Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme court, died on Friday, Sept. 18 at her home in Washington, D.C. She was 87. She died from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Born Joan Ruth Bader, she adopted the nickname “Ruth” in elementary school to discern her from other students with the same name. In 2013, Shana Knizhnik, a New York University law student dubbed Ginsburg the Notorious RBG to “highlight her dissent in the landmark Supreme Court Case Shelby County v. Holder.”
She was Nathan and Celia Bader’s second child. Their first daughter Marilyn died of meningitis when Ruth was 14 months old. Her mother died of cancer when she was just a teenager.
According to Britannica, Ruth excelled in school “where she was heavily involved in student activities and earned excellent grades.” After high school Ruth entered Cornell University where she met her future husband Martin (Marty) Ginsburg. They got married in 1954 soon after graduating.
Their plans to continue their education were postponed after Martin was drafted into the military. During that time they had their first child Jane.
Thereafter, they resumed their studies at Harvard Law School where Ruth was the first female reporter on the Harvard Law Review.
Ruth experienced a tremendous amount of discrimination while in school and beyond. According to the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAPFI), “upon graduation, many firms were not interested in hiring her, despite her high honors.”
With help from her former Columbia professors, Ginsburg was offered a Clerkship at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (1959-61). As reported by History, Ginsburg also served as the director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the 70s. Over the course of her tenure she “argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court.”
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She served there until President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court on June 14, 1993. The Supreme Court confirmed her on Aug. 3, 1993 and she took her seat the following week.
During her tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg was involved in several landmark decisions including United States v. Virginia and Bush v. Gore.
For her contributions to gender equality and civil rights, she won the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award in 1999. Her contributions to this country are imperishable.
Article by Kennedy Nieves of Winston Churchill High School
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons