technical problem 100th anniy of the 19th amendment. So when she the 9th amendment became a part of the constitution. So when she was 15 and 16, she took part in the parades in new york york. You asked what she would have done . Yes. My mother was one of the brightest people i knew. She might have been a University Professor or University President , or a legal luminary but those were so far beyond her reach. She grew up in a large family. Six of her siblings survived into adulthood. She graduated high school at age 15. Only one person in that large family went to university. And that was the eldest son. My mother went to work at age 15 to help support the family because they would not have any income from the eldest son. But if any child would have a university education, it would not be the eldest daughter, it would be the eldest son. Well, as we talk further, i will ask you whether you think weve actually achieved that situation where daughters are cherished as much as sons. But let me turn to the 19thamendment. Justice harwin once wrote that the 9th amendment merely gives the vote to women. And i know that your dissent in the Voting Rights case Shelby County suggested you might have a more robust view of what Something Like the 19thamendment means in terms of vote rights. So in your view what is the legacy of the 19th amendment . It was the First Step Towards equal citizenship stature for women. Some of the suffragists had high hopes for the 19th amendment. Strictly it says the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. But if women were to have equality in the political domain, that is if they were part of the political constituency and could vote, then how could you abide subordination of women in the civil domain. For example, if a woman wanted a loan, she had to get her husbands permission. Or he had to sign for it. The courts interpreted the 19thamendment strictly. So it gave the women the right to vote, just that. One of the controversies was about women serving on juries. And in the not so good old days women were not called for jury duty. And running for office. In some ways the 19th amendment was a miracle because everyone who voted for it in congress and in the states, it was all men. So suffragists had to sell votes for women to an all male audience and that was no easy task. But they had hoped that it would be more. I mentioned jury duty. And running for office. The National Womens party was the more radical wing of the Suffragist Movement and their idea if the 19th amendment is going to be interpreted restrictively, we need something else. So they introduced the equal rights amendment in 1923 and almost every year thereafter until at last congress let it out. But their idea was the 19thamendment, but women should have equality in all fields of human endeavor so we made an equal rights amendment and at least in my view we still do. Going back in time i think in 1973 you actually wrote in the 88 journal that we needed an equal rights amendment and one of the reasons you gave was it would be great for your granddaughters to pick up the constitution and see this equality in the constitution. I have been asked many times, well havent you through the vehicle of the 14th amendment equal protection clause got into the place, about the same place where you would be with the era, and my answer is, not quite although there is a startling difference if you pick up law books, state or federal, what is riddled with gender based differentials, almost explicit gender based differentials are now gone. Every constitution in the world written since the year 1950, even afghanistan, has the equivalent of an equal rights amendment, and we dont. My notion was, i would like to show my grand daughters that the equal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental human right that should be right up there with free speech, freedom of religion, ban on discrimination based on race or national origin. So i think that the constitution says so we the people to perform a more perfect union, the union will be more perfect when that simple statement that men and women are people of equal statures is a fundamental instrument of government. So even if the argument is that it is largely symbolic, it is very important symbol. Why should the rest of the world have the equivalent of an equality guarantee and the United States does not . As you also point out, there is a distinction between equal protection clause and then having an actual amendment that lays it out. Years ago i was involved in some litigation involving extension of a deadline in the equal rights amendment and we recently had virginia passing equal rights amendment, so leaving aside whether any deadlines could be extended, what is your prognosis on when we will get an equal rights amendment on the federal level . I would like to see a new beginning, i would like to start over. There is too much controversy about latecomers, Virginia Long after the deadline passed, plus a number of states have withdrawn their ratification, so if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, we have changed our minds . You had mentioned, women on juries and so i take some pride in being born in wyoming which was the first territory and the first state to grant women the right to vote. Im told and you can tell me if this is true, that the reason wyoming did that is that they wanted women to come out there and marry the man and settle. Well that is one reason. laughs we like to say how the west was won, but in fact the west was part of the east coast state by state territory by territory in adopting the right to vote, but there were several reasons, not all of them good, one was they would like to have women come out and marry, but in fact, women were actually populated in the territory quite significantly. One of the other reasons is at least one of the Political Parties was losing, and they thought maybe their only hope was to get more voters, and the only way to get more voters was to give women the right to vote. So sometimes good things come out of bad motives i suppose might be one way to say it. Im sure you know that another state early on to give women the right to vote was utah. Yes. While there is a great story actually about the 19th amendment in tennessee being the last to give the right to women and there was a particular legislator who was inclined to vote against it, but his mother that morning put a little note in his pocket and basically said do the right thing. Be a good boy. So i think it pays to listen to your mother because he ultimately voted and then of course that pushed the amendment over the line and we got the 19th amendment. So, its interesting when you look at the language of the 19th amendment, of course it doesnt say anything about women at all, it talks about the right of citizens of the United States should not be denied or abridged on account of sex. But it was modeled after the 15th amendment. Exactly, so it talked about citizens, not about women, and this catchphrase on account of sex, also has some similarity on the basis of sex, but language we see in the discrimination statute. So the public is quite familiar with this phrase on the basis of sex because the movie title on the basis of sex of which you are the star although you are not in it directly, and it was based on the First Federal court case you had, morris versus the irs. So my question is going back to the notorious rbg moniker, you have become quite famous in addition to your work on the court, you have taken on kind of a movie star and fame that is probably somewhat unusual for a justice. How does one, i wouldnt say reconcile, but how do you deal with all of this . It is amazing. laughs and i am seem to be 87 years old, and Everyone Wants to take a picture with me. If you are willing i think all of them would like to come down for a photo as well. The notorious rbg was created by a law student, a second year law student, it was the year the Supreme Court decided the Shelby County case, which notified the key provision in the Voting Rights act of 1965. The law was passed in 1965, it was renewed periodically with large majorities on both sides of the aisle, and recently being renewed it was attacked on the ground that the formula, the way the Voting Rights act worked was, if you had a record of keeping African Americans from voting, you could not pass any new election law without preclearing it either with the Civil Rights Division of the department of justice or a three judge Federal District course in d. C. That provided a check on laws that were aimed at suppressing minority voters, you couldnt pass the law unless you had it precleared. The law was attacked as obsolete. The argument was that some states that might have discriminated in 1965 are no longer denying African Americans the right to vote. There was a built in check in the statute to take care of that kind of situation. It was a bear out provision. It said that if you had a clean record for x number of years you can apply to be released from preclearance. But the majority of minds thought the formula was obsolete, it needed to be done over. One of the points that i made in my dissent was, what member of our congress is going to stand up and say my state or my city or my county is still keeping African Americans from voting so please keep us out of the preclearance system. That was not going to happen. If you think about, who knows a little more about the political world, the congress or the court, the Congress Said we want the Voting Rights act, it is working well, and the court said, you cannot have it. If you talk about judicial activism, here is a law that Congress Overwhelmingly passed and the court nullified it. This second year student was angry about the decision, he thought here is a piece of legislation that is really working and the Supreme Court stopped it. And then she thought some more, and decided that anger is a useless emotion, it just gets riled up but it does not move you forward. So she wanted to do something positive, and she took, not my full dissenting opinion but the announcement of my dissent that i read from the bench in the Shelby County case and put it on some kind of blog or tumblr. Not quite the same thing, but, it took off into the world blue yonder from there because i think young people wanted something positive, something inspirational, and then they went on from whatever it was, what is the difference, by the way . They are both communication tools. Anyway, the second year student paired with a journalist and they wrote a book called the notorious rbg, which is now an exhibition that is traveling around the country. It was most recently in philadelphia, and currently it is in chicago, it will be some months from now in new york. So now there is a notorious rbg for adult readers and a notorious rbg for young readers, and many childrens books, coloring books. While it is probably true that Many Americans would have trouble naming a Supreme Court justice except they would have no trouble now because of all of this publicity, and you have clearly become an icon i think for children, women, public, how has it changed your life . I think it has changed my judicial assistance life, because i get flooded with invitations. I could be getting an award every day of the week. Well we dont have an award for you tonight, but we are just happy to have you here. I should Say Something that you didnt mention, before on the basis of sex which the script writer for that by the way was my nephew, and when we asked him, why did you choose morris case because it was not reviewed by the Supreme Court and his answer was because he wanted the film to be as much the story of a marriage as the story of the development of a legal strategy. I think he succeeded in that. But before on the basis of sex there was a documentary called rbg done by betsy west and judy cone, years before, those two women had done a special for pbs about the Womens Movement, the revived Womens Movement starting in the late sixties and continuing through the seventies. They interviewed all kinds of people for it, people on both sides. So there was an interview with foolish lawfully, who single handedly brought down the equal rights amendment, and there was corys stylin, many people and i was one of the people interviewed for makers, so the people who created that documentary decided they would like to do one. It focused on the American Civil Liberties union litigation efforts in the 19 seventies to invigorates the equal protection clause so that it worked for women and men. I just want to let you know that i took my husband last night to see both of these movies actually, but you mentioned on Shelby County the descent and one of the outflows of the notorious rbg has been a whole series of paraphernalia and related items that one can by including a little pin called the descent collar. Would you share with us youre thinking about the descent collar. The button are the descent collar itself. The descent collar itself. I do have a dissent color, years ago, Glamour Magazine gave me a Lifetime Achievement award and it was a bag filled with goodies and one of them was that dissent collar, i thought it looked just right for dissent. laughs nowadays i get a call or at least once a week, i get two things, i get collars and i get scrunchies. I hope you are not replacing the dissent collar in any way, it will stay in a position in your chambers and around your neck. My majority opinion collar has changed, there is some variety in that. And some variety in the scrunchies as well. Well going back to the suffragists, one of the things they did to raise money was to sell cookbooks, and there was some sort of a double entendre to the whole thing because they wanted to show that women could have a role in the kitchen and outside the kitchen and i know that in your family that marty had a particularly prominent role in the kitchen as the chef, and maybe your role was a little less illustrious, but you did raise two amazing children and you do hear this buzzword now, work life balance, which i do not think had come into the lexicon when you are raising your children. Will you share how you navigated your home and professional life as you moved through your various stages . Yes. I will start at the end, marty was a superb cook, and when we were married we spent the first two years and he was in military service, in oklahoma and there, marty had been originally chemistry major until golf practice interfered with chemistry labs so than he switched to government which was my subject. My cousin sent him as a joke an english translation of the great chef cookbook. Marty started with a basic stuff and he worked his way, i still have the book, food stains all over it, but we had an arrangement where i was the every day cook marty was the weekend and company cook. I was never allowed to cook for company. I had seven things that i made, they all came out of a book called the 60 minute chef, 60 minutes from the time you enter your home until the dinner is on the table, that was it. It was a rotation. It got to seven and went back to one. laughs and jane, my daughter when she is in her high school years, she becomes increasingly aware of the enormous difference between daddies cooking and mommies cooking, and she decides that not only should daddy be the weekend and company cook but he should be that every day cook. This was to me like tom soy are getting the fence painted. I havent cooked a meal, we have been living in washington d. C. Since 1980, i have not cooked a meal in all of those years. When marty died, my daughter jane felt responsibility for having fazed me out of the kitchen so she comes once a month, cooks up a storm, makes individual dinners for me which we put in the freezer, and then we do something nice in the evening, so, when marty died, the wife of Justice Alito decided that the tribute that would be just right for him was a cookbook, and it is called supreme chef, that is marty, each section is introduced by the spouse of another justice in seniority order, so it starts with maureen scalia, and it is one of the best selling books in the Supreme Court gift shop. I think that is quite an achievement to say you havent cooked a meal for decades. Something else, the supreme spouses meet quarterly for lunch, and they rotate catering responsibilities. Marty was always the number one pick to be cook. For good reason. The aba commission on the 19th amendment is ticking after the suffragetes and we are going to publish a digital cookbook to celebrate the 19th amendment, so i wonder what recipe would marty contribute to that and which one of your rotating seven would you pick out . You wouldnt want laughs any of those eight. I thought my one fish, two fish, redfish, blue fish was pretty good but my children dont agree. Martys lime souffle was sublime and then there was the ultimate unkosher dish, it is pork braised in milk. I think his crowning achievement was a french baguette. He worked for a year to get that recipe right, and he had the highest praise he could get was the french ambassador to the United States said that martys baguettes were the best outside of france. Well that is a tribute, i think the suffragettes would be quite proud to say they have achieved some equality because of martis contributions to the culinary wor