Posted by Orin Kerr:
Justice Ginsburg Speaks to Press About Pending Cases, Urges Nomination of More
Women to Supreme Court:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_03-2009_05_09.shtml#1241632506
Justice Ginsburg recently [1]sat down with Joan Biskupic of the USA
Today to discuss the importance of the Supreme Court having more
women, and how the fact that she is the only women impacted the oral
arguments and confidential discussions among the Justices about some
still-undecided cases:
Her status as the court's lone woman was especially poignant
during a recent case involving a 13-year-old girl who had been
strip-searched by Arizona school officials looking for drugs.
During oral arguments, some other justices minimized the girl's
lasting humiliation, but Ginsburg stood out in her concern for the
teenager.
"They have never been a 13-year-old girl," she told USA TODAY
later when asked about her colleagues' comments during the
arguments. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think
that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."
. . . In interviews with USA TODAY before Souter's retirement
announcement Friday, Ginsburg said the court needs another woman.
"Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. I don't
say (the split) should be 50-50," Ginsburg said. "It could be 60%
men, 40% women, or the other way around. It shouldn't be that women
are the exception."
Since O'Connor's departure in 2006, oral arguments and the
justices' behind-the-scenes discussions on how disputes should be
resolved have had a different tone. In the strip-search case and
others this term, Ginsburg has revealed a woman's point of view
that was strikingly at odds with those of many of her colleagues.
Ginsburg dominated oral arguments in an important case involving
alleged discrimination related to pregnancy leaves. She was openly
frustrated that some of her male colleagues, in her view, might not
have understood the discrimination women face on the job.
She said the arguments in that dispute echoed those of a 2007
case involving Lilly Ledbetter, a 19-year worker at a Goodyear tire
factory in Alabama who alleged that her pay didn't keep pace with
that of men who had equal or less seniority. In that case, the
court � with Ginsburg vigorously dissenting � narrowly ruled that
women could not sue for pay inequities resulting from sex
discrimination that had occurred years earlier.
Oral arguments in the pregnancy case were "for me, Ledbetter
repeated," Ginsburg told USA TODAY, adding that her colleagues
showed "a certain lack of understanding" of the bias a woman can
face on the job.
Surprisingly, Justice Ginsburg did not share any circulated draft
opinions in the cases, but then it may be that none were yet
circulated.
References
1. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090506/1aginsburg06_cv.art.htm
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