09-19-2020, 12:49 AM
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies
BY JOHN KRUZEL - 09/18/20 07:34 PM EDT
![[Image: wYfwX4w.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/wYfwX4w.jpg)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal leader of the Supreme Court
and a trailblazing champion of women’s rights, died Friday.
She was 87 years old.
The Supreme Court said in a statement that Ginsburg died "surrounded
by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications
of metastatic pancreas cancer."
Seen as a moderate when President Bill Clinton nominated her to the
bench in 1993, Ginsburg went on to leave a lasting mark in the realm
of gender equality, civil liberties and pay equity, and grew to achieve
improbable late-in-life recognition as a pop culture icon and hero of
the progressive movement.
Her first major opinion as a justice came in 1996 when she wrote the
majority decision in United States v. Virginia. The ruling struck down
the Virginia Military Institute’s 157-year-old policy of male-only
admissions as unconstitutional, and set a stricter legal standard for
government action that treats men and women differently.
"Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered
anything less under the state's obligation to afford them genuinely
equal protection," Ginsburg wrote in the 7-1 decision.
Ginsburg also gained renown for her cogent and sharply worded dissents.
According to Linda Greenhouse, a longtime Supreme Court reporter and
analyst for The New York Times, it was through Ginsburg’s dissenting
opinions during the mid-2000s that she “found her voice, and used it.”
One such dissent came in 2007 after the court ruled 5-4 on procedural
grounds to bar a pay discrimination claim brought by former
Goodyear Tire employee Lilly Ledbetter.
Ginsburg took the relatively rare step of reading her dissent from the
bench to signal the intensity of her disagreement, with the 5-foot-1-inch
tall justice donning a gold-embroidered black jabot for the occasion.
It would not be the final word on the case, however.
In 2009, President Obama signed his first official legislation with the
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which effectively overturned the
Supreme Court’s decision by making it easier to file pay discrimination
suits. Ginsburg kept a framed copy of the bill, signed by Obama,
in her chambers.
Though Ginsburg became the high court’s leading liberal, she was
best friends with its leading conservative. The late Justice Antonin Scalia
and Ginsburg were an unusual pair — he a gregarious conservative,
she a soft-spoken, self-described “flaming feminist litigator” — but they
bonded over their love of the opera.
Scalia considered Ginsburg the Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights,
a reference to the legendary civil rights lawyer who helped end racial
segregation before becoming the nation’s first African American
Supreme Court justice.
Similarly, Ginsburg spent the early part of her career as a legal pioneer
in her own right, embarking on a ground-shifting legal crusade in the
1970s for gender equality under the law as an attorney at the
American Civil Liberties Union that included successfully arguing
several cases before the Supreme Court.
At the tail end of her career, the octogenarian Ginsburg became a
pop culture sensation. She captivated millennials, who affectionately
dubbed her the “Notorious R.B.G,” a nickname inspired loosely by
the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.
Ginsburg was the subject of a documentary, a feature film starring
actor Felicity Jones, memes, merchandise and several books, including
one on her exercise routine at age 85: pushups, planks and squats.
At speaking engagements, Ginsburg was often asked how she balanced
her judicial career with her family. That was when she spoke fondly
about her husband.
“He’s the only boy I’ve ever known who cared I had a brain,” she said
while speaking at Georgetown Law in 2018.
Her husband, the late Marty Ginsburg, died from cancer in 2010.
While Ginsburg long credited her husband’s Washington influence for
helping her get nominated to the Supreme Court, former President Clinton
said it was Ruth's interview that secured her seat on the bench.
“Literally within 15 minutes I decided I was going to name her,”
Clinton told CNN.
Survivors include Ginsburg's two children, Jane Ginsburg and
James Ginsburg, and her grandchildren, who affectionately
called her “Bubbe.”
![[Image: twHtbYT.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/twHtbYT.jpg)
![[Image: wzFoq2e.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/wzFoq2e.jpg)
![[Image: QykJkEd.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/QykJkEd.jpg)
BY JOHN KRUZEL - 09/18/20 07:34 PM EDT
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal leader of the Supreme Court
and a trailblazing champion of women’s rights, died Friday.
She was 87 years old.
The Supreme Court said in a statement that Ginsburg died "surrounded
by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications
of metastatic pancreas cancer."
Seen as a moderate when President Bill Clinton nominated her to the
bench in 1993, Ginsburg went on to leave a lasting mark in the realm
of gender equality, civil liberties and pay equity, and grew to achieve
improbable late-in-life recognition as a pop culture icon and hero of
the progressive movement.
Her first major opinion as a justice came in 1996 when she wrote the
majority decision in United States v. Virginia. The ruling struck down
the Virginia Military Institute’s 157-year-old policy of male-only
admissions as unconstitutional, and set a stricter legal standard for
government action that treats men and women differently.
"Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered
anything less under the state's obligation to afford them genuinely
equal protection," Ginsburg wrote in the 7-1 decision.
Ginsburg also gained renown for her cogent and sharply worded dissents.
According to Linda Greenhouse, a longtime Supreme Court reporter and
analyst for The New York Times, it was through Ginsburg’s dissenting
opinions during the mid-2000s that she “found her voice, and used it.”
One such dissent came in 2007 after the court ruled 5-4 on procedural
grounds to bar a pay discrimination claim brought by former
Goodyear Tire employee Lilly Ledbetter.
Ginsburg took the relatively rare step of reading her dissent from the
bench to signal the intensity of her disagreement, with the 5-foot-1-inch
tall justice donning a gold-embroidered black jabot for the occasion.
It would not be the final word on the case, however.
In 2009, President Obama signed his first official legislation with the
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which effectively overturned the
Supreme Court’s decision by making it easier to file pay discrimination
suits. Ginsburg kept a framed copy of the bill, signed by Obama,
in her chambers.
Though Ginsburg became the high court’s leading liberal, she was
best friends with its leading conservative. The late Justice Antonin Scalia
and Ginsburg were an unusual pair — he a gregarious conservative,
she a soft-spoken, self-described “flaming feminist litigator” — but they
bonded over their love of the opera.
Scalia considered Ginsburg the Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights,
a reference to the legendary civil rights lawyer who helped end racial
segregation before becoming the nation’s first African American
Supreme Court justice.
Similarly, Ginsburg spent the early part of her career as a legal pioneer
in her own right, embarking on a ground-shifting legal crusade in the
1970s for gender equality under the law as an attorney at the
American Civil Liberties Union that included successfully arguing
several cases before the Supreme Court.
At the tail end of her career, the octogenarian Ginsburg became a
pop culture sensation. She captivated millennials, who affectionately
dubbed her the “Notorious R.B.G,” a nickname inspired loosely by
the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.
Ginsburg was the subject of a documentary, a feature film starring
actor Felicity Jones, memes, merchandise and several books, including
one on her exercise routine at age 85: pushups, planks and squats.
At speaking engagements, Ginsburg was often asked how she balanced
her judicial career with her family. That was when she spoke fondly
about her husband.
“He’s the only boy I’ve ever known who cared I had a brain,” she said
while speaking at Georgetown Law in 2018.
Her husband, the late Marty Ginsburg, died from cancer in 2010.
While Ginsburg long credited her husband’s Washington influence for
helping her get nominated to the Supreme Court, former President Clinton
said it was Ruth's interview that secured her seat on the bench.
“Literally within 15 minutes I decided I was going to name her,”
Clinton told CNN.
Survivors include Ginsburg's two children, Jane Ginsburg and
James Ginsburg, and her grandchildren, who affectionately
called her “Bubbe.”
Semper Fidelis
![[Image: SyAa0qj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/SyAa0qj.png)
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Nemo me impune lacessit
It is Well with My Soul 