If Katie Couric Wanted To 'Protect' Ruth Bader Ginsburg, She Did A Really Bad Job

We already knew RBG's retrograde stance on this issue.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Photo by Allison Shelley/Getty Images)

So, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back in the news. No small feat for someone who passed away over a year ago. The latest controversy involves Katie Couric revealing that her televised RBG interview edited out a line from the late Justice about taking a knee during the national anthem to protest the epidemic of police violence against Black people in this country ostensibly to “protect” Justice Ginsburg.

Except we already knew all this. The bulk of RBG’s harsh take on Colin Kaepernick’s protest was included in the report way back when these comments were released in 2016:

I think it’s really dumb of them. Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act.

But it’s dangerous to arrest people for conduct that doesn’t jeopardize the health or well-being of other people. It’s a symbol they’re engaged in.

If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.

But now as reported by the Daily Mail, Katie Couric — who conducted that same 2016 interview — says there was more that she edited out:

In new memoir, Going There, Couric writes that she edited out a part where Ginsburg said that those who kneel during the national anthem are showing ‘contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.’

Which is… not great. Couric says she wanted to “protect” Ginsburg, and that, at 83 at the time of the interview, RBG was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.” If you’re yelling right now that this was probably a reason why Ginsburg should have stepped down during Obama’s administration, to save us all from the inevitable hellscape known as Amy Coney Barrett’s tenure on the Court, well, sames.

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And all this has rubbed folks the wrong way who think it is wrong of Couric to “protect” her source (and frankly, access to the influential jurist). Which, fair enough, but also… are the additional RBG comments actually surprising? Put aside “were they surprising” — I’m not even sure they materially alter the interview. It’s like saying, “This is the single worst food I’ve ever eaten, but I’m being kind. I could have also said the service sucked.”

Because, well, the quotes that Couric included the first time around were pretty damning. In 2016, her comments were woefully out of touch with the experiences of Black people in this country and, to turn a phrase back on the Justice, disrespectful. As my former colleague Elie Mystal wrote at the time:

Justice Ginsburg is required to have opinions on flags. That is part of her job. Does she have opinions on dead black people? Maybe. But that’s not really her part of the store. The Constitution explicitly reserves the police power to the states. From Justice Ginsburg’s perspective, there are prosecutors who are in charge of figuring out if the cops are behaving badly. If they are, somebody will sue them (she assumes). If someone appeals a police brutality case to her desk, she’ll considered it. If a convicted cop (haha, yeah right) appeals his or her case all the way up to the Supreme Court, she’ll take a look. But the day-to-day problem of state-sponsored terrorism against the African-American community? That’s not her concern. The pained outcry of African-American mothers and wives who have to watch on video as their sons and husbands get shot to death are issues for somebody else to deal with.

Justice Ginsburg’s got opera tickets. Justice Ginsburg’s got an entire system that is supposed to be working to sort this stuff out. Why would she be “aware” of protests against police brutality? Ain’t squat she can do about it. She’s never going to get the case “Black People v. American Police.” If she did, she’d kick it back down to the state court on jurisdiction, or dismiss it entirely based on standing. She’s got no dog in this race.

Fundamentally, my opinion on the late Justice is not changed by this latest “reveal.” Is there some material difference between “they’re stupid” and “they’re dishonoring the government that helped them”? We got the fucking point — she had poorly thought out if not retrograde views on the actual state of civil rights in America.

Frankly, it feels like Couric wants to make amends for an interview that — at the time — tarnished the reputation of a revered old lady by telling us it could have been even worse. But, like, it wouldn’t really have been any worse.

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And it’s not like this is the only ding against RBG. Her record of hiring Black clerks was dismal, she had a penchant for nostalgia that put her on the wrong side of issues, and though the cultural ephemera (even a certain podcast, ahem) favor RBG, the real liberal queen is still Sonia Sotomayor. Yes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote some important decisions and powerful dissents and was pretty visionary on a lot of gender issues. But she was far from infallible. This is just MOAR proof of what we already knew.


Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).