Transcripts For CSPAN2 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg My Own Wo

My own words. [indiscernible] [applause]. We hope you all have been enjoying yourself this morning. El now, we have a rather large crowd this morning for this particular session. And thats why im very thrilled to introduce our next program. For the past year at the library of commerce you may sit down i have a few more things i want to say. For the past year at the library of commerce we had been celebrating changemakers and i can c think of a few m people who more than aptly fit that description. I can pick a few people who fit the description quite like Justice Ruth Bader ginsberg. Im in a hurry up. She ise a hero and an inspiration to so many of us. In fact it for him this morningg students from American University are right over there camped out in front of this facility and they are here she says are you in a talk about your graduation from Columbia Law School and rutgers and columbia and spent most of your career advocating on womens rights. And you had been called recently the beyonce of jurisprudence. And i said just as i said that. I would rather you would say the j lo. So without further ado she is joined by her coauthors of her bestselling memoir my own words. S. Her interviewer today and the interviewer and the person you know very well from npr ms. Nina totenberg. The notorious are bg. [applause]. Please be seated. I have to tell you before i leave the stagehe i want to shake her hand. I want to give her a hug but that would be very unprofessional. This is quite an Amazing Group i am very admiring of all of the people who have been online for some the hours waiting to see the justice and theres a lot to see even though shes a pretty little person. So how about jay low how did that happen . I was calling them about a month or so ago by Jennifer Lopez and she said she would like to meet me and introduce her fiance alex rodriguez. Said they came to the chamber. When a very nice visit, she mostly wanted to ask if i did any seeker about a happy marriage. But now a rod is traveling withth her to concerts all over the world what was your secret to a happy marriage did you pass on your motherinlaws a secret on the day i was married my motherinlaw she took me aside and said she wanted to tell me what was the secret of a happy marriage. I would be glad to hear what is it. It helps sometimes. To be a little deaf. It is good advice that i followed in every workplace. Including the good job i now had. If i thought lists where it list word is said. You just tune out. I would also advise. That youd be justice ruth. We all know you had have some Health Challenges in the last year or the last month. You had have radiation for most of august let me ask you the question that everyone here wants to ask. How are you feeling. Why are you here instead of resting up for the term and are you planning on staying in your current job. This audience can see that i amve alive i am on my way to being very well. [applause]. But why are you here instead of resting up for the term. We are more than a month left to go. I will be prepared when the time comes. Have a just keep trucking. For one thing i love my job it is the best and the hardest job ive ever had instead of concentrating on my aches and pains i just know that i have to read the set of briefs and go over the draft opinion. I have to surmount whatever is going on in my body. In concentrate on the courts work. Your book in my own words. The first essentially up to has a lot of their own words. And writing for the school paper. There is can be a leader authorized biography. These two ladies have in working been working on it for some time. And ask you about the upcoming book i hesitate to ask this. Im in a do it because at least i had 4,000 witnesses. Eliminate early in my own words. It was to be second my official biography has been in the work. How many years. Fifteen years. Since 2004. And the idea is that the book would come out. The biography would come out and it would be followed by x selections from speeches i have given and opinions ive written. But the years,t the year is going on and off and then it came to me that mary and wendy expected i would be on the court for some time into the future. So to make the book complete they wanted to wait. I said okay. Lets have my selective writing first. And then the biography. It was a marvelous idea. So, you still have it set win. It is my job. To ask questions. This justice keeps doing things. And we are very happy about that. [applause]. It will be the idea originally was that it would break the story. It was before she was notorious. But now it will be the complete fullom story and so we want to wait. Until we have that. And hopefully it will not come out very soon. Will done mary. I talked to a little bit about the upcoming book. You wont tell me much. But i do know that there is a whole chapter about the Justice Anthony scalia. Justice ginsburg great friends. Sparring partner. And entertainer in some ways. Tell me. Why,e there is a whole chapter about him and about your interview of him. There is also a whole chapter of him in my own words. Including Justin Ginsburg about Justice Scalia. Everyone i think knows about the unlikely friendship between the two. In interviewing Justice Scalia was a real treat for the book. And we interviewed him for the biography but parts of the interview are in my own words. And as Justice Scalia and ginsburg our so different in some ways going into his chambers dozens or husbands of pictures of friends and family and colleagues. And the other chambers dark leathery there is a big dead animal looking down on you. As i sat there in interviewing Justice Scalia i watched how he went from the tough jurors that we all know and his face softened and lightened up as he talked about his good friend ruth. He told several stories. One was that when they traveled to india together. Heo they went to visit the taj mahal. In Justice Scalia described how he watched Justice Ginsburg listen to the to her guide describe the love story. Behind the building of the taj mahal. As he told me that. 98 sure i saw a tear not related to an opinion or defense come out of him. The other story that he likes to talk about was parasailing and Justice Ginsburg when she was a young 70yearold was there for an illegal exchange. And they were looking out at the water. In all of these people were parasailing. Heat she turned and said we look like it looks like fun we should do that. If you do that i will remember you to our grandchildren. The dean who was the host said i will go parasailing with you. His wife was equally horrified. If there isnt accident and they can only save one of you. At better not be you. They went parasailing. They have to adjust for weight. In Justice Ginsburg. And off they went. Plopped into the water. And wendy and i ask Justice Ginsburg Justice Ginsburg about this a few years ago. What was it like. It was marvelous marvelous. And then to the group greek myth. We didnt get too close to it. It was also a problem. When we took a ride on a very elegant elephant it was a photograph of it. W why are you sitting in the back. I explained it have to do with that. You have always been a rather determined person. When you were in law school your husband was diagnosedan with testicular cancer. His chances of surviving were extremely slim. But the two of you just carried on. I thought people here might be interestedik in what your days and nights were like in that year. How in some ways it set up the sleep patterns for life. It was my second year in law school. Martys third year. Iad there was massive surgery followed by massive radiation. There is no chemotherapy in those days. We just took each day as it came my routine was i would attend my classes i have no takers i would then go to mass general of the hospital that he was in in the afternoon. And then when he was released from the hospital was having daily radiation he was first, very sick and then he would sleep until about midnight when whatever food he ingested that day he would have my not very good cooking. And then at about 2 00 in the morning he was also dictating his senior paper to me. He went back to bed about two in the morning. And thats when i hit the books. In between there is a of that two and a halfyearold daughter for weeks, many weeks i was sleeping maybe two hours aas night and thats how i became a night person. I appreciated in the Early Morning hours the telephone didnt ring. There were no emails in those days. It was a quiet time i could concentrate on the books. I hope youre getting more than two hours these days. If you want toen call the ginsburg residents on a weekend day you do not call before noon. Not true on court days at all. Today women and to some extent take for granted their equality in the workplace. You can to could get a job in the law firm. There were many wellknown firms that were not up to welcoming jews next, i was a woman. That was a higher barrier but the absolute killer was i have a 4yearold daughter when i graduated from law school. If they would take a chance on a woman a mother was more than they were willing to risk it. They had top grades at harvard. And you are applying for clerkships tell us how you finally did get it clerk ship. Those were pre title seven days. It was upfront about saying william women are not welcome. She was dreadful. How many men that you have that didnt work out. I have a wonderful professor that saw me at law school. They were inclined in charge of getting c clerkships. They called every federal judge in the secondhe circuit in the southern Eastern District of new york and he must was not meeting with success. They were at columbia undergraduate. They always took the clerk from columbia. He said, i strongly recommend that you engage Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the area response. Ive had that i know theyre okay. But shes the mother. And sometimes we have to work on weekends even on sunday. So the professor said give her a chance and if she doesnt work out. They will jump in and take over. If you dont give her a chance i will never recommend another columbia graduate as your law firm. That is the way it was in not so ancient days. For women. The big hurdle was to get that first job. Once a woman got the job she did at least as well as the men so the second job was not the same obstacle. There is a wonderful book and its a meeting about books. Let me mention it its called first. It is a biography of Sandra Day Oconnor. She was very high 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. Even after your court shirt you couldnt get a job in a law firm. You ended up being a law professor. I could have gotten a job i was going to a firm with a professor from columbia said, how would you like to write a book. About the sweetest judicial system. This is a part of the life. You dont hear generally discussed. Its 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 hardcovers. Monty and i married the same month i graduated from cornell so i never lived on my own. I went from a College Dormitory to be married b and i have what might be called the eight year itch. I wanted to see if i could manage on my own. The deal is i would go to sweden my daughter jade would be taken care of by her father. For about six weeks. I got that out of my system. I never again yearned to live on my own. And then there was an opportunity to learn about culture and to learn a language and i knew nothing at all about. Did you go to sweden with her. She went back to sweden this year it was the 50th anniversary of my Honorary Degree from the university and you saw there. What did you see on the streets. I saw my picture on the streets. There were posters up and down the streets of one of them many events. That the justice did in sweden. She was very over programmed. She wasnt daunted. We kept trying to see the poster. The car was moving through the streets and it was like the seat and the movie. French kiss where they never see the eiffel tower. We kept looking and looking. We turned and there was. You had been working on this book for 15 years with mary. Did you interview all of the justice that he served with. What you do when you had 15 plus years what is your agenda me tell you how this began. Wendy and mary came to see me. Inevitably people are going to write about your life so why dont you make as your official biographer people that you really trust. Ed wi certainly trusted wendy. I went in the trenches inn the 70s. For the first time in history it became possible for courts to accept the equal protection clause it meant that women were people. [applause]. I knew, wendys strategy and mine were pretty much the same. And knew that she understood what we were trying to accomplish. Cccc i said yes. Without hesitation. When we came to heart to talk about it she sat us down at a little table and on the table it was a stack of documents and opinions and other things here is a Little Something you might want to look at. Thats how we know we were in so to speak. Did you in fact entered you all of the justices that you served with. So between the two of you. You interviewed them all. And some newer additions. We still plan to interview. But most of them. And how often did youte sit down with her for an extended interview. We started out in that little moment in time after she was done with her summer. And just before she have to buckle down. Pair for the coming term. Every year in august most often in the last week we sit down with her. For three days in a row. In the late afternoon. We have our own big stack. In this year it was a little different. We went up to new york. It was amazing anyway. We sat with her twice up there. She remembered everything. Except she was very tired which shes never let stop her. And that was a new experience for us. We came back down for one day. And did our third day. Every year we do that. And we do a lot of things in between and keep track of them. Let me just say this to you guys in front of god and everybody Justin Brennan had an biographer who had writers block. Someone else had to take over the project. Im saying you better not get siters block. Everybody here. Some of you are great deal younger than me. We do also. [applause]. I am taking for granted this is a very educated in curious audience. Im taking for granted that everybody in this room has seen rbg in this room has seen her just once. Im not to go through all of the cases and strategy and all that. There are otherhe places where you have seen this. There are a lot of young people in this audience men and women in light of that and in all of the conversation that we have these days about balance between work and family life to tell us the story of the elevator thief. The elevator thief. Was my lively son. It was when he was in the sixth grade. His teacher called him hyperactive. I called him lively. To come down to the school to talk about my sons latest escapades. One day i was sitting in my office at Columbia Law School s phone rang. It was the had master. We need to see you immediately. I had been weary that day because i had stayed up all night writing a brief. The child has two parents. Please alternate calls. They called marty who has been the have of the Tax Department and a large law firm. And was told your son stole the elevator. And the Immediate Response was he stole the elevator. How far could he take it. I dont know if it was martys sense of humor. It was one of those oldfashioned handheld elevators the operator went out for a smoke. Challenged him to take the kindergarten class up to the top floor. Which he did. So after that episode the calls came barely once a semester. There was no quick change in my sons behavior. But the school was much more reluctant to take a father away from his work than a mother. The suggestion to alternate calls did the trick. It is a fine human. That son. And hes not is not in prison anywhere. He is a great parent to two girls. He runs a thing called cindy her records. They produce magnificent classical recordings. It would be inappropriate for you to do but not me. Lets talk about your time on the Supreme Court. You are appointed by president clinton. And within three years of getting to the Supreme Court. You are still a very junior e,igjustice. You are assigned to write the military institute case. Striking down their policies and exclusion of women. You would not have gotten the assignment but for your female colleague. It is very big in the workplace. Justice oconnor would have been way ahead of me they had written this opinion. I got to write the decision in the Virginia Military case. Most women in and most men would probably not want to meet the demands but those extraordinary individuals who can meet those demands and want to meet them. Should be permitted too. You were invited a little over a year ago i think to give a speech. Ha how did that go. They have invited me to come at the 20th anniversary of the decision. My calendar was too crowded. The change in that school has been enormous. The Commanding Officer was so proud of his women cadets they lived in the same spartanan quarters that the men live in. But they were so enthusiastic. Many of them were in the engineering programro one wanted to be an atomic scientist. For the school. By admitting women they were able to upgradeom those considerably. She left tha