Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said “it’s about time” the #MeToo movement has taken off — as she recounted her own experiences with sexual harassment.
“I think it’s about time,” the 84-year-old justice said. “For so long, women were silent, thinking there was nothing you could do about it, but now the law is on the side of women, or men, who encounter harassment and that’s a good thing.”
Ginsburg spoke with NPR’s Nina Totenberg on Sunday about the #MeToo movement, her career as a women’s rights advocate and her future on the high court.
She was at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, for the premiere of “RBG,” a new documentary about her life that was co-produced by CNN.
“Every woman of my vintage knows what sexual harassment is, although we didn’t have a name for it,” she said before detailing an incident when she was a student at Cornell in the 1950s and preparing for a chemistry test.
“My instructor said … ‘I’ll give you a practice exam,'” she said. The next day she discovered that the practice exam was, in fact, the real test.
“And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” Ginsburg said. Taking matters into her own hands, she “went to his office and said, ‘How dare you? How dare you do this?’ And that was the end of that.”
Ginsburg didn’t shy away from pushing back against the sexism she experienced as a young professor at Rutgers Law School, where she found out how much of a salary cut she would be taking.
When she asked how much a male colleague who had been out of law school the same amount of time was being paid, she said the dean replied: “Ruth, he has a wife and two children to support. You have a husband with a good-paying job in New York.”
The women at the Newark, NJ, university filed an Equal Pay Act complaint and eventually the school settled.
Ginsburg also recounted the story of when Columbia Law School issued layoff notices to 25 women in the maintenance department but didn’t lay off any men.
She told the university’s vice president for business that the school was violating Title VII. He responded, “Professor Ginsburg, Columbia has excellent Wall Street lawyers representing them — and would you like a cup of tea?”
After a temporary injunction was issued against Columbia, it “decided they didn’t really have to lay off anyone,” she said.
As more and more women have accused high-profile men of harassment and assault, some have expressed concerns about a possible backlash that could undermine the #MeToo movement — but Ginsburg said she’s not afraid.
“Let’s see where it goes. So far it’s been great,” she said. “When I see women appearing every place in numbers, I’m less worried than I might have been 20 years ago.”
Totenberg also asked Ginsburg about her status as a cultural symbol and the growing cult of “the Notorious RBG,” as some supporters call her.
“Every liberal in America is prepared to throw their bodies in front of you to protect you,” Totenberg said. “How do colleagues feel?”
“My colleagues are judiciously silent about the notorious RBG,” the justice responded.
She said she has seen Kate McKinnon’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg character on “Saturday Night Live.”
“I would like to say ‘Ginsburned’ sometimes to my colleagues,” Ginsburg said to applause from the audience, mimicking McKinnon’s signature line.
“I liked the actress who portrayed me,” she added.