This week, America lost another icon.\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, affectionately known as \u201cR.B.G.,\u201d died on Friday from metastatic pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n Man 2020.\u00a0 The hits just keep coming, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n Like many young female lawyers, R.B.G. has been my inspiration from the beginning.\u00a0 She is the epitome of a strong, independent woman and spent her legal career fighting for gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.\u00a0 But her influence isn\u2019t confined to the legal realm; her famous dissent collar and refusal to quietly accept \u2018unjust\u2019 SCOTUS opinions made her a pop culture icon for many Americans.<\/p>\n Without further ado, here\u2019s to remembering R.B.G.<\/p>\n THE BEGINNING<\/strong><\/p>\n SHE WAS BORN JOAN RUTH BADER<\/strong> on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.\u00a0 Her father Nathan was a Jewish emigrant from the Ukraine (then the Russian empire) and mother Celia was Austrian Jewish.\u00a0 Ruth began using her middle name when she started school; there were a few \u201cJoans\u201d in her class, so Celia asked her teachers to call her Ruth.\u00a0 And Ruth she became!<\/p>\n The \u201cGinsburg\u201d part was added upon Ruth\u2019s marriage to Martin Ginsburg in July 1954, just a month after she graduated from Cornell University.\u00a0 Like a boss, too – R.B.G. was the highest ranking woman in her graduating class.\u00a0 Somewhere, somehow, Andy Bernard is bursting with pride\u2026<\/p>\n R.B.G. BEGAN AT HARVARD LAW<\/strong> in 1956; she had a newborn daughter, and Marty was a class ahead of her.\u00a0 She was also one of just NINE women among 500 men.\u00a0 One time, the law school Dean famously asked them:<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you at Harvard, taking the place of a man?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Different times.\u00a0 For more on that story and the other eight women, check out this article: https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2020\/07\/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-transcript.html?fbclid=IwAR2jaOgMFcMc86Ot6td9a0O7XDQjKlBBDvO9wGyonOAqmvi7pINpxSwX3zg<\/a>.<\/p>\n Well, R.B.G. didn\u2019t \u201ctake the place of a man\u201d to mess around.\u00a0 As a 1L, her husband Marty was diagnosed with cancer and had to miss many classes for treatment.\u00a0 Rather than taking a leave of absence, Ruth went to his classes and took notes for him\u2026while attending her own courses, taking care of a sick husband, and watching their one-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n And she STILL made the Harvard Law Review.\u00a0 As someone who struggled to just keep my head above water during Harvard 1L, I cannot express how much determination\/dedication\/sheer brilliance this feat took.<\/p>\n BEFORE RUTH\u2019s 3L YEAR<\/strong>, Marty got a great job in New York City.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t want to be separated, so Ruth asked Harvard if she could finish her HLS degree via classes at Columbia\u2026and they said no.<\/p>\n So R.B.G. casually transferred to Columbia Law School for her final year, made it onto THEIR law review, and tied for first in her class at graduation.<\/p>\n Badass<\/em>.<\/p>\n WORK BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT<\/strong><\/p>\n DESPITE HER INCREDIBLE GRADES<\/strong> and recommendations from Columbia professors, R.B.G. was refused a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter because she was a woman.\u00a0 She was instead hired by Judge Edmund Palmieri of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, and clerked there for two years.<\/p>\n R.B.G. engaged in academic work for a few years before becoming a civil procedure professor (i.e., the rules for how courts work) at Rutgers Law School from 1963 to 1972.\u00a0 In that position, Ruth was one of just 20 female American law professors – and was paid less than her male colleagues because Marty had a high-salary job.<\/p>\n SHE TAUGHT AT COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL<\/strong> from 1972 to 1980, during which time she also co-founded the Women\u2019s Rights Project for the ACLU.\u00a0 Between 1973 and 1976, Ruth was thrust into the spotlight for arguing SIX gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court – and winning five.<\/p>\n FIVE.\u00a0 She had an 83% success rate, while arguing about women\u2019s rights, in front an all-male Court.\u00a0 Amazing.<\/p>\n HER FIRST CASE<\/strong> before the Supreme Court involved a female Air Force lieutenant, Sharron Frontiero, and her civilian husband Joseph.\u00a0 Sharron tried to claim Joseph as her \u201cdependent,\u201d but an Air Force statute stated that only women could be treated as dependents unconditionally; for a woman to claim her male spouse as a dependent, she had to prove her husband depended on her for more than half of his support.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t the case for the Frontieros, and her dependent benefits were denied.\u00a0 On behalf of the ACLU, R.B.G. argued that the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause by branding women as inferior to men – and the justices agreed.\u00a0 In an 8-1 ruling, the justices voted to strike down the statute.<\/p>\n R.B.G. is the reason that I, and so many other military women, do not receive less benefits than our male counterparts.<\/p>\n R.B.G. adopted a brilliant strategy while arguing these gender discrimination cases.\u00a0 She often used men as her plaintiffs, showing that discrimination between men and women (even via laws that were meant to help women) was unconstitutionally based on unfair and harmful stereotypes, and actually hurt both groups.\u00a0 It was exceedingly successful, and her slow march towards equality ensured that such changes could not be easily overturned.<\/p>\n THE SUPREME COURT<\/strong><\/p>\n RUTH WAS APPOINTED<\/strong> to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit by President Carter in 1980, and then nominated to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993.\u00a0 The Senate confirmed her by a 96-3 vote, and R.B.G. became the second female and the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n In her 27 years on the bench, R.B.G. took a cautious (if lively) approach to adjudication.\u00a0 In her own words,<\/p>\n \u201cMeasured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication.\u00a0 Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experienced teaches, may prove unstable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Just as she had in her time as a litigator, R.B.G. continued to build cautiously on Supreme Court precedent rather than pushing for quick change, and constitutional interpretations consistent with her own vision.<\/p>\n Despite beginning her tenure as a \u201cmoderate\u201d justice, Ruth evolved into a liberal member of the bench.\u00a0 When the Court split 5 to 4 along ideological lines and the liberals were in the minority, Ginsburg often wrote or assigned the dissenting opinion, and urged her fellow justices to issue a unified statement.\u00a0 Her dissents are famous, as are her dissent collars (see below).\u00a0 When the Court appeared to announce decisions, and R.B.G. wore one of these, you KNEW she had something to say.<\/p>\n My favorite R.B.G. opinion?\u00a0 United States v. Virginia<\/em>, 1996 – a case asking if the Virginia Military Institute\u2019s male-only admissions policy violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.\u00a0 In an 8-1 decision, R.B.G. wrote that it did.\u00a0 VMI failed to provide an \u201cexceedingly persuasive justification\u201d for excluding women, and the creation of a separate, \u201cwomen\u2019s\u201d VMI would be \u201csubstandard\u201d to VMI in many ways.\u00a0 Therefore, VMI\u2019s policy excluding women was unconstitutional and must be struck down.<\/p>\n R.B.G. WAS DIAGNOSED WITH COLON CANCER<\/strong> in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009.\u00a0 Both times, she didn\u2019t miss a day on the bench – even though the pancreatic cancer surgery occurred just 10 days before the Court went back into session.\u00a0 In November 2018, R.B.G. fell in her office and fractured three ribs, and her doctors found cancer nodules in her lungs.\u00a0 Following another surgery, she missed oral argument on January 7 – the first time since joining the court 25 years earlier.<\/p>\n Last summer, 2019, R.B.G. was again treated for a tumor in her pancreas.\u00a0 She was deemed cancer-free in January 2020, but began chemotherapy treatment once more in May.\u00a0 This final bout of cancer, her fourth, caused her death on September 18, at the age of 87.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/armed\/files\/2020\/10\/RBG1.jpg?ssl=1\")
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