My Own Words

In 1946, 13-year-old Ruth wrote an editorial for her school newspaper, The Highway Herald. In it, she compared the 10 Commandments, the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence to the newly penned Charter of the United Nations, referring to it as the fifth great document in human history: “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” (10).

Ruth’s biographers write that, while she was a young woman, she became aware of the hypocrisy and inequity practiced by authority figures. For instance, she recognized the unfairness in her being barred from participating in the coming-of-age bar mitzvah ceremonies like the 13-year-old Jewish boys in her community.

As an early adolescent, Ruth was active in promoting Zionism, working to create a Jewish homeland in Israel. Proud of her Jewish heritage, as an eighth grader, Ruth wrote an essay for the East Midwood Jewish Center bulletin expressing her views on how Jews needed to overcome the lingering sorrows of the Holocaust.

As a student at Cornell University, Ruth was influenced by Professor Robert Cushman, a constitutional scholar who helped her understand the consequences of the Red Scare taking place in the early 1950s. Ruth was a government major who was not particularly interested in social activism before studying with Cushman: “I really just wanted to get good grades and become successful—but he was both a teacher and a consciousness raiser” (21). Cushman’s tutelage influenced Ruth to pen a letter to the editor of the school newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, decrying the use of warrantless wiretapping.

While a 17-year-old freshman at Cornell, Ruth met Martin Ginsberg on a blind date arranged by his roommate. Ruth did not know that Marty instigated the date, having seen her without her knowledge when she first arrived on campus. As the biographers report, the two wed in 1954 after Ruth graduated from Cornell.

Comprising the body of this chapter is Marty’s introduction of his wife on the 20th anniversary of Woman’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at the Georgetown University Law Center in 2003. By this time, the Ginsburgs had been married 49 years. Marty explained how their daughter Jane, in an interview, had described the familiar duties correctly: “[H]er father did the cooking, she explained, and her mother did the thinking” (28). In an effort to reveal the true extent of his wife’s influence, Marty read a letter describing the impact of the author’s written words on Marty’s former secretary, whose self-esteem increased dramatically simply by reading the author’s words as she typed them.

After her biographers note Ginsburg’s love of opera, the author shares an article that originated as a Chicago radio broadcast in 2015. Ginsburg describes how operas typically deal with characters who are lawyers: “[L]awyers do not fit nobly in opera plots” (33). She develops the essay into a treatise on the roles that laws and law enforcement often take in opera. From this she connects operatic characters and events to real-life individuals who become the basis for fictional people. She extends the piece into a discussion of the death penalty, expressing four reasons that the death penalty is not justified. Finally, she mentions the opera Scalia/Ginsburg, written by Derrick Wang, which deals with her multifaceted relationship with the late Justice Scalia.

Ginsburg’s biographers note that she was a close friend of Justice Scalia, who died unexpectedly on February 13, 2016. The fellowship of the two justices, as they point out, appears remarkably unlikely. The two jurists’ constitutional understandings, temperaments, and backgrounds were quite different and often completely at odds. Ginsburg, in her remembrance of Scalia, writes, “I leave to others discussion of Justice Scalia’s provocative jurisprudence and will speak here, instead, of our enduring friendship” (39). Ginsburg goes on to note that Scalia may have been an important factor in her nomination to the Supreme Court in that he told President Clinton she was the person he would most like to see filling the court’s vacancy in 1993.

One of the longest chapters in the book, Chapter 7 begins with an appreciative note from Ginsburg, expressing her love of opera and her delight in an opera revolving around her rivalry and cherished comradery with Justice Scalia. Scalia offers a brief preface, noting that he wishes he and Ginsburg could portray themselves in the opera’s production. The remainder of the chapter is a selection from the libretto of Scalia/Ginsburg. The essence of the operatic play comes in the form of a duet, “We Are Different. We Are One,” the two Justices sing in Scene 16, saying in part: “Always one decision from charting the course we will steer... / For our future / Is unclear, / But one thing is constant— / The Constitution we review / We are stewards of this trust; / Uphold it as we must, / For the work of our Court is just / Begun... / And this is why we will see justice done: / We are different; / We are one” (54-55).

With no introductory remarks from the biographers, this chapter is a description of the casual activities of the Supreme Court justices apart from their legal duties. Ginsburg describes when and where they gather, the often-invited guests who dine with them, the special parties they attend, and the travels they make in and outside of the US. She remarks, “[T]hrough it all we remain cordial and, most of the time we genuinely enjoy each other’s company” (59-60).