When I met Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Back in the early 70s, before she was appointed to a federal court (and then to the Supreme Court), Ginsburg was the General Counsel to the Women's Rights Project of the ACLU and I was working as Executive Secretary to Aryeh Neier who headed up the ACLU at the time. I was in the hallway just outside the door of the ACLU office and Kathleen Peratis, then director of the WRP, introduced me to Ginsburg.

She didn't look so terribly small to me at the time, but perhaps she shrunk a bit more due to age. I shook her hand and I remember her smiling at me nicely.

This was at a time when the ACLU had a sexual harassment problem in its Legal Director who ogled a female secretary as she took off her sweater (which was over a blouse) and she started yelling at the guy "Don't look at me like that!" The women on the staff forced Aryeh to call the guy on the carpet. He wasn't fired but left because he had "irecconcilable differences" with Neier.

In those days women had to fight the old "oh, men will be men" thing and really fight hard. When I think back on that incident, I wonder if Ginsburg had spoken to Neier, given her early and feisty defense of women's rights.

I was treated with utmost respect by Aryeh Neier but I always felt uncomfortable around the LD. Another fine gentleman was John Shattuck, Staff Counsel and became the Director of the ACLU's office in Washington, D.C. He was kind and nice and we mourned when his wife and mother of his kids died of cancer far too young. He is recognized as a scholar on international law and teaches at Tufts.

Some of these memories go so far back that I am wobbly on exact dates. But it was indeed a fine experience and I worked with some terrific people there.