My Own Words Page 2

  July 21, 1955: Daughter, Jane, is born.

  1956–58

  Attends Harvard Law School (1 of 9 women in class of approximately 500).

  1958–59

  Attends Columbia Law School (1 of 12 women).

  May 1959: Graduates from Columbia Law School (tied for first in class).

  1959–61

  Judicial clerk to Judge Edmund Palmieri, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

  1961–63

  Research associate and then associate director of Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. Divides time between New York and Sweden.

  1963–72

  Professor at Rutgers School of Law, State University of New Jersey.

  Sept. 8, 1965: Son, James, is born.

  June 20, 1968: Father, Nathan, dies.

  1971: Coauthors first Supreme Court brief in Reed v. Reed.

  1972–80

  Professor at Columbia University School of Law. Director of and counsel to ACLU Women’s Rights Project.

  Jan. 17, 1973: First Supreme Court oral argument (Frontiero v. Richardson).

  1980–93

  Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (appointed by President Jimmy Carter).

  1993 forward

  Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court (appointed by President Bill Clinton).

  2010

  June 27: Beloved husband and “life partner” Marty Ginsburg dies of cancer.

  Part One

  * * *

  Early Years and Lighter Side

  Introduction

  RUTH BADER GINSBURG began writing at an early age, with the first piece in this collection being published in her school newspaper when she was barely thirteen years old. Her childhood experiences helped shape the writer, person, and judge she went on to become.

  Born on March 15, 1933, Joan Ruth Bader was the second daughter of Celia and Nathan Bader. Older sister Marilyn called her active baby sister “Kiki,” because she was “a kicky baby,” and the nickname stuck. Justice Ginsburg, however, has no memories of the sister who nicknamed her. Marilyn died of meningitis at the age of six, just fourteen months after Kiki’s birth.

  Kiki Bader grew up in a working-class neighborhood among Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighbors, where quiet tree-lined residential streets with brick and stucco row houses bumped up against busy thoroughfares like Coney Island Avenue and Kings Highway with their grocers, dry cleaners, and car repair shops. Her parents rented the first floor of a small gray stucco row house; their landlady lived on the second floor. During the winter, coal was delivered and shoveled into the furnace to keep the small home warm, but there was no air-conditioning to temper the hot Brooklyn summers. Her mother washed the family’s clothes by hand and hung them out to dry on a clothesline that went out her bedroom window. They had a refrigerator with coils on top, and a Victrola in the living room, where Kiki and her cousin Richard later learned to dance to records they bought at a tiny store in the Times Square subway stop.1

  Kiki Bader attended her neighborhood’s public schools, starting with Brooklyn Public Elementary School No. 238, a square brick building just over a block from her home. Because there were several other Joans in her kindergarten class, her mother suggested to the teacher that confusion could be avoided by calling Kiki by her middle name, Ruth. From that time forward, she was Kiki to family and friends, and Ruth for more official purposes. Ruth and her cousin Richard, who lived just up the street, would usually walk to school together. After school each day, as she grew older, she and Richard could often be found with their friends in the neighborhood riding bikes, roller-skating, jumping rope, or playing stoopball. Ruth’s neighbor and best friend, who like her sister was named Marilyn, was Italian Catholic. Ruth loved to play jacks on her front steps with Marilyn, and to be invited over to Marilyn’s house for dinners of spaghetti and meatballs.

  Ruth Bader was, throughout her education, an enthusiastic and outstanding student. She loved learning to read, but learning to write was traumatic: left-handed Ruth was reduced to tears when her teacher tried to “convert” her into a right-hander. The result was a D in penmanship. Ruth vowed then that she would never write another word with her right hand, and she never did. She never got another D, either.

  Like most children, Ruth enjoyed gym class and recess, and skinned her knees in the schoolyard skipping rope and playing dodgeball. She went on school field trips to local museums and attended Friday assemblies where the girls and boys wore red, white, and blue: white shirts and red ties for everyone, blue skirts for the girls, and blue pants for the boys.2 While Ruth enjoyed her English, history, and social studies classes, she was not, she confesses, especially fond of math. Nor was home economics, where girls learned cooking and sewing in preparation for their future as housewives and homemakers, her cup of tea: “I remember envying the boys long before I even knew the word feminism, because I liked shop better than cooking or sewing. . . . The boys used to make things out of wood, and I thought that was fun, to use the saw, and I didn’t think it was fun to sew, and my cooking never came out the way it was supposed to.” The sewing assignment for the eighth-grade girls was to make their own graduation dresses. Ruth ruefully recalls her creation: “Mine was a mess.” 3 Ruth’s mother saved the day, having the dress “fixed” by a local dressmaker before graduation.

  Friday afternoons found Ruth at her local library, which was housed above a Chinese restaurant and a beauty parlor. While her mother had her hair done downstairs, Ruth would savor her time in the library, the delicious smell of spices wafting up from the restaurant while she read Greek myths and books such as The Secret Garden and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. (Of all the March sisters, Ruth loved the lively independent intellectual Jo the best.) Ruth was also a fan of the Nancy Drew detective books. Unlike scary films, which gave her nightmares, she was not frightened by the mystery stories. She loved Nancy Drew because “Nancy was a girl who did things. She was adventuresome, daring, and her boyfriend was a much more passive type than she was.” 4 For similar reasons, Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, also captured her imagination. Earhart had taken her historic flight the year before Ruth was born and went missing over the Pacific five years later; Ruth was drawn to Amelia’s courage and sense of adventure.5

  Ruth was not only an avid reader, she also created stories of her own—her younger cousins remember her as a gifted and dramatic storyteller.6 She was also fond of poetry, both reading and memorizing it. A few of her childhood favorites were Emma Lazarus’ famous words inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”); Shakespeare’s Henry V Epilogue (“Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived / This star of England”); and the A. A. Milne poem “Disobedience” (“James James Morrison Morrison”). She loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetry collection, A Child’s Garden of Verses, and was particularly fond of “the Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves”).7

  Ruth very much admired her mother, who encouraged Ruth to be independent and self-sufficient. Ruth believes that this was at least in part because her mother, wishing she’d had the chance to further her own education and career, and somewhat resentful of the fact that the scarce family resources had been allocated entirely to her brother’s education, wanted to ensure that her gifted daughter would have no such regrets. “My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential. Two things were important to her and she repeated them endlessly. One was to ‘be a lady,’ and that meant conduct yourself civilly, don’t let emotions like anger or envy get in your way. And the other was to be independent, which was an unusual message for mothers of that time to be giving their daughters.” 8

  The year Ruth was born, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and gave orders for the first concentration camp in Dachau. As Ruth grew from childhood to adolescence in the shadow
of World War II, her protective parents tried to shield her from photographs of death camps and emaciated survivors. “Nobody wanted to believe what was really happening. People thought that Hitler hated Jews and had these repressive laws, but . . .” 9 And, although most of Ruth’s childhood memories of her multiethnic Brooklyn neighborhood were positive, she became increasingly aware of anti-Semitism close to home. Two elderly women living on her block housed foster boys and told them that it would bring bad luck if they brought a Jew into the house, especially at lunchtime.10 Other children on the street repeated the myth that matzo was made from the blood of Christian boys, and taunted Ruth and her Jewish friends, calling them “kikes.” 11 On one drive in the Pennsylvania countryside, Ruth and her family passed an inn with a sign on the lawn: “No Dogs or Jews Allowed.” 12

  Eight-year-old Ruth was with her parents on a Sunday drive to Queens on December 7, 1941, sitting in the backseat and listening to the car radio, when the regularly scheduled broadcast was interrupted and a stunned Ruth heard the radio announcer report that the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor.13 The next day, Americans across the country turned on their radios to hear President Franklin Roosevelt confirm what they feared but still hoped was not true: America was at war. As was the case for most Americans, Ruth’s world changed immediately and dramatically the moment the United States entered the war. Her cousin Seymour (“Si”), a happy-go-lucky eighteen-year-old college student at the time of Pearl Harbor, was inducted into the Army the following May. Si ended up serving in Europe and in the Pacific, and Ruth worried about him and sent him letters using Victory mail, also known as “V-mail.” Ruth would scrawl as much news from home as she could fit onto the small prescribed letter form, and then fold it, address it, and place it in the mail. It was then microfilmed and sent overseas, where it would be reproduced and censored, before finally being delivered to Si.

  Shrieking sirens for air raid drills routinely interrupted Ruth’s activities at home and school. At home after dark, Ruth would run to turn off the lights, and at school the young pupils were herded together into the assembly room. Ruth’s Brooklyn neighborhood had an air raid warden, and sections of particular streets were arranged into smaller zones, each with its own captain.14

  Ruth’s family was allotted ration coupons for gasoline, so they took fewer and more carefully planned weekend excursions outside of Brooklyn. Ruth and her classmates helped to plant and tend a “victory garden” of carrots, radishes, and other vegetables at their elementary school, and they would knit squares each morning during homeroom period to be made into afghan blankets for the troops.15 One day each week was “stamp day,” when Ruth and her classmates could bring in their allowance money to buy twenty-five-cent stamps to paste into a savings bond book with proceeds used to support the war effort.16 Ruth and her classmates also helped fulfill their patriotic duty by chewing lots of gum, and then peeling off the silver gum wrappers and wadding hundreds of them into tinfoil balls for contribution to the “Aluminum for Defense” drives. Ruth loved the posters of Rosie the Riveter, portraying a strong and able woman supporting the war effort with her factory work.17

  On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, who had been president for twelve-year-old Ruth’s entire young life, died suddenly in Warm Springs, Georgia, of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Harry Truman became president. Two and a half weeks later, on April 30, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker, shooting himself in the right temple as Allied forces closed in. Berlin fell on May 2, and less than one week later, on May 8, 1945, Ruth watched as New Yorkers danced in the streets to celebrate V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.18

  Ruth remembered V-J (Victory over Japan) Day later that summer much differently, since it came just after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

  Well, it was stunning, something we had no idea was in the making and then it was in the paper . . . tremendous clouds . . . the horror that we had killed so many people and people were burned and scarred for life. . . . There was that pall over V-J day. Even though it was the end to it, everybody realized the instrument of destruction that had been launched and, I suppose, feared for the future with such a weapon like that. So I remember V-E day as being total jubilation but V-J day affected very much by the bomb.19

  1

  Editorial for the School Newspaper

  Highway Herald, June 1946

  ELEANOR ROOSEVELT had been the first lady throughout most of Ruth Bader’s childhood. Ruth’s mother, who deeply admired the first lady, often read Mrs. Roosevelt’s “My Day” newspaper columns aloud to Ruth. Eight months after President Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed by President Truman as a U.S. delegate to the newly established United Nations General Assembly. The UN Charter, in its preamble, declared as one of its aims “to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.” Eleanor Roosevelt, pursuant to that goal, became in April 1946 the first chairperson of the newly created U.N. Commission on Human Rights. In the wake of World War II, Ruth and her mother followed closely as Eleanor Roosevelt led the efforts that would result, in 1948, in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document Roosevelt celebrated as “the international Magna Carta for all mankind.”

  Two months after Eleanor Roosevelt was chosen to head the UN Commission on Human Rights, Ruth Bader, by then a thirteen-year-old eighth grader and editor of her school newspaper, the Highway Herald, wrote a column of her own. Her column, the first piece in this collection, was a sign of things to come. While other students wrote about the circus, school plays, and the glee club, Ruth discussed the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and United Nations Charter.

  Highway Herald, June 1946

  Published by Pupils of Elementary Public School 238, Brooklyn, New York

  Editorial by Ruth Bader, Grade 8B1

  Since the beginning of time, the world has known four great documents, great because of all the benefits to humanity which came about as a result of their fine ideals and principles.

  The first was the Ten Commandments, which was given to Moses while he was leading the Israelites through the wilderness to the land of Canaan. Today people of almost every religion respect and accept them as a code of ethics and a standard of behavior.

  Up until the thirteenth century, conditions under the kings of Europe were unbearable for the commoners. Taxation was high, living conditions poor and justice unknown. It was then, in 1215 AD, that the barons and peers of England met and drew up a charter called the Magna Carta. After forcing King John to sign it, the document was declared the governing law of the land. This gave the English peasants the first rights ever granted to them.

  When William of Orange, a Dutchman, was offered the English throne, his chief ambition was to use the military powers of Britain to aid his beloved Holland in its war with Spain. In accepting this offer, he had to grant certain concessions to the English people. So, in 1689, he signed the Bill of Rights. This limited the King’s powers and gave much of the government control to parliament, another important stride in the history of the world.

  The Declaration of Independence of our own U.S. may well be considered one of the most important steps in the shaping of the world. It marked the birth of a new nation, a nation that has so grown in strength as to take its place at the top of the list of the world’s great powers.

  And now we have a fifth great document, the Charter of the United Nations. Its purpose and principles are to maintain international peace and security, to practice tolerance, and to suppress any acts of aggression or other breaches of peace.

  It is vital that peace be assured, for now we have a weapon that can destroy the world. We children of public school age can do much to aid in the promotion of peace. We must try to train ourselves and those about us to live together with one another as good neighbors for this idea is emb
odied in the great new Charter of the United Nations. It is the only way to secure the world against future wars and maintain an everlasting peace.

  2

  One People

  Editorial, East Midwood Bulletin (June 21, 1946)

  ALTHOUGH RUTH’S immediate family was not devoutly religious, Jewish traditions were very much a part of her childhood. Her mother, Celia, lit candles every Friday night, and at Hanukkah all the grandchildren gathered to receive one silver dollar each as Hanukkah “gelt” (money) from their grandfather. Ruth and her parents regularly joined the annual gathering of aunts and uncles and cousins for the Seders held by her paternal grandparents on the first and second nights of Passover.1 Her fondest memories were those Seders when she got to ask the traditional Seder questions, beginning with “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

  “That,” Ruth later remarked, “was always the best part of the Seder for me, that the youngest child, which I was for a time, got to ask the questions and then the whole rest of the evening was providing answers.” 2 (This may have been the first sign of Ruth’s future role as one of the most active and precise questioners on the United States Supreme Court bench.)

  From childhood onward, Ruth especially valued the reverence for justice and learning that was part of her Jewish heritage. She enjoyed studying Hebrew and the history of the Jews, and was especially moved by the life of Deborah, the general, judge, and prophet, as recounted in Judges 4–5 and in the Song of Deborah:

  Awake, awake, Deborah;

  Awake, awake, strike up the song!

  Up, Barak, and take your captives,