Sunday, november 18th and 19th, on cspan2. Supreme Court JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg on her life and legal career, including her advocacy work on equality rights and social justice. U. S. Court of appeals judge ann williams moderated the event. Hello, everybody. My name is david stern, and i am the very proud executive director of equal justice works. Thank you all for being here. I am very excited. Are you excited . [ cheers and applause ] [ laughter ] i thought so. I saw you in the hall. You guys are awesome. Just to remind you, after a couple of minutes, well put our phones down. Just wanted to make sure were clear on that one. Of course, were so honored to have Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg here to have a conversation with Ann Claire Williams from the 7th Circuit Court of appeals. So Justice Ginsburg does not need any introduction. Even if she did, judge williams will be doing it over the past hour. So youll have a fabulous person to lead you through this. But i would like to introduce you to judge williams. Judge Ann Claire Williams, also known as the mother of equal justice works, because in 1991, six years after she joined the bench, can you believe it . Shes so young looking. Its incredible. [ inaudible ] [ laughter ] but in 1991, judge williams awarded some leftover funds in an antitrust case, which gave us the seed funding to create our program. At the time it was seven fellowships, now 300 fellowships. So judge williams, thank you. Were forever indebted to you. [ applause ] so judge williams was the first attorney of color in the u. S. Attorneys office in chicago as the division chief and then she served on the u. S. District court for the Northern District of illinois. Shes the first and only judge of color on the u. S. Court of appeals for the 7th circuit. [ cheers and applause ] judge williams also founded just the beginnings foundation, a Pipeline Organization that aims to increase diversity in the Legal Profession and judiciary by inspiring more young people to pursue legal careers. So before we begin, i want to turn to our speakers and introduce you to this extraordinary audience. Because these are the next generation of Public Interest lawyers. They have come from all over the country to interview for Public Interest jobs, and to hear the two of you speak. So we are thrilled to have you here. And im going to turn it over to judge williams. Thank you, david. [ applause ] good afternoon. I know we can do better than that. This is justice rbg. Good afternoon. Good afternoon so you cant imagine how excited we all were that Justice Ginsburg said yes to equal justice works, because her heart has been with Public Interest enterprises, and she devoted so much of her life to helping make things better in the world, using her legal career. She said yes to this conference and career fair, yes to having this conference, and shes a rock star, as you know. Second woman appointed to the u. S. Supreme court. So to understand how it is you became such a force, we begin at the beginning, because you grew up in brooklyn. Wonderful parent. Your mom did complete high school. Your dad didnt. Your roots are in russia and austria. And your mother gave you some advice that stuck with you all your life. What did she say . My mother was born in an age when there were many things women couldnt do. And the myth was that a girl was to grow up, find prince charming, and live happily ever after. But what she instilled in me was, be independent, be able to fend for yourself. That was one piece of advice. The other was, she called it to be a lady. What she meant is dont give way to emotions that are unproductive, such as anger or jealousy or remorse. They will mott move you forward. So forget it. So that was the advice that my wonderful mother gave me and repeated again and again. And your mom really believed in education and believed in reading and books, and she used to take you to the Library Every week. And the library was above the chinese restaurant, right . And there were some books you liked, in particular nancy drew. How many of you know about nancy drew . Well. This generation knew about it. Now did nancy affect you . Nancy was about the only girl out there doing things, including leading her boyfriend around. [ laughter ] Everything Else was of the dick and jane variety where it was a lot of fun and jane was in a pretty pink dress. So nancy drew was refreshing. In those days i had one fictional hero, nancy drew. And one real one, and that was amelia earhart. And your mom, i mean, you did so well in school. You grew up in flat bush, and you did you were actually in the orchestra, the twirlers, the newspaper, and your mom became ill during high school and you used to study by her bedside. When you were sworn in, you said your mom was the bravest and strongest person you had ever known, taken from you much too soon. But she continues to inspire you today, doesnt she . Yeah, she died when i just when i turned 17. She had been suffering with Ovarian Cancer for four years. And finally succumbed to it. She was an amazingly intelligence person. But at her time, women just didnt have the opportunities that many in this room have. So she remembered as a teenager marching in the suffrage parades. So when she was growing up, women didnt even have the vote. And you never got because for girls, you never got bar mitzvahed, but when you went to that allgirl camp, you had the opportunity to be the rabbi. Yes, because it was an allgirls camp. [ laughter ] my Dear Colleague was the first girl bat mitzvahed. And then you did so well in school, you ended up going to cornell. Next slide, please. And you decided to major in government. You wanted to be a high school teacher. At what point did you decide you wanted to be a lawyer . It must have been around my sophomore, junior year. First, i tried out student teaching at ithaca high school, and didnt love it. Because i was supposed to teach about spanishamerican war, and i got the syllabus. It said, everything in the United States did was right. Everything the other side did was wrong, and i knew that history was not that way. [ laughter ] so i had a wonderful professor of constitutional law. He wanted me to appreciate that the United States was going through some rather bad times. It was the heyday of senator joe mccarthy from wisconsin. There was a huge red scare in the country. And people that belonged to socialist youth groups in the 1930s at the height of the depression were being called before the house unearn activities committee, and quizzed about their youthful affiliations. My professor pointed out to me there were lawyers, Public Interest lawyers, standing up for these people, and reminding Congress Members our constitution has a First Amendment. It says you have a right to think, speak, and write as you believe, and not as a big brother government tells you is the right way. And also you have a privilege against selfincrimination. So you dont have to answer questions that are being put to you. So that gave me the idea that lawyers were people who were trying to make the society stay in tune with its most basic values. So i thought, well, you could earn a living as a lawyer. And then you could do things to make things better in your community. And in this slide that shows your college years, not only did you get inspired to be a lawyer. You actually met your future husband. Yes. In my first year, his second year at cornell. He was a very special fellow. And the slide, i dont know for some reason, the slide is not up on the college years. If you could put that up for us. Because i love that slide. Dont all of you . I love that slide. So go ahead, sorry, justice. The thing that was special about marty, he was the only boy i had met up until then who cared that i had a brain. [ laughter ] you were 17 and he was 18 and you were married for 56 years. And as a wedding gift to you, your motherinlaw, evalyn, gave you a gift. You actually got married in her home. What advice did she give you . She said she would tell me this was just before we had the ceremony. She took me aside to her bedroom and said, i would like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage. Yes, what is it . [ laughter ] it helps now and then to be a little deaf. [ laughter ] it was wonderful advice, not only in the marriage that lasted 56 years, but even to this day in dealing with my colleagues. [ laughter ] [ applause ] so then you did get married. You had your ear plugs. Go back one more on the script. You got married and you went to marty was he wasnt drafted. He went into the military. He started at harvard. Then he had to go to the military. He moved to oklahoma to the Social Security office, and thats when you first ran into real disparity and how it affected you. Tell us about that. I worked at the Social Security office in lauten, oklahoma. I had taken a government junior professional exam. And i thought i should tell the head of the office that i was three months pregnant. He said youre pregnant . Well, then we cant list you as a gs5. Well list you at the bottom, the lowest government rating, a gs2. Youll do the same job, but at the lower rank. And we cant possibly send you to baltimore for training. And you will certainly quit before your baby is born. And it hadnt occurred to me that things would be that way, but i accepted it. Well, but then you realized you wanted to there was a chance then when you moved back that you had the opportunity to go to law school. So if we can have that slide on the law school years up on the screen so everybody can see that. You were admitted to harvard. There were nine women in your class. Big improvement over my husbands class, had five women. And you did very, very well. You were very high in the class. Were you the first woman on the harvard law review . No, at the time i was on the law review, there was one other woman. She was a class ahead of mine. So you were number two. And there had been before that i started in 1956. Harvard didnt admit women until 1950, 51 was the first year, and there had been two women before that. So number three. So then marty got a job in new york and you transferred to columbia. And you were number one there. Is that right . I tied for number one. As you can see, the justice is really precise. What we really need on the Supreme Court, do we not . And justice, jane was born and could that go back on the screen please. 4 00 meant something special. What was that . It meant that the babysitter time to leave had come. So she came, she was a new england nanny, very caring. She came at 8 00 in the morning when i went to class, and she left at 4 00. So i worked very hard at law school from 8 00 till when it was time to go home. And then i had a complete change in my life. I took jane to the park. We sang silly songs. We looked at picture books. She had her dinner, and by that time, i was content, more than content to go back to the law books. So each part of it was a respite from the other. From being with an infant, back to the books from the books to before we move on, theres one other thing about those law school years. Unfortunately marty got sick and you had to deal with his classes and his recovery. How did you do that . Yeah, he had a very light form of cancer in days anybody had heard the word chemo therapy. So the only thing there was was massive surgery, plus radiation. And radiation was not very precise in those days. So it was most distressing to have to go through that. Harvard was supposed to be a very competitive place. Our classmates rallied around us, both of us. And took notes in his chlasses. When he came home, we had tutorials in our apartment. Marty got the best grades he ever got in law school was the result. When he showed up with just two weeks of classes. So his classmates were the best. Now, notwithstanding the fact that you were number one at columbia, when it was time to look for a job, you summered at a law firm your second year, every term you applied to, 14 rejected now. There were 3 women in law school when you went through, and theres been progress, but you had a very hard row to hoe. What strikes did you have against you . Well, first, i was a jew and the firms were just beginning to accept jews, the large law firms. Second, i was a woman, and many firms said sorry, we had a lady lawyer once and she was awful. I said, how many men did you hire that didnt work out . But the killer was jane, when she was 4 years old when i graduated from law school. So if a firm were willing to take a chance on a mother on a woman, a mother was just a bit much. But finally, one of your professors came to your aid and approached judge palmeri. In the Southern District of new york. What kind of proposition did he give him . It came with a carrot, and it came with a stick. So the carrot was, give her a chance. If she doesnt work out, theres a young man in her class can going to a downtown firm. He will jump in and pick up the reins. The stick if you dont give her a chance, i will never recommend another columbia student to you. And the judge was fierce and loyal to columbia. He was a columbia undergraduate, Columbia Law School after that. So this professor, jerry gunter, was a renowned professor of constitutional law. He never told me about this until years and years later. And so after that clerkship, you studied in sweden and that had a huge impact on you, and really informed how you went forward in terms of womens rights and your approach to the law. What was that experience about . . Well, i wasnt off to sweden to write a book with the swedish coauthor about their judicial system. Of why sweden . Because the swedes had decided they would have a new code of procedure and it would incorporate what they conceived to be the best of the annual american system. So it was kind of a blend of the civil law way and our common law approach. It had been in effect long enough to report on it. So when i went off to sweden, i discovered something. And in my law school class, women were barely there. In sweden, there were already between 20 and 25 of those law students were women. I observed a proceeding in a court of first instance in stockholm. The presiding judge was eight months pregnant. And there were the counterpart of jurors sitting on the bench with her. There was a woman, a writer named ava muberik, who wrote a column in the stockholm daily paper to this effect. Why should the woman have two jobs and the man only one . What she meant by that was by the 60s it was accepted that a family to do well economically needed two earners. But the woman was expected to have dinner on the table at 7 00, to have his slippers ready for him. To take the children for their medical checkups, buy their new shoes. And so avas tag line was, he should do more than take out the garbage. That stimulated a lot of conversation. As some women said, shes absolutely right. Others said, i can do everything. The queen bee type. I wouldnt think of asking him to help me do what i can very well do. But i thought that she certainly had had the better point. If you have two earners, an ideal family has two parents, two earners. Two caregives. So that was in the early 60s. I decided that was the right way to go. Also that summer simone beauvais book. I put it on the back burner, because times were not right in our country for there to be any big step forward. But then times got right when we look at the next slide. You were a law professor from 1962 to 1980. And you wrote the first textbook on women and discrimination. You also started the womens rights law reporter. You were the first tenured professor at both schools, women second at rutgers, first at columbia. [ laughter ] and one of the things that you noticed at both schools was that your pay was not equal to male professors pay. So how did you handle that . I was hired in 1963. That was the year the equal pay act passed. And my good dean he was a very good and kindly man explained to me that i would have to take a significant cut in salary. I expected that, because rutgers was a state university. But when he told me how much, i was startled. And i asked, well, how much do you pay soandso . It was a man who had been out of school about the same time that i had. And he said, well, ruth, he has a wife and two children to support. And your husband has a goodpaying job with a new york firm. That was considered entirely right and proper. But there are women whose eyes were opening at rutgers. Not only the entire campus. And so without making a big splash, an equal pay act suit was brought. We didnt even try to make it a fancy title 7 suit. Just straight equal pay. And it was settled in 1969. The lowest increase was 6,000, which in those days was quite a bit more than it is today. So the doean learned from that experience. [ laughter ] so heres the lesson. Okay. Here was a young law professor. Saw a wrong that needed to be righted. So sometimes you look at her, you think, you know, shes born with a gavel in her mouth. Or a gavel in her mouth or a gavel but she was young, just like all of you. And saw a need to do something. And she got involved, and she stood up to get it corrected. So thats the lesson. Can we have that slide again . Because it turns out, your daughter also followed in your footsteps, and you were the first mother daughter tenured women at columbia. Yes. And then the other thing that you did, it wasnt just an issue of your pay and the professors pay. You were very concerned about the maids and janitors. Because there was disparity there, as well, right . It was my very first week teaching at Columbia Law School. So now this is what year in 1972. An ardent feminist came to me and said, columbia today gave layoff notices to 25 maids and not a single janitor. What are you going to do about it . [ laughter ] so i went immediately to the Vice President in charge of business, and i told him, columbia is violating title 7. And you should combine the seniority lists. If you must lay off people, then you do it by seniority with women and men together. I was told