Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Wednesday she was buoyed by the #MeToo movement, hours before Judge Brett Kavanaugh faces the Senate Judiciary Committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
“I am really cheered on by this #MeToo [movement],” the 85-year-old Ginsburg told a group of first-year Georgetown University Law School students in Washington, D.C. “Every woman of my vintage has not just one story, but many stories, but we thought there was nothing you could do about it. Boys will be boys, so just find a way to get out of it.”
Ginsburg, who devoted much of her career advocating for anti-sex-discrimination laws and other means of reform before joining the judiciary, did not mention President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Kavanaugh. Her remarks were in response to an audience question about whether she was excited or disappointed by the new women’s movement.
“#MeToo was also an example of women coming together in numbers,” Ginsburg continued. “So it was one complaint, and then one after another, the complaints mounted. So women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.”
Despite Ginsburg’s work resulting in a number of case law and legislative changes, she said “getting through the unconscious bias” remained a problem for women.
Kavanaugh is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday to address a claim from Christine Blasey Ford that he drunkenly groped her and tried to remove her clothing at a Maryland high school party in 1982, when she was 15 and he was 17. Ford is also due to speak to the panel.
Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s accusation, as well as other allegations leveled at him.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on Friday.
