Ginsburg to Speak at Northwestern

CHICAGO --- Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will visit Northwestern University School of Law as the Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar and participate in a discussion with Northwestern Law faculty. (The discussion is not open to the public.)

The discussion, open only to the Northwestern Law community (tickets required), will take place Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the School of Law.

As the Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar, Ginsburg will spend a few days at the law school, providing students and faculty with perspectives on the judicial process and contemporary legal issues.

Ginsburg will participate in the discussion with Steven Calabresi, the co-founder of the Federalist Society and the George C. Dix Professor of Law, and Professor Robert Burns, a specialist in advocacy, professionalism and criminal procedure.

The event will open with welcoming remarks by David Van Zandt, dean of the School of Law, and an introduction by constitutional law scholar Martin Redish, the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at Northwestern. 

Ginsburg was nominated by President Bill Clinton as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1993 and took the oath of office Aug. 10, 1993. Prior to that, she served on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1980-93), as a professor at Columbia University School of Law (1972-80), and on the law faculty of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (1963-72).

In 1971, then-Professor Ginsburg was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Throughout the 1970s, she litigated a series of cases solidifying a constitutional principle against gender-based discrimination. 

Her numerous bar association activities include service on the Board of Editors of the American Bar Association Journal, and she has written widely in the areas of civil procedure, conflict of law, constitutional law and comparative law.

Ginsburg holds honorary degrees from numerous universities, including Northwestern. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School and received her LL.B. (J.D.) from Columbia Law School.

Past Howard J. Trienens speakers include Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr.; the late William H. Rehnquist, a former chief justice; and Supreme Court Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy.

The Howard J. Trienens Visiting Scholar Program was established at the School of Law in 1989 by partners of Sidley Austin to honor Howard Trienens’ service to the firm and Northwestern.

Trienens, a partner at Sidley Austin since 1956, has been a member of the Northwestern University board of trustees since 1967 and was chairman of the board from 1986 to 1995. He received two degrees from Northwestern, a bachelor’s degree in 1945 and a J.D. in 1949, and was editor in chief of the Illinois Law Review. After graduating he taught a course in criminal law at the School of Law and was clerk to Fred M. Vinson, a former chief justice of the United States.

More information is available at Howard J. Trienens Visiting Scholar Program.