Q&A with Justice Ginsburg

In a great tie-in to the posts on Equal, the New York Times today featured an interview with Justice Ginsburg about her thoughts on The Place of Women on the Court. Justice Ginsburg gives a very candid interview on her thoughts on the dearth of women on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor's nomination, her reflections on some past cases, and her thoughts on legal agendas in the future. Some highlights:

On being the only woman on the Court: My basic concern about being all alone was the public got the wrong perception of the court. It just doesn’t look right in the year 2009.

On Sotomayor's "Latina women" comment: I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

On how the next generation could change things: [In Nguyen v. INS, the court in 2001 upheld, by 5 to 4, a law that set different requirements for a child to become a citizen, depending on whether his citizenship rights came from his unmarried mother or his unmarried father.] The majority thought there was something about the link between a mother and a child that doesn’t exist between the father and a child. But in fact the child in the case had been brought up by his father.

They were held back by a way of looking at the world in which a man who wasn’t married simply was not responsible. There must have been so many repetitions of Madame Butterfly in World War II. And for Justice Stevens [who voted with the majority], that was part of his experience. I think that’s going to be over in the next generation, these kinds of rulings.