For more photos from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Monday appearance at a Chicago Bar Association event at the Hilton Chicago, view this gallery. And, for more on Ginsburg, see Daniel Cotter's column about her career.
For more photos from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Monday appearance at a Chicago Bar Association event at the Hilton Chicago, view this gallery. And, for more on Ginsburg, see Daniel Cotter's column about her career. — Bill Richert/Chicago Bar Association
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on stage Monday at a Chicago Bar Association event at the Hilton Chicago.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on stage Monday at a Chicago Bar Association event at the Hilton Chicago. — Bill Richert/Chicago Bar Association

Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat on stage at the Hilton Chicago, telling a rapt audience about one of her first role models.

“In most literature, even in most opera, the women are all victims,” the U.S. Supreme Court justice said. “But Nancy Drew was a girl who really did things. She was an activist.”

Ginsburg’s admiration for the literary detective was one of many topics covered during a more than 80-minute conversation hosted Monday by The Chicago Bar Association and facilitated by Judge Ann Claire Williams of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 81-year-old Ginsburg spoke about her life and career, her battles for equal rights for herself and others and her thoughts on the makeup of the high court during her time on it.

Her pursuit of equal rights began the day she graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959. Despite a No. 1 ranking in her class after transferring from Harvard Law School — where she was also tops in her class — Ginsburg was rejected by 13 New York firms, including the one where she worked during the summer as a student.

“For women at that time, the big challenge was to get the first job,” she said. “Once you got it and performed well, the second job was much easier.”

That fight for fair treatment continued during her time as a law professor at Rutgers University Law School, where she pushed for pay equal to her male counterparts.

It went further during her time at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she recognized that advocating for a woman’s right to be an equal employee also meant fighting for a man’s right to be an equal parent. That fight, she said, was about changing the perception of men as breadwinners and women as homemakers.

Those stereotypes continued to change when President Jimmy Carter tabbed her for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“I knew Carter had pledged to change the complexion of the judiciary,” Ginsburg said. “He appointed women in numbers. He appointed members of minority groups in numbers. And no president ever went back to the bad old days.”

Ginsburg — whose appearance was part of a CBA speaker series — was appointed to the appellate court in 1980, the year before Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg joined her in 1993, but O’Connor’s retirement in 2006 left Ginsburg as the only woman on the court for three years.

“After Justice O’Connor retired, it was very lonely for me,” she said. “Now I sit, because of seniority, toward the center of the bench. Elena Kagan is on my left, Sonia Sotomayor is on my right — and those are two really feisty women.”

The crowd of 915 people roared with applause at that line, as they did several times throughout the afternoon. But they were even more excited when Williams posed a question that Ginsburg hears regularly: Do you think there are enough women on the Supreme Court?

“People ask me when there will be enough,” Ginsburg said. Her response is always the same: “When there are nine.”

Ginsburg lamented the period between O’Connor’s retirement and Kagan’s appointment.

“I’m not giving away any state secrets when I say that the year that she left us, every 5-4 decision where I was in the four, I would have been in the five if she’d remained on the court,” she said.

That included Ledbetter v. Goodyear in 2007, in which a 5-4 decision rejected Lilly Ledbetter’s claim of gender-based discrimination by her employer, Goodyear Tires. Ginsburg led the dissent. O’Connor’s replacement on the court, Samuel Alito, led the majority.

In her dissent, Ginsburg wrote that “the ball is in Congress’s court” to correct the wrongs against women like Ledbetter.

Seven years later, she included no such statement in her dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed some companies to not offer free contraceptives as part of their employees’ health-care coverage.

“I didn’t have a tagline that said ‘Congress, please fix this,’ because — to be frank — this Congress can’t fix anything,” Ginsburg said.

The session closed with conversation on Ginsburg’s personal life, her work-life balance, her passion for opera and her commitment to regular workouts, which include 20 pushups.

When she finished, audience members flocked to the stage to take photos of the justice, many turning around to capture smartphone selfies with Ginsburg in the background.

About 20 minutes after Ginsburg left and the room was mostly empty, a group of six recent DePaul University College of Law graduates stood near the stage, grinning and glowing as they recounted the experience.

“We’re still kind of in shock after seeing her,” said Colleen Hurley. “She is the pinnacle of women in law. So being in the same room with her is an honor and privilege and not anything I ever thought I would be doing.”

Perhaps the most powerful idea for the group was that of an all-woman Supreme Court.

“I think that would be a great place to live,” Hurley said. “I hope it happens sooner than later.”