Mon 9/19 @ 7PM
Nina Totenberg has been working for National Public Radio (NPR), where she’s now legal affairs correspondent covering the U.S. Supreme Court, since 1975; she appears on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and has won numerous awards for her reporting.
She reported on Anita Hill’s sexual harassment accusations against Clarence Thomas in 1991; earlier she had reported that William Rehnquist, nominated to be Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan in 1986, had vehemently opposed the ERA.
She also had a close friendship for nearly 50 years with the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leading to charges of conflict of interest. That friendship began years before Ginsburg was on the court, when Totenberg called her to ask about a brief she’d written asking the Supreme Court to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex. It continued in the year prior to Ginsberg’s death when the justice had regular Saturday dinners at Totenberg’s house.
Totenberg now has a brand-new book about that relationship called Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships. It’s described in the promotional copy as “an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers” and “an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace.”
The Hudson Library & Historical Society is presenting a live streaming event with Totenberg. It’s free but registration is required. Go here. Copies of the book are available through Hudson’s Learned Owl Book Shop.