The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on 18th September 2020 broke countless hearts around the world.
Ginsburg passed away at her house, surrounded by her family, due to complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas. She was 87 years old.
Chief Justice John Roberts effectively touched upon her legacy in a statement: “Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence, that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of Justice.”
Ginsburg’s journey to the U.S. Supreme Court is nothing short of inspiring. She became the second female Justice of the Supreme Court in 1993 when she was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Her history
Ginsburg was born in the year 1933 in Brooklyn, NY. She was the second daughter of Nathan and Cecelia Bader, who hailed from a low-income working-class neighborhood. Her family was Jewish. Her core beliefs included a profound understanding of the value of a good education and the importance of independence in life. Her mother was pivotal in the inculcation of these values.
Ginsburg attended Madison High School in Brooklyn and was an excellent student. During this time, her mother fought cancer and passed away the day before her daughter’s graduation. Bader went on to attend Cornell University in 1954. She finished first in her class. She got married to Martin D. Ginsburg in the same year.
Her husband served a spell in the army for two years, and after he returned, the two enrolled in Harvard. Ginsburg’s tenure at Harvard was rife with difficulties as she had to strike a balance between motherhood and academics. In addition, she was part of a heavily male-dominated classroom, with a ratio of only eight females to 492 males in a class of 500 students.
Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law after her husband found a job in NYC. She was the first woman to be on two major law reviews, Harvard Law and Columbia Law Review. She graduated in 1959 and tied for first in her class.
Navigating the rocky terrain
When she first started out, Ginsburg encountered difficulty in finding a job. She was rejected for a clerkship in 1960 by Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter because she was a female, despite her excellent credentials and recommendation from the dean of Harvard Law. She began her clerkship for Judge Palmieri after he was threatened by Gerald Gunther, a professor at Columbia Law, who said that he would never recommend another Columbia student if the judge did not give Ginsburg an opportunity. He guaranteed that he would offer a replacement should Ginsburg not impress, but she went on to hold her position for two years.
She was a professor at Rutgers University Law School from 1963-72. She later joined Columbia, where she became the university’s first female tenured professor.
In the 1970s, she also held a position as the director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. Here, she argued six major landmark cases centered around gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court. She won them all.
Ginsburg firmly believed that the law was gender blind, and all sexes on the spectrum were entitled to equal and fair rights. Among the cases she won before the Supreme Court, one involved a portion of the Social Security Act that favored women over men. It awarded certain benefits to women who were widows but not widowers.
The Supreme Court
President Jimmy Carter first appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980. She was later appointed to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton. She was nominated due to her sharp intellect and political skills, which gave her an edge when dealing with the conservative wing of the Court.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings were cordial and friendly, despite there being some tension regarding Ginsburg’s evasive answers to hypothetical questions. Her transition from social advocate to Supreme Court Justice was also marred by concerns from members who found it difficult to digest. However, she was quickly confirmed by the Senate, voted in 96 to 3. She was the Supreme Court’s second female Justice and the first-ever female Jewish Justice.
Ginsburg was associated with the Supreme Court’s moderate-liberal bloc and was considered the voice for women in terms of gender equality, the voice of laborers in terms of workers’ rights, and was a strong advocate for the separation of the church and the state.
Her legacy
In 1996, she wrote the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in United States vs. Virginia, which declared that the Virginia Military Institute could not turn away women. In 1999, she was awarded the Thurgood Marshal Award by the American Bar Association for her many contributions to gender equality and civil rights.
She also fought other discriminatory laws against women, such as the preferential treatment of men to females under the Equal Protection Clause and the issue of equal pay, and for a woman’s right to choose – such as in the case of abortion rights.
The verdict of Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt opinion was seen as a win for women’s reproductive rights everywhere. She was reported as saying, “It is a woman’s right to control her own destiny, to be able to make choices without the Big Brother state telling her what she can and cannot do.”
She was the architect of the legal fight for women’s rights throughout her life. She served 27 years on the highest court of the U.S and shone as one of its most well-known and prominent members. Her death brought forth an outpouring of grief from American women, as seen on Twitter.
Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg lived an extraordinary life. She fought to ensure equal protection in our laws, fearlessly dissented and defended, and was a powerful role model for us all. I’m devastated to hear of her passing. Thank you, Justice Ginsburg. Rest in power.”
