[When] Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a young, studious college kid taking a chemistry class at Cornell University... One day, as she was preparing for a test, she told her professor she felt uncomfortable with some of the material.I need more context to accept that inference,* though of course I'm making an inference. She's saying that her Cornell chemistry professor — a real person, whose name could be looked up — on his own motivation, imposed the means of cheating on an exam on her, expected her to discover what he had done and meant for her to interpret it as obligating her to have sex with him? I'm too wary of inferences to say I know exactly what RBG means, even as she's alive today and subject to further questioning, but she is very sure of herself and knows exactly what this now-safely-dead man meant 60+ years ago.
“He said, ‘I’ll give you a practice exam,'” Ginsburg recalled in an interview Sunday with NPR’s Nina Totenberg at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
When Ginsburg went to class the next day, she discovered that the professor had actually just slipped her an advance copy of the real test. “And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said. “And that’s just one of many examples.”
I'm imagining a context where I would, like her, be exactly sure. When Professor X hands her the real exam and says "I'll give you a practice exam," he says the word "practice" with a strong "if you know what I mean" inflection, and there would also have had be sexual innuendo in the surrounding conversation or in his gesturing toward her — or maybe in something she said. But if it was so obvious, why did she take the exam? Why didn't she say, "No, thank you. I don't need the 'practice' exam. I need to see what I can do on my own"?
What did she do when she realized she had unwittingly (wittingly??) cheated on the exam?
“I went to his office and I said, ‘How dare you? How dare you do this? And that was the end of that.”Is that really enough to undo the advantage you accepted over the other students?
To the extent that this is a sexual story, I do want to see it in the context of its time. I think it was accepted as part of the culture that professors could chose students to draw into sexual relationships with them, that it was considered a perk of the job, and that professors were proud of what they got.
_________________
* WaPo isn't withholding any context, as you can see from the video, which I've clipped to the relevant spot:
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79 comments:
Oh the horrors! She is a victim of a horrible injustice! She was given privilege which has doomed her to a life of misery.
I'm not going to watch that video, because seeing Nina Totenburg and Ruth Bader Ginsberg talk about sex would make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.
Was that Professor Magoo?
Nina Totenberg, continuing her considerable skills of putting the frump into frumpy.
Liberals, talking about some sexual harassment that Justice Ginsburg experienced 147 years ago is less malignant than their making up sexual harassment allegations versus Justice Thomas.
I'm impressed with this country. RBG was in the forefront of the women's movement and the worst that happened to her was she was given an advanced peak at an exam and was never touched or even propositioned.
What a great country and society we have!
That professor must have been desperate!Either that or there must be slim pickings from women law students.
This alleged incident would have happened in the 50s. I don’t believe RBG.
The professor liked her stems.
So, a Supreme Court Justice cheated her way to her undergraduate degree.
Where is CNN to express outrage over her immorality???
And, by telling such a story she must obviously have dementia. Right?????
Women are nothing but unspoken conditions.
One day, as she was preparing for a test, she told her professor she felt uncomfortable with some of the material.
So she came in his office without specific questions but just a general discomfort with the material? Back then he could have just patted her on the had and assured her it wasn't an issue because she clearly wasn't cut out for science or medicine.
But no, he gave her an advance copy of the test to work through. And that's how she thanked him?
I agree with Bill. If that's the worst she could come up with, she needs to rescind her hashtag.
Ruth? What do you know about pole sitting? I'll teach you to be a champion. But first, you'll have to pass the chemistry exam. And cheat without reporting it, contrary to what the honor-system rules require.
Unless there are hieroglyphics to back it up, I don't believe it.
Weak tea when it comes to sexual harassment.
There are women discussing their outrage about this at coffee pots all over America.
While their colleagues snicker at them for setting back the woman's movement.
You think a guy who had problems with the material gets a copy of that test? Nope.
Side note: When that happens today the professor asks which parts so he can make sure nothing uncomfortable appears on the exam.
There are women discussing their outrage about this at coffee pots all over America.
While their colleagues snicker at them for setting back the woman's movement.
You think a guy who had problems with the material gets a copy of that test? Nope.
Side note: When that happens today the professor asks which parts so he can make sure nothing uncomfortable appears on the exam.
Even if her bizarre tale of paranoia and psychological projection were true, it wouldn't constitute "harassment". What joke.
I may be having a failure of the imagination here, and that's on me. Still, while I can imagine many ways a professor of chemistry might put the moves on a student, even in a culture where putting the moves on a student was more acceptable or part of the college culture than it is now, I'm having a hard time imagining that the professor would understand or believe that handing RBG the real test was a straightforward statement of "and now in exchange I highly expect you to feel obligated to have sex with me".
For one thing, how valuable was that real test to a smart resourceful student? We're talking about RBG. Sure, she might have had some struggles with the material, but she surely had access to an infinite number of ways to conquer the material, other than being handed the real test. (My go-to, for example, in similar straits was to go to the other kids in the class I perceived as understanding the material and recruiting their assistance.) And the professor would have known that, right? So why would we think that he would have thought that he was giving her a pearl of great value...so great that the only real response available to her would be to ... consent to have sex with him? What??
For another thing, if a professor had done something like that to me (this would have been in the 70s, a couple decades after RBG) it never would have occurred to me that sex was part of the transaction. I would have thought things like, "He must be worried that I, one of his few female students, is floundering and he doesn't want to feel responsible for me, the rare female student, to fail academically so he's giving me an artificial boost." Or, "He must be one of those professors who thinks grades are a manifestation of false consciousness or something and that we should all get As just for showing up in class, but he can't just give out As so he does things like this instead." The theory that what he wanted was SEX in exchange for the TEST really never would have crossed my mind. (It might have crossed my mind if a lot of sexual this-and-that had been coming my way from the professor all semester, but that isn't part of her story. Even then, if the professor had been trying to flirt with me all semester, I wouldn't have assumed that the test was part of the game. I would have assumed that since he had been flirting with me, he intended his flirtation to be the offer of a path to me. Not the test.)
This is the kind of news item that makes me wonder how much #FOMO is within #MeToo. Its as if any woman who doesn't have a terrible story of harassment is afraid of being left out or left behind or, horrors, not attractive enough to inspire harassment. Thus scraping the barrel of memory for any possible tidbits.
Given the era, this could just as easily have been an affirmative action gesture on the part of a woke prof who wants to see his unicorn break barriers.
#metoo is a cavalcade of Feminine stereotypes....hobbled by emotion, gossipy, whiny, grasping, possessive, nagging.
LOL! Why do I have trouble believing this?
Since the professor in question is long dead she is safe making the claim. Although he may be laughing in his grave.
Women are nothing but unspoken conditions.
Hate to agree with you, rhhardin. Sigh!
Let's assume he meant sex for exam. Maybe he got that idea out of thin air. Maybe he interpreted her demeanor and expression as an offer.
"I think it was accepted as part of the culture that professors could chose students to draw into sexual relationships with them, that it was considered a perk of the job, and that professors were proud of what they got."
And perhaps it was accepted as part of the culture that attractive could chose professors to draw into sexual relationships with them, that it was considered a perk of being a female student, and that students were proud of what they got.
Quid pro quo requires both a quid and a quo.
So one of the most successful female lawyers in the country, successful in part thanks to her advocacy for "women's rights," serves up a BS nothingburger about an imagined sexual advance, implausible to begin with under the circumstances and supported by no evidence whatsoever, and we are still supposed to think of women as equal--and as arguing about sexual matters in good faith?
Is it outside the realm of possibility that RBG unknowingly did the exact same thing that so many other co-eds did; offered sex for better grades?
They 'asked for help' and the teacher gave it to them, with the understanding that this was the game. Professor liked the set of her wrinkles, so, viola!
This is a TRANSACTION with two parties, after all. I am just speculating, mind.
How come Nina Totenburg doesn't mention male porn actors are paid much less than female porn actors?
Those actors are living much closer to subsistence than the Hollywood stars she recounts.
The sexual harassment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Sounds like one of those 1960's films that tried to make out like it was a porn flick, but really wasn't.
It seems that the #metoo movement is turning into that Monty Python skit.
Once I went into Starbucks and ordered a grande latte, and when the barista gave me my order, it was actually a venti, and she had written my name on the cup with a heart dotting the i. I knew exactly what she wanted in return. #MeToo.
RBG felt uncomfortable with the material. She found the concept of bipolar bonds problematic.
I do not doubt her story.
I was in grad school in the very early 80's. It was common knowledge that at least three professors slept with graduate students and that those students received preferential treatment.
The shit hit the fan after I graduated and the most egregious professors were asked to leave. One stayed and has remained an associate professor for 35 years.
Okay, so does this mean Donna Brazile was sexually harassing Hillary Clinton when she gave her the CNN debate questions?
Donna Brazile is totally not sorry for leaking CNN debate questions to Hillary Clinton
"Liberals, talking about some sexual harassment that Justice Ginsburg experienced 147 years ago is less malignant than their making up sexual harassment allegations versus Justice Thomas."
Stop making me like you, Chuck!
I’d like to know what grade Ginsberg got in her chemistry class.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that the professor was giving her a previous year's test, because he used the same exam year after year. Questions repeat year after year, usually details get changed but there are professors who just stop caring and repeat them verbatim.
You were too young to know what college professors were like in the early 50s. I attended college in the late 50s and that "stuff" was never on the radar screen.
By the way, there was a male stalker lurking around Bascom Hill around 1980. He was an older, professorial type. He would “befriend” innocent male students by talking to them and then shock them by asking for oral sex in his car.
I coulda believed RBG if she had said the professor had given her a paper bag along with the exam and asked her to go change.
So Ginsberg is scientifically illiterate? Color me shocked.
“And that’s just one of many examples.”
Yeah, right. They all go crazy for RBG. I'd like to ask her to describe a penis. I'm pretty sure she's never seen one.
Time for RBG to go off to New Zealand. This story has nothing to say today. It is a remembrance or a fantasy of an old coot that means nothing. "And that was that"? What the heck? Did she turn herself in as a cheater under an honor code? Now, that would be a story with a purpose.
So, even without corroborating evidence, even if it is only her wishful thinking, it is understood that she had a choice. Not Choice, presumably. Would unwelcome flirting (i.e. proximate association) meet progressive, Ginsburg standards for Choice?
Danno, you would be incorrect. I saw some of they hieroglyphics of RBG in her prime, before she sold her soul to the Dark Lord and did her post grad studies in Lichdom. While she wasn't a Nefertiti, she was 'adequate'.
Sooo ... students were required to take chemistry classes to get BA degree in government back then? I call BS.
Ah the notorious REBG--a hottie in her own mind.
But what male would be so bold as to pinch RBG's ass today?
"I call BS."
There would be some science requirement, though the science departments had "less rigorous" courses for people who were just completing requirements.
RBG is lying.
She's full of shit.
Her story is preposterous.
Illicit transaction require payment up front.
Always.
Drug sales.
Prostitution.
Illegal gambling.
She thinks her professor extended her a line of credit on an illegal act.
Bull shit.
Why shouldn't RBG be given an advance copy of a chemistry exam?
Elizabeth "fauxahontas" Warren got to be a fake indian for 30 years to advance her career!
A single advance copy of a chemistry test is small potatoes compared to that.
Humblebrag
This story is incomplete, as it lacks pictures of the college-era Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I'm certain the Daily Mail will come through with some pictures of young Ruth, however, as well as a picture of the professor, a picture of her law school and aa stock photo of a chemistry exam.
“And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said.
How? Verbal? Non-verbal? What was it specifically that allowed you to be 100% certain? What was his response at the confrontation? There was no quid pro quo? So, you took without giving back or reporting? Did you feel guilty for having an advantage over the male students?
This dovetails into the Maher post. There is no scale. There is only Boolean logic about this topic.
But what male would be so bold as to pinch RBG's ass today?
George Herbert Walker Bush.
So now we know a Supreme Court Justice cheated on a chemistry test in college.
"This story is incomplete, as it lacks pictures of the college-era Ruth Bader Ginsburg."
She was attractive. Beautiful shape to her face.
Plus she was probably one of very few women in the chemistry class.
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-justice-young-photo-31.jpg?quality=85&w=447
December, 1953 Studio photograph of Ruth Bader, taken in Dec. 1953 when she was a Senior at Cornell University.
"So now we know a Supreme Court Justice cheated on a chemistry test in college."
And one allegedly (and unverifiably) commented about pubic hair on a coke can.
He was not fit to be a SCOTUS according to Slow Joe and the rest of the Democrats.
Interesting line-up in SoL statutory construction decision today. 5-4 with Chief in majority behind RBG opinion. Gorsuch dissent.
What was she doing going to the instructor asking for special help? I never did that. Was it kosher?
I don't believe her story, especially the part where she claims to have gone to his office and upbraided him for giving her a copy of the actual exam.
The Sexual Harassment of RBG really proves that its all about power.
Or maybe the Professor was near-sighted.
BTW, why are SCOTUS judges running around acting like Politicians?
“And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said.
How? Verbal? Non-verbal?
Oral? Vaginal? Anal? Half and half? Around the world? Rusty trombone? Cleveland Steamer?
Once the mind has seen bony-assed RBG sex it can’t unsee it. Thanks, Althouse!
okay, I got bored and couldn't finish the video. Does she ever say what happened after? DID he hit on her? DID she just ignore him (and was he fine with that?)
I'm assuming that this was a 'rocks for jocks' type of chemistry that was for non majors? If so, I doubt the chemistry prof was worried about her 'cheating', since in (my assumption of) his mind; it wasn't REALLY chemistry.
Also, what'd she do? work out Each problem with the book the night before? Since this was around 1950BC, she would have had to do the math BY HAND. Then REMEMBER each answer?
That sounds like a hell of a lot more brain work than just doing the test would have been.
Good ol' Ruth, pillar of integrity, not to be outdone, exposes the dead prof, who put his career on the line to the detriment of his other students just to knock off a little of her. Right!
Apparently, there will be a biopic made because she overcame so much sexism to be the first woman justice on SCOTUS.
Please note that Sandra O'Connor, who overcame so much more and didn't have the support of the baby killing community, was a westerner and a Republican and, therefore, not a woman. She will not be featured.
Well given that she's good at finding inference, like the inferred rights hidden in the Constitution, I believe her when she says she knew what that professor was inferring.
I like the part of the story where she deliberately makes mistakes in her exam.
The fox watching the hen house, gets caught with feathers in his mouth.
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2018/01/22/patrick-meehan-sexual-harassment/
“Until this weekend, U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan was largely portrayed as one of several congressmen leading the fight against sexual violence in Washington and elsewhere. But on Saturday, The New York Times reported that Meehan used “thousands of dollars” in taxpayer money to settle his own sexual harassment complaint.
According to the publication, Meehan, a 62-year-old Republican who represents Pennsylvania’s suburban 7th District, used his congressional office fund to settle the complaint, which was filed last year by a former aide. Ten unnamed sources familiar with the situation told the Times that Meehan allegedly made “unwanted romantic overtures” toward the much-younger aide, then grew “hostile” after she did not reciprocate his advances.
Following the report, Meehan was promptly removed from the House ethics committee, through which he had been investigating sexual harassment complaints. Now the committee is investigating accusations against Meehan, per a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan.”
#notme
#dontcare
There are people out there saying that Trump should be removed from office for mental incompetency. Can't we do that with RBG?
Assuming this happened (a huge assumption), it says more about Ginsburg that she assumed he wanted to have sex with her. There are a hundred non-sexual and innocent explanations. She must be awful to deal with.
And if she were given the actual test, she is responsible for reporting the professor. Instead, it looks like she made the deal to make sure she got the grade she wanted. Not exactly a profile in courage.
Then again, this could be another instance of RBG being mentally incompetent. I was at a Supreme Court oral argument about two years ago on an Age Discrimination case, SHe kept confusing age, race, and sex, and confused the standards. The other Justices did not say a word, which told me it has been going on for some time and they think it better to ignore her graciously than to give her a nice watch and thank her for her service. What do you do if a Justice has lost it and refuses to resign? Right now, nothing. We can have a Justice with less than her full faculties (to be charitable) making decisions affecting the country. One thing is for sure: RBG will never, ever leave voluntarily.
And while i am at it, I would be furious if I were a legal progressive. Hard to imagine her lasting through one, let alone two, Trump terms.
When I read 'she felt uncomfortable with some of the material', I thought she meant she was being triggered....
So, she accepted a practice exam, which is already marginally improper, and then finished the exam before confronting the professor. Got it. It's called "cheating." Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg just admitted to cheating in college. The answer to your question, "What should she have done?" The answer would be to take the test to Dean Wormer (or whomever) and demand action. Normal humans wouldn't have done this, but that's what I expect of a future Supreme Court Justice.
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