Far as their hard work could take them. And not be held back by artificial barriers. Also here is a preview of charlies interview that took place earlier today, that interview will air tomorrow. So i want to talk about you and me first with the american secretary of state rex tillerson. What did you talk about . What was the tone and substance of that conversation. It was a laughter set the bar to be very low, just not so that, we certainly achieved that. We didnt throw shoes at each other. Everybody in the group, because people need to be reminded that this was not about this was a multilateral agreement and the meeting took place in the room of the Security Council. Where we started the process four years ago as was just mentioned with secretary kerry, and it was a good reminder that this was not a treaty, its not a Bilateral Agreement but a multilateral agreement which means ratification by u. S. Senate and Security Council reslation and we were sitting in the informal consultation room of the Security Council where these resolutions are worked out usually. This one was not worked out in that womb. It was worked out during two years of tedious negotiations in vienna, and prior to that ten years of basically posturing. Im sorry to see we are going back to the posturing of prenegotiation posturing. Everybody in the room reminded secretary tillerson that this was a good deal. A good deal, one side of the deal would be disaster for the other side. It cannot be a zero sum deal. It has to be a positive sum gleel deal. And we decided to define the objective in the beginning of the process in a meaning of resolution. Ruth Ruth Bader Ginsburg fore hour next. Rose funding for charlie rose is provided by the following bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose welcome to the 92nd street y. There are many things well try to fill in about her buy graph kal data, you know and we begin with the fact that she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by president clinton, and has served there. But she came to the court with a distinguished career as a professor, as an Appeals Court judge, and as a litigator. She was a great, great trial lawyer. And she has distinguished herself. Appellate lawyer. Rose not trial, you are a teacher also, correcting me so early. laughter so lets just begin by talking about, i know you cant talk about specifics of cases but you have said that this session of the court which begins on the first monday in october, october 2nd is going to be a momentous year. Yes. laughter . Rose why is that. This is not a yes and no. Why . What is coming before the court in a country that has learned to respect the court so much . Probably more so than the other two branches of government, i might say. applause thats because we know how to disagree with our being disagreeable. Rose thats the quality of the court and not the quality of the country right now. So what is on our calender. Rose you got redistricting, are you going to tackle redistricting. It is drawing a map so people think why bother voting, this is a security republican district or this is a secure democratic district, so my vote doesnt count. Thats not a good thing for democracy. Rose what else is coming up this year . I think the case that has gotten the most attention is the bakers case. Rose tell them about that. This is about. Rose about a wedding. A baker in colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. His view was i will sell them my ordinary cakes, i will sell them my cookies, but i will not create a wedding cake for them because that involves expression. Im kind of an artist. And when i make a cake for a wedding, i am creating something. And this is against my religious beliefs. So its a clash between antidiscrimination on the one hand, the Colorado Commission on human rights, say sorry, if you want to be in business and sell things to people, you cant distinguish among customers. And then his side is religious freedom claim. Rose when did you fall in love with the law . When did i . Rose yeah. Youve lived your life in the law. You were married to a lawyer. When i married my dear marty, neither of us were lawyers. I say it was in the early 50s when i was a student at cornell. My first idea was to be a High School History teacher. And that was a job where women were welcomed. But then in the 50s, were bad times for the United States. There was a huge scare in the country. Rose mccarth are carthiism was running. Yes. I worked for a teacher of constitutional law who pointed out to me that the senate investigating committee, the house on American Activities Committee were hauling people before the committee and quizzing them about their associations at the height of the depression in the 30see. There were lawyers standing up for these people and explaining to the members of the congressional committees, our constitution has a First Amendment that says people have the right to think, speak and write as they believe. And not as big brother or government tells them is the right way to think, speak and write. And also we have a fifth amendment that protects us against selfincrimination. So i got the idea that being a lawyer is a pretty nifty thing. Rose turned out well for you. And you went to law school, went to harvard. Yes, my degree is from columbia. Rose i know, were going to get to that story. You got ahead of me. You went to Harvard Law School and then you moved back to new york to columbia and finished at columbia. Took courses at columbia. Later you wanted to get your degree from harvard. And they wanted to give you, later, even later, the law school because the dean now in fact one of your fellow justices, justice kagan. And you turned it down. You didnt want an Honorary Degree from the law school. This is the spirit this person has. You wanted an Honorary Degree from the university itself. Yeah. I had a very sage counselor in that request. That was my husband. When elana kagan became between of the Harvard Law School, she called and said ruth, we would love to you have a Harvard Law School degree and marty said hold out for an Honorary Degree from the university. Which i got in the year 2011, sadly the year after he died. Rose it was a fabulous marriage. Yes. laughter well, marty. Rose because he did the cooking. In the beginning, he was the company and the weekend cook. I was never permitted to cook for company. And then my daughter jane who is in the audience tonight, when she was in high school, figured out that daddys cooking was ever so much better than mommies. So why should daddy be just the weekend and company cook. So i was phased out of the kitchen and since 1980, have i not made a meal. Not one. applause . Rose thats 37 years. So what happened after marty died in 2010. Jane who was responsible for phasing me out of the kitchen, she comes periodically to d. C. , spends all day cooking, puts individual dinner in my freezer. laughter . Rose you dont like for me to say this and you have said to me before, but you are considered with respect to womens rights, the thur good marshal of fem nism. applause anybody who knows about the history of the legal battles believes that. But you have been very reticent of that comparison. Yes, its not an apt comparison because whatever i did, oh, i should say we copied thur good marshalls technique and that is making Building Blocks and not asking the court to take a giant step, so Thurgood Marshall would say to court, separate but equal is not before the house today. These facilities are vastly unequal. And won his cases that way, until he was able to say, now we can see that enforced separation of the races can never be equal. So we took that measured approach, building stepbystep. We copied that from him. But the enormous difference is when Thurgood Marshall came to a southern town to defend someone, he didnt know if he would be alive at the end of the day. Rose and you didnt face that. Yes. Rose but you have called yourself, and others have, a ferocious feminist litigator. A flaming. Rose a flaming. And so when they say notorious rbg, do you like that . My clerks ask me do you know where that comes from. I said yes, i have heard of the notorious big. Rose right. And it seems all together natural because we have one very important thing in common. Notorious big and me. Rose which is . We were both born and bread in brooklyn, new york. applause . Rose so you know something about the notorious big. Yes, he died young. Rose yeah, he did. He did. But youve also got a new book coming out or your trainer has a book, which is it, the trainer or you. Brian rob son called the rbg workout. Rose and what is your workout habit. What is my workout habit . Rose yeah, is it every day, every other day. Twice a week. Rose what do you do . It started in 1999. It was the year of my bout with Colorectal Cancer so i had massive surgery. And nine months of chem therapy. Six weeks of daily radiation and when i finished that trying time, my husband said ruth you look like a survivor of auschwitz auschwitz, youve got to do something to build you up. So i asked around town and the Federal District court judge gladys kesler said i have a great trainer, he has trained a lot of the District Court judges. You will like him. And that was bryant. Rose bryant johnson. He has been with me since 1999. We meet twice a week from 78 so i can watch the news ddz hour fushour. And he has brought me up from relatively easy beginning to the pushups and the planks. Rose you do planks. Yes. Front and side. Rose really. Rose adam liptack said to me that you are probably the most outspoken member of the court. Do you enjoy that too . I mean you were out there, sometimes pulling back where you feel like you may have gone too far. Well, i would dispute adam liptacks label. I would say this. My good friend antonin scalia. Rose was more outspoken. Yes. Rose tell us about the friendship. You both loved opera. Yes. Rose you had a different you had a different look in terms of how do you interpret the constitution, yes . Yes. Rose but the friendship transcended any differences. And you have told me before what a loss it was for you personally. Yes. There will be a book of his, of just is scalias speeches out in october. It was put together by two of his sons and a former law clerk. I wrote the sproa duction to the book well, i loved him particularly because he was a very funny fellow. And in the days when we were buddies on the d. C. Circuit where the bunch was only three judges, he could Say Something, whisper something to me and it would be so outrageous, all i could do to avoid bursting out laughing, i had to pinch myself. And then on the court when we were separated by several seats he would pass notes to me. Rose what do you think of your new colleague Justice Gorsuch . Justice gorsuch is very affable, very bright. I first encountered him, although i cant say i recall him in particular but he was a law clerk on the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit. Rose right. I do remember him from the next year when i succeeded buy ron white and byron engaged neil. He was from colorado and neil from colorado to be his law clerk. But byron white was no longer sitting on the court. He shared neil with justice kennedy. So that was my first meeting with my now colleague. We were together on an exchange with injurists from england. And we did a paper together for that conference. Rose lets look back at the career, not only in terms of the justices that you have known but when you look back, what is the most important majority opinion you have written for you . Oh, thats like asking me. Rose which child you like best. Four grand children and two step grand children, is my favorite. Rose you feel strongly that some of have been enormously significant. Yes. Well, i would say majority opinions, the Virginia MilitaryInstitute Case last winter i went to vmi to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that decision. And it was a joy to see how well it has worked out they are very proud of their women cadets, these are women who want to be engineers, nuclear scientists, they have women on the faculty now. On their board of directors and the general with the agreement of his faculty told me its a much better place. Rose since you have been a fighter in the trenches for womens rights, measure how far we have come and now how far we have to go how far we have come, well, we are just about finished with over gender barriers in the law. In the decade. Rose thats part of your own accomplishment. Yes. Well, that was the easy job, to get rid of the, this is the way women are, this is the way men are. The whole separate spheres mentality that ran all through the law. That the man was the bread winner who counted, if the woman worked she was just a pin money earner. Her responsibility was the home and children. The rolls were arranged that way. And thats what we wanted to break down. The idea was people should be free to be you and me. To develop their own talents. As far as their hard work could take them. And not be held back by ard figure barriers. Think how it was in the 60s. There were no women in policing, there were no women firefighters. States had rules that women couldnt work at night. Which meant if you were, lets say you were a server at a banquet, well, you get the best tips at night, not in the afternoon. So there were, there were so many distinctioning that made no sense with the way people lived today. So i would say that in the beginning of the 70s it was still closed door era. These doors are closed to women. And now the doors are open, if theyre shut they are violating title 7, our principle, antidiscrimination in employment law. What remains is the, whats often called unconscious bias. Rose right. And racism called implicit racism. Yes. Rose and what is that . Just simply a kind of sexism that exists within, without people knowing it . That they exercise a kind of unconscious discrimination . Its not deliberate. There was a title seven case that i think was a very good illustration. It was the case of the late 70s. It was about promoting women. It was against at t and it was about promoting women to middle management jobs. So the women did very well, at least as well as the men up until the last test which was called a total person test. And what was the total person test . It was an interviewer sitting with a candidate for promotion, and having a conversation like were having a conversation. If the interviewer faced someone who looked like him, there was a certain comfort level. He felt at ease but if hes confronting someone of a different gender, of a different race hes a little uneasy. He doesnt quite know who this person is. He feels strange, uncomfortable. So at that last step, the total person test, the women dropped out disproportionately. And it wasnt because the interviewer deliberately engaged in discrimination. Rose simply felt uncomfortable. Yes. And i think the best illustration of that unconscious bias is what happened to symphony orchestras across america. When i was growing up i never saw a woman in the orchestra except perhaps the harp player. Howard tawbman who was the critic for the new york times, very distinguished music critic swor that he could tell the difference between a woman and a man playing the violin, playing the piano. So some people decided lets put him to the test. Lets blindfold him. Rose yes. Well, he flunked the blindfold test. He was all mixed up. He called that is definitely a man, no, its a woman. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea why dont we drop a curtain at the auditions so the people who are doing the judging wont see the person who is auditioning. And with that simple device, the dropped curtain, women began to show up in numbers. No longer one at a time curiosity. Now we cant duplicate that dropped curtain. Rose did you once Say Something like the answer to some question was nine women on the Supreme Court . I was asked well now you have three, when will there be enough. Rose and you said nine. applause so what do we need . I mean is it cultural now . So what do we need to break down the remaining sub conscience or unconscious barriers. For one thing, the more women there are, and this isnt making places, the more women will enter as those fields. Rose do you believe that your life will primarily when they come to write about you, and they are already writing about you but you are still on the court and you still face, as you have said, momentous questions, that you will be one of the nine justices that speak to, but that in the end no matter what you do on the court t is your lifelong battle for femnism for womens rights that has di fined your life and will put you, and thats what we will most appreciate about your life . Not a decision you have contributed to, but a lifelong commitment to womens equality . I hope so. But think of the tremendous fortune i had because i was alive and a lawyer in the 70s, when it became possible for change to occur. Up until 1970 it was hopeless. In the turning point gender discrimination case, the aclu knew it would be the turning point case, we put on the brief the names of two women, dorothy and pauly mary because these were the women who were saying the same things that we said at a time when society was not prepared to listen. One of dorothys missions was to put women on juries in every state in the country. Young people today would be astonished. Rose that there were no women jurors. That women were not serving on juries. And pauly murray was a woman way ahead of her time. Both with respect to er discrimination. Rose when do you think we will have a women as president. When do i think . Rose uhhuh. Well, we came pretty close. Rose do you think sexism played a role