Megan Fehrenbach ’22
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, famous Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), passed away on September 18, 2020, at 87 years old. Ginsburg was a Brooklyn native and went to Harvard and Columbia Law School. After graduating from Columbia in 1959, tied for the #1 rank in her class, Ginsburg had trouble finding a job because of her gender. She became a law professor at Rutgers Law School in 1963 and co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972. She also taught at Columbia Law School, becoming the first-ever tenured female professor.
Ginsburg took on many groundbreaking law cases on sexism. Additionally, she frequently defended men who were facing discrimination stemming from the patriarchy to demonstrate how this issue can affect both men and women. Ginsburg argued six cases in front of the Supreme Court, winning five of them. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to become a judge on the DC circuit appeals court. In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to become a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. She was elected by the Senate in a vote of 96-3, as the second woman to be selected for the SCOTUS.
Once appointed to the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg began to defend issues in favor of women and the LGBTQ+ community on matters concerning marriage equality, gender discrimination, abortion, and the Me Too movement. She earned recognition in the 2010s among the younger generations, and was dubbed the “Notorious RBG.”
Justice Ginsburg’s death comes at a time of great distress for the United States. In the year of a deeply divisive election, her passing has caused a great amount of dissension. President Donald Trump wants to confirm Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, but Democratic senators want to wait until after the election on November 3. President Trump’s decision is also controversial because when Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in 2016, President Barack Obama was not allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice due to the fact that the Senate was led by Republicans and it was an election year. As of now, Amy Coney Barrett is seemingly going to be confirmed into the Supreme Court, which many people are quite concerned about because of Barrett’s Christian and conservative views. Needless to say, the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has caused lots of disputes in the United States, but everyone is grateful for all of Justice Ginsburg’s contributions to our country. May she rest in power.