Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American jurist. She served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about her life and career
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader
- She was born in March 15, 1933
- She died on September 18, 2020
- She is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton
- She took the oath of office on August 10, 1993
- She is the second female justice of four to be confirmed to the court
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, for a time, the only female justice on the Supreme Court
- During that time, Ginsburg became more forceful with her dissents, which were noted by legal observers and in popular culture
- She is generally viewed as belonging to the liberal wing of the court
Ginsburg has authored notable majority opinions - Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York
- Her older sister died when she was a baby
- Her mother, one of her biggest sources of encouragement, died shortly before Ginsburg graduated from high school
- She then earned her bachelor’s degree at Cornell University
- She became a wife and mother before starting law school at Harvard
- There she was one of the few women in her class
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School
- There she graduated tied for first in her class
- Following law school, Ginsburg turned to academia
- She was a professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School
- She was teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field
- Ruth Gaber Ginsburg spent a considerable part of her legal career as an advocate for the advancement of gender equality and women’s rights
- She has multiple victories arguing before the Supreme Court
- She advocated as a volunteer lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union
- She was, also, a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsels in the 1970s
- In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- There she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg has received attention in American popular culture for her fiery liberal dissents and refusal to step down
- She has been dubbed the “Notorious R.B.G.”
- At the start of her legal career, Ginsburg encountered difficulty in finding employment
- In 1960, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected Ginsburg for a clerkship position due to her gender
- She was rejected despite a strong recommendation from Albert Martin Sacks, who was a professor and later dean of Harvard Law School
- Columbia Law Professor, Gerald Gunther also pushed for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to hire Ginsburg as a law clerk
- Later that year, Ginsburg began her clerkship for Judge Palmieri, and she held the position for two years
- Ginsburg was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on April 14, 1980, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- She was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 18, 1980, and received her commission later that day
- Her service terminated on August 9, 1993
- Her time on the court earned her a reputation as a “cautious jurist” and a moderate
- President Bill Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on June 14, 1993
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recommended to Clinton by then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
- At the time of her nomination, Ginsburg was viewed as a moderate
- She was the first Jewish justice since the 1969 resignation of Justice Abe Fortas
- The first-ever female Jewish justice
- The second female justice
- She eventually became the longest-serving Jewish justice ever
- The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary rated Ginsburg as “well qualified”, its highest possible rating for a prospective justice
- Following her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993, Ginsburg deviated from court tradition by wearing a French robe d’avocat, as opposed to the traditional American judicial robe
- In later years, Ginsburg would shift from the traditionally uniform white French rabat and begin wearing more varied and fanciful jabots, necklaces, and other forms of neckwear
- Some time later, fellow female Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor would follow Ginsburg’s lead and begin wearing the French robe d’avocat as well
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a collection of lace jabots from around the world
- She stated in 2014 that she has a particular jabot that she wears when issuing her dissents as well as another she wears when issuing majority opinions
- It was a gift from her law clerks
- Her favorite jabot is from Cape Town, South Africa
- In 1999, Ginsburg was diagnosed with colon cancer
- She underwent surgery that was followed by chemotherapy and radiation therap
- During the process, she did not miss a day on the bench
- On February 5, 2009, she again underwent surgery, this time for pancreatic cancer
Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a tumor that was discovered at an early stage - She was released from a New York City hospital on February 13 and returned to the bench when the Supreme Court went back into session on February 23, 2009
- On September 24, 2009, Ginsburg was hospitalized in Washington DC for lightheadedness following an outpatient treatment for iron deficiency and was released the following day
- On November 26, 2014, she had a stent placed in her right coronary artery after experiencing discomfort while exercising in the Supreme Court gym with her personal trainer
- On November 8, 2018, she was hospitalized after fracturing three ribs in a fall in her office at the Supreme Court
- A CT scan of her ribs following her November 8 fall showed cancerous nodules in her lungs
- On December 21, Ginsburg underwent a left-lung lobectomy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to remove the nodules
- For the first time since joining the Court more than 25 years earlier, Ginsburg missed oral argument in January 2019 while she recuperated
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the oldest justice on the court at age 77
- She also expressed a wish to emulate Justice Louis Brandeis’ service of nearly 23 years, which she achieved in April 2016
- She stated she has a new “model” to emulate in former colleague Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at age 90 after nearly 35 years on the bench
- She affirmed her wish to remain a justice as long as she was mentally sharp enough to perform her duties
- Her life was turned into a documentart RBG and a feature lenght movie called On the Basis of Sex
- Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer
- She was 87 years old
- One day before her death, Ginsburg was honored on Constitution Day
- She was awarded the 2020 Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center
- It was reported that she will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband Martin D. Ginsburg
- Following her death, over $20 million was donated to various Democratic politicians via ActBlue, more than quintuple the previous record amount
- Ginsburg’s death during a presidential election year left eight Supreme Court justices, skewed 5- 3 in makeup of characteristically conservative versus characteristically liberal justices
- Prior to Ginsburg’s death, she dictated in a statement through her granddaughter Clara Spera (a lawyer): “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed”
- U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell vowed to bring a Trump nominee to replace Ginsburg to a vote in the Senate, arguing in part that precedents would support such a confirmation whereas “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year”
- Coincidentally, just prior to Ginsburg’s death, moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski had said she would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court justice before the 2020 presidential election
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