09/19/2020
It is with great sadness and profound gratitude that the Chicago-Kent College of Law community remembers Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her legacy. While Justice Ginsburg has gained popular recognition for her poignant dissenting opinions as the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court, her long legal career was rife with notable accomplishments stemming from her work to secure gender-based equality in the United States.
Justice Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959, and worked for several years as a law clerk and as an academic before co-founding the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972. Between 1973 and 1976, Justice Ginsburg was successful in five of six oral arguments she presented to the Supreme Court. Her strategy was notably thoughtful—she sought the gradual but holistic destruction of gender-based inequality, accepting cases in which both men and women had been negatively impacted by discriminatory laws and practices.This approach and its profound impact, in hindsight, is emblematic of her lifelong commitment to fighting for liberty and justice in their purest, most inclusive form.
After thirteen years of service as a federal judge for the DC Circuit, Justice Ginsburg was nominated to be the second woman on the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993. Her measured approach to building consensus on the Court transformed over time along with the composition of Justices—as the number of liberal and moderate Justices diminished, and the voice of the Court shifted, Justice Ginsburg became a more vocal advocate of adapting Constitutional theory to fit contemporary circumstances.
Some of Justice Ginsburg’s most impactful opinions are below:
In United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), Justice Ginsburg led a majority of Justices to strike down the Virginia Military Academy’s long-standing male-only admissions policy, finding that the categorical exclusion of women violated their equal protection under the law.
In Olmsted v. LC, 527 U.S. 581 (1999), Justice Ginsburg again led the majority to conclude that the “unjustified isolation” of people with disabilities constitutes unlawful discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), Justice Ginsburg issued a dissenting opinion in which she challenged what she saw as an unreasonable expectation that workers facing pay discrimination be able to file a charge within 180 days, as its adverse impact is too insidious and often not easily discovered.
In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), Justice Ginsburg again dissented, finding that a corporation could not justifiably decline to participate in a mandatory insurance scheme covering contraceptive care because of their religious objections.
In 2019, Justice Ginsburg reflected on the following: “I think the genius of our Constitution is what Justice Thurgood Marshall said. He said he doesn’t celebrate the original Constitution but he does celebrate what the Constitution has become, now well over two centuries. That is the concept of ‘We the people’ has become ever more inclusive.” Her dedication to that inclusive notion was steadfast, honorable, and ultimately based in an incredible love for the law.
In the wake of Justice Ginsburg’s death, we wish to continue to honor her legacy as a brilliant jurist, ardent advocate for the historically marginalized, and one of the most powerful liberal voices on the Supreme Court in recent history.
– Chicago-Kent Society of Women in Law