WEBVTT - What Are Some of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Landmark Cases? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.400 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.760 brain Stuff. Lauren Boglebaum here. On August tenth, a force 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 of nature entered the Supreme Court of the United States, 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.119 and in the twenty seven years following her oath of office, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:23.040 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg definitely earned her nickname the Notorious RBG. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.320 As the first Jewish woman and the second female justice 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.560 ever to serve on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg entered the 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.400 position already a trailblazer, but it was her incomparable work, 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.800 ethic and tireless commitment to gender equality the truly set 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.800 her apart. Ginsburg was one of only nine women in 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.239 her Harvard Law school class in nineteen fifty six. In 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.400 an interview with the documentary series makers, she later said, 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.640 you felt in classes as if all eyes were on you, 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.600 and that if you didn't perform well, you'd be failing 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:59.000 not only for yourself but for all women. Ginsburg also 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.800 attributed part of her success in law school to parenting 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.200 a fourteen month old daughter at the time of her studies. 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.560 She was ranked first in her class at Harvard and Columbia, 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.640 the school she transferred to for her senior year. While 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.520 Ginsburg had already established herself as an uncommonly accomplished and 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.920 driven legal powerhouse by the time President Bill Clinton nominated 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.200 her for the Supreme Court in June of It was 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.880 the decisions she made after that that earned her a 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.440 coveted position. There was nothing short of historic. Ginsburg died 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.480 on September eighteenth, twenty of complications from metastatic cancer of 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:38.240 the pancreas, but her accomplishments live on today. Let's talk 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:42.280 about three of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's most essential Supreme Court cases, 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.680 in which her concurring opinion helped make our country a 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:51.120 little bit more just for its citizens. So, after taking 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.840 some time to settle into her role as an Associate Justice, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.120 Ginsburg began making a name for herself as an advocate 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.680 for gender equality and women's rights. In the case of 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.920 the United States versus Virginia made that clear. At the time, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.120 Virginia Military Institute, or vm I, remained the only school 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.799 that only admitted one gender among Virginia's public institutions of 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.440 higher learning. Alumni of vm i's Citizens Soldier Training were 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.720 considered hot commodities in the job market because the school's 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.320 unique curriculum was designed to prepare students for leadership positions 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:30.160 in both civilian life and military service. Thanks to the 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.480 competitive edge that the institution gave alumni, vm I had 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.240 the largest per student endowment of all public undergraduate institutions 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.280 in the country. The United States sued v m I 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.480 and the state of Virginia, alleging that the school's men 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.840 only admission policy violated the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.520 which prohibits states from denying anyone the equal protection of 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.640 their laws. Virginia argued that the restriction was fair game 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.880 because women wouldn't be able to handle the rigorous nature 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.399 of the program, but vm I also attempted to cover 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.799 its spaces by proposing a parallel program for women called 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.959 the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership or v w I 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.440 l located at the private all women liberal arts school, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.960 Mary Baldwin College. Ginsburg and the majority on the court 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.840 weren't convinced. Writing for the seven to one majority, Ginsburg asserted, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.840 Virginia maintains that methodological differences are justified by the important 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.080 differences between men and women in learning and developmental needs, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.640 but generalizations about the way women are estimates of what 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.560 is appropriate for most women, no longer justified denying opportunity 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.120 to women whose talent and capacity placed them outside the 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.680 average description. Ginsburg also stated that the v w I 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.480 L was not an adequate compromise, since the Court considered 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.760 it quote a pale shadow of vm I in terms 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.920 of the range of curricular choices and faculty stature, funding, prestige, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.800 alumni support, and influence. The school contemplated going private to 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.280 circumvent the ruling, but its board decided in a close vote, 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.400 just eight to seven, to finally let women through the doors, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.800 thus ending the existence of men only public universities in America. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.159 Of course, the Supreme Court hears all kinds of cases, 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.279 not just gender issues. But let's talk about Friends of 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.440 the Earth versus laid Law Environmental Services. In the year 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:31.040 two thousand, when laid Law Environmental Services Incorporated bought a 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.919 wastewater treatment plant, it was granted a National Pollutant Discharge 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.920 Elimination System permit that granted it permission to discharge treated 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:44.400 water and limited pollutants. However, laid Law repeatedly released amounts 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.800 of mercury into South Carolina's North Tiger River that exceeded 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.160 those limits and Eventually, plaintive petitioners Friends of the Earth 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.840 and others filed a citizens suit under the Clean Water Act, 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:01.200 which regulates the discharge of pollutants. After lawsuit began, laid 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.120 Law began to comply with the permit and argued that 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.680 the case was now moot, meaning resolved, because the company 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:12.360 had corrected its wrongdoing. But the Supreme Court wasn't having it. 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.599 In the seven to two opinion delivered by Ginsburg, the 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.960 Court held that a case from a citizen for civil 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.040 penalties does not have to be dismissed as moot just 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.080 because the defendant begins complying with regulations after litigation has 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:30.599 already begun. In part, Ginsburg wrote, a defendant's voluntary cessation 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.960 of allegedly unlawful contact ordinarily does not suffice to moot 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.320 a case. Congress has found that several penalties in the 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.160 Clean Water Act cases do more than promote immediate compliance. 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.640 They also deter future violations. And then, more recently was 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.560 the case of a Burgha Fell versus Hodges In. In 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.440 this case, fourteen same sex couples and two men whose 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.839 same sex partners had passed away filed suits in their 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.480 home states of Michigan, in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. At 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.160 the time, all four of these states defined marriage as 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.839 a union between one man and one woman. The petitioners 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.440 said that this narrow definition violated the Fourteenth Amendment because 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.479 it denied them the right to get married or to 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.080 have the marriages they had received in other states legally 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.479 recognized at home. After the trial courts in each state 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.599 sided with the plaintiffs, the rulings were appealed in the U. S. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.280 Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where the decisions 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.440 were reversed and it was ruled that state bands did not, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.599 in fact violate the couple's Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.479 protection and due process. This split led to the Supreme 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:43.279 Court review. It was a close vote. Ginsburg excited with 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.039 the five to four majority in the ruling, which held 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.279 the same sex marriage bands are indeed violations of the 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.880 Fourteenth Amendments, due process and equal protection clauses. Justice Anthony 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.120 Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, the Constitution promises liberty 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.040 to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.400 specific rights that allow persons within a lawful realm to 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:09.920 define and express their identity This landmark civil rights case 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.960 legalized same sex marriage across the United States, giving hundreds 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.280 of thousands of lgbt Q plus Americans the same rights 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.600 and protections guaranteed to hetero sexual couples by both the 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.680 Due Process claus and the Equal Protection Clause of the 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:28.680 Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Thanks to Justice 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.880 Ginsburg for her tireless work in promoting fairness and equality. 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:40.200 May her memory be a blessing. Today's episode was written 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.360 by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by Tyler Klang. For more 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.640 on this lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.480 works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio. 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:50.800 Or more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.440 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:54.160 favorite shows.