What Ginsburg Meant to a Jewish UCLA Law Professor

In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, social media has reminded us of how enigmatic she was. We don’t even bat an eye when we speak of the justice who became a pop culture icon and earned the fabulous nickname the Notorious RBG. However, she was part of a not particularly glamorous profession for those who work in it every day. 

A Jewish professor of constitutional law, evidence, law of the border and other legal courses at the UCLA School of Law, Peter Reich told the Journal that Ginsburg “was someone who was a model for many generations of law students and lawyers — in terms of someone who combined her scholarly precision with activism for social justice.”

Reacting to her death, Reich said, “It’s a huge loss. She was a person who spent every day of her working life as though it was her last. I feel as though we’ll be missing a voice on the court; not only a voice of reason but a voice for various causes.”

 “I don’t think that law exists simply to serve the powerful. I think it exists to spread the notion of justice to all people in all situations. That is something [Ginsburg] definitely believed and she connected with Judaism.” — Peter Reich

One of the classes Reich teaches is U.S. Constitutional Law for Foreign Lawyers. One of Ginsburg’s cases he teaches is what Reich said is probably her most famous: the 1996 equality case U.S. v. Virginia  that struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s ban on admitting women, in which she authored the majority opinion. 

“[Ginsburg] clearly set up a standard for defining when sex discrimination takes place under the 14th Amendment equal protection clause,” Reich said. “This case, in a way, was sort of an accumulation of the work that she had done as an advocate for women’s rights and earlier cases when she was a lawyer. Equal protection under the law doesn’t just apply to racial minorities; it also applies to women.” 

Reich plans to discuss Ginsburg’s passing with his students. “The way I look at [her death] is when someone in the ranks of fighting for justice falls, it’s like someone who is carrying the flag falls and someone has to rush in and pick up the flag and fill that position,” he said, adding, “that is a duty that not just lawyers have but citizens have in terms of achieving a broader notion of justice in society. I don’t think that law exists simply to serve the powerful. I think it exists to spread the notion of justice to all people in all situations. That is something she definitely believed and she connected with Judaism”  

That sentiment resonates with Reich, as does Ginsburg’s famous quote that she had said before but also used to close her talk in 2001 during an address at the National Council of Jewish Women titled “Three Brave Jewish Women,” focusing on Emma Lazarus, Anne Frank and Henrietta Szold (founder of Hadassah). The quote was: “I am a judge born, raised and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope that all the years I have the good fortune to serve on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and courage to remain steadfast in the service of that demand.”

As a member of IKAR, Reich has been involved in a slew of social justice projects with the community going back over a decade and professionally has represented pro bono plaintiffs in land rights and water rights cases in the Southwest, particularly involving the cross-border access to water between the United States and Mexico. Ginsburg, he said, “has been an inspiration in all of these things.” 

However, he doesn’t believe all of Ginsburg’s decisions were uniformly progressive. “I would call her a structuralist with progressive inclinations, by which I mean she looked to recurring patterns and themes in the Constitution like access to justice, the federal-state relationship and equality. She was a careful writer and didn’t overextend herself.”