HER | The Notorious RBG: Champion of gender equality

In this July 31, 2014, file photo, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in her chambers in at the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court says Ginsburg has died of metastatic pancreatic cancer at age 87. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
In this July 31, 2014, file photo, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in her chambers in at the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court says Ginsburg has died of metastatic pancreatic cancer at age 87. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

As the second-ever female Supreme Court justice, and the first Jewish female justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was responsible for many rulings that helped further the cause of gender equality. An outspoken feminist, she became known as the "liberal wing" of the Court from her appointment in 1993 until her death on Sept. 18.

Born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, during the Great Depression, Ruth was the second child of Jewish immigrant Nathan Bader from the Ukraine and native New Yorker Celia Amster Bader. Her older sister, Marylin, nicknamed her "Kiki" before dying of meningitis at the age of 6.

Young Ruth went to public schools in the city before attending Cornell University. There she met Martin Ginsburg. In 1954, Ruth graduated as the highest-ranking female student in her class, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government.

Martin and Ruth married a month later and moved to Oklahoma, where he was stationed as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. She went to work for the Social Security Administration there and was demoted when she became pregnant with her first child in 1955.

The following year, Ruth enrolled at Harvard Law School as one of only nine women in a class with 500 men. While there, the women were invited to dinner at the dean's home; he asked them all why they were in law school taking the place of a man.

When her husband took a job in New York City, Ruth transferred to Columbia Law School, where she tied for first in her class at graduation. From 1961-1963 she was an associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She learned Swedish to co-author a book on civil procedure in Sweden.

Upon her return to America, she became a professor at Rutgers Law School, where she was paid less than her male counterparts. She was one of fewer than 20 female law professors in the United States.

In 1970, she co-founded the Women's Rights Law Reporter, the first law journal in the U.S. to focus exclusively on women's rights. From 1972 to 1980, she taught at Columbia Law School, where she co-authored the first law school casebook on sex discrimination. She also spent a year as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 1977 to 1978.

As the co-founder and director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court between 1973 and 1976, winning five.

Legal scholars and advocates credit Ginsburg's body of work with making significant legal advances for women under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Taken together, Ginsburg's legal victories discouraged legislatures from treating women and men differently under the law.

On April 14, 1980, Ruth was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was confirmed on June 18, 1980, and remained there until 1993 when she was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton.

Throughout her years on the bench, she made decisions that favored not only gender equality, but the rights of everyone - from Native Americans to the handicapped. In 1999, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

On Jan. 20, 1997, she became only the third woman in history to administer an inaugural oath of office, when Al Gore asked her to for his second term as Vice President. In 2013 she became the first Supreme Court Justice to perform a same-sex marriage.

Seven years later, the Ginsburgs celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary. Four days later, Martin died of complications from metastatic cancer the same diagnosis that Ruth would succumb to 10 years later.

Her first book, "My Own Words," was released in 2016. It debuted at No. 12 on the New York Times Best Seller List.

In 2018, Ruth spoke out in support of the #MeToo movement. She told an audience, "It's about time. For so long women were silent, thinking there was nothing you could do about it, but now the law is on the side of women, or men, who encounter harassment and that's a good thing." Ruth's most formidable enemy outside of the courtroom was a 22-year battle with cancer. In 1999 she was diagnosed with colon cancer the first of five bouts with the disease. She endured chemotherapy and radiation without missing a day on the bench. In 2009 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and returned to work only 10 days after having a tumor removed.

In 2018, cancerous nodules were detected in her lungs during an X-ray of her ribs after a fall. For the first time, she missed an oral argument while recuperating from a lobectomy.

The next year, Ruth underwent radiation once again on a pancreatic tumor. The treatment was a success, but in May 2020 she had a recurrence and required treatment. At that time she said that she would "remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full-steam," adding that she remained fully able to do so.

By the time of her death in September, Ruth had attained the level of pop-culture icon. Her spitfire personality and tenacity led the nickname of "The Notorious R.B.G.," comparing her to rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

A documentary title, "RBG," premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The same year another film, "On The Basis of Sex," focused on Ruth's fight for equal rights.

A long list of merchandise has been created with the RBG theme, and Saturday Night Live uses her as a featured character, played by Kate McKinnon.So far, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the only Supreme Court justice notorious enough to have a beer named after her: Samuel Adams created "When There Are Nine" to commemorate a famous phrase of hers. Asked when there would be enough women on the Supreme Court to satisfy her, she replied, "When there are nine."

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