A Legacy in Justice: Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Part 1

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her profound influence on rulings around gender equality, anti-discrimination, healthcare access and policy, and other issues impacting the health of individuals and communities. In this two-part episode, we’re invited to attend class with Professor Michael Cousineau to hear from a panel of knowledgeable guests discussing her legacy.  Part one features a moving tribute and Professor Ariela Gross from USC Gould School of Law on Justice Ginsburg’s iconic career and key cases she was involved in.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

From the health sciences campus

Speaker 2: 0:03

At university of Southern California,

Speaker 1: 0:06

An occasional series, exploring perspectives on public health. Welcome to pot.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Think community research and students giving us a real world perspective, as told by those, seen through the public health lens. I'm your host, Gardena, Domingez, Gonzalez, and alumnus of the master of public health program at USC. I'm also a research coordinator here in the department of preventative medicine and office for social justice. Welcome to the premiere episode of pop perspectives on public health. We're thrilled to be sharing this space with you for learning reflection and appreciation of the many ways public health affects us in all the unique ways we experience it. We're starting off our series with a very special episode, a two part discussion around the life and legacy of late justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, no one for her profound influence on rulings, around gender equality, anti-discrimination healthcare access and policy and other issues impacting the health of individuals and communities. These episodes are both educational and tribute, including readings and personal stories about the justice. We're invited to attend class with professor Michael Cousineau. And in part one, we'll hear from professor Aero grows from USC gold school of law about justice Ginsburg, iconic career and key cases. She was involved in

Speaker 1: 1:32

Welcome back to everybody. Our topic today is interested enough healthcare finance and insurance and the passing of justice Ginsburg has a lot to do with what might happen with the affordable care act, uh, down the line. And so it's actually our beginning topic of commemorating the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is really appropriate for lots of reasons in public health, as our speakers will talk about. So Ruth Bader Ginsburg, uh, became the second female justice of the U S Supreme court. She was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. She taught at Rutgers university and then at Columbia, where she became the first female tenured professor. She served as the director of the women's rights project of the American civil liberties union during the 1970s and was appointed to the us court of appeals for the district of Columbia. In 1980, she was named to the U S Supreme court in 1993 by president Clinton. And she continued to argue for gender equality in such cases that us versus Virginia, she died September 18th due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer. So let me introduce our speakers. First of all, starting off will be, uh, professor areola gross professor gross is an, the Gould school of law here at USC. Her research in a writing focused on race and slavery in the United States. She teaches contracts, history of American law racing, gender and the law. She received her bachelor's from Harvard and her JD Juris, doctor degree, and her PhD in history from Stanford. Next, we will have Don Streeter justice. Streeter is an associate justice of the California court of appeals. The first district division four, he was appointed to the court of appeals in November, 2014. And prior to that was a commercial litigator in San Francisco and had a long career in private practice. Justice straighter earned an AB degree from Stanford in 1978 and a JD degree from UC Berkeley school of law. In 1981, he was a former law clerk to senior judge Harry Edwards of the U S court of appeals. The district of Columbia, our next speaker will be Sylvia. Ivy. Sylvia is a long time friend of mine and colleague. She is from Washington DC, but she graduated from Vassar college and obtained her Juris doctorate degree from Howard university school of law. After leaving Howard, she became began working as the, at the citizen advocacy center in Washington, DC at the native American legal defense fund and was assistant council NAACP from 1960, 1997, 1974. Uh, she's had many, many important to positions of leadership here in Los Angeles, including the director of the national health law program, and is currently the special advisor to president David Carlisle of the Charles drew university of medicine and science. And finally, Angela, Oh, Angela got her bachelor's and master's in public health from UCLA and went on to law school, received the J or J D D grief at UC Davis. She's been in private practice as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney and served on various commissions and boards at local state and federal level. She served as chairperson for Senator Box's, federal judicial nominations committee for the central district of California and share of the magistrate judge selection panel and the central district. She's currently a mediator, uh, here in Los Angeles County professor Sophia Kreskin who's my colleague and preventive medicine could not be on the call today because she's receiving an award for her work in human rights. But she sent me this poem that was written by my Angelo that I've asked layer and Samantha to read

Speaker 3: 5:28

Before I read the poem, I just wanted to say a quick word. As we all know, uh, justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, um, was a champion for gender equality and equity. And it was especially meaningful to me, a lot of her work because that also included being an advocate for the LGBTQ community. So I just want to say rest in power RBG. So the poem we're about to read is called when great trees fall by my Angelo when great trees rocks on distant Hill shutter lions, hunker down and tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety, when great trees fall in forest, small things, recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear when great souls die. The air around us becomes light rare, sterile. We breathe briefly. Our eyes briefly see with a hurtful clarity, our memory suddenly sharpened examines, nausea, unkind words, unsaid promised, walks, never taken

Speaker 2: 6:38

Great souls die. And our reality bound to them takes leave of us. Our souls dependent upon their nurture now shrink wives and our minds formed and informed by their radiance it's fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark cold capes, and when great souls die after a period, peace blooms slowly and always irregularly spaces fill with the kind of soothing electric vibration, our senses restored never to be the same whisper to us. They existed, they existed. We can be BNB better or they existed. That is the end of the poem. I'd also like to say a few words. So I think what my Angelo's is trying to say in this poem is that justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was our great tree and when a great tree falls it's as if everything around it kind of strengths away, and there are really no words for the hurt and pain. There's just an escapable silence that we experienced. RBG was a great mother, a great educator wife, a formidable advocate, and one of the most legendary justices in our history. And after she was appointed by Clinton, we all know that she was really famous for her powerful desense. And there's a saying in constitutional law that the descents of today are the decisions of tomorrow. And for RBG that has certainly rung true. Her decisions have become the future of political thought. And even though she's not with us today, her legacy remains, and it's a reminder to us that we can continue fighting for what we believe in her legacy. Let me introduce our first speaker professor.

Speaker 3: 8:40

Yeah, thanks for that panel and the words, very meaningful words. So I just want to talk for a few minutes about justice Ginsburg, but really when we're thinking about her legacy, historically,

Speaker 4: 8:56

I would say that her legacy as an advocate as a lawyer is at least as, and maybe more important than her legacy as a justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Um, as Michael said, it was, uh, uh, lawyer who started out just, I'm kind of working out of her kitchen, taking cases referred by the HCLU, uh, uh, in New Jersey. And, um, and as she started to get more engaged and prove herself as an advocate, um, she came to the national ACLU. Yeah. And, and, uh, began the, the women's rights project. And, and as a lawyer, um, her work for the HCLU arguing for women's rights, um, really established the important precedents, uh, on which all of our, um, civil rights jurisprudence based on gender rests. Uh, so her first oral argument before the Supreme court and the most important gender discrimination case of the 20th century was in 1970 French here vs Richardson where, um, where she used, uh, the analogy between gender and race discrimination to argue that we should look as skeptically on, um, missions made on the basis of gender as we do at distinctions made on the basis of race. So she argued for, um, a standard of strict scrutiny for all gender classifications. Let's look really closely at why we should discriminate against women, Anna, in a particular case. And she was able to get four justices on board with, um, actually the, that high, highest level of scrutiny. Um, the, the vote that, uh, you know, it ended up being, um, a victory, but not with a full majority for that, for that highest level of scrutiny. Instead, we got an intermediate level of scrutiny, but it was, uh, still an extremely important case for, um, establishing that now the Supreme court was going to take very seriously all discriminations based on gender. Um, and that was followed by a series of really important cases in the 1970s, that, that looked at all of the ways that us lost, still made distinctions. Um, two of the most important were the cases, uh, involving pregnancy discrimination. One of the ways that women were kept, um, from being treated equally in the workforce is that they could just be fired if they became pregnant. And, uh, the first case established, um, that it was sex discrimination, um, for women not to receive, uh, unemployment benefits, um, if they became pregnant and then general electric versus Gilbert established the pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. Um, so that's really important because there's another strand kind of running through the law that says, Oh, no, there's just pregnant persons. And non-pregnant persons has nothing to do with, uh, gender. Um, so it was real, um, Ginsburg's advocacy made clear that it's not just one way say, Oh, this applies only to women that you have to look at all of the ways in which, um, women were kept in an unequal position, um, including when, when vital aspects of their identity, like the ability to become a mother where the basis of discrimination, um, when she came to the court, of course her really landmark majority opinion is the decision, uh, in the United States versus the Virginia military Institute. The, the case about VMI in that case, um, in order to keep an entirely, uh, all male program, uh, going, um, the state of Virginia said, we're going to have a separate but equal women's, uh, school. Um, we'll create it a liberally. It'll be just the same. And, um, the opinion that, um, justice Rick wrote for seven members of the court said, no, you need an exceedingly persuasive justification in order to discriminate on the basis of gender and, and today, um, heightened scrutiny is required for gender after VMI. It became extremely unlikely that any form of gender discrimination was going to pass muster. So it was really a culmination of what was begun in 1970 with the frontier. Okay. Coming forward to, um, 1996 to say where, um, how seriously, uh, we will scrutinize gender discrimination. Um, of course, uh, C uh, Samantha mentioned, um, that Ginsburg is most famous for her descends and that's because she joined a chord that has become increasingly conservative. And, and, um, I want to highlight however that she has, um, been, you know, the fifth and some very important cases, especially when it comes to women's health and reproductive rights. Um, so, um, I'm sure that everyone is going to talk about the challenges to the affordable care act. Um, we know that the case that, um, came before the court earlier this year and then, uh, was postponed, um, coming up for oral argument in November is the, the, uh, California versus Texas case. Um, it's yet another, I would say pretty specious or weak challenge to, uh, the individual mandate of the affordable care act. Um, it, it, uh, argues that even though the tax has been eliminated, um, that nevertheless, uh, it's unconstitutional, um, uh, to, uh, to mandate, um, uh, health insurance. And, uh, and of course, if that is, uh, um, if the fifth circuit is upheld and the affordable care act is held on constitutional than a host of other provisions, including, um, the, uh, the, uh, protection for people with preexisting conditions, the ability of children to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26, um, and a number of other important public health provisions are all at risk. Um, but that there are others as well. And, uh, of course, um, we're all aware of the, the recent decisions on reproductive rights and including, uh, just, uh, last term striking down a Louisiana law that sets severe limits on, uh, the right to abortion. Um, and that was another five, four decision. Um, so, uh, I think most reproductive rights advocates recognize, uh, the, that, uh, uh, court without justice Ginsburg, um, is in danger of overturning Roe versus Wade. Um, there are other aspects, uh, to, um, uh, and places where the finally the third place, I would say that her five, four decisions have been so important is, uh, in the arena of same sex marriage, um, and protection for the LGBTQ community. And, um, again, uh, these are at risk, uh, with her, um, her leaving the court, um, in terms of, of her, some of her extremely important to sense and issues that are going to continue to come before the court in one way or another, I would just highlight how important has been the threat to antidiscrimination law and to civil rights more generally from the expanse and challenges based on religious exemptions, too, civil rights laws. So she wrote the descent and little sisters of the poor I'm a case involving Mmm, Mmm. Teachers and religious schools who were fired in violation of the Americans with disabilities act, um, uh, in which, uh, there majority of the court said, well, because teachers perform a ministerial function. It's okay. Uh, to exempt the church from, uh, anti-discrimination law. And basically you can discriminate against religious school teachers, um, in violation of the Americans with disabilities act, you can fire them for having a disability, um, that, uh, we we've also seen, uh, because of this religious exemption argument, a challenges to birth control coverage under the ACA, um, of course the, the Baker, uh, making, uh, what refusing to bake a wedding cake for, for a gay couple. Um, but this area of law is only going to expand the religious challenges, religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law, and without justice Ginsburg on the court with a growing conservative majority, um, much of anti-displacement an Asian law can just be hollowed out by, um, people being able to claim religious exemptions and say we have a right to discriminate. Um, uh, because yeah, it's part of our religious practice to do so. Um, or that's a sphere that, that shouldn't be, uh, uh, cut into and finally, um, uh, no, probably her most blistering descent, um, which really is one for the ages. And I hope will be a beacon for all of us going forward. It was in the Shelby County case, um, regarding the voting rights yeah. Act. And, um, as you probably know, uh, the Shelby County case, um, really, uh, hollered out aspects of the voting rights act that protected, um, uh, that required, uh, States to pre clear, um, laws that might impinge on or, or, uh, discriminate against minorities, um, such as, uh, practices like purging voter rolls, um, strict voter ID laws that don't really have an important basis other than keeping, uh, many people from the polls, et cetera. And, um, uh, since that decision in 2013, we've seen an enormous number of, um, new voter restrictions passed and, and voter purges, um, ingest the places where, uh, that would have been covered by, uh, the voting rights act. Um, other challenges to voting rights, um, are, you know, continue to come before the court. And, um, and justice Ginsburg absence will be very much felt. So that's just, um, you know, both to say her legacy, um, in terms of gender discrimination and, and, uh, civil rights more broadly is, um, is extremely important. Um, but I've heard loss is also a great loss at this particular moment.

Speaker 2: 22:07

I hope you enjoy part one and hope you'll continue on to part two, which includes reflections from justice, John Streeter of the California court of appeals, dr. Sylvia drew IVs special advisor to the president of Charles R drew, university of medicine and science and Angela, Oh, in Los Angeles mediator, they share Mirabelle Ginsburg's life and work the implication for our own lives and what she meant to so many. This series is brought to you by the department of preventive medicine at Keck school of medicine of USC home to high impact research and undergraduate graduate, and doctoral programs, training, future leaders in the population and

Speaker 4: 22:50

Public health sciences. If you'd like to learn more, visit pm.usc.edu.