“I surely would not
be in this room today without the determined
efforts of men and women who kept dreams alive,
dreams of equal citizenship.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg
was the Supreme Court’s feminist icon. Small, soft-spoken,
yet fiercely determined, she was an unstoppable force
who transformed the law and defied social conventions. “To her fans she’s known
as Notorious R.B.G.” Singing: “Supreme Court’s
a boys club. She holds it down,
no cares given. Who else got six movies
about ’em and still livin’?” Ginsburg was hailed as a
crusader for women’s rights. Chanting: “D-I-S-S-E-N-T.
We’re Notorious R.B.G.!” But her legal legacy
was even more sweeping. “The project she brought
to the Supreme Court first as the leading women’s
rights lawyer of her day, and then as a justice for all
those years, I actually think has been kind
of misunderstood. She had a really
radical project to erase the functional
difference between men and women in society. She wanted to make
it clear that there should be no such thing as
women’s work and men’s work.” “Mr. Chief Justice, and
may it please the court.” In fact, in many of
the landmark cases Ginsburg argued before
the Supreme Court as a young lawyer
for the A.C.L.U., her clients were often men. One key case involved a man
from New Jersey, whose wife died during childbirth. “Stephen Wiesenfeld’s case
concerns the entitlement —” He wanted to work less and
stay home with his son, but found out only
widows, not widowers, were eligible for
Social Security payments. “Ruth Ginsburg went
to court on his behalf and said that law, that
distinction between mothers and fathers incorporates
a stereotyped assumption of what women do and what
men do in the family, and is unconstitutional.” “Laws of this quality help to
keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.” “She won. And that was the kind of
case that she brought. And it was really
very significant in the march toward the court
establishing a jurisprudence of sex equality.” What inspired Ginsburg to
take on such a bold project, and there was little
sign of anything radical in the beginning. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg
grew up in Brooklyn in a lower middle-class family. When she was in high school,
she was a twirler. You know, a cheerleader
with a baton. She was known as Kiki Bader. And she played a very
traditional female role in her high school.” Ginsburg’s mother, who’d
been a star student until she was forced to drop
out of school to put her brother through
college, had big ambitions for her daughter. But the day before Ruth’s
high school graduation, her mother died of cancer. It was that shattering loss,
Ginsburg said many years later, that instilled
in her the determination to live a life her mother could
have only dreamed about. “I pray that I may be all that
she would have been had she lived in an age when women
could aspire and achieve, and daughters are
cherished as much as sons.” The other pivotal turn
in Ginsburg’s path came during college. She earned a
scholarship to Cornell, where she met a
jovial sophomore who became the love of her life. “He was the first
boy I ever knew who cared that I had a brain.” Theirs was not a
typical 1950s marriage, but an equal partnership. “Her husband, Marty, was a
fabulous cook, and she was
a terrible cook. And Marty did all the cooking.” “In the historic
Harvard Yard, you will see your classmates,
men from every section of the country.” A year after Marty enrolled
at Harvard Law School, Ruth followed, one
of only nine women in a class of more than 550,
with a new baby girl in tow. “During their time
in law school, Marty became very sick. He had cancer. And she basically took
all the notes for him and made it possible for
him to graduate on time, while in fact,
raising their baby and being a law
student herself. Marty recovered and
their relationship was very central to her work
and her understanding of how it was possible to
organize society.” This understanding turned into
a mission after law school, when Ginsburg took on
a legal study in Sweden where feminism
was on the rise. “Sweden, where everything
and everyone works.” Swedish women weren’t choosing
between careers and family, and they inspired
the young lawyer. When Ginsburg
returned to the U.S., she launched what would
become her radical project. As a law professor and
leader of the A.C.L.U. Women’s Rights Project,
she took on groundbreaking cases to build constitutional
protections against gender discrimination. There was a lot of speculation
about why a lawyer hailed as a Thurgood Marshall
of women’s rights was representing so many men. “People looking back
on that had thought, well, she was kind of trying
to sweet talk the court. She was trying to give the
court cases and plaintiffs that wouldn’t get those
nine old guys very upset and kind of, you know,
sneak in a doctrine of sex discrimination. And actually,
that’s not accurate. She happened to have
male clients because they were making claims
that were traditionally, were women’s claims. And she wanted
to just shake up the preconceived
notions when it came to raising families
and providing for them and working in the economy. Everybody should be
on equal footing.” The legal crusade quickly
unleashed profound changes in the law and daily life,
but Ginsburg’s own rise to the federal bench
took decades, and a lot of lobbying by
her husband, a prominent tax attorney, with key old
boys club connections. After getting passed
over three times, President Carter
nominated Ginsburg to be a federal judge in 1980. “The framers had
in mind as the way to protect individual
rights and liberty.” People were surprised that
the A.C.L.U. activist turned out to be a very moderate judge,
a centrist who often sided with conservatives,
praised judicial restraint, and slammed Roe v. Wade for
going too far, too fast. “I am proud to nominate
for associate justice of the Supreme Court,
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Some feminist leaders
were concerned when President Clinton tapped
Ginsburg for the High Court. “She will be able to be a
force for consensus building on the Supreme Court.” But Justice Ginsburg
quickly pleased supporters and skeptics alike with her
opinions in landmark cases, like the
Virginia Military Academy. “May it please the court. V.M.I., the
Virginia Military Institute, was established by the
Commonwealth of Virginia in 1839.” “V.M.I. was age-old
military academy run by the state of Virginia,
was men only.” “Stand! Attention!” “It emphasizes competition. It emphasizes
standing up to stress. It emphasizes the development
of strong character in the face of adversity.” "The question was, did it
violate the Constitution to bar women from
this school that was entre into the
political establishment of the state of Virginia.” Justice Ginsburg believed
that omitting women was a constitutional violation. And she ultimately convinced
all but one justice, Scalia, to take her position. “The opinion of the court
in two cases, the United States against Virginia,
will be announced by Justice Ginsburg.” “State actors may not
close entrance gates based on fixed
notions concerning the roles and abilities
of males and females.” “Women will now be walking
on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute.” “I think she would say
it was the case she was happiest about in
her tenure on the court.” “V.M.I. superintendent
promises that female cadets will be treated the
same as male cadets.” “She used an analysis
that increased the level of scrutiny
that courts in the future have to give to claims
of sex discrimination. I think she found that an
extremely satisfying outcome.” Ginsburg’s opinions
helped solidify the constitutional protections
she’d fought so hard to establish decades earlier. And her grit helped
keep her on the bench through colon cancer,
pancreatic cancer and the death of
her beloved partner. “Justice Ginsburg, even though
her husband died yesterday after a battle with cancer,
was on the bench.” Ginsburg battled
on through it all, unrelentingly tough, but
still a consensus builder. She famously forged friendships
with right-leaning justices, including Justice Scalia. “You know, what’s not to like? Except her views of
the law, of course.” [laughter] Their shared love
for opera actually inspired a composer to
write a new one, about them. Singing: “We are
different, we are one.” “Do you like how you were
portrayed in the opera?” “Oh, yes. Especially in the scene where
I rescue Justice Scalia, who is locked in a dark room
for excessive dissenting.” [laughter] But in her later years, as
the court moved to the right, Ginsburg grew bolder
in her dissents. “She was not in a
position to control the outcome of events. But she was in a
position to stake her claim for what the
outcome should have been. And she was very strategic
and very powerful in using that opportunity.” The opportunity that
made her into a rock star came in 2013, when the
court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. “Ginsburg wrote a lengthy,
scathing dissent.” “She was pretty candid
in her displeasure with the court’s decision.” “Hubris, pride, is a fit
word for today’s demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” Ginsburg’s fiery dissent
inspired law students to lay her words to a beat and
turn the 80-year-old justice into the Notorious R.B.G. Singing: “Now I’m
in the limelight, because I decide right,
court has moved right, but my dissents get cites.” Suddenly, Ginsburg went viral. Children’s books
to bumper stickers. Halloween costumes to
a Hollywood biopic. “What did you say
your name was?” “Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Even her fitness
trainer was a sensation. “Justice is blind,
but you know man meat when you see it.” When asked about retirement
plans, Ginsburg balked. “There was a senator who
announced with great glee that I was going to be
dead within six months. That senator, whose
name I’ve forgotten, is now himself dead.” [laughter] Ginsburg’s stardom only
grew after she criticized then-candidate Donald Trump
during the 2016 presidential race. “Ginsburg said,
‘I can’t imagine what the country would be
with Donald Trump as our president.’” Ginsburg apologized
for her remarks, but instead of retreating,
she was emboldened. “As a great man once
said, that the true symbol of the United States
is not the bald eagle, it is the pendulum. And when the pendulum swings
too far in one direction, it will go back.” Notorious R.G.B. became a badge
of the Trump resistance, and keeping her on the bench
became part of the cause. “Health scare for Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” “News tonight about
the health scare for Supreme Court Justice —” “Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
she was hospitalized.” “And those ribs you busted?” “Almost repaired.” After all the spills,
surgeries and bouts with cancer, what was
it that kept her going? Ginsburg said it was her job
on the bench, which she still found exhilarating. But perhaps most of all,
it was her radical project, which Ginsburg said was
still far from complete. “People ask me,
‘When will you be satisfied with the number
of women on the court?’ When they are nine.”
