Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18, 2020, served as a judge of the US Supreme Court for 27 years. Only the second woman to be appointed to the Court, RBG (as she came to be known) was outspoken and instrumental in advancing reproductive rights, gender equality, healthcare access, and same-sex marriage.
RBG’s father was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine and her mother’s family came from Poland. RBG lost her mother to cancer on the day before her graduation from school. She attended Cornell University and later, in the fall of 1956, enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she was one of only 9 women in a class of about 500 men. When her husband Martin moved to New York, she transferred to Columbia Law School and earned her law degree tying for first place in her class.
After nine years as a professor at Rutgers in New Jersey, she taught at Columbia for eight years as the law school’s first female tenured professor. From 1972, she began a close relationship with the American Civil Liberties Union, and co-founded its Women’s Rights Project. Within two years she had taken part in more than 300 gender-related cases.
President Carter appointed her as a federal judge and President Clinton elevated her to the Supreme Court. As a member of the Supreme Court, she was a steady voice for women’s rights. She wrote the majority opinions in many important cases, including the 1996 ruling that the male-only admissions policy of the state-funded Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional. She believed the most important case to come before the supreme court during her time was the landmark 2015 ruling that legalised same-sex marriage across all states. She wrote several dissenting opinions as the composition of the Court moved to the right.
As she grew older, RBG acquired a reputation in Washington for being tough-minded, even a “character”. In 2013, Shana Knizhnik, a law student at the time, celebrated Justice Ginsburg after her memorable dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, a voting-rights case by giving her an alter ego, Notorious R.B.G. — a play on the rapper Notorious B.I.G. That name stuck and a whole cult came into being around the justice and her contributions.
Ginsburg was physically tough, attending a gym well into her eighties. In late middle age, however, she was diagnosed with cancer, first of the colon and later of the pancreas. There were two further occurrences of cancer in the last two years of her life. In spite of such serious health issues, RBG worked as a justice until her last days.
In the days before her death, RBG told her granddaughter Clara Spera, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” As I write this story, the Republicans are trying their best to appoint an ultra-conservative judge in the place of RBG. She might be writing a dissent note from heaven!
Afterword: RBG found fame late in life and then appeared in movies, children’s books and TV shows. Eight books were written about her and more will surely follow. She was the subject of the documentary ‘RBG’ and the biopic ‘On the Basis of Sex’.
One can decipher a mind of passion and commitment. That brings in the required grit in one’s life, and it becomes a way of life. Her passion can be seen and felt right at the beginning of her career, where her attempt to stand first in her law graduation, testifies the stand that she would take in her future endeavors. If people are passionate, you can see that in all walks of their life, as there is commitment both in choosing a path and living according to the tenets that it requires. We can see this courage and forthrightness through out RGB’s career and in her life as well. Stories like these should build in the courage and set examples in our lives as well.
One can see her passion and commitment right from the stage that she wanted to stand first in her law college. Right through her career and life she has stood through with grit and determination. This requires tremendous energy that unfolds as one moves along with a purpose, no matter what the obstacles are. Fame comes naturally to them who have a purpose without having to crave for it. Some of these decisions, that judges make including the ones made by her, come from internal integrity and human values they respect. We need people having grit and determination like RBG.