Ruth Bader Ginsburg Biography Quotes 20 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to Nathan Bader and Celia Amster Bader. Raised in a working-class, immigrant-rooted community, she absorbed from her mother a deep reverence for learning and independence. After excelling at James Madison High School, she attended Cornell University, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1954 and met Martin D. Ginsburg, a gifted young man who would become a renowned tax attorney and her lifelong partner. They married shortly after graduation.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School, one of a handful of women in her class. Balancing parenthood with intense study, she also navigated the aftermath of Martin's serious illness during his own law studies. She transferred to Columbia Law School to join him when his career took the couple to New York, graduating in 1959 at the top of her class and becoming the first woman to serve on both the Harvard Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. Despite her achievements, she faced entrenched gender bias in the legal profession.

Early Career and Advocacy
With the support of Columbia professor Gerald Gunther, Ginsburg clerked for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She then pursued academic work on comparative and procedural law before joining the faculty at Rutgers Law School, where she taught and worked with colleagues and students to challenge discriminatory practices, and subsequently at Columbia, becoming the first tenured woman on its law faculty.

In 1972, she co-founded the ACLU Women's Rights Project, stepping onto a national stage as a strategic litigator for gender equality. Drawing on scholarship by pioneers such as Pauli Murray and Dorothy Kenyon, she crafted incremental, carefully chosen cases that reframed equal protection doctrine. Her work helped launch a line of Supreme Court decisions beginning with Reed v. Reed (1971) and including Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975), and Duren v. Missouri (1979). By representing men and women harmed by gender stereotypes, she persuaded a largely male judiciary, including future colleagues such as then-Justice William Rehnquist, that the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection demanded skepticism of laws sorting by sex.

Federal Judiciary
President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg in 1980 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On that influential court she served with judges including Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, Patricia Wald, and Harry Edwards. She developed a reputation as a careful writer and consensus-builder, attentive to institutional roles and to measured, reasoned decision making. Her record on the D.C. Circuit demonstrated both pragmatism and a principled commitment to equality, qualities that would define her later service.

Supreme Court of the United States
President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court in 1993, and the Senate confirmed her by a wide bipartisan margin. She became the second woman, after Sandra Day O'Connor, and the first Jewish woman to sit on the Court. Over the next decades she served with justices including O'Connor, Scalia, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and later Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Her close friendship with Scalia, despite sharp jurisprudential differences, became emblematic of collegiality; they shared a love of opera and a mutual respect that transcended ideology.

Jurisprudence and Major Opinions
Ginsburg's opinions and dissents shaped constitutional law, particularly in equality and civil rights. In United States v. Virginia (1996), writing for the Court, she held that the Virginia Military Institute's male-only admissions policy violated equal protection, insisting that state-sponsored gender lines must be backed by an exceedingly persuasive justification. Her dissents often galvanized legal and political responses. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (2007), she criticized the Court's restrictive view of pay discrimination claims and called on Congress to act, a call that helped spur the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 under President Barack Obama. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), she warned that dismantling a key part of the Voting Rights Act was like discarding an umbrella in a rainstorm. She also wrote or joined significant opinions and dissents in cases involving reproductive rights, such as Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), campaign finance, and workplace discrimination. Even when in the minority, she aimed her dissents to persuade future courts and lawmakers, often in partnership with like-minded colleagues such as Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

Personal Life
Martin D. Ginsburg, her husband and closest confidant, was a celebrated tax scholar who taught at Georgetown and practiced law at the highest level. He championed her career from its earliest days, urged her to accept the Supreme Court nomination, and remained a steady source of humor and support. They raised two children, Jane C. Ginsburg, a scholar of intellectual property at Columbia Law School, and James Steven Ginsburg, the founder of Cedille Records. Ginsburg's profound admiration for her mother, Celia, and her determination to open doors that had been closed to women informed her stewardship of younger lawyers and her approach to hiring law clerks, whom she mentored with exacting standards and warmth.

Health, Later Years, and Death
Ginsburg faced multiple serious health challenges, including cancer diagnoses and heart treatment, yet maintained a rigorous work ethic and a discipline that included regular training with her longtime fitness coach, Bryant Johnson. As the Court's composition shifted, she became an icon to many, embraced as the Notorious RBG, a moniker popularized by Shana Knizhnik and chronicled with Irin Carmon. She addressed broader audiences through writings including My Own Words, created with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, reflecting on law and life.

She died on September 18, 2020, in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. Tributes came from across the legal and political spectrum, including from Chief Justice John Roberts and colleagues past and present. Her casket lay in repose at the Supreme Court and she then lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, the first woman to receive that honor. President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy.

Legacy
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy intertwines meticulous legal craftsmanship with unwavering devotion to equality under law. Her litigation with the ACLU Women's Rights Project seeded a constitutional framework that rejects gender-based stereotypes. On the Supreme Court, she forged landmark doctrine in equal protection while articulating dissents that influenced legislation and future jurisprudence. Through enduring friendships with ideological opponents like Justice Scalia and alliances with colleagues including O'Connor, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, she modeled principled disagreement and judicial collegiality. The arc of her life, anchored by her partnership with Martin and the example of her mother, helped transform the American legal landscape for women and men alike.

Our collection contains 20 quotes who is written by Ruth, under the main topics: Justice - Mother - Freedom - Parenting - Equality.