From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.

It seems like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on everyone's mind recently.

She's become a cultural icon, inspiring internet memes, biographies, documentaries,

and a new feature film on the basis of sex.

And at the time of this taping, she's recovering from what her doctors called a successful surgery.

But today we wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's impact on the

ACLU, where she founded the Women's Rights Project.

We have with us in studio, Lenora Lapidus, the current director of the Women's Rights Project,

who's worked for the ACLU fighting for gender equality since 2001.

Lenora, it's a great pleasure and honor to have you with us. Welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much. It's great to be here. Can you start by telling us a bit about the founding of the

ACLU's Women's Rights Project and the role of Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Sure. The Women's Rights Project

was founded by Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Sure. The Women's Rights Project was founded by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1972.

The prior year, she had written a brief on behalf of the ACLU in a case called Reed versus

Reed.

This was the case in which, for the very first time, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause

prohibited sex discrimination, just as it prohibited discrimination on the basis of race.

That case challenged an Idaho law that said if a mother and father both wanted to be the administrator for a child's estate after the child passed away,

the court automatically would grant the father this right because he was a man.

And Ruth Bader Ginsburg challenged this law, arguing that there could not be a preference on the basis of sex

for no other reason, and that men should not automatically be preferred over women.

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