News > November 15, 2007

By Molly Nevola | Staff writer

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg along with her husband, professor of tax law at Georgetown University Martin Ginsburg, will teach a two-week course at the university-owned Casa Artom in Venice, Italy, this upcoming summer.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg along with her husband, professor of tax law at Georgetown University Martin Ginsburg, will teach a two-week course at the university-owned Casa Artom in Venice, Italy, this upcoming summer.

The Ginsburgs will teach two courses, Comparative Law of Taxation and Personal Autonomy and Equality: A Comparative Perspective, from July 7 to July 18 alongside university professors of law Suzanne Reynolds and Joel Newman, who will then continue teaching the courses from July 21 to Aug. 1.

Justice Ginsburg originally came to the law school in 2005 at the invitation of then Law School Dean Bob Walsh to participate in the series entitled “Conversation With,” a program instituted by Professor of Law Charlie Rose in an effort to bring lawyers of various interests and careers to act as role models to law students.

Reynolds, a 26-year veteran professor and graduate of the Wake Forest University School of Law herself, said that whenever (former) Dean Walsh was in Washington, D.C., touring the U.S. Supreme Court with law students, Justice Ginsburg would make it a point to meet and converse with the students.

Each time Walsh took students to the capital, Ginsburg would readily make herself available to students. And each time Walsh inquired that she be part of the “Conversation With” program, she declined.

But Walsh kept after her, and finally in 2005, Justice Ginsburg relented, Reynolds said, and was interviewed in the program by Reynolds herself.

She and the deans of the law school discussed the summer programs at length and at some point after 2005, Reynolds said, she was offered a teaching position for the summer program in Venice.

The law school’s summer program admits both Wake law students and those from other schools, depending on the room available. Students in the program take courses with students at the University of Venice, and all courses are held at the University of Venice.

Next summer, the Ginsburgs will have housing separate from Casa Artom itself, but most of the students and faculty will stay in the house, which overlooks the Grand Canal.

Reynolds said that she is looking forward to the course that she will be teaching with Justice Ginsburg, comparing the U.S. Constitution with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

“We will be comparing various treatments of things like family privacy issues, abortion, affirmative action and employment discrimination,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said that when she was in law school in the 1970s, Justice Ginsburg was a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, litigating cases that established sex discrimination as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

“These were cases that would change my life and the lives of all women,” Reynolds said. “To be able to not only sit in her classroom, as she discusses these and other cases, but also to teach with her, is an experience beyond my wildest dreams.”

Next year, Reynolds will be running for the North Carolina Supreme Court and will be missing campaign events in July.

Her campaign is not likely to suffer, however, when those who appear in her stead say that she could not make it to the event, as she is teaching comparative equal rights with Justice Ginsburg in Venice.

“She has been my hero since I have first studied law—and now, to teach with her is good fortune that I don’t deserve, that I am so pleased and humbled to accept,” Reynolds said.