Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the longest serving judge on the U S. Supreme Court, has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 87.

Death details for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ginsburg revealed in July 2020 that she was undergoing chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer. She had previously been treated for four bouts with cancer over the years, including a pancreatic tumor in 2019 and nodules in her lung in 2018.

Legal career

Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court for 27 years and was the second woman appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1993, after Sandra Day O’Connor, who was named by President Reagan in 1981.

Supreme Court Justice

The Supreme Court Justice would become a pioneer and a stalwart supporter for women’s rights known for her sharp questioning of witnesses and intellectually rigorous defenses of equal protections under the law.

“Justice Ginsburg paved the way for so many women, including me. There will never be another like her,” said former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

In her nearly quarter of a century on the court, Ginsburg was an essential vote in landmark rulings that combatted gender discrimination and protected abortion and reproductive rights, equal pay, civil liberties and privacy rights.

On reproductive rights, Ginsburg told an interviewer in 2009: “The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a cultural icon

In her later years Ginsburg gained traction as a cultural figure and feminist icon.

A biopic released in 2018 was chosen by the National Board of Review as the best documentary of the year.

She also had a blog called Notorious RBG that packaged Ginsburg’s feminist appeal in a hip-hop persona.

Her humble beginnings

Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933 and was one of the first women to enroll at Harvard Law School. All while juggling to be a mom and wife.

When her husband Martin got a new job, they moved back to the city, where she transferred to Columbia University to complete her law degree. But despite graduating at the top of her class, the job market wasn’t welcoming.

“There was not a single firm in the entire city of New York that would offer me a job,” she recalled.

She never felt defeated despite the odds

She said she had three strikes against her: she was Jewish, a woman, and a mother.

“Legal employers were afraid … that I would be staying home more than I was showing up for work,” she said.

Of course, she proved them wrong, building an impressive career.

Women’s Rights

She served as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and was co-founder of the Women’s Rights Project.

Ginsburg’s work with Women’s Rights Project in the 1970s was groundbreaking. She argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning five of them to eliminate legal barriers that held women back in the workplace and civic life.

“She is to the women’s movement what former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was to the movement for the rights of African Americans,” then-President Clinton said when he nominated her to fill the Supreme Court seat.

“Her 27 years on the Court exceeded even my highest expectations when I appointed her,” Mr. Clinton said in a statement following her death. “Her landmark opinions advancing gender equality, marriage equality, the rights of people with disabilities, the rights of immigrants, and so many more moved us closer to ‘a more perfect union'”.

Ginsburg’s husband Martin died in 2010. She is survived by her two children.