Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Notorious RBG. A pop culture icon. A complicated
figure a Supreme Court justice who became an unlikely celebrity.
I am nearly 84 years old and everyone wants to take a picture with me.
A woman criticized for being politically divisive. Recent comments by
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about Donald Trump have even some of her
supporters wondering if she went too far but whose best friend on the
bench was her ideological opposite Antonin Scalia. You know what's not to
like - except her views of the law of course. Some liberals wanted her to
step down under Obama to give him a chance to appoint another justice. But
it wasn't in her character.
I want to see what your workout is. Let's go. There's even a Hollywood
movie about her early experiences fighting for women's rights. It is a
cage and these laws are the bars.
Ginsburg proved instrumental in breaking down piece by piece a rigid
framework of gender discrimination woven deep within American law. And of
all things,
cases dealing with money became a central tool in her arsenal. From
government benefits to pay discrimination and the simple right of being
considered fit to take over a deceased family member's estate. Ginsburg
often focus on economic gaps to make the case for equal rights.
So much had been made
of differences between the two sexes,
that she had to expose how customary thinking about what was
men's jobs, women's jobs and responsibilities discriminated against individuals.
that she had to expose how customary thinking about what was men's jobs, women's jobs and responsibilities discriminated against individuals.
In 1971 Ginsburg was a law professor working with the ACLU at the time.
Many banks still denied women credit cards unless they had a male
co-signer. Only 43 percent of women participated in the labor force and
those who did participate made on average 40 percent less than men.
Ginsburg's work helped change that.
Her first major Supreme Court victory came in 1971 in a case called Reed
vs. Reed. In the case a separated married couple from Idaho had been
fighting over control of their deceased son's estate. The mother and
father Sally and Cecil Reid both applied to be administrator of the
estate. But Idaho named the father because the legal code explicitly read
"males must be preferred to females."
The mother's lawyer argued the state's law was unconstitutional because it
violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the
Constitution. Ginsburg was looking for a gender discrimination case making
an equal protection argument like this because that was the same argument
Thurgood Marshall had used to secure his string of civil rights victories
from the court. So Ginsburg and the ACLU began helping the wife's legal
team, writing a brief for the cases Supreme Court hearing that sealed the
deal for a historic ruling. The total value of the estate
No more than 1000 dollars.
She was conscious of having to move slowly from larger to larger sums share
because of course the opposition always argued
well, in effect, this is expensive if you apply gender equity. So she was
very conscious of the money involved.
But the dispute over that small estate changed legal history in the United
States forever. The court's seven male justices sided unanimously with the
wife, setting a major precedent that the equal protection clause applied
to women's rights and prompting legislatures to revise hundreds of state
and federal laws.
It's since been cited in no less than 56 subsequent Supreme Court
decisions, from cases expanding abortion rights to ending male only
admission and rooting out gender discrimination in pension payments.
Her next major case Frontiero vs. Richardson. This new case centered around
a woman serving in the military denied the same benefits given to a male
serviceman despite the fact that they served alongside one another. This
woman was an Air Force lieutenant named Sharon Frontiero. Frontiero was
married but realized one day that she wasn't getting a housing allowance
like her married male counterparts. When she brought it up to the Air
Force, she was told she was ineligible because her husband didn't depend
on her for more than one half of his income - a requirement not levied on
Air Force wives.
I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take
their feet off our necks.
The verdict: Another victory for Ginsburg.
As Ginsburg continued to build out her various legal challenges. She
embarked on a savvy judicial strategy of also showcasing men harmed by
gender discrimination. Although that strategy earned her criticism from
some women's rights activists.
We'll hear arguments next in 731892. Weinberger against Wiesenfeld
The case's plaintiff was Stephen Wiesenfeld. Stevens wife Paula was the
primary breadwinner in their family. She worked as a teacher and regularly
paid into Social Security. But after Paula tragically died during
childbirth, Stevens saw its social security payments to help him stay at
home and raise their surviving child benefits that would routinely have
been granted to a married mother in the event of a father's death. But
Steven was denied Social Security and ended up taking his grievance to the
court with Ginsburg's help. In her argument, Ginsburg drew attention not
only to this widower harmed by the law but also to how that law demeaned
the worth of his late wife's work. The strategy paid off in court.
Ginsburg secured another unanimous ruling from an all male panel of
justices.
And a point she was making, in some of these social security cases, that
you could not discount the fact that life had always worked and you could
not discount her labor and her earnings. It counted. It was essential in
many households.
From behind the bench Ginsburg also made her mark on the fight against
gender discrimination. This time it came down to a woman's right to a
paycheck. In a case called Ledbetter versus Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Company she wrote one of her most famous dissents. The pay discrimination
case pitted an Arkansas woman named Lilly Ledbetter against the massive
Goodyear company. After working Goodyear for 19 years. Ledbetter had found
out from an anonymous note that she was making hundreds less every month
than even the lowest paid man in her position. She sued Goodyear for sex
based pay discrimination under the Civil Rights Act and won. But then her
case got tangled up over a question of whether the statute of limitations
had lapsed.
In a split decision, the court ruled in Goodyear's favor. But to Ginsburg
this decision was deeply flawed. In a stinging dissent she outlined how
the court's decision overlooked some of the most common characteristics of
pay discrimination. Like the fact that it often occurs in small increments
and remains hidden. She concluded the ball is in Congress's court to fix
the problem.
Soon after Congress acted on Ginsburg's challenge passing the Lilly
Ledbetter Act in 2009 and extending the statute of limitations.
I signed this bill for my daughters and all those will come after us
because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their
contributions.
From Ledbetter versus Goodyear all the way back to her first Supreme Court
brief, Ginsburg's knack for zeroing in on issues surrounding money changed
legal history in the United States forever.