FEATURE ARTICLE
REMEMBERING JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG By Judge Emily E. Vasquez
L
ate in the afternoon of September 18th, Judge Helena Gweon texted me and some female judicial colleagues to inform us of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. The news brought a deep sense of loss and sadness. Soon my friends and I were sending messages to one another expressing our grief, but also encouraging one another to honor Justice
Ginsburg by continuing her legacy of moving toward a more just and more equal America. My female judicial colleagues and I felt a special loss because we were an informal “RBG” Sacramento contingent. Together, we shared dinner and watched two powerful movies about Justice Ginsburg: the documentary “RBG” and the historical drama, On the Basis of Sex. We
Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States Photographer: Steve Petteway Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wearing her distinctive “dissent” collar over her robes.
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Judge Emily E. Vasquez is a judge in Department 32 of the Sacramento County Superior Court.
SACRAMENTO LAWYER | Fall 2020 | www.sacbar.org
She Imagined a
World of Greater Equality and
Then Worked to
Make It Happen reminisced and were uplifted by her response to the question of how many women would be enough on the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg answered: “When there are nine, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” She was a hero to us. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it her life’s work to change the legal landscape for American women, first as a civil rights lawyer and then as the second woman ever to serve on the US Supreme Court. But in the process, her work helped not only women, but also men, racial minorities, people with disabilities, and workers. While teaching at Rutgers University Law School, she became co-director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and set about changing the Supreme Court’s view of gender bias. With her meticulous legal research and keen intellect, she argued a series of landmark cases that extended the 14th Amendment’s equal – rights clause to women, overturning laws that discriminated on the basis of sex. She beca-
