Justice for All — Cindy Olnick

Among the countless ways Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the world a better place, her legal strategy at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project offers a brilliant model for how to talk about historic places.

It’s been widely reported that Ginsburg advanced gender equality by showing how sex discrimination hurt not just women, but men. She secured survivor benefits for widowers, a caregiving tax deduction for an unmarried son, even the right for college boys to buy beer. Her work went beyond helping specific people to change the law itself.

What if we used a similar approach?

We’ve long talked about preservation’s role in creating jobs, saving natural resources, etc. But after all this time, the message still isn’t getting through at the scale we need to create a true preservation ethic.

What if we focused more on fairness and equality? How does the loss of historic places hurt not just people who love them, but people who don’t?

The New York Landmarks Conservancy “enriches the quality of life for all New Yorkers.”
PlaceEconomics contends that demolishing older homes depletes affordable housing.
In describing the links between architecture and neuroscience, Dr. Barbara Lamprecht notes how Richard Neutra considered the body, brain, and environment a triad, and that (quoting Neutra) “any separation diminishes the experience of being fully human.”

These are just a few examples, but you get the gist.

Ginsburg was also just a great communicator. In her ACLU cases before the Supreme Court, for instance:

She knew her audience. Nine men.
She chose her words carefully. In this great piece on NPR, Melissa Block tells how Ginsburg used the term “gender discrimination” instead of “sex discrimination” after her Columbia Law secretary, Milicent Tyron—having typed “sex” over and over—pointed out the word might distract the audience.
She told compelling stories. Ginsburg’s Columbia Law School tribute recalls her as a “captivating storyteller.” She delivered clear, vivid oral arguments (17:19) that even I can understand.

But back to her strategy. There’s some great potential in looking hard at our work through the lens of fairness and equality. In terms of social justice and racial equity, of course. But perhaps also in terms of how historic places benefit everyone—and what we all lose without them.

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