Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Supreme Court of the United States, Photographer: Steve Petteway [1] · Public domain · source
Name	Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Caption	Ginsburg in 2019
Birth date	March 15, 1933
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Death date	September 18, 2020
Death place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Alma mater	Cornell University, Columbia Law School
Occupation	Jurist, professor, advocate
Known for	Advocate for gender equality; Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Spouse	Martin D. Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until 2020, noted for her work advancing gender equality and civil liberties through litigation and judicial opinion. Born in Brooklyn, she graduated from Cornell University and Columbia Law School, co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, and taught at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School before her federal judicial appointments. Her tenure on the Court intersected with consequential cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and debates with contemporaries such as Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas.

Early life and education

Born to Morris Bader and Celia Amster Bader in Brooklyn, she attended P.S. 166 and James Madison High School (Brooklyn), graduating during the era of the Great Depression and World events including World War II. She enrolled at Cornell University on a scholarship, where she met future husband Martin D. Ginsburg and engaged with student organizations tied to figures like Hans Bethe and academic circles referencing Iraqi–Jewish immigration topics. After earning a bachelor’s degree, she attended Harvard Law School briefly before transferring to Columbia Law School where she graduated tied for first in her class despite barriers faced by women in the legal profession exemplified by contemporaries at firms in New York City.

Legal career and advocacy

Ginsburg clerked for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri and worked with academic networks at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School as a law professor, focusing on civil procedure and gender discrimination. She co-founded and directed the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union and litigated landmark cases in federal courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit against discriminatory statutes authored under legal doctrines linked to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Her strategic litigation targeted statutes and practices involving entities such as Social Security Administration, IRS, and state legislatures, and she argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in matters comparable in impact to cases associated with Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia in their civil-rights significance.

Federal judicial service

Nominated by President Bill Clinton, she was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit before her elevation to the Supreme Court of the United States. Her confirmation process involved Senate deliberations in the United States Senate and interaction with senators such as Joseph Biden, Orrin Hatch, and Ted Kennedy. On the D.C. Circuit she succeeded judges connected to the jurisprudence of figures like Henry Friendly and engaged with panels addressing administrative law questions tied to agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and Environmental Protection Agency.

Supreme Court tenure

Nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she joined a bench with justices including Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor, and William Rehnquist. Her opinions and dissents addressed statutes like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and interacted with precedents such as Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut. During her tenure she forged alliances and disagreements with justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, and Elena Kagan while participating in decisions influenced by constitutional provisions such as the Commerce Clause and the First Amendment.

Judicial philosophy and notable opinions

Known for a jurisprudence emphasizing careful precedent and incremental change, she often grounded analyses in the Equal Protection Clause and constitutional text interpreted alongside statutes like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Her notable majority opinions and dissents include work affecting cases comparable in public profile to United States v. Virginia, where institutional sex-based exclusions were scrutinized, and dissenting stances resonant with debates in Obergefell v. Hodges and cases concerning campaign finance and corporate personhood related to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. She frequently employed historical scholarship akin to reasoning used in opinions referencing figures like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison while contending with methodological rivals such as proponents of originalism linked to Antonin Scalia.

Personal life and legacy

Married to Martin D. Ginsburg, a tax attorney and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, she balanced family life with professional duties; their daughter Jane C. Ginsburg emerged as a scholar at Columbia Law School. Her health battles involved treatments at institutions like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and generated public responses from figures such as President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump at the time of her death. Her cultural legacy includes portrayals in works related to popular culture and commemorations from organizations including the American Bar Association and initiatives by universities such as Harvard University and Yale University. Monuments to her influence span scholarly symposia referencing the Constitution, awards like the American Bar Association Medal, and continuing legal scholarship at centers named after jurists such as Benjamin Cardozo and Harlan F. Stone.

Category:Supreme Court of the United States justices Category:American women lawyers