Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice & Champion of Gender Equality

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born as Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York City to parents Celia and Nathan Bader. Throughout high school, her mother, who instilled her love of education in Ruth, battled cancer, and she passed away the day before Ruth graduated James Madison High School. Ruth went on to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and she graduated at the top of her class in 1954. There, she met Martin Ginsburg, and the two married a month after her graduation. Ruther had her first child (Jane) in 1955, shortly after her husband was drafted for two years of military service. When he returned from his service, Ruth enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956, one of only 9 women in a class of around 500 men. The dean asked her and her female classmates, “Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?” In the face of gender-based discrimination and unfounded doubt of her abilities, Ruth persevered and became the first female member of prestigious law journal, the Harvard Law Review.

In their first year of law school, Martin was diagnosed with testicular cancer, but Ruth rose to the challenge, caring for her daughter and sick husband, attending Martin’s classes, taking notes for him and keeping him on top of his assignments, and maintaining her own position at the top of the class. Martin recovered from his cancer, graduated from Harvard, and accepted a position at a law firm in New York. With only a year left of school, she transferred to Columbia Law School and graduated in 1959, tied for first in her class and the first woman to serve on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews.

Despite her incredible academic record, she incurred trouble finding work because she was a woman, but with the help of a Columbia professor, U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri hired Ruth as a clerk. After clerking for two years, Ruth searched for jobs at a law firm but was always offered a significantly lower salary than her male counterparts. She decided to pursue civil procedure and joined the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure, where she studied Swedish culture and lived abroad to conduct research on Swedish civil procedure practices. Ruth returned to the United States and joined the faculty at Rutgers University Law School as a professor in 1963 before accepting an offer to teach at Columbia University in 1972. She became the first female professor at Columbia to earn tenure and co-authored the first law school casebook on sex discrimination. In 1970, she co-founded the Women’s Rights Law Report, the first law journal of its kind in the U.S. and in 1972, co-founded and directed the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). From 1973 to 1976, she argued six landmark cases, fighting for both men and women’s rights, before the Supreme Court, winning five.

In Reed v. Reed, Ginsburg argued that Idaho statute’s that stated that “males must be preferred to females” (when deciding who would become the administrator of an estate after a death in this case) was unconstitutional, and thus, it was struck down and the Supreme Court extended the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to women. In the case Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld in 1975, Ruth represented a widower denied social security benefits that could be collected by widows but not widowers caring for minor children and won. In Frontiero v. Richardson in 1973, she challenged a statute making it more difficult for women serving in the U.S. Air Force to claim an increased housing allowance for her husband than males seeking the same benefit for their wives, and the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 in her favor.

Ruth accepted Jimmy Carter’s appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980 and was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States thirteen years later in 1993 by Bill Clinton, becoming the first female Jewish Supreme Court Justice and one of only four female justices in history. A long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, she became the first Supreme Court Judge to officiate one, the wedding of Michael M. Kaiser and John Roberts.

RBG is an inspiration to the next generation of women looking to pursue law, including her own daughter, Jane, who followed in her footsteps and became a law professor at Columbia University, where she teaches today.

On September 18, 2020, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic cancer in the pancreas at the age of 87. She was a champion of gender equality and pop culture icon with her trademark glasses, bun and collar and nickname “the notorious RBG” and remains a symbol of justice and perseverance today. May her memory be a blessing.

by Natasha Matta

Take Action

Sign Petitions & Email Your State Legislature

Do Not Replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg Unit After Election, https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-replace-ruth-bader-ginsburg-until-after-election

Do not fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat until after the 2021 inauguration, https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/do-not-fill-ruth-bader-ginsburg-s-supreme-court-seat-until-after-the-2021-inauguration

Tell the Senate: No Supreme Court confirmation before the inauguration, https://nextgenamerica.org/act/honor-rbg/

Register to vote, https://www.usa.gov/voter-registration

Learn More About RBG & Her Legacy

On The Basis of Sex (film)

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams

Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron De Hart

Conversations With RBG by Jeffrey Rosen

I Know This to Be True by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman

References

8 Books on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times, September 21, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/21/books/ruth-bader-ginsburg-books.html

TRIBUTE: THE LEGACY OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG, ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg

15 Ways Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Made History, Tina Donvito, Reader’s Digest, September 18, 2020, https://www.rd.com/article/ruth-bader-ginsburg/

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oyez, https://www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, HISTORY, September 21, 2020, https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/ruth-bader-ginsburg

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87, Nina Totenberg, NPR, September 18, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/100306972/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-champion-of-gender-equality-dies-at-87

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Most Important Legal Victories: The sex discrimination cases RBG argued and won in front of the Supreme Court in the ’70s laid the foundation for the modern day women’s rights movement, Abigail Covintgon, Esquire, September 19, 2020, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a34085362/ruth-bader-ginsburg-most-important-legal-victories/

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Reading List, The Library at Washington and Lee University School of Law, https://libguides.wlu.edu/c.php?g=601727&p=4166850