Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born, in 1933, women had had the right to vote and hold elected office for thirteen years, but that by no means meant that they were considered equal to their male counterparts. Public opinion at that time held women in tightly bound, gender-specific roles that made the pursuit of interests and professions outside those confines difficult. Despite those challenges, the young Mrs. Ginsburg not only attained a law degree from Columbia Law School, (tying for top of her class) but did so while raising her first child and caring for her husband who was undergoing treatment for testicular cancer. She herself is a double cancer survivor.

In her early professional career, Justice Ginsburg experienced gender discrimination that would shape the Justice she would become. She would make academic history by becoming the first female tenured professor at Rutger's University Law School and follow that accomplishment by serving as the General Counsel for the ACLU and as the chief litigator for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project. During that time she made historic decisions to protect gender equality, women's reproductive rights, and workers rights. Following a successful career with the ACLU she would serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for thirteen years before achieving the biggest promotion of her life. In 1993 then President Bill Clinton chose her from a handful of male candidates for the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice,  a nomination for which she achieved Senate confirmation.  It would be the first time since President Lyndon Johnson nominated Justice Thurgood Marshall that a Democratic President had appointed a Supreme Court Justice. She would become the second woman appointed to the court, after Sandra Day O'Conner, who was appointed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, and the first female Jewish Justice. During her time on the Court, she has continued her work to end discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, advocate for the rights of workers and the separation of church and state.
May all those in power serve with the respect, responsibility and care shown by Justice Ginsburg.