Not only was Ginsburg an important and crucial vote on the Supreme Court, but since being appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton in1993, she became the most senior member of the court’s Liberal wing.
Ginsburg was a champion in every way – delivering progressive votes on the most divisive social issues of the day, including abortion rights, same-sex marriage, voting rights, immigration, health care and affirmative action.
And along the way, she managed to acquire a “rock star” status and was dubbed the “Notorious R.B.G.” – a nickname spoken with love by so many people who admired her. Ginsburg was also a role-model for young girls way before she became a Supreme Court Justice.
Ginsburg became a champion of rights for women and minorities when she argued and won pioneering sex-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s. It should also be noted that Ginsburg wrote the 1996 opinion for the gender discrimination case – United States v. Virginia that forced the all-male Virginia Military Institute to allow women to attend.
In a statement, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. said of Justice Ginsburg: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was sworn in as the second female justice on the Supreme Court in 1993, has passed away at the age of 87. pic.twitter.com/UPZ06XfuA3
— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2020
Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School.
She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure.
Read the full announcement from the Supreme Court on the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pic.twitter.com/GeaGdspsfa
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 19, 2020
She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972–1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977–1978.
In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973–1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974–1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. During her more than 40 years as a Judge and a Justice, she was served by 159 law clerks.
In a statement from the US Supreme Court, ““Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer. A private interment service will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.”