EDITOR'S NOTE....Ticket sales are being delayed in order to follow the protocol of the Supreme Court's Office of Public Information. Visit The Alturas Institute's website at www.alturasinstitute.com next week for further details.
BY KAREN BOSSICK
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s upcoming appearance in Sun Valley is being moved to a bigger venue to accommodate more of those who want to see her.
The Supreme Court Justice’s talk during the sixth annual Conversations with Exceptional Women is being moved to the Sun Valley Pavilion from The Argyros. The remainder of the two-day conference will be held at The Argyros.
The session--"A Conversation with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg"--will be held at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2, at the Sun Valley Pavilion. Pavilion tickets will cost $100. Lawn seating featuring the big screen will cost $25.
Those who have tickets for the Conversations with Exceptional Women conference held Sept. 1 and 2 at The Argyros will bear no additional expense and will be given preferred seating at the Sun Valley Pavilion for Ginsburg's session.
“We sold out in minutes, and I felt so badly about the disappointed people who were seeking tickets,” said David Adler, who founded the conference. "We were absolutely crushed by the expression of disappointment and frustration incurred by those unable to purchase tickets. I knew we had to do something and have been working on a solution to provide the opportunity to a much wider audience ever since.”
Adler says he regrets that no more people can be accommodated at The Argyros for the remainder of the conference but hopes that the new format will allow many more local residents and others the rare opportunity to hear the iconic RBG. Ginsburg will be joined by her granddaughter Clara Spera, whom Adler described as a “super smart activist” for women’s rights and reproductive rights.
Top in her class at Harvard Law School, Spera served a prestigious clerkship with a federal judge and is now working on the ACLU’s Project on Reproductive Freedom, which protects and expands access to reproductive care, particularly for low-income women.
“They will be on stage together, maybe the first time that different generations of lawyer activists in the Ginsburg clan have been together,” said Adler. “It will make for a great conversation as we seek Clara’s personal insights into ‘Bubbie,’ as she refers to her grandmother.”
The conference will feature women who are tops in a variety of fields. Among them, Isha Sesay, former CNN anchor who just resigned and has written an acclaimed book about the kidnapping of Nigerian school girls. Also, Gina Haspel, counterterrorism chief at the CIA; Pulitzer Prize winner Diane McWhorter, whose “Carry Me Home” chronicled the civil rights movement, and Katie Ledecky who has won the most Olympic gold medals of any female swimmer.
Tickets for Ginsburg’s presentation will go on sale at 9 a.m. March 12 at www.alturasinstitute.com. Adler says he expects them to sell out quickly.
Conversations with Exceptional Women is under the umbrella of the Alturas Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit educational organization dedicated to advancing American democracy through promotion of the constitution, civic education, gender equality and equal protection of the law.