Well it was extremely unfair.
No. JULIA: But we can imagine it was in one of those long pauses that Ruth Bader Ginsburg rescued some of the key principles behind the ERA, re-packaged them, and marched them in through a side door.
And take it back out.
And they’re getting worried.
JAD: As if we haven’t been doing this for so damn long.
In the 1970s, the state of Oklahoma allowed the sale of what is known as 3.2 percent beer to individuals under the age of 21. So you know it wasn’t that big a deal. JULIA: Now before she was a Supreme Court Justice.. WENDY WILLIAMS: Ruth Ginsburg, she was at the ACLU.
I saw so much and I talked to so many people while I was gone that uh, it was like a hunger. Sex like race has been made the basis for unjustified, or at least un --. CAROLYN: I don’t know what he said word to word, I just know he was strong with what he said. Craig v. Boren429 U.S. 190, 97 S. Ct. 451, 50 L. Ed. 2d 735, 1996 U.S. JULIA: As arguments went on, Fred did at least try to do the thing Ruth wanted him to do.. FRED GILBERT: Your honor I would say anything could be… you could pass a law saying no negro will drive while intoxicated. CAROLYN: I bet he was in there four hours. CURTIS CRAIG: Okay. JAD: Wait you’re saying she somehow managed to get in the court on another case on the same day? CAROLYN: I felt like I was walking forever up those stairs. 75-628 Argued: October 5, 1976 Decided: December 20, 1976.
SONG: He said brother we’re all in danger. JULIA: ..You know, which as we said, was designed from the beginning to be only about race. They’ll be pushing the old soap squirters. I tell her a little bit about who I am, about the story. This air about her that she could have been a beauty queen, y’know? JULIA: and I’m gonna put it to you as a question. CAROLYN: I had borrowed a dress, plastic, looked like leather.
Eh?
All I saw was cars coming in and out.
And she’s kind of learning from the students and the professor like what the case actually stood for and then eventually the professor puts her in touch with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and they meet again in person. FRED GILBERT: You know we have a problem in a personal relationship. And probably the reason why I didn’t budge, because he fought me so hard on it. JAD: Is there like ladies in the Constitution? CAROLYN: I was an oil field trash. You win some you lose some, right ladies? WOMAN: I move the adoption of the following resolution. He was furious. I was going to get that framed, but I haven’t done it yet. No? JULIA: OK. JULIA: Wendy Williams, law professor emeritus at Georgetown. The states were prevented from depriving any person equal protection of the laws.
And to him, this case was pretty straightforward. That was not only their place; it was built into their bodies.
JULIA: Here comes the craziest part of the story. They could be trusted with something like beer because they won’t abuse it, you know. I was very vocal about it. WENDY WILLIAMS: … things had started to come to a boil. JULIA: Because you know the word sex has a charge to it. I mean that’s kinda? WENDY WILLIAMS: When you’d ask her a question, there would be silence. JULIA: And we’re supposed to release it... JULIA: The story we’re gonna tell is not about sexual harassment, but I can’t think straight with all the stuff that’s happening.
JULIA: That meant Carolyn and her brother and sister split the school year between two or three schools a year.
CAROLYN: No I can’t.
Today’s story is about a time in the not so distant past when there was a similarly loud raucous division in our country over sexual equality. Facts. OK, you’ve got Oklahoma State University right there, tons of fraternities including Lambda with the wrestlers. it will give men a great opportunity to get out from under their obligations. I always had been.
DICK CAVETT (1970): There are a lot of women in this country who feel that they’re being pushed around.
JULIA: October 5, 1976, the day of oral arguments, the lawyer Fred Gilbert….
If you look at this case, right. When the Court sees racial discrimination happening, under the 14th Amendment it takes a really hard line. JULIA: ...is in a political science class. [LAUGHS] So why don’t you use a grammar book term. Do you think it will be ratified?
RBG: My answer to that question is no, in part because such a law has an insidious impact against females. JULIA: The 15th amendment essentially giving black people, or black men the right to vote. It’s THAT college town. Because when legislatures would come up with these laws -- like this ‘women can’t be bartenders’ law -- The Supreme Court would be like, you know…, you guys probably have a good reason for that... CRISTIAN: it doesn’t have to be THE reason. In fact, the principal beneficiary will be men. [LAUGHS] But see my name was never tied in with it. CAROLYN: Til I think 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. BETTY FORD: I hope that 1976 will be the year... ANNOUNCER: A special report on the 1977 national women’s conference. And I told him. JULIA: And so I walk up to this house. FRED GILBERT: Your honor this court has come very very close. JAD ABUMRAD: This is Radiolab, I’m Jad Abumrad.
Well it was!
Today a story from our producer Julia Longoria. ANTONIN SCALIA: It doesn’t. Six? First of all--, JULIA: At one point he even interrupts a Supreme Court justice, which you don’t do that, FRED: Supporting the denial of beer to young men 18 to 21. Just be quiet till it’s over. CAROLYN: I was always willing to help him because they had helped us get started. I was just curious about the people.
To to discriminate based on race, you have to pass a really super hard test. But anyway, the point was like they took it seriously. CURTIS CRAIG: The yard would be filled with beer cans. And she watched, as Fred made his way up the courts, losing at every level. Had no idea what homecoming was!
I need to get it laminated before I have it framed.
He he was so pushy. Your generation. JULIA: He made it into Lambda Chi Alpha at Oklahoma State and he was living... CURTIS CRAIG: Our fraternity was primarily made up of wrestlers so it was uh. That’s the first time I really put my foot down and didn’t budge. But she also could’ve been like a car mechanic. It’s the first time she argued in front of the Supreme Court in 1973. Okay.
And you grow from it.
JULIA: If men are irresponsible, they can’t handle beer, then women--.
STEPHENS: So your case depends then on our analyzing this case as a discrimination. JULIA: I’m so proud of you. Well I had salesmen in and I had people coming in and out.
Yes. CAROLYN: I didn’t have the money to go and I didn’t want to go.
CURTIS CRAIG: Oh that’s a great question. How--we don’t want to get mixed up in this. National news called to tell me that we had won… I didn’t ask what we had won. JULIA: She wrote to Fred telling him that she didn’t need to be the one to present oral argument before the court. JULIA: OK. Constitutionally, women have a problem, which is that basically we’re not in the Constitution, except like in this one little spot. I didn’t ask for it. He was a welder. WARREN BURGER: We’ll hear arguments next in ….