Justice Ginsburg’s Struggles Resonate with me since I am Underrepresented in my Discipline

I join millions of others in mourning the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a pioneer in the field of law and one of the first to attend Harvard Law School in the 1950s. She was one among nine other female classmates in a class of 500 at Harvard, and was subjected to many indignities, simply because she was a woman.

Growing up in India, I graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, which is one of the premiere institutions that has launched countless careers in technology including that of Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I too was one of nine women in a cohort of nearly 500 students, who lived in a single women’s dormitory S.N. Hall (see my photo outside). Like her, I suffered many indignities because I was one of very few women at an institution dominated by men.

It is well known now that Harvard had many institutionalized forms of gender discrimination at the time that Justice Ginsburg was studying there. None cut to the core of inhibiting academic advancement more directly than outright restrictions on women entering a library. Harvard’s Lamont Library was closed to women at the time.

I had my own difficulties with the library at IIT due to being a woman, but of a different nature. I used to study in the library until late every evening, and then bicycle back to S.N. Hall when the library closing bell rang. One evening, I exited the library and found that my tire had gone flat. It was annoying because I had to walk alone at night, and go to the bicycle shop in the morning to get the tire fixed. Then, a couple of nights later, it happened again! I could hear snickers and whistles in the darkness as I walked back to my dormitory with my flattened bicycle. “Oh, it is such a beautiful moonlit night!” was a common taunt, since my first name literally means moonbeam in Sanskrit.

This routine continued every few days at the library. After enduring this harassment for several weeks, instead of giving up on going to the library to study altogether, I contacted the Director of IIT, Professor Sanyal. He was very sympathetic, and took my complaint seriously. He told me he would send a guard to watch my bicycle outside the library. The tire deflation immediately stopped. After two weeks the Director called me and assumed that the problem had been taken care of. The guard was relieved from his duties.

The next evening, I exited the library when the closing bell rang, only to find that my bicycle tire again had been deflated.

Many women who are underrepresented in their fields face all sorts of difficulties in their quest to advance. What impresses me so much about Ruth Bader Ginsburg is that she never gave up — she was a fighter.

The night my harassment resumed, knowing that not even the Director of IIT could help me, I remember staring, just staring, at my flat tire. And then, slowly, my gaze shifted to a long row of bicycles next to mine. They no doubt belonged to male students. Some of them, who were complicit in harassing me and knew who the perpetrator was, were probably looking forward to another enjoyable evening of catcalls. I bent down toward one of the bicycles, unscrewed the cap, and pressed my nail into the valve stem, which hissed for about fifteen seconds. Then I moved to the next bicycle, and let out its air, and the next one, until there were none left on my rack. Those who came out of the library at the same time as me just stood and watched. And then I walked, with my bicycle, alone, back to S.N. Hall. There were no catcalls that evening. Unlike other nights, it was a very quiet night.

I never had trouble with my bicycle tires again at IIT.

I am grateful to justice Ginsburg for her continual striving for equality of women and everything she accomplished. With inspiration from trailblazers like Justice Ginsburg, I am using my stature as a physics professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the President of the American Association of Physics Teachers to counter stereotypes surrounding physics and increase the participation of women and other underrepresented students since physics remains one of the least diverse of all science disciplines.