Ginsburg: Mutual respect unites nine

In fact, she had to answer then-Dean of Harvard Law School Erwin Griswold’s inquiry as to how she felt, “taking the spot of a man” at the prestigious institution, Wilson School professor Kim Lane Scheppele said in her introduction of the only sitting female Supreme Court Justice during Ginsburg’s visit to campus Thursday afternoon.

Before an audience in Richardson Auditorium and two simulcast audiences, Ginsburg noted that despite their differences, the nine justices of the Supreme Court function as a unified body because of their mutual respect for each other.

Ginsburg, who is generally considered one of the more liberal members of the Court, served for 13 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993. A long-time champion of women’s rights before becoming a judge, Ginsburg argued on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union against gender discrimination in landmark court cases like Frontiero v. Richardson.

But her address to the Princeton audience attempted to paint a picture of the lighter side of life at the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg explained the customs of her colleagues, which include everything from the habitual “Happy Birthdays” led by Justice Antonin Scalia to daily lunches in the justices’ dining room and a series of three dozen handshakes every day while the Court is in session.

“Our routine gatherings begin with handshakes, 36 of them to be exact,” Ginsburg said. “It’s a way of saying ‘even though you circulated that nasty dissent yesterday, we’re in this together, and need to get along with each other.’ ”

Ginsburg described her work as “challenging, enormously time-consuming and tremendously satisfying.”

And, despite ideological disagreements, the atmosphere of the Court is not a hostile one.

“We have sharp differences on certain issues,” Ginsburg said, citing Bush v. Gore, affirmative action, public school segregation and the death penalty as examples. “But through it all, we remain good friends: people who respect each other and genuinely enjoy each others’ company.”

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At the end of the day, all nine realize that “the institution preserved is far more important than the ego of justices who are on the bench at a given time,” she said.

In a discussion following the lecture, University Provost and constitutional scholar Christopher Eisgruber ’83 asked Ginsburg about her personal philosophy of constitutional interpretation.

Ginsburg explained that the bulk of the work justices do is not sifting through the law, adding that she doesn’t “have a philosophy for how to interpret a dense statute like the internal revenue code.”

She noted that she rejects a strict constructionist interpretation, invoking the Preamble to the Constitution and explaining that “we the people” at the time of the Constitution’s adoption meant “white, property-owning men.”

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In the centuries since the founding fathers, “we have been perfecting that union, so that now ‘we the people’ is including people who were once left out,” she said.

When asked to comment further on Bush v. Gore, Ginsburg said that she was surprised by Justice Scalia’s decision because “it did not seem to be consistent with other decisions he’d written.”

In a speech hosted by Whig Clio and the James Madison Program last year, Scalia downplayed the controversy. “Get over it, it’s eight years ago,” Scalia said. “I think the vast majority of citizens in the country were glad [that the Supreme Court stopped the ballot recount].”

Ginsburg didn’t comment on the nation’s response to the case but noted that the case “has never been cited by the Court, and I think it never will be cited.”

When asked about the discrepancy between her support of a woman’s right to choose and her disapproval of Roe v. Wade, which opened the door to legalized abortion in 1973, Ginsburg said that she was surprised by “how far the court had gone [in this decision].”

“It would have been easy for the Supreme Court to say that the extreme cases are unconstitutional” without broadening the decision to the 50 states.

Ginsburg said that the abruptness of the decision, which declared many state statutes unconstitutional, created a “perfect rallying point” for people who disagreed with the notion that abortion should be a woman’s choice. She added that the decision may have also stifled dialogue with state legislatures.

“I never questioned the judgment that it has to be a woman’s choice, but the court should not have done it all,” she said.

She added that in the absence of a sweeping decision like Roe, it is possible that abortion rights legislation would have evolved organically in the same way that no-fault divorce laws have.

The packed auditorium included many students interested in hearing the justice’s views.

“The fact that she’s the only woman on the Court now drew me to see her speak,” Sophie Gandler ’10 said.

“I wish she’d talked more about state initiatives related to Roe v. Wade in places like South Dakota,” she explained, noting the state’s initiative measure to generally ban abortion, except in the cases of rape, incest or for the life or health of the mother.