On the Basis of Sex’Shows How a Real Star Is Born F Gloria Steinem Is the Mar- the Sole Caretaker of His Mother, Tin Luther King Jr

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2019

Volume 165, No. 8 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 164 years

‘On the Basis of Sex’shows how a real star is born f Gloria Steinem is the Mar- the sole caretaker of his mother, tin Luther King Jr. of the was an unmarried man who was wo m e n’s movement, then denied a tax deduction for care- Ruth Bader Ginsburg is its taking expenses that was available Thurgood Marshall. to women and widowers. The IA shockingly short time ago — Ginsburgs argued the appeal to- the 1970s —when discrimination RE B E C CA gether before the 10th Circuit and against women was the law, Gins- L. FORD the Supreme Court. He argued burg, a Rutgers law professor, ar- the tax issue. She argued discrim- gued six gender-discrimination i n a t i o n . cases before the U.S. Supreme Rebecca L. Ford is counsel to Scharf The M o r i t z appeal provides the Court, winning five of them. Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates her m o v i e ’s suspense and is the Roset- To drive home the inequities of practice on complex litigation, compliance, ta Stone against which the moral board governance and specialized gender-based statutes, her strat- employment issues. She is the former standing of each of its characters egy was to choose cases involving executive vice president for litigation and is judged. discrimination against men. intellectual property at MGM. She can be “On the Basis of Sex”tips its “On the Basis of Sex,”d i r e c t e d reached at [email protected]. hat to groundbreaking feminist by Mimi Leder, is Ginsburg’s legal lawyers Pauli Murray (Sharon origin story. It is also the story of Washington) and Dorothy Kenyon the great romance between Gins- lawyer because he covered up Bob (Kathy Bates) and pumps the burg and her husband of 56 E we l l ’s culpability, she explains, brakes on the canonization of years, a real mensch, Martin and admonishes Jane to think for H a r v a r d ’s law dean Erwin Gris- G i n s b u r g . h e r s e l f . wold, who was responsible for ad- The movie opens with young Distractingly dreamy though mitting women to Harvard Law Ruth (Felicity Jones), climbing the not exactly charismatic, Armie School and condescended to them steps of Harvard Law School as a Hammer is counterintuitively cast once they arrived. m e n’s chorus sings “Ten Thousand as the ebullient and gregarious By contrast, Columbia’s Gerald Men of Harvard”in the back- Martin Ginsburg. It’s an odd cast- Gunther, of constitutional case- ground. It ends with Ginsburg as- ing choice for life-of-the-party book ubiquity, is a genial, long- cending the steps of the Supreme Marty, a man who could stick a haired hipster who helps Ginsberg Court. tax joke. Yet Hammer radiates moot M o r i t z . While the movie is constructed kindness and admiration. His low- As a SCOTUS biopic, Gins- as a courtroom procedural, the le- key Marty never overshadows b u r g ’s story doesn’t zip along at gal story wouldn’t exist without cerebral Ruth. After all, it is her the pace of 2017’s“M a r s h a l l . ”But the love story and formidable m o v i e . then, Marshall was a trial lawyer, spousal alliance at its core. The great gift of the movie is which offered his movie more op- G i n s b u rg ’s nephew, Daniel that it presents the Ginsburgs in portunities for courtroom py- Stiepleman, wrote the script and a such human terms. We feel her r o t e c h n i c s . host of other Ginsburgs weighed pain when she calls her husband Instead, “On the Basis of Sex” in on its development, including out for not standing up for her at might be considered a bookend to G i n s b u r g . his law firm party. And in a ro- the recently released “A Star is Such clan participation adds mantic scene, when the young jus- B o r n .” substance and detail to intimate tice-to-be (ahem) disrobes to re- Both movies involve couples family scenes, particularly those in veal a crinolined, 1950s-style slip who are in the same profession which Ginsburg clashes with her that resembles an armored wed- and on the cusp of stardom. Un- adolescent daughter Jane (Cailee ding cake, I averted my eyes out like their fictional film counter- Spaeny), who is today a professor of respect. parts, the Ginsburgs support each at Columbia Law School. It was Marty, a tax lawyer at other, celebrate each other’s in- When Jane receives an A on a Weil Gotshal & Manges, who tellect and invest in their part- paper about to “Kill a Mocking- brought the 1972 case of Moritz vs. n e rs ’c a r e e r s . b i rd ,”Ginsberg withholds praise. Commissioner of Internal Revenue That is the way stars are born. Atticus Finch was a terrible to her attention. Charles Moritz, That is what equality looks like.