Remembering RBG Part 1:
Legacy of the Supreme Court Justice, American Icon and Feminist Champion
By Lyle Goulbourne
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of women’s rights as an attorney and as the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, died Friday, September 18 after battling cancer for over a decade. She was 87. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the following in her memory: “a great Justice; a woman of valour; a rock of righteousness; and my good, good friend. The world is a better place for her having lived in it” (Statements, 2020).
Ginsburg attended the Harvard Law School in 1956 as one of only nine women in a 500-person class. The dean infamously began the year by asking her and the other women why each of them deserved to take the place of a man (Pullman, 2020). While in law school, her husband and classmate Marty Ginsburg was diagnosed with cancer and subjected to intense treatments of radiation. During this time she cared for his needs, organized his class notes, helped him study, and dealt with her own coursework, all while taking care of their three-year-old child. Marty recovered and was hired in New York City. She was a grade below him, but she chose to move with him and graduated from Columbia Law School, tying for first place in the class (Greenhouse, 2020).
Despite graduating top of her class, Ginsburg did not receive a single job offer from a law firm. She then spent a year in Sweden prior to becoming a professor at Rutgers University, where she taught some of the first classes in the nation on women and law (Honderich, 2020). As the women’s movement gained traction towards the end of the 60s, Ginsburg joined the American Civil Liberties Union and led its Women’s Rights Project. With this platform, Ginsburg embarked on her career of changing the court’s opinions regarding gender bias and its effects on men and women. Ginsburg was quite strategic and precise in the cases she brought before the court, as she knew she was appealing to a court composed of nine men. In fact, several of her cases were often on behalf of men, demonstrating that gender discrimination harmed both men and women. For example, in one such case, Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, the Social Security Administration provided survivor benefits to women widowers but not to male widowers, so Stephen Wiesenfeld was left alone to care for his child after his wife died in childbirth. Ginsburg brought his case before the Supreme Court and demonstrated to the justices how the inequitable nature of these laws harmed both men and women. Ginsburg would go on to win five of the six cases she brought before the Supreme Court, establishing in law the constitution’s protection of gender equality (Savage, 2020).
Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by president Bill Clinton, where she continued her fight for gender equality. For example, in United States v. Virginia, Ginsburg defended the right of women to attend the all-male Virginia Military Institute (V.M.I.), stating “Women seeking and fit for a V.M.I.-quality education cannot be offered anything less under the state’s obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection, generalizations about ‘the way women are,’ estimates of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description” (Supreme, 1996). This powerful statement reiterated her belief in gender equality and helped further the advancement of women in the military.
Her status as an American icon was not solidified until later in her career when she became famous for her stinging dissents as the Supreme Court drifted towards the right. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of taking down significant portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, following the case of Shelby v. Holder (2013). The Voting Rights Act is a landmark piece of legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting, and the Court ruled that the provision determining which jurisdictions engaged in egregious voter discrimination was unconstitutional. In response, Ginsburg stated “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet” (Coyle, 2020). This dissent and many others made the small and soft-spoken Ginsburg a household name and a titan of American equality.
Her career as a champion of women's rights have made Ginsburg an icon and hero for the current generation. Terika Williams (junior, english) states “Her tenacity and strength will forever live on and push me to break through barriers where I’m told I don’t belong.” With her passing the Supreme Court has lost an American hero. However, the nation is left with little time to mourn, as her vacant seat has rapidly become a partisan issue during an election year, as will be discussed next week in “Remembering RBG Part 2.”
Works Cited
Coyle, M. (2020, September 23). 5 of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Most Powerful Supreme Court Opinions. PBS. Retrieved from:https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/5-of-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-most-powerf ul-supreme-court-opinions
Greenhouse, L. (2020, September 23). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dead.html
Honderich, H & Lussenhop, J. (2020, September 19). Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Obituary of the Supreme Court Justice. BBC. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49488374
Pullman, S. (n.d.) Tribute: The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and WRP Staff. Retrieved from: https://www.aclu.org/other/tribute-legacy-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-wrp-staff
Savage, D. (2020, September 19). Liberal Giant of the Supreme Court Who Became a Pop Cultural Icon. LA Times, pp. A1, A6.
Sherman, M. (2020, September 19). Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87. APNews. Retrieved from: https://apnews.com/article/bf6704fa6e900967a705054c801a5495
Statements from the Supreme Court Regarding the Death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (2020, September 19). Retrieved from: https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/pr_09-19-20
The Supreme Court: Excerpts from High Court’s Ruling Against the Male-Only Policy of V.M.I (1996, June 27). The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/27/us/supreme-court-excerpts-high-court-s-ruling-against-male-only-policy-vmi.html
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