Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: She was first appointed to the US Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty by President Jimmy Carter, then to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. In Ginsburg is the
Speaker 1: second out of only four female justices to ever be
Speaker 1: confirmed to the Court. In nine the American Bar Association
Speaker 1: gave her its coveted Thurgood Martial Award for her years
Speaker 1: of advocacy for gender equality, civil rights, and social justice.
Speaker 1: Ginsburg sat down with David Rubinstein, co founder of the
Speaker 1: Carlisle Group and host of the Bloomberg television show Peer
Speaker 1: to Peer Conversations, to discuss her health, that ascent that
Speaker 1: earned her the nickname of the Notorious RBG, and politics
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court. Let me ask you a question
Speaker 1: at the beginning, how does it feel to get up
Speaker 1: in the morning and know that three thirty million Americans
Speaker 1: want to know the state of your health that day?
Speaker 1: How does it feel encouraging? As Kansas survivors know that
Speaker 1: dread disease is a challenge, and it helps to know
Speaker 1: that people are rooting for you. Now, it's not universal.
Speaker 1: When I had pagriat a cancer. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: there was a senator whose name I don't recall, but
Speaker 1: he said I would be dead within six months. That
Speaker 1: senator is now no longer alive. But you can't remember
Speaker 1: his name? No, I don't remember you. Um. But your
Speaker 1: current view is that as long as you're healthy and
Speaker 1: able to do the job, you intend to stay on
Speaker 1: the court. Is that correct? As long as I'm healthy
Speaker 1: and mentally agile. Right? So now, Justice Stevens and later
Speaker 1: and previously Justice uh Oliver winder Holmes, they were tired
Speaker 1: when they were ninety. Would you like to break their
Speaker 1: record or any thought about that? I spent the first
Speaker 1: week in July with Justice Stevens what turned out to
Speaker 1: be the last week of his life. He was remarkable.
Speaker 1: He was nine years old. Since he left the Court
Speaker 1: at age nine, he's written four books. So yes, he's
Speaker 1: my real model. So UM. Today, many people think that
Speaker 1: the Court is very political, that people appointed to the
Speaker 1: Court by Democratic presidents and those appointed by Republican presidents
Speaker 1: tend to follow the political desires of the Republican or
Speaker 1: Democratic party. Do you think that's a fair assessment? And
Speaker 1: why do you think If it's not fair? People have
Speaker 1: that view. People have that view because agreement is an
Speaker 1: interesting disagreement is so the press tends to play up
Speaker 1: our five four or our five three decisions. But if
Speaker 1: we can take just the last term as a typical example,
Speaker 1: we had sixty eight decisions after full briefing and argument
Speaker 1: of those twenty world five four or five three divisions,
Speaker 1: but twenty nine were unanimous. So we agree more often
Speaker 1: than we sharply disagree. And that's something I would like
Speaker 1: the audience to take away that the divisions, yes, they
Speaker 1: are on some very important questions, but our agreement rate
Speaker 1: is always higher than our disagreement rate. So if you
Speaker 1: have a five to four perspective decision, there's one of
Speaker 1: the justices go to the another justice and say, why
Speaker 1: don't you change your mind? Does that work very much?
Speaker 1: Or there's no more upstrating at the court what he says,
Speaker 1: if you vote for me on this one, I'll vote
Speaker 1: for you on that one. That doesn't happen. It never happens.
Speaker 1: But we are constantly trying to persuade each other, and
Speaker 1: most often we do it through our writing. Every time
Speaker 1: I write a descent before I am hopeful that I
Speaker 1: can pick up a vote many people are surprised that
Speaker 1: the civility that exists between justices even though they write
Speaker 1: not such favorable things about each other. So, for example,
Speaker 1: Justice Scalia used to say not such wonderful things about
Speaker 1: your views, and you then still went to the opera
Speaker 1: with him. Was that a little awkward or hard to do?
Speaker 1: And not at all? And Justice Lean and I became
Speaker 1: friends when we were buddies on the d C circuit.
Speaker 1: What did I love most about him? His infectious sense
Speaker 1: of humor. When we were three judges on the Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals, he sometimes whispered something to me. It would
Speaker 1: crack me up. I had all I could do to
Speaker 1: contain hysterical laughter. But we had much in common. True,
Speaker 1: our styles were very different, but both of us cared
Speaker 1: a lot about writing opinions so that at least other
Speaker 1: lawyers and judges will understand what we were saying. Both
Speaker 1: of you were and you still are a great opera lover.
Speaker 1: Where did you get your love of opera to begin with?
Speaker 1: And where did the opera Scalia Ginsburg come from. I'll
Speaker 1: take you the first question first. My love of opera
Speaker 1: began when I was eleven years old. I was in
Speaker 1: grade school, in Brooklyn, New York. My aunt, who was
Speaker 1: middle school junior high school English teacher, took me to
Speaker 1: high school in Brooklyn where an opera was being performed.
Speaker 1: It was La Gia Conda, not a likely choice for
Speaker 1: first opera. There was a man at the time named
Speaker 1: Dean Dixon whose mission in life was to turn children
Speaker 1: onto beautiful music, and he had an all city orchestra.
Speaker 1: He took opera performances around to various schools, condensed them
Speaker 1: into one hour, narrated in between. They were costumes bear staging.
Speaker 1: So of my introduction to opera was thanks to Dean
Speaker 1: Dixon in ninety four. So the Scalia Ginsburg Opera was
Speaker 1: written by a law school student. He was then a
Speaker 1: law school student. He was a music major at Harvard
Speaker 1: and the masses in music from Yale. Dirk Wang is
Speaker 1: his name. He decided it would be useful to know
Speaker 1: something about the law, so he enrolled in his hometown
Speaker 1: law school with University of Maryland, and in his second
Speaker 1: year he took a constitutional law course. He read these
Speaker 1: dueling opinions Scali on one side, Ginsburg on the other,
Speaker 1: and decided this could make a very funny opera. So
Speaker 1: I'll just give you a taste of Scley Higginsburg. It
Speaker 1: opens with Scalia's rage aria. It's an a very Handelian
Speaker 1: in style, and he sings the justices a blind how
Speaker 1: can they possibly spout this? The Constitution says absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: about this. And then, in my color of true a
Speaker 1: soprano voice, I answered, dear Justice, Scalia, you are surging
Speaker 1: for bright line solutions the problems that don't have easy answers.
Speaker 1: But the great thing about our constitution is that, like
Speaker 1: our society, it can evolve, so that that sets up
Speaker 1: the difference between us. The plot of Scalia Agginsburg is
Speaker 1: roughly based on the Magic Flu and Scalia is locked
Speaker 1: up in a dog room. He's being punished for excessive dissenting.
Speaker 1: I then emerged through a glass ceiling and to help
Speaker 1: him pass the tests he needs to pass to get
Speaker 1: out of the dog room. Then a character left over
Speaker 1: from Don Giovanni the commentatory it is astonished. He said,
Speaker 1: he's your enemy, why would you want to help him?
Speaker 1: And I sing, He's not my enemy, he's my dear friend,
Speaker 1: and then we sing a wonderful duet that those we
Speaker 1: are different, we are one different. Enough approach to reading
Speaker 1: legal texts, but one in our reverence for the Constitution
Speaker 1: and for the institution we serve. So most justices of
Speaker 1: the Supreme courter relatively not recognized by the public. I
Speaker 1: would say maybe in recent years that changed a little bit.
Speaker 1: But you are extremely well known around the country now,
Speaker 1: but you weren't when you went on the court. But
Speaker 1: now you've become more or less a rock star um RBG,
Speaker 1: and you have movies about you on the basis of
Speaker 1: sex and other things. So why do you think this
Speaker 1: has occurred? And is this something you don't really enjoy
Speaker 1: that much or something you just think comes with the territory. Now,
Speaker 1: how is the notorious on BG created? It was the
Speaker 1: idea of a second year student at ny U Law
Speaker 1: School who was very disappointed in the Court's decision in
Speaker 1: the Shelby County case. And that was a case in
Speaker 1: which is the Court declared unconstitutional the key provision of
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act of nine, an act that had
Speaker 1: been renewed time and again by overwhelming majorities both sides
Speaker 1: of the aisle, but the Supreme Court struck down the formula.
Speaker 1: The way the Voting Acts Act worked was if you
Speaker 1: were a state or a city or a county that
Speaker 1: kept African Americans from voting. In the NAZA litt old days,
Speaker 1: you could not make any change in voting legislation m
Speaker 1: unless you precleared it with the Department of Justice Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Division, or with a three judge district court and
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia. So that advanced check suppress many
Speaker 1: laws that would have discourage African Americans from voting. The
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said, well, the formula for who was discriminating
Speaker 1: is now out of date. Caylus needs to do it
Speaker 1: over because jurisdictions that were discriminating in may have clean
Speaker 1: hands today. The political problem was, what member of Congress,
Speaker 1: what senator, what representative would stand up and say, my state, oh,
Speaker 1: my city, or my county is still discriminating. So keep
Speaker 1: it under the surveillance that the voting writes that provides
Speaker 1: just wasn't going to happen. The Act itself had a
Speaker 1: bailout provision, so if a state, city, county indeed had
Speaker 1: clean hands for several elections, it could bail out. And
Speaker 1: that device, I thought was was all that was needed.
Speaker 1: But in any event, this student was disturbed about the
Speaker 1: Court's decision. She was angry, and then she said to herself,
Speaker 1: anger is not a useful emotion. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: something positive. And what she did but she took the
Speaker 1: announcement of my descent that I read from the bench
Speaker 1: in Shelby County, and she created this blog Hiding at
Speaker 1: the Notorious Albig, a name she got from a well
Speaker 1: known rapper who was called the Notorious b I G.
Speaker 1: And when I was asked, well, what in the world
Speaker 1: you have in common with the Notorious B I G?
Speaker 1: I said, It's obvious both of us were born and
Speaker 1: bred in Brooklyn, New York. So now you were born
Speaker 1: in Brendon, Brooklyn, you have still a bit of a
Speaker 1: Brooklyn accent, you might admit. Um you were played in
Speaker 1: a movie by Felicity Jones, who was not Jewish, shore
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn. So how do you think she did? I
Speaker 1: thought you is fantastic. When I first met Felicity, I said,
Speaker 1: you speak the Queens English. How are you going to
Speaker 1: sound like a girl born in bred in Brooklyn. But
Speaker 1: she listened to many tapes of my speeches and my
Speaker 1: arguments at the court, and she was wonderful. So in
Speaker 1: recent years you've also got a lot of attention for
Speaker 1: your exercise. Uh. I have been with the same personal
Speaker 1: trainer since when I had my first stance about I
Speaker 1: had chelocal cancer and my dear husband said, after going
Speaker 1: through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, I looked like a survivor of Auschwitz.
Speaker 1: He said, you must do something to burg yourself up.
Speaker 1: Get a personal trainer, And that's when I started in.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get so absorbed in my work I just
Speaker 1: don't want to let go. But when it comes time
Speaker 1: to meet my train, I drop everything, and as tired
Speaker 1: as I may be in the beginning, I always feel
Speaker 1: much better when we finished. Okay, so you met your
Speaker 1: husband Marty. You were married for fifty six years. You
Speaker 1: met him at Cornell? Is that right? Yes? I met
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen and he was eighteen. And what
Speaker 1: is the likelihood of a woman at Cornell meeting somebody
Speaker 1: they marry and that person wants to take care of
Speaker 1: child rearing and also cooking um as well as sharing
Speaker 1: all the other burdens of being married. Is that a
Speaker 1: very common thing in your observation or it was extraordinary
Speaker 1: at any time, particularly in the nine teen fifties. Cornell,
Speaker 1: by the way, had a four to one ratio of
Speaker 1: four men to every woman. It was the place parents
Speaker 1: wanted to send their daughters. So you couldn't find your
Speaker 1: manner Cornel. You were hopeless. So then I met Marty,
Speaker 1: and he was, in fact the first boy I ever
Speaker 1: knew who cared that I had a brain. He was
Speaker 1: always my biggest booster. The cooking that began. I had
Speaker 1: two years between college and law school, and Marty was
Speaker 1: in service. Those two years. We spent in Fort Sill, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: the principal artillery base. I got pregnant during the first year,
Speaker 1: and when I back went back to do Off to
Speaker 1: give my cousin sent Marty a copy of the Escaper
Speaker 1: Cookbook in English translation and said, this will give you
Speaker 1: something to do while your wife is away. So Monty
Speaker 1: had originally been a chemistry major at Cornell, and he
Speaker 1: treated this Escofa a cookbook like the chemistry textbook. He
Speaker 1: started with the basic stocks and worked his way through it.
Speaker 1: He gave up chemistry because it interfered with golf practice.
Speaker 1: Why was a great golfer, And then he switched to government,
Speaker 1: which is was my major. He attributed his skill in
Speaker 1: the kitchen to two women, his mother and his wife,
Speaker 1: his mother. I think was that was an unfair judgment,
Speaker 1: but he was certainly right about me. I had one cookbook.
Speaker 1: It was called the sixty minutes Chelf, and that meant
Speaker 1: from when you enter the apartment until when it's on
Speaker 1: the table, no more than sixty minutes. I had seven
Speaker 1: things that I made, and we got to number seven,
Speaker 1: we went back to number one. Of Martin's mother, ever
Speaker 1: give you any advice when you met her, she happily married.
Speaker 1: She gave me some wonderful advice. We were married in
Speaker 1: her home and she said, just before the ceremony started, dear,
Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you the secret of a happy marriage.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear it. What is it? Every now
Speaker 1: and then she said, it helps to be a little death,
Speaker 1: which is such wonderful advice. I haven't followed it assiduously
Speaker 1: to this very day. If I'm dealing with my colleagues
Speaker 1: as someone a Valontine word is said. I just turned out.
Speaker 1: So as a result of your marriage to Marty, who
Speaker 1: was a distinguished law professor and tax lawyer as well,
Speaker 1: you have two children. Jane, your daughter, It teaches at Columbia.
Speaker 1: She is the martinel. Jack Low professor of Literary and
Speaker 1: Artistic Property Law at Columbia Law School. And as I
Speaker 1: understand that you and she were the only mother daughter
Speaker 1: team to ever actually be elected to the Harvard Law Review.
Speaker 1: Is that true so far? And you have a son
Speaker 1: who's in the music business. James makes exquisite compact this.
Speaker 1: James grew up with a passion from music, but no
Speaker 1: talent as a performer. So when he went to the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago, he was the classical disc jockey on
Speaker 1: the student radio station. Then in the years he was
Speaker 1: dropping in and out of law school, he was also
Speaker 1: making recordings. And one day he told us he liked
Speaker 1: what he was doing much more than his law classes.
Speaker 1: So we said, fine, that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: And today his label is c D and his recordings
Speaker 1: are Jim's. Do you have any grandchildren? I have four grandchildren,
Speaker 1: two step grandchildren, and one great grandchild. And what do
Speaker 1: your your grandchildren call you? RBG or what do they
Speaker 1: call you? I'm a Jewish grandmother, so I'm called Bubby. Okay.
Speaker 1: That was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking with David ruben
Speaker 1: Stein