Teaching Boys About Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an enduring legacy of vision, legal prowess and unrelenting determination for equal rights in the United States. I think it’s important for young people to understand the extent to which she laid the groundwork for our societal values of gender equality over the course of her life.
I spent some time thinking about how I would engage boys on this topic, and I decided that rather than trying to summarize Ginsburg’s entire life and career—leaving students with a vague awareness at best—I would dial into her role in the beginning of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Women’s Rights Project.
I thought I would try something new for Learnings & Unlearnings this week and write down a rough outline for a lesson I’m calling ‘Notorious RBG.’
Notorious RBG: Learning About the Supreme Court and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project
Introduction:- Explore what the students know about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the function of the Supreme Court
- Explain that you’re going to do some experiential learning about the work that she did as a lawyer before her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993
- As a class, decide on a far-off impossible dream for the school (e.g. constructing a skatepark on the roof or allowing students to self-direct spray paint street art projects on the school walls)
- Draw a line between where the school is now (e.g. skateboarding or vandalism prohibited) and the far-off dream
- Explore which students are disproportionately affected by the status quo
- Explain that to shift the opinion of the administration from one side to the other will require incremental change—and that their job is to achieve those incremental changes
Assignment:
- Either as a class, in small groups or individually have them brainstorm what some of those incremental changes might be (e.g. allowing skateboarding on the asphalt beside the school or adding spray paint to the art curriculum)
- Come up with a series of cases for them to argue (e.g. a student getting in trouble for skateboarding in the parking lot asking for permission to skateboard on the asphalt instead)
- Have them write and present short speeches pushing for the change they want to see, and landmark their progress on the line from the status quo to the far-off dream
There are a lot of directions you could take this depending on your grade level and curriculum objectives. Do you present many options and have the students decide which cases are the best choices to help them reach their objective? Do you have a group of students acting as judges? Do you do it as a weeklong morning routine or keep it as a way to break up Zoom monotony?
The lesson is meant to get at the long-term strategy of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and the role of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as ‘the Thurgood Marshall of the women’s rights movement.’
American federal law has the potential to be the most boring thing students ever hear about—but experiencing the tactics and vision of Ginsburg and her colleagues firsthand could be a lasting and powerful lesson about justice, gender equality and the power all of us hold to make a difference in the world.
ICYMI About Ruth Bader Ginsburg
A Driving Force for Change: The ACLU Women’s Rights Project (ACLU History)
Lesson of the Day: ‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87’ (The New York Times)
Teaching About the Feminist Rights Revolution: Ruth Bader Ginsburg as ‘The Thurgood Marshall of Women’s Rights’ (The American Historian)
Written by Next Gen Men Program Manager Jonathon Reed as part of Learnings & Unlearnings, a weekly newsletter reflecting on our experiences working with boys and young men. Subscribe to get Learnings & Unlearnings delivered to your email inbox.