Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the associate justice of the United States Supreme Court who had the most significant cultural impact on American society, not just because of her interpretations of Constitutional Law, but her presence as an American woman in the workplace and in the media as a lawyer, mother, and intellectual. During her tenure, she became known as Notorious RBG, a moniker that paid homage to her toughness and resilience, as well as comparing her to another tough Brooklyn superstar, Chris Wallace, the rapper known as Notorious B.I.G. The significance of RBG being held in the same esteem as Biggie Smalls speaks to the level at which she transcended all cultural and socio-political boundaries.
Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993, by President Bill Clinton. She was the second woman Justice and the first Jewish woman Justice. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University, started law school at Harvard and transferred to Columbia, back in New York City, where she graduated first in her class. She was an unwavering advocate for gender equality and women's rights, as well as voting rights and the rights of indigenous people, and as a lawyer won many arguments before the Supreme Court. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
On the Supreme Court, her arguments in dissent of findings were often as significant as those in which she sat with the majority. For example, her dissenting opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., inspired the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed into law in 2009 which cleared obstacles to employees making pay discrimination claims.
Her support of abortion rights was persistent and she condemned the tactics and methodology used by anti-abortion activists in Congress to reach conclusions, questioning the veracity, the basic accuracy, of their arguments. She had a keen eye for the way in which laws were written, especially when they were being presented as protecting women's health when they were in fact written to restrict access to abortion.
In her personal life, she married Martin Ginsburg after graduating law school and is survived by him, a son and a daughter. Despite her battle with cancer, she did not retire from the bench and attempted to hold on until the then-current president left office so her successor could be appointed by a person with some understanding of jurisprudence. Unfortunately, she died before the 2020 election, and she has been replaced on the bench by a young religious fanatic who will work over many decades to undo the remarkable progress made by Americans in the second-half of the twentieth century.
RBG embraced her role in popular culture, took very seriously her job as a Justice, and she is the most important face of American jurisprudence. The world died a little bit on the day of her passing. Her legacy is remarkable and it is up to all of us to ensure that we as a society do not erase the hard work done by RBG and her colleagues.
Watch this video of a discussion between RBG and NPR's Nina Totenberg:
Photo credit:
Supreme Court Photographer Steve Petteway
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