0:01

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an Associate

0:03

Justice of the Supreme Court. She

0:05

was first appointed to the US Court of Appeals

0:08

in nineteen eighty by President Jimmy

0:10

Carter, then to the Supreme Court by

0:12

President Bill Clinton. In Ginsburg

0:16

is the second out of only four female

0:19

justices to ever be confirmed to the

0:21

Court. In nine

0:23

the American Bar Association gave

0:25

her its coveted Thurgood Martial Award

0:28

for her years of advocacy for gender

0:30

equality, civil rights, and social

0:32

justice. Ginsburg sat down

0:34

with David Rubinstein, co founder of the

0:36

Carlisle Group and host of the Bloomberg television

0:39

show Peer to Peer Conversations, to

0:41

discuss her health, that ascent that

0:44

earned her the nickname of the Notorious

0:46

RBG, and politics

0:48

on the Supreme Court. Let me ask

0:50

you a question at the beginning, how does

0:52

it feel to get up in the morning and

0:55

know that three thirty million Americans

0:57

want to know the state of your health that day?

1:00

How does it feel encouraging?

1:06

As Kansas survivors know that

1:09

dread disease is a challenge, and

1:12

it helps to know that people are rooting

1:14

for you. Now, it's not

1:17

universal. When

1:22

I had pagriat a cancer. In two

1:24

thousand nine, there

1:26

was a senator whose name I don't

1:28

recall, but he said I

1:30

would be dead within six

1:33

months. That

1:35

senator is now no longer alive. But

1:44

you can't remember his name? No, I

1:46

don't remember you. Um.

1:49

But your current view is that as

1:51

long as you're healthy and able to do

1:53

the job, you intend to stay on the court. Is

1:55

that correct? As

1:57

long as I'm healthy and mentally

2:00

agile. Right?

2:04

So now,

2:07

Justice Stevens and later and previously

2:10

Justice uh Oliver winder Holmes,

2:12

they were tired when they were ninety. Would you like to

2:14

break their record or any thought about that?

2:18

I spent the first

2:20

week in July with Justice

2:23

Stevens what turned out to be the last

2:26

week of his life. He

2:28

was remarkable. He was nine years

2:30

old. Since

2:32

he left the Court at age nine,

2:35

he's written four books. So

2:40

yes, he's my real model. So

2:44

UM. Today, many

2:46

people think that the Court is very

2:48

political, that people

2:50

appointed to the Court by Democratic presidents

2:53

and those appointed by Republican presidents

2:55

tend to follow the political desires

2:58

of the Republican or Democratic party. Do

3:00

you think that's a fair assessment? And why

3:02

do you think If it's not fair? People have

3:05

that view. People

3:08

have that view because agreement

3:11

is an interesting disagreement is

3:13

so the press tends to play

3:15

up our five four

3:18

or our five three decisions.

3:20

But if we can take just the last term

3:24

as a typical example, we

3:26

had sixty eight decisions

3:30

after full briefing and argument of

3:34

those twenty

3:37

world five four or five three

3:39

divisions, but twenty

3:41

nine were unanimous.

3:45

So we agree more often

3:47

than we sharply disagree.

3:51

And that's something I would like the

3:54

audience to take away that

3:57

the divisions,

4:00

yes, they are on some very

4:02

important questions, but our agreement

4:05

rate is always higher than

4:07

our disagreement rate. So

4:09

if you have a five to four perspective decision,

4:11

there's one of the justices go to the another

4:14

justice and say, why don't you change your mind?

4:16

Does that work very much? Or there's

4:19

no more upstrating at the court

4:22

what he says, if you vote for me on this one, I'll

4:24

vote for you on that one. That doesn't happen. It

4:28

never happens. But we are constantly

4:30

trying to persuade each other, and

4:33

most often we do it through

4:36

our writing. Every time I write

4:38

a descent before I

4:40

am hopeful that I can pick up a

4:43

vote many people are surprised

4:46

that the civility that

4:48

exists between justices even

4:50

though they write not such favorable

4:52

things about each other. So, for example,

4:55

Justice Scalia used to say not such

4:57

wonderful things about your views, and

5:00

you then still went to the opera with him.

5:02

Was that a little awkward or hard to do? And

5:05

not at all? And Justice

5:08

Lean and I became friends

5:10

when we were buddies on the d C circuit.

5:15

What did I love most about him? His

5:18

infectious sense of humor. When

5:21

we were three judges on the Court of Appeals,

5:23

he sometimes whispered something to me.

5:27

It would crack me up. I

5:29

had all I could do to contain

5:31

hysterical laughter. But

5:34

we had much in common. True,

5:37

our styles were very different, but

5:40

both of us cared a lot about writing

5:44

opinions so that at least other lawyers

5:47

and judges will understand

5:49

what we were saying. Both of you

5:52

were and you still are a great opera

5:55

lover. Where did you get your love of

5:57

opera to begin with? And where did the opera

6:00

Scalia Ginsburg come from.

6:03

I'll take you the first question first. My

6:06

love of opera began when I was eleven

6:08

years old. I

6:12

was in grade school, in Brooklyn, New York.

6:15

My aunt, who was middle

6:19

school junior high school English

6:22

teacher, took me

6:24

to high school

6:27

in Brooklyn where an opera

6:29

was being performed. It

6:33

was La Gia Conda, not a likely

6:35

choice for first opera.

6:38

There was a man at the time named

6:41

Dean Dixon whose mission in

6:43

life was to turn children onto beautiful

6:46

music, and he had an

6:48

all city orchestra. He

6:51

took opera performances around

6:53

to various schools, condensed

6:56

them into one hour, narrated

6:59

in between. They

7:01

were costumes bear

7:03

staging. So of

7:05

my introduction to opera

7:08

was thanks to Dean Dixon in ninety

7:10

four. So the Scalia

7:12

Ginsburg Opera was written by

7:15

a law school student. He

7:17

was then a law school student.

7:20

He was a music major at

7:22

Harvard and the masses in music

7:24

from Yale. Dirk Wang is his

7:26

name. He

7:29

decided it would be useful to

7:31

know something about the law, so

7:35

he enrolled in his hometown law school

7:37

with University of Maryland, and

7:41

in his second year he took a constitutional

7:43

law course. He

7:46

read these dueling opinions Scali

7:48

on one side, Ginsburg on the other, and

7:52

decided this could make a very funny

7:54

opera.

7:57

So I'll just give you a taste of Scley

8:00

Higginsburg. It

8:03

opens with Scalia's

8:06

rage aria. It's

8:08

an a very Handelian

8:10

in style, and

8:13

he sings the justices

8:15

a blind how

8:17

can they possibly spout this? The

8:20

Constitution says

8:23

absolutely nothing about

8:26

this. And

8:28

then, in my color of true a soprano voice,

8:30

I answered, dear

8:33

Justice, Scalia, you are surging

8:36

for bright line solutions the problems

8:39

that don't have easy answers.

8:41

But the great thing about our constitution

8:45

is that, like our society,

8:47

it can evolve, so

8:51

that that sets up the difference

8:53

between us.

8:55

The plot of Scalia Agginsburg

8:57

is roughly based on the Magic Flu

9:01

and Scalia is

9:04

locked up in a dog room. He's

9:06

being punished for excessive dissenting.

9:12

I then emerged through a glass

9:15

ceiling and

9:23

to help him pass the tests

9:26

he needs to pass to get out of the dog room.

9:29

Then a character left over from Don Giovanni

9:32

the commentatory

9:35

it is astonished. He said, he's

9:39

your enemy, why would

9:41

you want to help him?

9:44

And I sing, He's not

9:46

my enemy, he's my dear

9:48

friend, and

9:51

then we sing a wonderful

9:53

duet that those

9:56

we are different, we are

9:59

one different.

10:01

Enough approach to reading legal texts,

10:06

but one

10:09

in our reverence for the Constitution

10:13

and for the institution we serve.

10:16

So most justices

10:19

of the Supreme courter relatively not recognized

10:22

by the public. I would say maybe

10:24

in recent years that changed a little bit. But you are

10:26

extremely well known around the

10:28

country now, but you weren't when you went

10:30

on the court. But now you've become more or less

10:33

a rock star um RBG,

10:36

and you have movies about you on the basis

10:38

of sex and other things. So why

10:41

do you think this has occurred? And is this something

10:43

you don't really enjoy that much or

10:46

something you just think comes with the territory. Now,

10:49

how is the notorious on BG

10:52

created? It

10:59

was the

11:02

idea of a second year student

11:04

at ny U Law School who

11:08

was very disappointed in the Court's

11:10

decision in the Shelby County case.

11:13

And that was a case in which is the Court

11:16

declared unconstitutional the

11:19

key provision of the Voting Rights Act of

11:22

nine, an

11:25

act that had been renewed time

11:27

and again by overwhelming majorities

11:30

both sides of the aisle, but

11:34

the Supreme Court struck

11:37

down the

11:39

formula. The way the Voting Acts

11:42

Act worked was

11:44

if you were a

11:47

state or a city or a county

11:50

that kept African Americans from voting.

11:53

In the NAZA litt old days, you

11:56

could not make any change in

11:58

voting legislation m unless

12:03

you precleared it with the Department

12:06

of Justice Civil Rights Division,

12:09

or with a three judge district court and

12:11

the District of Columbia. So

12:13

that advanced check suppress

12:19

many laws that would have

12:22

discourage African Americans

12:24

from voting. The Supreme

12:27

Court said, well, the formula for

12:29

who was discriminating is

12:32

now out

12:35

of date. Caylus

12:37

needs to do it over because

12:41

jurisdictions that were discriminating

12:44

in may have clean

12:46

hands today. The

12:50

political problem was, what

12:52

member of Congress, what senator,

12:54

what representative would

12:56

stand up and say, my

12:59

state, oh, my city, or

13:01

my county is

13:03

still discriminating. So

13:06

keep it under

13:09

the surveillance that the voting writes

13:11

that provides just

13:14

wasn't going to happen. The

13:17

Act itself had a bailout provision,

13:21

so if a state, city,

13:23

county indeed

13:26

had clean hands for several

13:28

elections, it could bail

13:30

out. And

13:33

that device, I thought was

13:36

was all that was needed. But

13:38

in any event, this student

13:41

was disturbed

13:43

about the Court's decision. She

13:46

was angry, and

13:48

then she said to herself, anger

13:51

is not a useful emotion. I'm

13:55

going to do something positive. And

13:58

what she did but she took

14:02

the announcement of my descent

14:05

that I read from the bench in Shelby County,

14:08

and she created this blog Hiding

14:11

at the Notorious Albig, a

14:15

name she got from a well known rapper

14:18

who was called the Notorious

14:20

b I G. And

14:23

when I was asked, well, what in

14:25

the world you have in common with the Notorious

14:28

B I G? I said,

14:30

It's obvious both

14:34

of us were born and bred in Brooklyn,

14:36

New York. So

14:41

now you were born in

14:43

Brendon, Brooklyn, you have still a bit of a

14:45

Brooklyn accent, you might admit.

14:49

Um you were played in a movie

14:51

by Felicity Jones, who was not Jewish,

14:54

shore from Brooklyn. So how

14:56

do you think she did? I

14:59

thought you is fantastic.

15:01

When I first met Felicity, I

15:03

said, you speak the Queens English.

15:06

How are you going to sound

15:08

like a girl born in bred in Brooklyn.

15:11

But she listened to many

15:13

tapes of

15:16

my speeches and

15:20

my arguments at the court, and

15:22

she was wonderful. So

15:25

in recent years you've also got a lot of attention

15:27

for your exercise. Uh. I

15:30

have been with the same personal trainer

15:32

since when

15:36

I had my first stance about I

15:38

had chelocal cancer and

15:42

my dear husband said, after

15:45

going through surgery, chemotherapy,

15:47

radiation, I looked

15:49

like a survivor of Auschwitz. He

15:52

said, you must do something to burg yourself

15:54

up. Get a

15:56

personal trainer, And

15:58

that's when I started in. Sometimes

16:05

I get so absorbed in my work

16:07

I just don't want to let go. But

16:09

when it comes time to meet my train,

16:12

I drop everything, and

16:15

as tired as I may be in the beginning,

16:17

I always feel much

16:21

better when we finished. Okay,

16:24

so you met your husband Marty. You

16:26

were married for fifty six years. You

16:29

met him at Cornell? Is that right?

16:32

Yes? I met when I was

16:34

seventeen and he was eighteen. And

16:37

what is the likelihood of a woman at Cornell

16:39

meeting somebody they marry and that person

16:42

wants to take care of child rearing and

16:44

also cooking um

16:46

as well as sharing all the other burdens

16:48

of being married. Is that a very common thing

16:50

in your observation or it

16:56

was extraordinary at any time,

16:58

particularly in the nine teen fifties.

17:01

Cornell, by the way, had a four

17:04

to one ratio of four men to

17:07

every woman. It was

17:09

the place parents wanted to send their

17:12

daughters. So you

17:14

couldn't find your manner Cornel. You were

17:16

hopeless. So

17:20

then I met Marty, and he

17:22

was, in fact the first

17:25

boy I ever knew who

17:27

cared that I had a brain. He

17:32

was always my biggest booster. The

17:35

cooking that began. I

17:39

had two years between college

17:41

and law school, and Marty was in service.

17:45

Those two years. We spent in Fort Sill, Oklahoma,

17:48

the principal artillery base. I

17:52

got pregnant during the first

17:54

year, and

17:56

when I back went back to

17:59

do Off to give my

18:02

cousin sent Marty a copy of the Escaper

18:05

Cookbook in English translation and

18:09

said, this will give you something to do while

18:12

your wife is away. So

18:15

Monty had originally been a chemistry major

18:17

at Cornell, and

18:22

he treated this Escofa a cookbook

18:24

like the chemistry textbook. He

18:27

started with the basic stocks and

18:29

worked his way through

18:31

it. He

18:33

gave up chemistry because it interfered

18:36

with golf practice. Why was a great

18:38

golfer, And

18:40

then he switched to government, which is was

18:43

my major. He

18:47

attributed his skill in the kitchen

18:49

to two women, his mother

18:52

and his wife, his

18:55

mother. I think was that was

18:57

an unfair judgment, but he

18:59

was certainly right about me. I

19:02

had one cookbook. It was called the sixty

19:04

minutes Chelf, and that meant

19:07

from when you enter the apartment

19:10

until when it's on the table, no

19:12

more than sixty minutes. I

19:16

had seven things that I made, and we got

19:18

to number seven, we went back to number

19:20

one. Of

19:24

Martin's mother, ever give you any advice

19:26

when you met her, she happily

19:29

married. She gave me some wonderful advice.

19:32

We were married in her home and

19:35

she said, just before

19:38

the ceremony started, dear,

19:41

I'd like to tell you the secret

19:44

of a happy marriage. I'd

19:46

love to hear it. What is it? Every

19:51

now and then she said, it

19:53

helps to be a little

19:56

death, which

20:02

is such wonderful advice. I haven't

20:04

followed it assiduously to this very

20:06

day. If

20:08

I'm dealing with my colleagues as

20:11

someone a

20:13

Valontine word is said. I just turned

20:16

out. So as a result of your

20:18

marriage to Marty, who was

20:20

a distinguished law professor and tax

20:22

lawyer as well, you have two

20:25

children. Jane,

20:27

your daughter, It teaches at Columbia. She

20:30

is the martinel. Jack Low professor

20:32

of Literary and Artistic Property

20:34

Law at Columbia Law School. And

20:37

as I understand

20:39

that you and she were the only

20:41

mother daughter team to ever actually be elected

20:43

to the Harvard Law Review. Is that true

20:47

so far? And

20:50

you have a son who's in the music business.

20:53

James makes exquisite compact

20:56

this. James grew up with a

20:59

passion from music, but no

21:01

talent as a performer. So

21:04

when he went to the University of Chicago,

21:07

he was the classical disc jockey on

21:09

the student radio station. Then

21:13

in the years he was dropping in and out of

21:15

law school, he was also making recordings.

21:18

And one day he told us he

21:21

liked what he was doing much

21:25

more than his law classes. So

21:28

we said, fine, that's what you want to do.

21:31

And today his label is c D and

21:35

his recordings are Jim's.

21:38

Do you have any grandchildren? I

21:41

have four grandchildren, two step

21:43

grandchildren, and one great

21:46

grandchild. And

21:48

what do your your

21:51

grandchildren call you? RBG or

21:53

what do they call you? I'm

21:55

a Jewish grandmother, so I'm called Bubby.

21:58

Okay. That was Justice

22:00

Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking with David ruben

22:03

Stein