She said she will retire when she feels she can no longer write and think as sharply and as quickly as she can now.
- Ginsburg played a huge role in tearing down arbitrary gender distinctions that prevented women from entering certain professions (the law, for one). But she told News Anchor Katie Couric that one of the most important things a woman needs to get ahead professionally is a caring life partner who is willing to share the work.
- She was married to her husband, Marty Ginsburg, a tax attorney, for 56 years before he died of cancer in 2010.
- “I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his,” she said. “And I think that made all the difference for me, and Marty was an unusual man. In fact, he was the first boy I knew who cared that I had a brain.”
- They shared housekeeping chores and child-rearing duties, while both attending law school.
- “You can’t have it all, all at once,” Ginsburg said, referencing the controversial magazine article about work-life balance by academic and former Obama administration official Anne- Marie Slaughter. “Who — man or woman — has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan I think I have had it all.
- But in different periods of time things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.” » News Yahoo article – By Liz Goodwin – August 1, 2014.
This Supreme Court is ‘One of Most Activist,’ Ginsburg Says, Vowing to Stay
- The last two terms, which brought major decisions on Mr. Obama’s health care law, race and same-sex marriage, were, she said, “heady, exhausting, challenging.”
- She was especially critical of the voting rights decision, as well as the part of the ruling upholding the health care law that nonetheless said it could not be justified under Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
- In general, Justice Ginsburg said, “if it’s measured in terms of readiness to overturn legislation, this is one of the most activist courts in history.” » The full New York Times article – By Adam Liptak – Published: August 24, 2013
Her age has required only minor adjustments.
- “I don’t water-ski anymore,” Justice Ginsburg said. “I haven’t gone horseback riding in four years. I haven’t ruled that out entirely. But water-skiing, those days are over.”
- Justice Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, said she intended to stay on the court “as long as I can do the job full steam, and that, at my age, is not predictable.” » from the above article.
- “When I started, I looked like a survivor of Auschwitz,” Ginsburg said. Now I’m up to 20 push-ups.”
- Personal trainer Bryant Johnson watches his tiny client pump her body up and down on a green yoga mat, spotting her with his hands at her waist in case she falls.
- “Exercise is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter what size, shape or color you are,” Johnson said in his office cubicle at the federal courthouse on Constitution Avenue, about a half-mile down the hill from the Supreme Court.
- “A push-up is a push-up, no matter how you look at it.” » The full Washington Post article – By Ann E. Marimow, Published: March 20, 2013.
How Ruth Bader Ginsburg has moved the Supreme Court.
- There is some irony in Ginsburg’s reputation for reserve, because she is, by far, the current Court’s most accomplished litigator.
- Ginsburg, during the nineteen-seventies, argued several of the most important women’s-rights cases in the Court’s history.
- She has always prided herself on knowing which fights to pick. (Ginsburg won that 1976 case, as well as four of the five other cases she argued before the Justices.)
- As an advocate, Ginsburg had exquisite timing; she brought women’s-rights cases at precisely the moment the Supreme Court was willing to decide them in her favor. . . . For Subscribers the full New Yorker article “Heavyweight” – By Jeffrey Tobin – March 11, 2013.
The U.S. Constitution
- Appearing on Egyptian television before concluding a four-day trip in Egypt (in February, 2012) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg extolled the virtues of the U.S. Constitution but urged Egyptians to look to other countries’ newer constitutions for guidance as they craft their own in the coming months.
- “We were just tremendously fortunate in the United States that the men who met in Philadelphia were very wise,” Ginsburg said. “Now it is true that they were lacking one thing,” she continued with a chuckle. “And that is that there were no women as part of the Constitutional Convention.”
- When asked by her interviewer how best to draft a constitution and protect it from contemporary political pressures (perhaps alluding to Islamic parties’ dominance in the new parliament’s lower house), Justice Ginsburg answered, “A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.”
- “If the people don’t care, then the best constitution in the world won’t make any difference,” she said.
- “The spirit of liberty,” she continued, “has to be in the population.” » The full Huffington Post article – First Posted February 1, 2012.
- The New York Times – Learning Network – What Will You Do With Your Life?
Overview | Students consider what it means to live a life well-lived by creating life lists of goals they would like to accomplish and analyzing patterns in the lists of their peers. Go to this Life and Building a Health Society Lesson.
- The New York Times – Learning Network – The Political is Personal –
Overview | Students explore their own personal political philosophies by identifying events, people and experiences that have helped shape their beliefs and writing an essay. Go to this Building Society and ESL Lesson.
- The New York Times – Learning Network – The Science of Aging –
Overview | Student reflect on the lives of older people they know, then research and debate the key issues surrounding scientific experimentation in anti-aging. (Related NYT article: » Even more reason to get moving – By Jane E. Brody) Go to this Health and Science Lesson.
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