Justice Ginsburg opened the session by sharing
a bit of her personal history. As it turns out, she didn't
always
want to be part of the legal system. Justice Ginsburg shared,
in response to the question of what she wanted to be when
she was a child, "Well, I wanted to be a diva, but I
couldn't be. When it comes to singing I'm a sparrow, not
a robin. However, I did become the next best thing, which
was a law professor and a judge."
Justice Ginsburg graduated top in her class at Cornell
University, later becoming a professor at Columbia Law School.
She was first appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals in
Washington, D.C. before becoming appointed to the United
States Supreme Court in 1993, joining what is now the longest
sitting bench of 9 justices since 1837.
Justice Ginsburg continued by discussing why dissents are
so important in our legal system, and then shared a fun,
personal anecdote demonstrating their importance. She stated, "The
role of a dissent is you hope to be speaking to a future
age of justice. Justices Holmes and Brandeis wrote several
dissents that later became the majority court opinion. When
one writes a dissent you hope it one day will become the
law. In fact, even when you're writing the majority opinion,
nothing is better than a good dissent to sharpen the opinion
of the court." Justice Ginsburg highlighted this fact
with a personal tale. She stated, "Justice Scalia ruined
a weekend I was going to have at Lake George, because just
before I was going to leave, Scalia came into my chambers
to discuss a case we were deciding. He said, 'You're not
going to like this, Ruth,' and he left his dissent with me.
All weekend I worked on my opinion in that case. However,
I must say, my opinion was better because of his stinging
dissent!"
Justice Ginsburg also addressed the relevance of Bush v.
Gore. She opined that Bush v. Gore should never be cited
as precedent, because it was a moment in history, a one of
a kind case that should never be repeated. Furthermore, Justice
Ginsburg explained that one of the magnificent things about
the Supreme Court is that although there were sharp disagreements,
such as there were in this case, all of the Justices remain
good friends, and the Court practices several customs that
promote this.
For example, every sitting day, or when the Justices have
a conference, they go around the table and they all shake
hands with one another. They also have lunches together,
to help promote congeniality. Sometimes they invite distinguished
guests to their lunches.
Past guests include National Security Advisor Condoleeza
Rice, or Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan.
She emphasized the importance of collegiality stating, "We
all have great respect for each other, and realize we are
all in this together. The institution we serves is so much
more important than each of us individually."
Lastly, Justice Ginsburg told us what she liked most about
being on the Supreme Court. Besides the lifetime tenure,
which she said gave her wonderful job security, she stated
that she has the responsibility of answering the questions, "What
is right? What does the law require? What is Just?" Answering
these questions, she stated, "is the best work a United
States lawyer could wish for." |
