During an interview at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talked about women’s rights and the legal work she’s done over the course of decades pushing for equality. She also opened up about her own experiences with sexual harassment.
When discussing the recent #MeToo movement of women speaking up about sexual harassment and assault they’ve gone through, she said it’s “about time.”
“For so long women were silent, thinking there was nothing you could do about it, but now the law is on the side of women, or men, who encounter harassment and that’s a good thing,” she said.
She then recalled the sexist treatment she’d been subjected to during her years as a student as well as when she was a law professor. One incident took place while she was a student at Cornell after she approached her chemistry professor for extra help, as the subject was not her strong suit. He offered her a practice exam. When it came time to take the test the next day, she realized the professor hadn’t given her a “practice exam” — he’d given the actual exam in advance.
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“I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said. Asked what she’d done about the incident, Bader Ginsburg confronted the professor in his office saying, “How dare you? How dare you do this?”
She added, “And that was the end of that.”
You can watch the full interview below:
