--- title: In Unseen Interview, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Honors Pauli Murray description: Watch Ginsburg explain in 2017 how Pauli Murray—who later became the first Black female Episcopal priest—shaped her thinking on the law. canonical: https://time.com/5896410/ruth-bader-ginsburg-pauli-murray/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-10-16T17:15:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T17:04:48.000Z article:section: History og:title: RBG Wanted People to Know More About One of Her Legal Heroes og:description: Watch a previously unseen interview with the late Supreme Court Justice og:url: https://time.com/5896410/ruth-bader-ginsburg-pauli-murray/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49fc88958e9bd5d/698a133e16d88447bfc38b41/RBG_Pauli-Murray_no_bug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1920 og:image:height: 1080 og:image:alt: Ruth Bader Ginsburg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: RBG Wanted People to Know More About One of Her Legal Heroes twitter:description: Watch a previously unseen interview with the late Supreme Court Justice twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb49fc88958e9bd5d/698a133e16d88447bfc38b41/RBG_Pauli-Murray_no_bug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # In Previously Unseen Interview, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Shares How Legal Pioneer Pauli Murray Shaped Her Work on Sex Discrimination > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: In Previously Unseen Video, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looks Back at How a Legal Pioneer Laid the Groundwork for Sex-Discrimination Cases [Watch (HLS stream): In Previously Unseen Video, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looks Back at How a Legal Pioneer Laid the Groundwork for Sex-Discrimination Cases](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TajaOIjc.m3u8) (4:17)  _Published 2020-10-16. In Previously Unseen Video, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looks Back at How a Legal Pioneer Laid the Groundwork for Sex-Discrimination Cases_  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 12, 2023 5:04 PM UTCPublished: Oct 16, 2020 5:15 PM UTC  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Updated: Dec 12, 2023 5:04 PM UTCPublished: Oct 16, 2020 5:15 PM UTC This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18 at 87\. In the weeks since Ginsburg’s death, much attention has been paid to her work before she joined the bench, as [a groundbreaking litigator of gender-equality cases](https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2253&context=facpub) in the 1970s—and to the question of what Barrett’s [approach](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opinion/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court.html) to such cases [might be](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/amy-coney-barretts-alignment-with-scalia-has-implications-far-beyond-roe-v-wade/2020/10/02/d9278210-04e4-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea%5Fstory.html). While Ginsburg was unquestionably a pioneer in the realm of sex-discrimination, she also tried to set the record straight on the other pioneer on whose shoulders she stood. In this never-before-seen interview, conducted by documentary filmmakers Margo Guernsey and Llewellyn Smith in 2017, Ginsburg credits lawyer and activist Pauli Murray for inspiring an amicus brief she wrote for the historic 1971 Supreme Court case _Reed v. Reed_, which was the first time the nation’s highest court recognized[ women as victims of sex discrimination.](https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1440&context=wsq) That case centered on the death of 19-year-old Idahoan Richard Reed, who apparently shot himself in his father’s house with one of his father’s rifles. Given that the tragedy had occurred in her ex-husband’s home, his mother Sally Reed filed to be the executor of her son’s estate. The job, however, was set to go to the father, as Idaho law said that if a man and a woman were both equally qualified to execute an estate, “males must be preferred to females.” Ginsburg, then a law professor, wrote an amicus brief with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), [arguing](https://socialchangenyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1970-Reed-v-Reed-Brief-for-Appellant.pdf) that the Idaho law denied Sally Reed the “equal protection of the laws” that she was promised by the 14th Amendment. And on Nov. 22, 1971, the Supreme Court agreed. The court ruled for the first time that a sex-based classification law was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which says, no state shall “deprive…any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That idea, Ginsburg said, came directly from the mind of Pauli Murray, who was listed as an honorary writer of the brief. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter-history) “Pauli had the idea that we should interpret the text literally; it said ‘any person’ not ‘any _male_ person,'” Ginsburg told Guernsey and Smith. Among the Murray writings cited in the brief was a 1965 article “[Jane Crow and the Law](https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000687209)” which detailed the American laws that restricted what women could do. Such restrictions differed from those applied to race, Ginsburg explained, in that they were “rationalized as favors for the ladies”; nevertheless, the logic was the same. Working well before the [coining](https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/) of the term [intersectionality](https://time.com/5560575/intersectionality-theory/)—the idea that overlapping factors such as race, sex, gender, class and immigration status must be viewed collectively to fully understand a person’s identity—Murray had outlined the parallels between sex discrimination and race discrimination, setting the stage for the former to be recognized as just as unconstitutional as the latter. “We knew when we were writing that brief that we were standing on her shoulders,” Ginsburg said. “We owe so much to her courage, to her willingness to speak out when society was not prepared to listen.” The spring following the _Reed v. Reed_ decision, Ginsburg [founded](https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg) the ACLU’s [Women’s Rights Project](https://www.aclu.org/other/faqs-aclu-womens-rights-project-and-womens-history-month). In her work there, she went on to write roughly two dozen other amicus briefs that solidified her [reputation](https://www.c-span.org/video/?42908-1/ginsburg-supreme-court-nomination) as the “Thurgood Marshall of the women’s movement.” But [in the years that followed](https://billmoyers.com/story/transcript-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-in-conversation-with-bill-moyers/), especially after Murray’s death in 1985, Ginsburg would make sure Murray’s role in the history that created that reputation was remembered too, talking her up in countless [lectures](https://www.google.com/books/edition/My%5FOwn%5FWords/uiPyCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22wake%20forest%22) and [interviews.](https://billmoyers.com/story/transcript-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-in-conversation-with-bill-moyers/) In fact, Ginsburg was so eager to do so that she surprised independent documentarians Guernsey and Smith when she agreed to speak to them while they were conducting research about Murray—who, after serving as California’s[ first Black female deputy attorney general](https://wams.nyhistory.org/confidence-and-crises/world-war-ii/pauli-murray/) and the [first Black woman associate](https://www.paulweiss.com/about-the-firm/history) at the white shoe firm Paul Weiss, went on to become a co-founder of the [National Organization for Women](https://time.com/4381789/now-50th-anniversary-founder-national-organization-women/) in 1966 and the [first Black female Episcopal priest](https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/development/pauli-murray-priest-1985) in 1977. The filmmakers shared this footage with TIME in the aftermath of Ginsburg’s death to help people better understand the late Supreme Court justice and her evolution as a legal theorist, and to continue to do what Ginsburg was aiming for: “to give credit where credit is due,” says Guernsey, “\[to\] one of the premier legal minds of the 20th century who is often not credited.” ## Transcript Did you see the picture of Polly Murray's class at Howard with the lone woman? When did I first become aware of Polly? Mary? In the summer of 1958, I was engaged as a summer associate in a law firm, and I was taken to meet the lone woman associate, Wally Mary. I thought she was remarkable. She had written the book about her family, proud shoes, and I had read that. So I knew a little bit about Polly. My closest affiliation with her was when she was on the board of the ACLU. I saw her working at her office in Paul Weiss, but that was just leading as I was going down the corridor. The 14th Amendment contains my favorite clause of the Constitution, and nor shall any state deny any person the equal protection of the laws. Polly had the idea that we should interpret the text literally. It said any person, not any male person. She wrote this remarkable article called Jane Crow and the Law, where she called attention to all the laws that restricted what women could do. But unlike race discrimination, they were all rationalized as favors for the ladies. For example, women were not permitted to serve on juries. It was thought that would distract them from their responsibility at home. The idea of Jane Crow was to show that classifications dividing the world up that way were not benign. They did not operate benignly in women's favor. Years later, Justice Brennan put it very well. He said the pedestal on which women were thought to stand more often than not turns out to be a cage. Really, which was the turning point. Gender discrimination case in the Supreme Court. Number four Read again Supreme. Sally reads Case was ideal to open the court's eyes. The case on facts was heartrending. The law was as arbitrary as it could be. Males must be preferred to females. The actual wording of the 14th Amendment is very simple. The case itself presents a large and I think, significant problem. I wrote the brief in Sally Reed's case. I put on the cover only Murray's name. By the time I read, Polly had already changed her interest. She was going to divinity school. She was into ministry, not lawyering. But we knew when we were writing that brief that we were standing on her shoulders because she was the one that sparked the idea that the 14th Amendment should protect the right of men and women. Boys and girls should let them be free to be you and me. That is to follow their talent as far as it could take them. Unlike Polly, who was way ahead of her time, I was there at the right time. 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