was a reagan appointee, she was a girl of the west. You were a clinton appointee, you were from new york city, and i wondered you very quickly, though, established a very special bond. She was as close as i came to having a big sister. When i came onboard, she gave me some advice, not too much. She didnt want to douse me with excessive information. Just what i needed to know to navigate those first few weeks. And then she was an enormous help in my first cancer bout with. Justice oconnor had a mastectomy and was on the bench nine days after her surgery. So she was going to tell me how to manage this. She said you schedule chemotherapy for friday, that way you can get over it during the weekend and be back in court on monday. And she also said youre going to get, in those days they were not yet emails, but youre going to get calls, youre going to get letters from all over. Dont even try to respond. Just concentrate on getting the courts work done. Im not telling secrets here when i say that in many of the courts biggest cases of late you are not all, but you are in the minority, on the dissenting side. But, you know, in the last five years or more you have pulled out some unexpected victories. And im thinking, for instance, of the courts 2015 decision upholding arizonas redistricting commission. These were created by state referenda by the voters to limit partisanship in the drawing of legislative districts in the state. And will you tell the audience what your opinion said . What the opinion said . The opinion said. You upheld them. Why . Because something needed to be done about the partisan gerrymander [applause] i think california was in the lead, then arizona, the good voters of arizona were tired of drawing district lines when there was very little incentive to vote because your districts had been rigged. It was going to be a republican seat or a democratic seat. So your vote didnt count. Thats not the way a democracy should run. [applause] so arizona and california had the idea, and this is not done by the state legislature. State legislatures would not willingly give up the monopoly they had on redistricting. So the good people of the state said this should be done, the redistricting should be done by an independent commission, not by partisan members of the legislature. It presented a constitutional question because the constitution says redistricting will be done by the legislature thereof. So some of my colleagues said legislature means legislature, and it doesnt mean the people. To me, it seemed quite clear that the state had made the people the legislature for this purpose. They should have referenda do that. They gave the deciding voice to people, to we, the people, and not the partisan members of the legislate can church and i think legislature. And i think that after that case other states were encouraged, other states that had referenda. So the dissent in that case was written by chief justice roberts, and he argued very vigorously that the legislature means only the legislature. Now, fast forward to this year, a 54 conservative majority ruled, essentially, that the voters have no ability to challenge extreme partisan gerrymandering in court. But at the same time, the opinion written, this time majority opinion written by the chief justice seemed to suggest that other remedies like independent redistricting commissions provide they were ways to address alternative ways to address the problem of partisanship in redistricting. So could you please explain whats going on here . [laughter] have the courts conservatives changed their minds about redistricting . Is it just window dressing or what . As one lives, one learns. So i think the chief learned that he was wrong in the arizona [laughter] [applause] so i want you to look at this crowd. They tell me this is 4,000 people, im not quite sure. Next week you and i are going to another interview in little rock, arkansas, in a venue that holds 18,000 people. And not only are all the tickets gone, theres a waiting list of 16,000 people. [applause] so, my dear notorious rbg, how does it feel to be a cultural and pop icon in your 80s . [cheers and applause] its amazing. [laughter] at the advanced age of 86, Everyone Wants to take a picture with me. [laughter] the notorious rbg was started by a secondyear student at New York University law school. She was displayed about a decision the court had recently rendered in Shelby Coun