Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life's Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amanda L. Tyler

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s last book, written with her friend and former law clerk Amanda Tyler, brings together key interviews, legal briefs, favorite case opinions and lectures — many never before published — to demonstrate the impact Ginsburg had in addressing the legacies of discrimination and the history of gender rights in the United States. Her vision, her work, her reach, voice and humor come through loud and clear. A commanding delight.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's last book is a curation of her own legacy, tracing the long history of her work for gender equality and a “more perfect Union.”

In the fall of 2019, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited the University of California, Berkeley School of Law to deliver the first annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture in honor of her friend, the late Herma Hill Kay, with whom Ginsburg had coauthored the very first casebook on sex-based discrimination in 1974. Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue is the result of a period of collaboration between Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk. During Justice Ginsburg's visit to Berkeley, she told her life story in conversation with Tyler. In this collection, the two bring together that conversation and other materials—many previously unpublished—that share details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career. These include notable briefs and oral arguments, some of Ginsburg's last speeches, and her favorite opinions that she wrote as a Supreme Court Justice (many in dissent), along with the statements that she read from the bench in those important cases. Each document was chosen by Ginsburg and Tyler to tell the story of the litigation strategy and optimistic vision that were at the heart of Ginsburg's unwavering commitment to the achievement of "a more perfect Union."
 
In a decades-long career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an advocate and jurist for gender equality and for ensuring that the United States Constitution leaves no person behind. Her work transformed not just the American legal landscape, but American society more generally. Ginsburg labored tirelessly to promote a Constitution that is ever more inclusive and that allows every individual to achieve their full human potential. As revealed in these pages, in the area of gender rights, Ginsburg dismantled long-entrenched systems of discrimination based on outdated stereotypes by showing how such laws hold back both genders. And as also shown in the materials brought together here, Justice Ginsburg had a special ability to appreciate how the decisions of the high court impact the lived experiences of everyday Americans. The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 as this book was heading into production was met with a public outpouring of grief. With her death, the country lost a hero and national treasure whose incredible life and legacy made the United States a more just society and one in which “We the People,” for whom the Constitution is written, includes everyone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520381926
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Series:	Law in the Public Square , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	43,391
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020) was Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she received her BA from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LLB from Columbia Law School. From 1959 to 1961, Ginsburg served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She was a professor of law at Rutgers University School of Law (1963–1972) and at Columbia Law School (1972–1980). She was appointed a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. Then-president Clinton nominated her as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat on August 10, 1993. Justice Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, as this book was going into production.

Amanda L. Tyler is Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches and writes about the Supreme Court, the federal courts, constitutional law, and civil procedure. The author of many articles and several books, including Habeas Corpus in Wartime: From the Tower of London to Guantanamo Bay, Tyler also serves as a coeditor of the prominent casebook and treatise Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System. Tyler served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United States during the October Term 1999.

Table of Contents

Preface: Amanda L. Tyler
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Amanda L. Tyler

Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture
Ruth Bader Ginsburg the Advocate
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Recent Speeches

Afterword: Amanda L. Tyler
Timeline: The Life of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Editorial Reviews

"Even if you've read Ginsburg's memoir or seen the biopic On the Basis of Sex, this book will offer new insight into her storied career—and its lingering impact on the American legal system. . . . As Ginsburg said, 'Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.' We'll be joining her, once again, in the pages of this book."

The Oprah Magazine O

Because each of Ginsburg’s words is so meaningful, this volume feels like a final gift. . . . Ginsburg inscribed herself into American history with the shining conviction of her vision of a more perfect union, expressed in her powerfully and deliberately chosen words. Working until the very end, she was determined to leave us this final anthology, and all of her words are significant.

Washington Post - Jeffrey Rosen

2021-01-06
Highlights from the career of the iconic jurist.

Anyone needing more reasons to admire Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) will find them in this inspiring collection of speeches (all previously unpublished), briefs, oral arguments, dissenting opinions, and a candid conversation with Tyler, a professor at the Berkeley School of Law who served as Ginsburg’s law clerk during the 1999 term. One of only nine women in her Harvard Law School class of over 500 students, Ginsburg at the time was also raising her first child, and she endured the added burden of caring for her husband when he became stricken with cancer. After graduating in 1959, she discovered that “employers were upfront about wanting no lady lawyers,” especially if they were Jewish and a mother. With great difficulty, she found a clerkship. In 1963, she joined the Rutgers Law School faculty and later became director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and one of the organization’s four general counsels. In 1993, Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court. From her 27-year tenure, Ginsburg includes several opinions along with bench announcements summarizing her dissents in cases that dealt with gender discrimination, voting rights, equal pay, and a corporation’s right to impose religious beliefs on employees. Ginsburg’s legal writings reflect the clarity and cogent reasoning that she claimed were influenced by Justice Louis Brandeis, whom she praised for his “craftsmanship, sense of collegiality,” judicial restraint, and “readiness to defend civil rights and liberties when the values our Constitution advances required it.” The aim of the fact-filled Brandeis brief, she said, “was to educate the Judiciary about the real world in which the laws under inspection operated.” Among other decisive influences, Ginsburg cited her Jewish heritage: “The demand for justice, for peace, and for enlightenment runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition."

An informative perspective on a tireless advocate for fairness and equity.

Kirkus Reviews