REMEMBERING RBG
By Rebecca Stallard
The Notorious RBG: An Advocate and an Inspiration
The subdued and dignified force of death could do little to prevent Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from having an exemplary impact on American culture and politics. In order to understand the significance of Ginsburg’s life work and legacy, let’s take a look at her history.
“It helps sometimes to be a little deaf…” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Making of a Legend
Born on March 15, 1933 in the peak of the Great Depression, Joan Ruth Bader began her life in Brooklyn, New York. Ginsburg’s father Nathan Bader worked as a furrier, or fur dealer, and her mother Celia Bader was employed at a garment factory. Raised to prioritize education, Ginsburg watched as her mother sacrificed her own opportunity for an education in favor of financing Ginsburg’s brother’s college education with her wages from the garment factory. This choice was not to be taken lightly, as Celia had established herself as a high academic achiever and was looking at a successful future career at this point in time. Celia Bader’s decision to forgo her education in favor of her son’s left an incredible impact on the young Ginsburg, as she saw unwarranted inequality towards a potentially successful woman in favor of a less qualified man. In what would become an unfortunate recurrence in Ginsburg’s life, Celia Bader was unable to attend her daughter’s graduation from James Madison High School after losing her battle with cancer one day prior. Taking her mother’s sacrifices to heart, Ruth privately promised she would dedicate herself to living a life her mother could only dream of creating.
Ginsburg attended Cornell University for her bachelor’s degree in government, graduating first in her class in 1954. This was the same year she would marry her life partner, Martin D. Ginsburg, affectionately known as “Marty”. The couple’s first child, their daughter Jane, was born in 1955. Ginsburg put a hold on her education, similar to her mother before her, in order to dedicate her time and attention to Jane while Marty was serving two years in the military.
Once the family had been reunited, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School as one of nine female students in a class of over 500. She faced incredible discrimination by faculty, often accused of taking the seat of a more qualified male candidate. This did not deter Ginsburg, as she balanced her marriage, her child, and the continuation of her academic career throughout her time at Harvard. She maintained her position as top of her class, and became the first female member of the highly-respected Harvard Law Review.
While studying at Harvard, her husband Marty was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Not wanting him to fall behind in his studies, Ginsburg took his class notes and penned his papers in addition to maintaining her own academic status. Following Marty’s recovery, the small Ginsburg family moved to New York to accommodate Marty’s new position at a New York law firm. Ruth transferred to Columbia Law School, graduating top of her class in 1959 and elected to Columbia’s law review. This would be the second Ivy League Law Review Ginsburg served on during her early academic career, highlighting her unique and undeniable excellence in the field.
After her college graduation Ginsburg began clerking for the U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri for three years, starting in 1959. She then held two prominent teaching positions, one at New Jersey’s own Rutgers University Law School from 1963 to 1972 and one at Columbia from 1972 to 1980. Once again the young Ginsburg stood out as a trailblazer, being the first female tenured professor at Columbia. In addition to her full-time teaching career, Ruth took the position of director for the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Through this organization, Ginsburg was able to argue a total of six landmark gender equality cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ginsburg won five of the six cases she argued before the SCOTUS, consistently maintaining her fundamental truth that the law is gender-blind and should be interpreted as guaranteeing equal rights to all social groups. One of these cases, Califano v. Goldfarb, is frequently cited as demonstrating Ginsburg’s belief in gender equality. The case concerned Leon Goldfarb, a man who had recently lost his wife and was attempting to collect survivor’s benefits under the Social Security Act. Goldfarb was initially denied under the argument that he needed to have been receiving half of his financial support from his late wife at the time of her passing, a legal requirement not enforced in situations with a woman attempting to collect benefits from her late husband. Ginsburg argued that this requirement was inherently unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, ultimately winning the case. Califano v. Goldfarb not only secured equal rights for widowers, but stood as a testament to Ginsburg’s steadfast principle that men should be treated equal to women with the same intensity that women should be treated equal to men.
“The greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow”
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Black Robes and Silver Jabots: Her Time on SCOTUS
Ginsburg’s path to the Supreme Court followed a traditional nomination process. She was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, after being passed over for the position a total of three times, and was selected by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to fill the Supreme Court seat of Justice Byron White. Despite her lack of a concrete stance to questions posed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ginsburg was confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 96-3. Clinton ultimately chose Ginsburg for the spot as she possessed the developed political skills and the sharp intellect necessary to handle more conservative members serving on the bench, an assessment solidified by the Senate’s nearly unanimous confirmation.
Justice Ginsburg carved her own niche with her seat on the Supreme Court. She stood out as a fervent advocate for the separation of church and state, workers’ rights and most famously, gender equality. One of her first publicly significant majority opinions was given during the case of United States v. Virginia, a case concerning the Virginia Military Institute’s refusal to admit women into their military educational programs on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court ruled that women could not be denied the same educational opportunities as men at the institution solely on the basis of gender, a monumental victory for women’s’ rights. Ginsburg was also part of the majority in King v. Burwell, a decision that upheld a key component of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and allowed the federal government to provide subsidies to Americans who met predetermined requirements, and Obergefell v. Hodges, the revolutionary decision that legalized same-sex marriage in all fifty states.
Finding yet another way to exude her own personal style, the Justice oftentimes used her jabots, or collars, to convey her opinions without speech. Ginsburg’s first official Supreme Court portrait was taken while wearing a traditional French-style garment. She had come to an agreement with Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court and the only other woman serving on the bench at the time, to include a more feminine garment to their ensembles since the standard robes were designed to accommodate men’s accessories. Throughout her time on the bench, Ginsburg would feature several different collars depending on her, and the Court’s, opinion. When siding with the majority, Justice Ginsburg would sport a flashy yellow jabot adorned with gold beads. When dissenting from the Court’s majority opinion she would don her “dissenting collar”, a garment constructed using dark fabrics and stones. However, the Justice’s favorite collar came from South Africa: a simple, elegant white jabot that has inspired many necklaces now on the market.
“I would like to say ‘Ginsburned’ sometimes to my colleagues.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
A Cultural Icon: The Notorious RBG
The rise of the “Notorious RBG” began in 2013 when New York University law student Shana Knizhnik began using the title on Tumblr to bring attention to Ginsburg’s dissent in Shelby County v. Holder. The nickname stuck, namely due to its iconic juxtaposition: quiet intelligence and restrained speech defined by a name synonymous with grandeur and power. Ginsburg’s rise to popularity rapidly accelerated following the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. She became more prominent in the public eye with the release of My Own Words, her memoir and collection of personal writings spanning the majority of her life. On a more comedic note, Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live took on the monumental task of portraying Ruth Bader Ginsburg for select segments of “Weekend Updates”. The Justice herself found McKinnon’s role thoroughly amusing, commenting that “I would like to say ‘Ginsburned’ sometimes to my colleagues”. Since the birth of the “Notorious RBG” personality, hundreds of pieces of merchandise have been created and worn in her honor, and the name Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become synonymous in the public eye with the fight for gender equality and justice for all.
The Impact of One Woman
The life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg undoubtedly has inspired hundreds of thousands of young women and men alike across the United States. Her fierce refusal to allow societal constructs to dictate her worth and position in a male-dominated society serves as not only a lesson in tenacity, but a blueprint for improvement. The barriers Ginsburg overcame were astronomical in nature, and her success should be commended to the highest degree. Her life story, however, should invoke the intrigue of the American people.
Why was Ginsburg only the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court since its inception?
Why was the harassment and intimidation of male professors and peers considered acceptable?
Why was discrimination on the basis of gender allowed when presented with an overly-qualified female law student?
These are uncomfortable questions. Yet, these are questions American society as a whole must grapple with as we struggle to define the role of gender and sex in American cultures and careers. Justice Ginsburg’s legacy is remarkably profound. However, her life’s work will quickly fade into the history textbooks if there is no one to pick up the fight for gender equality in her stead.