She Fled the Nazis. Reagan Republicans Put Her on the Federal Bench. 40 Years Later, She’s Still Surprising Everyone.

Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner was too young to remember fleeing the Nazis as a baby, but the experience has been a guiding force throughout her extraordinary life and career on the bench. Rovner’s parents, both Jews, lived in Riga, Latvia, when she was born in 1938; six weeks after her birth, her father escaped to the United States, then brought over Rovner and her mother just before the Nazi invasion a year later. From this “good fortune,” as Rovner deems it, came a fierce desire to pursue justice, a quest that brought her to the heights of the legal profession: an appointment to a federal district court by Ronald Reagan in 1984, followed by a promotion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit by George H.W. Bush in 1992. Rovner, who has been a pathbreaker all her life, was the first woman to sit on the 7^th Circuit; during more than 30 years of service, she became the conscience of the court, consistently defending the rights of those whom society scorns or overlooks.

In January, Rovner, now 85, announced that she would take senior status, a kind of semiretirement, upon the confirmation of her successor. We recently spoke about her unusual path to the bench, her approach to judging, and her recipe for a fulfilling marriage. Our interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your life story is an astonishing tale of survival and courage. Your family fled the Nazis when you were a year old, and you met countless refugees recounting the horrors of the Holocaust in your childhood home. You’ve also said that you’d wanted to be a lawyer since you were 7 years old. My first question is: Did your early brush with persecution inspire your desire to enter the law?

A million percent. Of course. And my father, my beloved father, talked to me about serious subjects from the time I was a very small child. No one ever read me Goldilocks. I would be with my mother, praying for my little cousins. We didn’t learn until almost the very end of the war that they had all perished. So, I was a 5-year-old asking God to take care of my little cousins—with my mother, because my father at that point had become an agnostic. And at the same time, my father was telling me that if the laws had been adhered to, if there had been more courageous lawyers, there would have never been a Holocaust. I knew from a very young age that Hitler had done away with the courts and the laws, and the journalists.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke a lot about the sex discrimination she faced at law school in the ’50s. I was wondering what level of sex discrimination you faced a decade later.

There were three of us women in my class section at Georgetown Law School, and we were actually living together. And the very first day of the class on real property, we were so eager we sat in the front row. It’s professor Stetson, who was the property professor. He looks down at the three of us and says: “You should know that the day they admitted women to this law school, I wore a black armband. And you needn’t worry. I’ll never call on any of you.” Well, we leave the class, and I’m jumping up and down in the air, saying, “Isn’t it wonderful? He’s not going to be calling on us.” My friend turned to me and said, “Why are you here? Are you kidding? We’re never going to get a chance.”

Also at Georgetown, there was one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known, professor Walter Jaeger, whose sister had gone to law school but could not get any job in the field of law, and went back to school and became a nurse. And professor Jaeger chafed under that, that she had been so discriminated against. So he was particularly kind to the women.

How did the male law students treat you?

It depended. Some were terrific. Some were not. I think that the women of my generation have an added dimension because we know firsthand what it was like to have doors that were closed to us. And let’s face it: We were viewed as outsiders. We were asked: “Why are you taking the place of a man? Did you come here to find a husband?”

I think we know what it’s like to succeed against the expectations of others. And it’s not a bad thing to be underestimated. At the time it is, perhaps. But I think the idea was not to mold ourselves according to the vision of others. And it isn’t easy to retain a sense of self when you have so few mentors, so few role models. And so what you really have to do, in a way, is invent yourself.

Look: There was only one Black student in my class at Georgetown. One. Think about it! So, I really think that women and minority judges of my generation—I think that the way we approach our responsibilities might be somewhat different in that we didn’t inherit them, as an awful lot of other people did.

When I was at Georgetown Law, I heard stories about women’s difficulty finding bathrooms when they were first admitted. Was there a women’s bathroom when you attended?

There was one. In the basement. The most horrible little—oh, it was terrible. We had a toilet. I don’t even remember a sink.

You took the bar seven years after graduating law school, then clerked for James Benton Parsons, the first African American to serve as a district court judge. After clerking, you went to the U.S. attorney’s office, where you sometimes faced a hostile and sexist work environment. How did you succeed in the face of that hostility?

With a lot of humor. And, most of all, raw desire. Many of the fellows could not have been kinder. I wasn’t going to be stopped now just because some fellow wouldn’t stay in the unit when I was named as the first woman supervisor.

He quit because a woman became his supervisor?

He asked to be reassigned. He didn’t want a woman supervising him. Fine! Go! It gave me even more of an impetus to succeed.

Hearing the kind of discrimination you faced is just so appalling. I don’t know how you dealt with it.

You know what I used to say about the men who were unpleasant to the women lawyers? I used to say two things: We can hope that one of their daughters or granddaughters will want to become a lawyer. And eventually, there will be fewer and fewer such men.

Because what else, right? Once people really care about someone who chooses a path that they may be opposed to, particularly when that someone is very close to them, their minds are often changed.

You mentioned that you didn’t meet a woman lawyer for a long time. Do you remember when you first saw a woman judge?

Her name was Edith Spurlock Sampson. She sat in housing court in Chicago. She was the first African American woman elected as a judge in the state of Illinois. At the time, a woman who helped me was having a problem with her landlord and she went to court. I went with her to the courtroom, to just guide her.

I remember I sat in that courtroom with wonder rolling over me the whole time. Judge Sampson was one of the toughest women I had ever seen up close. Keep in mind I had worked in a reform school for girls! And boy, nobody challenged her. The lawyers were not challenging this woman. It gave me this realization that the black robe that woman was wearing was a sign of such authority, such power. I thought, Wow, if she could do it …! That’s why you need diversity. That’s why you need people who look like you, who are like you, who care like you. People who are involved in the issues that are important to you. Without that, you really are adrift. If all you see are white men who come from a class of status, how does someone who grew up differently relate?

Do you think your experience with discrimination, your view as an outsider, affected your career on the bench?

I look at things from a different viewpoint. And I know that it’s certainly changed the content of opinions on issues. You have to think about this: It took 101 years for the 7^th Circuit to include a woman. And it was me? How did that happen? I still can’t get over it! I never will. They may be my last words: “101 years, and it was me?” I will never believe my good fortune. … There were so many women who should have had the opportunity ahead of me.

We’ve brought a different perspective, most obviously to discrimination and harassment cases. More broadly, I think that the women of my generation were more likely to see cases pragmatically because we were outsiders. We didn’t have the benefit of certain advantages. I think that certainly has informed the way that I look at the cases. I’m very aware of the human side and the human costs. I think for women like me who were fortunate enough to become judges—of course our impact on the bench is the result of our life experiences. But that’s the same for everyone. Life experience is profoundly different from one person to another. Then, too, I think the giants in the history of the law are the ones who were able to see beyond the limitations of their class and their sex and their race and their time. And that’s why you need true diversity of experience: so that the constituencies of people who are so diverse can feel some confidence in the system.

One of your most personal opinions was a dissent in 2000’s DeClue v. Central Illinois Light Co., when the 7^th Circuit shot down a sex discrimination suit brought by a female lineman denied access to a bathroom at work. You expressed frustration that your male colleagues obviously did not understand how female employees face unique challenges and humiliation when denied a bathroom facility. How do you deal with that kind of ignorance among your colleagues?

Well, what can you do? Most people can’t do anything. I’m lucky—I can scream it to the world. I can write it all out. I can hope that someone’s going to read it. I have a bully pulpit. That’s all I can do. I try and educate my colleagues. How could they not have understood how embarrassing it was for Audrey Jo DeClue? Out there on the flatlands of the Midwest, having to take care of her most private bodily needs in front of these staring men? To this day, I just don’t get it. And the sad thing was, she couldn’t afford to appeal further. I think if she had appealed, the case might have turned out differently because both Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were on the court, and I think that may have made a difference.

In 2017 you joined a landmark opinion granting a transgender school student access to the boys’ bathroom. You’ve played an important role in other major LGBTQ+ equality cases on the 7^th Circuit. Do you think your view as an outsider also informed your jurisprudence in this area?

There’s no question that that is so. My father had gay friends. And so I was very aware at a pretty young age and I knew how they suffered. I cannot bear people suffering. I’m always railing against injustice. And I mean, I want everyone to have every possible opportunity that exists. And the idea that you can be discriminated against because of whom you love? It’s so beyond anything that I can comprehend or deal with. The cruelty of it just overwhelms me at times. It’s just such an outrage.

And that is why, in 2016, when the 7^th Circuit had the opportunity to decide whether anti-discrimination laws covered sexual orientation discrimination, I knew it was important to write an opinion that could set the circuit up for change from our previous precedent denying protection for sexual orientation discrimination. I knew we could not overturn precedent as a three-member panel without an en banc opinion, but it was important for me to lay out the argument for doing just that—to press the issue forward for full court review. Of course, that was the Hively case, which I hope was a turning point for sexual orientation discrimination cases.

When you worked with Illinois Gov. James Thompson as deputy governor, you ran an office that you staffed entirely with disabled people, including one individual who was brought into the office from a nursing home on a gurney. The office fielded consumer complaints and questions about state government. What did you learn running it with a disabled staff?

How grateful the employees were. It used to bring tears to my eyes how thankful they were to have a paycheck. And they were helping people! We had a phone center. These irate people would call screaming into the phone. I would think to myself, Oh, my dears, if you could only see who you are speaking to and how hard they work. They were the most remarkable employees. They put everything they had into helping others.

You were a foster mother to a disabled adult for 13 years. Can you talk about that experience?

Oh, I learned so much about people, about my friends. Some of my friends wanted to help me in every possible way, and others were very uncomfortable being around that kind of disability. But would I do it again? I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. It was an amazing experience in so many ways. I learned a lot about the real heroes in this world. Almost all of the caretakers were so remarkable and caring. I saw a lot of very good people who ought to be applauded every moment of every day and hardly ever get any applause. The nurses, the doctors, the social workers.

You’ve written some important decisions on disability rights. Did your experiences play any role in your views on the subject?

There’s no question that it has been the underpinning. I understand how hard it is to deal with the systems that are in place. I understand the hardships and heartache that people have to go through. I understand the fight for equality for the disabled. I understand what a curb means that’s 3 inches high and cannot be traversed. I understand all of this from personal experience.

Speaking of personal experience, and on a lighter note, I understand that a teenage Grace Kelly babysat for you in Philadelphia?

Yes! Just a few times. She was absolutely beautiful.

And you yourself were a teen model?

I was a model at Wanamaker’s and a number of other department stores. I’d walk around showing the clothes to the ladies at lunchtime. I was also a runway model, and I learned so much because of the modeling. I learned that fame and beauty are fleeting. And so I had a desire to be educated, to have something to fall back on, and not rely on the fact that a few people thought I was a pretty girl. I learned what kind of men there were out there.

You and your first husband dated for four weeks and six days before getting married. And you were then married for almost 47 years. After he passed, you found love with your second husband and, as far as I can tell, you two have a marvelous marriage. Do you have any guidance for young people struggling to build enduring romantic relationships today?

That person absolutely has to be the single most important person in your life. And that’s the way you have to treat them. Try as hard as you can not to sweat the small stuff, because it just doesn’t matter. And the thing you hear from old married folk, which is: Never go to bed angry. Give in! So what! Not to the point where you’re a floormat, but try and keep that feeling that you had when you first met. There are a lot of ways to do that. Now, look, life takes over and there are all the things you have to do on a daily basis. But just like you make time to see your doctor, your dentist, your barber, you have to make time for the other person. And a lot of physical touching is a wonderful thing. Holding someone’s hand. Putting your head on someone’s shoulder. Letting them know that they are just gorgeous, because they are.