“What’s the difference between an accountant in Brooklyn, New York, and a Supreme Court justice?” asked the deceptively diminutive lady, the daughter of an Austrian immigrant, addressing a group of new American citizens gathered for their “naturalization” ceremony, all ready to sing the ‘Star and Spangled Banner’.
Bill Clinton’s candidate for the Supreme Court of the United States answered it herself:
“The difference between the opportunity that was offered to my mother and the one that was offered to me.”
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg, indefatigable at 87, threw in the towel in her last and fifth battle with cancer, a blanket of sadness fell on the Marble Palace, built by John P. Frank in three years between 1932 and 1935. It houses’ The Nine ‘- as the justices of the United States Supreme Court are called, three of the women were women. Last night the Supremes fell short. Dozens of people braved the pandemic to spontaneously gather in front of the building that had been their workplace since August 10, 1993.
President Clinton holds up a photo during Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s remarks after announcing on June 14, 1993 that he was nominating her to the Supreme Court. Photo: Reuters
The justice of a constitutional court is not a popular actor of the tinsel city or a politician of fame and scope. The public interface is minimal and is doomed to that legendary “Ivory Tower” of judicial rectitude and social distancing, for life if you like. He works primarily away from the public eye, in chambers and conference rooms, touring memorials and summaries prepared by his legal secretaries, writing opinions, and listening eloquently to attorneys in court.
So why did RBG, as it was known, capture people’s imaginations like no other judge before? Why have you built a following that may be the envy of a rock star or screen diva, with people going berserk, including this author, amassing RBG merchandise like cell phone cases, coffee mugs, T-shirts and posters? Why is RBG a cult?
The answer is simple. He spoke for the people and was the voice of the voiceless. RBG, for his courage and conviction, fought the adversities of life and the law with equal passion. She became us.
Ruth, a mother of two, opera lover and fitness-mad gym enthusiast, had already litigated six crucial Supreme Court cases that established the architecture of women’s rights jurisprudence in court. She had only lost one.
So Clinton was not exaggerating when, at her appointment, she said: “Ruth Bader Ginsberg does not need a seat on the Supreme Court to earn her place in the American history books. She already has. “
However, the beginning was not so easy. In Ginsburg’s own words, he had three attacks against him: woman, mother and Jew. Even his Harvard professor was convinced he had wasted a seat that could have gone to a deserving man. Dedicated to her husband Martin, her faithful companion until his death in 2010, Ruth moved to New York to follow her husband and move to Columbia.
The leader of Columbia Law’s class of 1959 could not find any law firm in New York willing to hire an attorney. Ruth was not the type to give up. At the academy, she became a law professor at Rutgers Law School, and taught some of the early law students there. Then, finally, luck smiled on her when in 1971 she appeared before the Nine with her main report in. Reed v reed, where the court was considering whether men would be preferred to women as executors. Ruth won the court’s first gender discrimination case. In 1972, she co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union and under this banner she brought numerous court cases in which she would one day become a judge herself.
In 1980, Ginsburg was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by President Jimmy Carter. This is considered the waiting room for judges on the fast track to superior court. Sadly, Carter was a single-term president and Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush followed. Judge Ginsberg bided her time while taking a centrist view in most of the cases she decided.
It is this struggle that caused RBG, in later years, to answer the common question that was inevitably posed to it: when would there be enough female Justices on the Supreme Court. She would reply with her mischievous smile, when it would be nine o’clock. Almost prepared for a shocked response, she wouldn’t hesitate to point out that for a long time, all nine were men and no one was surprised by that.
As the conservative group in court grew stronger with each Bush and Trump candidate, so did RBG’s voice of dissent; So much so that there came a time when RBG became synonymous with “I Dissent”.
And the dissent that Ruth made with judicial impetus. In a 2013 court decision to attack a vital part of Federal Law (the Voting Rights Act of 1965) that guaranteed the right to vote for blacks, Hispanics, and minorities, the RBG dissent read as follows: “(es ) like throwing an umbrella in a storm because you’re not getting wet. “
Judge Ginsburg’s battle with the law was as inspiring as her battle with cancer. In 1999, she underwent surgery for colon cancer and received radiation and chemotherapy. A decade later, the cancer struck the pancreas again. RBG kept fighting. In December 2018, cancer appeared in her left lung. In August 2019, the tumor reappeared in her pancreas and three weeks of radiation caused the RBG to be completed again. In July 2019, RBG announced that her pancreatic cancer had returned, although she assured everyone that she was “fully capable.” Through her long battle with the disease, RBG was a regular at the gym and her weight training videos further propelled her to her peak status as a pop culture icon. In fact, Ruth herself was amused by the morbid obsession and fascination with her “notoriety.” She confessed that “now I am 86 years old, and yet people of all ages want to take a picture with me.”
RBG also had its share of controversies. His comment on Trump as a “phony,” made just as the United States was preparing to vote, raised some eyebrows as it violated the convention that judges do not comment on politicians. He made quick amendments and apologized. He also provoked liberal ire by refusing to resign while Barrack Obama had the power to appoint a successor who could step into his big liberal shoes and help with the “balance” of the court. Maybe Ruth wasn’t finished. Perhaps she wasn’t so sure that Obama could get a liberal successor. We will never know.
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts (seated, C) leads Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (front row, left to right), Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Elena Kagan (last row, left to right), Judge Samuel Alito, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Associate Judge Neil Gorsuch taking a new family photo that includes Gorsuch, their most recent addition, in the Court building Supreme Court in Washington, DC, USA, June 1, 2017. Photo: Reuters / Jonathan Ernst
RBG never let his experience on the bench affect his life. His fans could never understand why, despite constantly training on the bench with his conservative colleague Scalia, off the court they were both opera partners.
Once on a trip to India, the best friends were riding an elephant with Scalia sitting in front. What about feminism? He reminded her. Ginsburg with a blank expression and that twinkle in his eye replied, “It had to do with weight distribution.”
As RBG joins the pantheon of legendary judges in a tech-savvy world that has made her a popular icon, which perhaps a lack of technology may have denied others before her, the question we must ask ourselves is: Why can’t India have a RBG?
Waiting for an Indian RBG
With two women judges in their 30s in the Supreme Court and 78 in the higher courts among hundreds of male judges, India has a long way to go. Until our judicial appointments system remains opaque protecting and nurturing the transactional approach shared by the executive and the court, until our attorneys and judges rise and prosper on merit alone and not on accidents of birth, connections, and gender, and until We have a system that produces judges who are committed to their oath to protect and defend the constitution and not just to secure their progeny and retirement, we can be sure that no RBG will come our way.
There is no reason to imagine that a single judge could not maintain fame like RBG did or that she was a flash in the pan. Closer to home, we recently witnessed how someone on the Supreme Court of India almost rivaled Ruth in eyes and shock, but not in awe. This underscores the hitherto underestimated impact that the justice system can have on a town.
As an optimist, I will look forward to the day when India can also boast of its own Ruth. Increasingly, young women are joining the bar and slowly and quietly breaking through the glass ceiling that patriarchy and privilege have placed to prevent their rise into a profession that has been ruthlessly oligarchic and not meritocratic. The bar is the mother of the bank and one day our sisters at the bar will have a chance to try their luck at Ruth’s level.
I have a stack of outstanding books that I haven’t read yet. Until then, I’ll put Linda Hirshman Sisters-in-law at the top of the pile and am distracted by the story of how Sandra Day O Connor and Ruth Ginsburg, the first two women on America’s Top Court, changed the world.
Sanjoy Ghose is a Labor Lawyer in Delhi.
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