Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Her Life and Legacy
Ruth Baber Ginsburg will go down in history as a legal pioneer, a feminist icon and above all a beacon of American progress. If you were to trace her career, you would find the remnants of several glass ceilings. At Harvard, she was one of nine women in a class of almost 500. She then went on to work as a lawyer, judge and professor - all during a time when women were not welcomed into the law. After making her mark in the world, while simultaneously raising a family and caring for her husband when he was diagnosed with cancer, she died in September at the age of 87.
Her work can be traced back to when she was a litigator with the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s, winning a string of ground-breaking sex-discrimination cases. As a professor at Rutgers University, she created a course on gender equality and the law and co-authored the first textbook on this topic. Furthermore, she fought for equal pay for the female academic at her university – especially at law schools. As a lawyer, she established the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Women’s Rights Project (WRP). She wrote the brief for Reed v Reed (1971) and won the case, in which the Supreme Court held the Fourteenth Amendment prevented differential treatment between men and women. She went on to write briefs and/or make arguments in 34 cases for the ACLU WRP. Out of the six cases she argued before the Supreme Court, she won five.
An important part of RBG’s arguments about discrimination was that it affects both genders and that equality benefits both women and men. Ginsburg became a judge in 1980 on the DC Circuit and constantly demonstrated the highest level of legal craft in crucial decisions. In 1993, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court. He initially had a male candidate in mind, but after meeting RBG, the nomination was hers. RBG became the second of only four female Supreme Court justices in history. In 2012 at a conference she said, “I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? And when I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there had been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” Ginsburg did not just fight for equal rights on the grounds of gender, she fought for the rights of the LGBT community, undocumented people, and disabled people. She also fought to expand voting rights.
Some of her most historic Supreme court decisions include: equal access to education for women (United States v. Virginia, 1996), preventing environmental pollution (Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, 2000), protecting the fourth amendment (Safford Unified School District v. Redding, 2009) and addressing voter discrimination (Shelby County v. Holder, 2013). RBG’s Supreme Court decisions have all had a major impact in American history not just legally but within society. Her dissents have also had a massive consequence, even politically. Most famously Gore v. Bush, in which Justice Ginsburg dissented the 7-2 ruling the Florida Supreme Court's mandate for a manual recount of votes was unconstitutional and in a 5-4 vote ruled there was no alternative way to recount the votes. This decision effectively secured an election win for Bush. Instead of concluding her opinion with the normal "I respectfully dissent," Justice Ginsburg concluded her statement with "I dissent" - and the phrase became her trademark.
So, what implications follow Ginsburg’s death? It seems unfathomable that Donald Trump would put up a man to replace a feminist pioneer like Ginsburg, especially so close to the election so it is likely another female will come to step into RBG’s shoes. Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, if successful will lead to conservative-leaning justices will hold a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future, as Supreme Court justices hold their positions for life. RBG, as a justice, served as a counterbalance to the Republican-leaning Supreme Court. Without Republican views are likely to triumph and shape the future of American society to Democrat dismay. RBG used her voice to speak to the world feminism insists on a world where education, employment, housing, health care, civil rights and environmental justice represent the common good. Barrett will join the conservative block RBG opposed. Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg with an anti-feminist woman is just as cynical as replacing civil rights titan Thurgood Marshall with a Clarence Thomas (a Black nominee who was avowedly hostile to affirmative action). Senator Kamala Harris also framed Barrett as not only as the antithesis of Ginsburg's legacy but also said Barrett "will undo (Ginsburg's) life's work." Furthermore, Harris stated, "President Trump and his party and Judge Barrett will overturn the Affordable Care Act, and they won't stop there. They have made it clear that they want to overturn Roe v. Wade and restrict reproductive rights and freedoms.”
Barrett’s confirmation hearing starts less than a month after Ginsberg’s death, a sign of how desperately Republicans want to approve the 48-year-old federal appeals court judge before the Nov. 3 election. Democrats have repeatedly tried to delay the hearings, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz warned Sunday that there will likely be “procedural games and shenanigans” to come.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be remembered as one of the most significant people in law and American history in the last century. Her impact has benefitted so many people in a countless number of ways, and will hopefully not be undone by those to follow.
