New York Times, Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Like most of us (I think), I'm constantly turning over phrases in my head to see what can be parsed into 15 letter entries, and when ON THE BASIS OF SEX came out in 2018, I had to make this puzzle. I already knew that THE NOTORIOUS RBG was 15 letters, based on a previous (failed) unthemed submission, so I recycled it for this tribute puzzle. The only wrinkle is that the obvious revealer, RUTH BADER GINSBURG, is 17 characters. So, I could either:

1. make it an oversized 17x with the other two themers offset, which would have almost certainly been rejected, or
2. use JUSTICE GINSBURG as the revealer and hope that the solver getting the "R" and "B" from the second theme entry was good enough for Will.

And it was! I also want to give a special shout out to Jeff Chen for a fill assist in the NW corner, which I had a hard time cracking.

This puzzle also has some family significance. In June of 1994, less than a year after Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, she toured PS 238 in Brooklyn, where she herself had attended school in the 1940s. While there, she took questions from the students live on C-SPAN; one question came from Anna Levy (nee Taran), a recently emigrated 11-year old girl from Ukraine, who asked her about how to ensure that "women are treated equally before the law." (I tracked down the clip from C-SPAN, check out the 43:38 mark.) Anna was inspired.

Twenty-six years later (exactly to the day, as I write this), that girl has gone on to become an oncologist with a bustling practice at the Northwell Health Cancer Institute, where an RBG action figure currently graces her desk. She also happens to be my brilliant and beautiful wife, and the do-it-all mother to our son Elijah. Although this puzzle is ostensibly a tribute to RBG, it is equally dedicated to my wife Anna, and all of the other women out there simultaneously raising families, building careers, and fighting for what is right.

Little known fact: my friends call me "The Notorious J.Y.C."

Little known to my friends, that is.

Years ago, I went through a similar process to Zach's when I first heard THE NOTORIOUS RBG. What a nickname! Ultimately, I wasn't interested in doing a "tribute puzzle," so I assembled a mini-themed themeless.

I enjoyed the material about RBG. I wasn't aware of ON THE BASIS OF SEX or FLATBUSH, or that she went to COLUMBIA, so I'm glad to learn these facts about a person I admire. (Embarrassingly, I've read more than one biography on her yet still didn't know these things.)

Why print this today? Tribute puzzles usually work best for a birthday or anniversary of an important date. Or another event which I won't name because … you know. It'd have been great to save this one for March 15, RBG's birthday. She turns 88 next year, so it's not an important birthday, but it's better than nothing.

I loved that northwest corner, a rare treat to get so many goodies in a Tuesday puzzle. PROSIT crossing IPAS might be tough, but sprinkling in PREAMBLE, RUNS RIOT, ENTRAP into an RBG crossword is so worth it. It's a little known secret that corners like this aren't too tricky — if you have a solid word list — since only one row is constrained.

Not as enamored with SOCIO, and the killer TRAC/ALIF/HILO crossings. That's often a tort incurred when you don't separate themers enough, like COLUMBIA over JUSTICE. See also: tough ABSCAM and ASIANA, partial-sounding READ EM. Court is in session …

A solid debut. I wonder if there will be some outcry from conservative solvers, though. RBG is admirably tough and a seeker of justice, but she's not been without controversy.