Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
I was tremendously fortunate to be alive and a lawyer, working at a university so I had more flexible hours, when the women's movement was coming alive and when it became possible to argue successfully for a view of the equal protection clause that included women.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the privilege of being alive during a pivotal moment in the fight for women's rights, highlighting the significance of flexible work environments and the legal framework for equality.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg expresses her gratitude for being a lawyer and part of the academic community during the emergence of the women's movement. She signifies how this period allowed for successful legal arguments concerning equal protection under the law for women, emphasizing the intersection of her profession and the socio-political progress of the time.
In practice
During a women's rights meeting, to emphasize the importance of legal advocacy.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.
The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.
A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.
My resume showed membership on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews, a credit impressive abroad where it was not generally known that Law Reviews were student-operated publications.
Until it's understood to involve justice for those in poverty, a future for generations yet unborn, and a commitment to the rest of creation, it's unlikely we'll be able to overcome the status quo.
In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices.
No matter what his crimes were, Alton Sterling did not deserve to be executed for them. Look, guys, the punishment for resisting arrest shouldn't be death. The punishment for selling bootleg CDs shouldn't be death. The punishment for having a gun in an open-carry state shouldn't be death. The punishment for being a black man shouldn't be death.
Our criminal-justice system has for decades been infected with a mindset that views black boys and men in particular as a problem to be dealt with, managed, and controlled.
I appreciate our government's determination to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of the Bytyqi brothers, which Serbia's Interior Minister has rightly called 'an exceptionally serious crime,' and hope the Serbian government's pledge of full cooperation... is matched by a final accounting of their murder.
Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.
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