Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Born	Joan Ruth Bader 15 3, 1933
Birthplace	New York City, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Jurist, lawyer, legal scholar
Known for	Gender equality advocacy, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Education	Columbia Law School (LL.B.)
Spouse(s)	Martin D. Ginsburg (m. 1954; d. 2010)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (declined during lifetime consideration), numerous honorary degrees

Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg (March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Ginsburg overcame personal tragedy, gender discrimination, and institutional barriers to become one of the most consequential legal figures in American history. Before ascending to the bench, she built a distinguished career as a litigator and professor, arguing landmark cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of gender equality through her work with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to replace retiring Justice Byron White, Ginsburg was the second woman and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court. During her twenty-seven years on the Court, she authored majority opinions in significant cases including United States v. Virginia (1996) and Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), and became known in her later years for forceful dissents that made her a cultural icon, earning her the popular nickname "Notorious RBG."

Early Life

Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York City, the second daughter of Nathan Bader, a furrier, and Celia Amster Bader. Her parents were of Jewish descent. She had one older sister, Marilyn, who died of meningitis at the age of six, when Ruth was just over a year old. Growing up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, the young Ruth was known by her family as "Kiki," a nickname her older sister had given her.

Ginsburg's mother, Celia Bader, was a formative influence on her intellectual development and ambitions. Despite having been unable to attend college herself — Celia's family had used their limited resources to send her brother to Cornell University instead — she instilled in her daughter a love of learning and the value of independence. Celia Bader took Ruth to the local library regularly and emphasized the importance of education. She died of cancer the day before Ruth graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn, a loss that Ginsburg later described as deeply affecting.

The experience of growing up as a Jewish woman in post-war America, coupled with the loss of her mother and sister, shaped Ginsburg's worldview and her later commitment to advocating for those facing discrimination. She later reflected that her mother's unrealized ambitions motivated her own pursuit of academic and professional excellence.

Education

Ginsburg enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she excelled academically. At Cornell, she met Martin David Ginsburg, whom she married in 1954, shortly after her graduation. She earned her bachelor's degree from Cornell and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

After Martin Ginsburg's military service and Ruth's time as a young mother — their daughter Jane was born in 1955 — Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956. She was one of only nine women in a class of approximately 500 students. The dean of Harvard Law School at the time famously asked the women in the class to justify taking seats that could have gone to men.

At Harvard, Ginsburg served on the Harvard Law Review and cared for both her young daughter and her husband, who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer during his third year of law school. She attended both her own classes and his, taking notes for him while he underwent treatment, all while maintaining top academic performance.

When Martin Ginsburg accepted a position at a law firm in New York City after his recovery and graduation, Ruth transferred to Columbia Law School for her final year. She served on the Columbia Law Review and graduated in 1959 tied for first in her class.

Despite her outstanding academic record at two of the nation's premier law schools, Ginsburg faced significant difficulty obtaining employment after graduation. No law firm in New York City would hire her, a situation she attributed to the combined effects of being a woman, a mother, and Jewish. Gerald Gunther, a Columbia professor, reportedly intervened to secure her a clerkship with U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the Southern District of New York, where she served from 1959 to 1961.

Career

Academic Career and Swedish Research

Following her clerkship, Ginsburg joined the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure in the early 1960s. This work took her to Sweden, where she co-authored a book on Swedish civil procedure with Anders Bruzelius, a Swedish jurist. Her time in Sweden proved influential; she observed a society far more advanced than the United States in its approach to gender equality, and the experience shaped her thinking on the subject for the remainder of her career.

In 1963, Ginsburg became a professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey, where she was one of fewer than twenty female law professors in the country at the time. She taught civil procedure and, during her years at Rutgers, began taking on sex discrimination cases, often in conjunction with the ACLU.

In 1972, Ginsburg joined the faculty of Columbia Law School, becoming the first woman to earn tenure there. She taught civil procedure and constitutional law, and continued her growing work in sex discrimination litigation.

ACLU Women's Rights Project

Ginsburg's most consequential pre-judicial career was her work as an advocate for gender equality through the legal system. In 1972, she co-founded the ACLU's Women's Rights Project and served as the organization's general counsel. In this role, she crafted a deliberate litigation strategy designed to dismantle legal structures of sex discrimination through a series of carefully chosen cases brought before the Supreme Court.

Ginsburg argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court between 1973 and 1978, winning five of them. Her approach was strategic: she frequently selected male plaintiffs to demonstrate that sex-based legal classifications harmed both men and women, thereby appealing to the all-male Supreme Court in terms the justices could more readily understand. Cases such as Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), which challenged a federal law requiring female but not male military members to prove their spouses' dependency for benefits, and Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975), which struck down a Social Security provision granting survivors' benefits only to widows and not widowers, exemplified this approach.

Her legal strategy drew conscious parallels to the incremental approach used by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in dismantling racial segregation. Rather than seeking sweeping rulings, Ginsburg built precedent case by case, gradually establishing that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to sex-based discrimination. Through this body of work, Ginsburg helped establish the legal standard of "intermediate scrutiny" for sex-based classifications, under which the government must show that such classifications serve an "important governmental objective" and are "substantially related" to achieving that objective.

Her work during this period fundamentally altered American constitutional law regarding gender and earned her frequent comparisons to Thurgood Marshall, with scholars sometimes referring to her as the "Thurgood Marshall of gender equality law."

U.S. Court of Appeals

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, one of the most prestigious appellate courts in the federal system. She replaced Judge Harold Leventhal on the bench.

During her thirteen years on the D.C. Circuit, Ginsburg developed a reputation as a careful, moderate jurist rather than an ideological liberal. She was known for building consensus among her colleagues and for writing restrained, narrowly tailored opinions. Her judicial record during this period was characterized by pragmatism and attention to procedural detail, which made her an appealing candidate for elevation to the Supreme Court under a president seeking to avoid a confirmation battle.

Supreme Court Nomination and Confirmation

On June 14, 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Justice Byron White. At the time of her nomination, she was viewed as a moderate consensus-builder whose record on the D.C. Circuit appealed to both Democrats and Republicans.

The Senate confirmed Ginsburg by a vote of 96 to 3 on August 3, 1993. She took her seat on the bench on August 10, 1993, becoming the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor, who had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and the first Jewish woman to hold the position.

Supreme Court Tenure

Ginsburg served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court for twenty-seven years, from 1993 until her death in 2020. Her tenure encompassed significant shifts in the Court's ideological composition and in her own role within it.

Major Majority Opinions

During her time on the Court, Ginsburg authored several landmark majority opinions. In United States v. Virginia (1996), she wrote the Court's 7–1 decision striking down the male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), holding that the exclusion of women violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The opinion strengthened the standard of review for sex-based classifications, requiring the government to provide an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for such distinctions.

In Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion holding that the unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities constituted discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The decision had far-reaching implications for the rights of individuals with mental disabilities to receive care in community-based settings.

Other notable majority opinions included Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), which addressed standing in environmental cases, and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005).

Dissents and Later Tenure

Following the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, Ginsburg became the sole woman on the Supreme Court until the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009. During this period, and continuing afterward, Ginsburg became increasingly known for her dissenting opinions, which often articulated a liberal interpretation of constitutional and statutory provisions.

One of her most prominent dissents came in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007), in which the Court's majority held that Lilly Ledbetter's pay discrimination claim was time-barred because it had not been filed within 180 days of the original discriminatory pay decision. Ginsburg's dissent, which she read from the bench — a rare act signaling strong disagreement — argued that the majority's interpretation ignored the reality that pay discrimination is often discovered only over time. She called on Congress to correct the decision legislatively. Congress responded with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, the first piece of legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Ginsburg also delivered notable dissents in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), in which the Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), which involved the intersection of religious liberty and the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.

Her dissents, delivered with increasing frequency and sharpness in her later years, drew attention from legal scholars and the general public alike, contributing to her emergence as a cultural figure.

Personal Life

Ruth Bader married Martin D. Ginsburg in June 1954, shortly after her graduation from Cornell University. Martin Ginsburg became a prominent tax attorney and later a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. The couple had two children: a daughter, Jane, born in 1955, who became a professor at Columbia Law School, and a son, James, born in 1965, who founded a classical music recording company.

The Ginsburgs' marriage, which lasted fifty-six years, was frequently noted for its mutual support and partnership. Martin Ginsburg was known for encouraging his wife's career ambitions and was credited with lobbying the Clinton administration on her behalf during the Supreme Court selection process. He was also known as the couple's primary cook, a detail frequently mentioned in profiles of the justice.

Martin Ginsburg died of metastatic cancer on June 27, 2010.

Ginsburg herself faced multiple bouts with cancer during her time on the Court. She was treated for colon cancer in 1999 and for early-stage pancreatic cancer in 2009. She later received treatment for lung cancer in December 2018 and for recurrences of pancreatic cancer in 2019 and 2020. Despite her health challenges and public calls from some liberal legal scholars urging her to retire during President Obama's tenure — when a Democratic-controlled Senate could confirm her successor — Ginsburg chose to remain on the bench.

Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. The vacancy created by her death was filled by Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in October 2020.

Recognition

Ginsburg received numerous awards and honors throughout her career. She was awarded honorary degrees from dozens of institutions and was recognized by legal organizations for her contributions to the law and gender equality.

In September 2025, the American Bar Association's Women Trailblazers in the Law Project released an oral history of Justice Ginsburg, documenting her contributions to the legal profession and the advancement of women's rights.

Rutgers Law School established the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women's Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, which applies a gender justice framework to legal advocacy, continuing the legacy of Ginsburg's early career work at that institution.

In September 2025, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the launch of an artist competition for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial, to be located at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, the borough where Ginsburg was born and raised. The memorial was developed in partnership with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Commission.

In November 2025, the City of Los Angeles opened a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial at the Van Nuys Civic Center, with remarks by Councilmember Imelda Padilla and community leaders.

During the final years of her life, Ginsburg became a cultural phenomenon, particularly among younger Americans. Known popularly as "Notorious RBG" — a play on the stage name of the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., who was also from Brooklyn — she was the subject of books, documentary and feature films, and widespread merchandise bearing her image and quotations.

Legacy

Ginsburg's legal career, spanning more than five decades, left a substantial imprint on American law, particularly in the areas of gender equality and civil rights. Her litigation strategy at the ACLU Women's Rights Project in the 1970s established precedents that fundamentally changed the legal framework governing sex discrimination under the U.S. Constitution. Before her advocacy, the Supreme Court had never struck down a law on the basis of sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause; by the time she was appointed to the bench, the intermediate scrutiny standard she helped establish was settled constitutional doctrine.

On the Supreme Court, her majority opinion in United States v. Virginia strengthened protections against government-imposed sex-based classifications and remains a cornerstone of gender equality jurisprudence. Her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear demonstrated the practical impact a dissenting opinion can have, directly prompting congressional action to correct the Court's ruling.

Ginsburg's influence extended beyond specific legal doctrines. Her career served as a model for women in the legal profession at a time when female lawyers and law professors were rare. As the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School and as a Supreme Court justice, she occupied positions from which women had been historically excluded.

The ongoing construction of memorials in her honor — including the planned memorial in Brooklyn Bridge Park in her native Brooklyn and the memorial at the Van Nuys Civic Center in Los Angeles — reflects her continued significance in American public life following her death. The establishment of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women's Rights and Gender Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School further institutionalizes her legacy in legal education and advocacy.

Her decision not to retire during the Obama administration remains a subject of discussion among legal scholars and political commentators. Following her death in September 2020, President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy, shifting the ideological balance of the Court. The political circumstances surrounding this appointment remain among the most debated episodes in modern Supreme Court history.