Lisa Caputo, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience, The Travelers Companies, Inc.
Anita Hill, Professor of Law, Public Policy and Women's Studies, Heller Graduate School of Policy and Management, Brandeis University
Sara Moss, Vice Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies
Moderator: Pattie Sellers, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2020: RBG: An Intimate Tribute

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Uncategorized

Fortune MPW who knew Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg share with us personal takes on what made RBG unique, inspirational and transformative for women and for America.


now we want to take a moment to pay tribute to one of the most iconic, impactful and inspiring women of our time. Ruth Bader Ginsburg take a look. Mhm Yeah, yeah, that was wonderful. Welcome all I'm patty sellers Ruth Bader Ginsburg certainly had an impact on all our lives, not just the most powerful women and not just women. Let's not forget men as well. She over she overturned laws that discriminated on the basis of sex and she represented harmed male plant plant male plaintiffs as well. That is sometimes forgotten. She fought for equality period. We're fortunate to be joined by three women who knew Justice Ginsburg and have memories to share and before I introduce the three of them, I have been frozen here in the green room not even revealing to them what what's behind me, but I'll show you now. Uh huh. Mhm loosen Kapito. Executive vice president. Marketing, communications and customer experience travelers. The travelers companies, the Great Anita Hill Professor of law and public policy and women's studies at the Heller Graduate School policy and management at BRANDEIS University and Sarah Moss, vice chairman of the Estee lauder companies. Thank you all for joining us. And lisa I am going to start with you. Um tell us about meeting Justice Ginsburg and your your memory of her. Well I have to say it's quite a memory because it was in the middle of President Clinton's um term at the White House and he had the opportunity to nominate his first Supreme Court justice. And it was actually Hillary who had known of her from the women's Lawyers association and um President Clinton had narrowed the list down from 40 candidates five which um Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one and so she was coming for her interview at the White House. It was a sunday, nobody was around except for those of us staffers who were slaving away seven days a week. And and the greatest thing ever was that President Clinton was, was up in the residents watching a football games in jeans and a sweatshirt and he changed into a suit with a coat and tie. And Justice Ginsburg was completely casually dressed and it was just such a great moment because you know, the juxtaposition of of the President and formal attire and Justice Ginsburg more casual was was great. And and and he he had talked about it at the time that it was a conversation of the lifetime and and they talked about the constitution, the law, how it affected people. He really cared about that and he loved that she spoke, you know, in such a straightforward way on the level he used to say, and um how disarmingly straightforward um she was. So that's, that's my story from jeans to a suit to meet the form, the future Supreme Court justice on President Clinton's part. Before I turn to you Anita, I'd like to let all of you who are watching know that any of you who have have your own memories or photos of Justice Ginsburg. If you'd like to share with us, please tweet them out and be sure to use the fortune mp w hashtag or you can email them to most powerful women at fortune dot com and we'll tweet them out for you. If you could describe your photo briefly, memory briefly and make sure you give us your name and title and organization. So go ahead. See if let's see if we can get some some memories from all of you, Anita tell us about your relationship with Justice Ginsburg. Well it was, it was not a close relationship but it was really special to me. Um She attended a conference that I co hosted with my colleague and friend Emma Core, Coleman Jordan at Georgetown Law School where her husband marty taught. It was the first year anniversary after the 1991 hearing and she had not been appointed. But Emma let me know that this was Ruth Bader Ginsburg and she was really on the lift to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Uh We did the the conference she came, she sat in the front row, it was a conference of scholars from the legal profession really across the academy and she sat there, she never asked a question but you know, I see her occasionally nodding and so I was you know, just thrilled that this woman who had heard about and now knew that she was maybe on the Supreme Court was in agreement with so much that was being said a year or so later, Emma and I published the collection of essays from that conference, and this is a personal part of it for me, um we sent a copy of the book to ruth Ginsburg, and my understanding is that she took it with her to the court And put it on her bookshelf, prominently displayed it on her bookshelf in in the Supreme Court. And of course, for me, that was a feeling that you know, she had taken a little part of me to the Supreme Court, which was basically the only way I was going to get there uh in the 1990s, um and and it really wasn't affirmation that I needed, not that I wanted her to pick size, but I wanted someone to acknowledge that I had a side and that it was worth hearing. Um and that sort of brings me to the professional part of my, my quote unquote relationship with her. You know, one of the things that I've just remark about in terms of her jurisprudence was it was it was grounded in equal protection law that came out of race. Um She was at the conference on Race and Gender and power. She understood that the two were linked together. She understood intersectionality perhaps before it was really a popular word. And so for me to have someone on the court who understood both race and gender and the importance of equality, um for each category was like having someone on my side in the court that I could count on. And so I'm forever endeavour indebted to for both, personally and professionally. Thank you. That is a beautiful tribute in itself. Thank you Anita. Um Sarah tell us about, I think you go way back uh relationship with Justice Ginsburg. Tell us how it started and how it how it developed. Oh, I'd be delighted. Um well it started in 1975 was the first time I met her and I have to say that she inspired me to become a lawyer. And and her work on gender equality has really fueled my passion throughout my career. Um I became involved in the women's movement uh which evolved from the civil rights movement in the late 60s, early 70s. And I was a young teacher then. Um but I knew I needed to have more impact. I wanted to have more impact and it seemed clear to me that the law was the way to do it. Um And I heard about a young professor at Rutgers Law School, Ruth Ginsburg who was starting to bring cases as you said patty um on behalf of women and men for gender equality. And I knew about her. She seemed wonderful. I had not I had not met her at the time but I went to law school. Um I wrote a law review article on the Equal rights Amendment. Some people may remember that I clerked for Constance baker motley, the first black woman on the federal court. But my real dream was to work with Ruth Ginsburg. Who it then was at that time when I graduated was at the A. C. L. U. Women's rights Project. So I wrote to her And um I told her I would love to work with her for her and she invited me to come and meet her. This was 1975. I had never met her before, I'm not even sure I have seen a picture I knew about her work but as we all know, she was small, she was quiet, she had a calm about her that was really a serial in many ways. She was so determined, so strategic. Uh and she made it clear that bit by bit and case by case she was going to bring equal protection two women and and give women rights. Frankly, I didn't even know that we didn't have at the time, but because she she didn't do the high profile cases, she did a case by case. So I was blown away by her and so inspired and frankly when I left that meeting I knew she was going to be successful. I mean in my heart I believed she was going to be successful. I didn't get a job with her, they didn't have resources. Um but we stayed in touch and saw each other over the years and she was always gracious and warm and she was particularly happy when I came to Estee Lauder 17 years ago. She talked about her feelings about Estee lauder herself, that she was a pioneer, a pioneering woman, that she was, you know, our firms are companies, culture of strong women and women's leadership and our mission of gender equality. So she was just, I felt her support, I felt her or love if you will, um, throughout the years and she really was my north star, My workout news. I still can't do 20 push ups by the way, but I'm working on it. And uh, she was, she's been my inspiration my whole career. And Sarah, did you stay in touch with her over the decades? I did. I can't, it was not a close relationship for sure. Um, but I stayed in touch with her and we saw each other and a number of, uh, a number of occasions. And as I said, she was always warm and welcoming and remembered. Um, and I felt I felt close to her. She made me feel that way. And, and um, my admiration for her just only grew, only grew. My sons went to school with her granddaughter and we had that relationship in common. She was, she was a person. You know, she was somebody who was just a wonderful person. And you felt that, I know lisa when you, when you were with her, you just, you just felt it for sure you want to, if you want to live a long life and that's, I've given this book to quite a few people. Is this the workout that you do? Sarah the work that I try to do? Yeah, yeah. Uh, Anita has, I mean, you've had such a, you know, I love to say that real power is what you do outside of your profession of of your sort of designated platform. And you certainly have personified that we just have about a minute left. But um, is there any any way beyond what you've explained? Uh that ruth Bader Ginsburg inspired you to think about your power more broadly than you than you might have. Well, the idea that she was the queen of defense, uh, that you don't have to always be in the winning column to be powerful. That you can actually make change when the decisions go in the other direction. And I I always cite the case, the lilly ledbetter case, the equal pay case where she basically wrote a dissent, read it from the bench and instructed Congress what they needed to do to fix the law that should never have needed to been fixed. He also said, but this is what Congress needs to do. So I would just like to leave, uh, leave this session with with us, remembering that this was an extraordinarily shy girl from Brooklyn, the daughter of a Russian, jewish, jewish immigrant and a mother who died when ruth was young. She came of age during the holocaust. And she said she um she said during her confirmation hearing that she she described her Descents as appealing to the intelligence of a future day who appealed to the intelligence of a future day. So hopefully our future days, we'll have the memory the voice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in our, in our collective ears, we will have more intelligent days ahead. This is certainly a fitting way to wrap up this year's fortune. Most powerful women's summit leadership is a journey. None of us, none of us are born leaders. We all learn from each other. We constantly learn, we adapt and that's the way we make it to greatness. We've adapted, We've learned over these last three days. They've been very motivating. We thank you all for being part of it and I want to bring in the most powerful women's summit co chairs. Um and uh thank you my colleagues, my co chairs for making these last three days. Really wonderful. Thank you for having. This has been such an unprecedented here. I think you're feeling the impact of the separated from each other. It's right now, that's why in so many ways the summit was even more vital. We all need ways to stay connected with each other and get the information, inspiration and joy. We need to keep doing the work ahead. Yeah. We also want to once again thank our corporate partners for helping bring us all together and we'd like to give a shout out to the rest of the fortune. M. T. W. T, all of whom have contributed so much to the summit. One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that it has brought the MBW community together more often, albeit virtually. Please keep an eye on your email for more gatherings in the weeks and months ahead. And remember the 2020 most powerful women list comes out in November. Please watch for that too. Getting together is so important. Right now we'll do it again soon, so long.