RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Born Joan Ruth Bader March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, NY

In Office as Associate Justice August 10, 1993 – September 18, 2020

Passed Away September 18, 2020

Decades before declaring herself a “flaming feminist litigator,” (Sept. 2017, The Hill.com) Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, before attending Cornell University, where she met Martin Ginsburg who went on to attend Harvard Law School. She graduated at the top of her class in 1954 with a B.A. in Government and married Marty one month later. Ginsburg became a mother before starting her law journey at Harvard, where she was one of only 9 women in a class of about 500 men. She decided to transfer to Columbia Law School where she became the first woman to be on two major law reviews, the Harvard Law Review and the Columbia Law Review.

She graduated Columbia in 1959 tying for first in her class, but found it very difficult to find work because of her gender. She found herself teaching for many years as a law professor first at Rutgers then at Columbia, where she became the first female professor there to earn tenure. Her legal career has been defined by her activism for gender equality and women’s rights. In the 1970s, as director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, she won six landmark cases before the Supreme Court in the fight against gender discrimination. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where she served for thirteen years and was noted as a moderate and a consensusbuilder.

President Bill Clinton, reportedly looking to increase the Court’s diversity, nominated her on June 22, 1993 to be the first Jewish justice since 1969, the second female and the first Jewish female justice of the Supreme Court. Ginsburg was confirmed by the Senate in a 96-3 vote on August 3, 1993 and sworn in on August 10th.

Culturally, Ginsburg became an icon largely due to her passionate dissents, large scale impact and seemingly fearless commentary, identified at times as “the notorious R.B.G.” as a twist on the Notorious B.I.G., an American rapper also from Brooklyn. Ruth embraced this moniker and became known as much for her passion as her measured approach to decision making.

With numerous memorable cases in her career, Ginsburg also battled and overcame cancer twice, ignoring calls for her retirement. While the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was the only woman Justice from 2006 to 2009.

In addition to this solo tenure, groundbreaking representation, and clear advocacy for women’s rights in her court decisions, “the notorious R.B.G” famously gave her directive for when there are enough women Justices: