I Heart Ruth

Yesterday, I was able to cap off my last day of work by attending the DC Women's Bar Association Annual Awards dinner because my boss, the General Counsel, was being presented with the Woman of the Year award. I was very excited for my boss and became even more giddy when I found out that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was going to be there to receive the other award of the night.

Overall, the night was great. Though it was slightly long and there were some self-proclaimed feminists being hypocritically catty to other women, the Ginsburg's speeches made the night. Justice Ginsburg's husband, "Marty," gave the cutest introduction of his wife with his tax lawyer humor.

Then Justice Ginsburg accepted the award and gave a powerful speech. My summary could not do the speech justice (pun intended), but her stories made me realize how much things have changed in her lifetime. Women only made up 3% of law students when Justice Ginsburg attended, now it is 47% nationwide, and 53% at my law school founded by two women for women who could not attend law school anywhere else.

Justice Ginsburg also talked about the Virginia v. Loving Supreme Court decision that I had blogged about last week. Although I could recite all the facts of the case, Justice Ginburg's words captivated all of us. And when she quoted the decision, "There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause," I think the words were especially meaningful given the California Supreme Court's decision to overrule same-sex marriages bans.

Even though I dressed up like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for my 3rd grade book report, I want to be like Ruth.