Remarks at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Swearing-In Ceremony

Thank you, Chief Justice. Mr. President, distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends. Not yet two months ago, President Clinton announced his intention to nominate me as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I said then that if confirmed I would try in every way to justify his faith in me. I renew that pledge this afternoon in the presence of people I hold dear: my family, colleagues, co-workers, and treasured friends.

There is one in this audience whose presence I want specially to acknowledge. She is my wonderful mother-in-law, Evelyn Ginsburg. She was always there when I needed her. She sensed without ever being asked when that was. She constantly held up my spirits when the going was rough. “This too will pass,” she would say. I am overjoyed, Mother, that you are with me today.

This weekend I attended a celebration of women lawyers in New York. The keynote speaker was our grand Attorney General, Janet Reno. It may have been the best attended; it was certainly the most remarkable event at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting.

Awards were made in the name of Margaret Brent, a great lady of the mid-1600s, celebrated as the first woman lawyer in America. Her position as a woman, yet a possessor of power, so confused her contemporaries that she was sometimes named in court records not as Mistress Margaret Brent, but as Gentleman Margaret Brent. Times are changing. The President made that clear by appointing me and, just last week, naming five other women to Article III courts. Six of his total of 14 federal bench nominees thus far are women.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quoted Oklahoma Supreme Court Jeanne Coyne, who was asked, “Do women judges decide cases differently by virtue of being women?” Justice Coyne replied that in her experience, a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion.

I agree, but I also have no doubt that women, like persons of different racial groups and ethnic origins, contribute what a fine jurist, the last Fifth Circuit Judge Alvin Rubin, described as a distinctive medley of views influenced by differences in biology, cultural impact, and life experience. A system of justice will be the richer for diversity of background and experience. It will be the poorer in terms of appreciating what is at stake and the impact of its judgments if all of its members are cast from the same mold.

I was impressed by the description of women at the Bar by one of the 1993 Margaret Brent prize recipients, Esther Rothstein, an attorney in private practice in Chicago. Esther said she found women attorneys to be tough, yet tender; wanting to win, but not vindictive; cautiously optimistic, with the sense to settle for victories that do not leave one’s opponent bloodied and bowed; willing to be a link in a chain that is strong, yet pliable.

In my lifetime, I expect there will be among federal judicial nominees, based on the excellence of their qualifications, as many sisters as brothers in law. That prospect is indeed cause for hope and its realization will be cause for celebration.

Thank you.