BY KAREN BOSSICK
Tickets for a two-day Sun Valley conference featuring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will go on sale Thursday, March 5, at 9 a.m.
The Conversations with Exceptional Women conference will be held Sept. 1 and 2, 2020, at The Argyros Center for Performing Arts in Ketchum. This year’s theme, “Higher Ground,” will afford speakers a chance to discuss their personal and professional aspirations and those they believe American should pursue.
“So excited!” said David Adler, who founded the conference under the umbrella of The Alturas Institute. “We’ve moved it from the Community Library to The Argyros to accommodate a larger audience.”
As in the past, the conference will feature extraordinary speakers, including recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. There will be an Olympic gold medalist, award-winning authors and journalists, prize-winning film actors, producers and directors, national security and finance experts and scholars from the world of academics, as well as national TV commentators.
“We are beyond excited to host Justice Ginsburg and an extraordinary cast of women leaders in various sectors and disciplines in this historic year—the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, set against a backdrop of surging nationwide momentum to ratify the ERA,” said Adler, president and co-founder of The Alturas Institute. “Justice Ginsburg is a national treasure.”
Joining Ginsburg will be Catarina Norman Schwab, whose NPX hopes to transform how impact is financed in the nonprofit sector; financial expert Camilla Field, Gina Haspel, counterterrorism chief at the CIA; Hamilton scholar Joanne Freeman, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams, who has led efforts to band landmines; Pulitzer Prize winner Diane McWhorter, whose "Carry Me Home" chronicled the civil rights movement and her family's role on the wrong side of it, and Katie Ledecky, who has won the most gold medals in history for a female swimmer, including five Olympic medals.
Adler says he is awaiting confirmation from a few other big names.
Tickets for the event will be sold at www.alturasinstitute.com. General admission tickets covering both days are $150 and include lunch and coffee both days.
Champion VIP tickets are $500 and include an invitation-only reception on Sept. 1 with speakers, in addition. Premiere VIP tickets are $1,500 and include the invitation-only reception and an intimate dinner with speakers at a private home in Sun Valley on Sept 2, as well.
The program runs from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day.
The Alturas Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit educational organization created to advance American democracy through promotion of the Constitution, civic education, gender equality and equal protection of the law.
Conversations with Exceptional Women is the Institute’ signature program. Started in 2015, it has included a woman who was the first to alert officials of the threat that Osama bin Laden posed; four-time Olympic gold swim medalist Missy Franklin, and Annette Gordon-Reed, who disclosed Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with one of his slaves in her book “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.”
Over the years they and other women have addressed the challenges, hurdles and success stories of women in America.
“For the past five years, we’ve been extremely fortunate to host extraordinary women from across the nation to engage in relaxed, stimulating conversations about issues that have impeded the achievement of gender equality in the United States,” said Adler, who has consistently lamented the fact that women are not accorded equal rights and that they make only 78 cents on the dollar for the same work men do.
Adler has lectured nationally and internationally about the Constitution. He is the author of six books, including “The War Power in an Age of Terrorism.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on tap to write a forward to his work-in-progress on the landmark Supreme Court decision on Reed vs. Reed, which involved an Idaho mother and transformed the law for American women.
His writings have been quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Attorney General and others.