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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg enjoyed cult status in Left America until her death. This hype overshadows the pioneering career of the lawyer who wrote a fragment of the history of gender equality.
Ruth Ginsburg died at the age of 87.
Elena Kagan wrote more pleasant judgments. Sonia Sotomayor adapted better to the progressive zeitgeist. But only Ruth Bader Ginsburg, most recently one of three female “associate justices” on the Washington Supreme Court, achieved cult status during her long service on America’s highest court.
“The Notorious RBG,” as it was jokingly called in reference to a long-dead rap star and his initials, became an icon of resistance to his politics during the term of Republican President Donald Trump, also because the woman goes down (155 centimeters), who showed a preference for glasses and old-fashioned lace collars, did not let them down from numerous health mishaps and, even in old age, did his best not to miss a court session. A few months ago, her personal fitness trainer reported how the 87-year-old judge strengthens her body by lifting weights or doing resistance training.
A revolutionary career
This hype about the person Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently obscured the vision of her extraordinary career as a lawyer. And on the fact that his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton was initially considered an interim solution, also because references to Ginsburg’s position in the ideologically charged debate on abortion rights in the White House found incomprehension. . Ginsburg always campaigned for the legalization of abortions; however, she was of the opinion that the Supreme Court had resorted to the wrong legal theory in 1972 when a majority of the nine constitutional judges issued the fundamental ruling in Roe v. Wade ‘fell.
Ruth Ginsburg and Bill Clinton 1993.
Ginsburg, born in 1933 as Joan Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, New York, was one of the few women in the 1950s who trained as a lawyer in the elite of Harvard Law School. There were nine female students in her class, which comprised about 500 students. When asked by the dean of the faculty why she had stolen a man’s place at the university, the young student said: She was doing it to better understand her husband, who was a year ahead of her, so she could give him a “greater patience and understanding”. Wife »be.
It was a classic white lie, as it was discovered shortly after. When her husband Marty, whom she married in 1954, developed testicular cancer in 1957 and had to undergo lengthy and painful treatment, Bader Ginsburg took over the household. Not only did she take care of the sick husband and the first (of two) children together, but she also made sure the two didn’t miss the boat in college.
Marty graduated from Harvard Law School in 1958 (with the best grades) and was hired as a tax attorney at a New York law firm. His wife, in turn, who finished her studies at the top of her class at Columbia Law School in 1959, took a few years to find the right job, also because overt discrimination against women was still tolerated at that time. . After guest appearances at a Swedish university and a teaching position at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey, she moved to her alma mater in 1972, where she was appointed the first full-time law professor at the Law School. from Columbia.
A champion of gender equality issues
Even then, Ginsburg was a star in his field because he not only taught, but also gained practical experience as a plaintiff. As head of the “Women’s Rights Project” of the civil rights organization ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), she brought equality demands to the Supreme Court and achieved significant successes. In 1973, the superior court admitted that it was illegal for the wife of an Air Force pilot not to benefit from the grants to which the wife of a male member of the armed forces was entitled.
And despite this groundbreaking work, Ginsburg was never considered a revolutionary, probably also because she did not throw rhetorical bombs, but relied on the force of her legal arguments. Her husband, to whom she was happily married until his death in 2010, was the opposite. Marty never kept her pride in her wife’s career a secret. When she was appointed an appellate judge by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, her nomination met with no notable opposition. In 1993, at the suggestion of President Clinton, the Senate promoted her by 93 votes to 3 to justice on the Supreme Court, the most important court in the United States.
Ginsburg used to say that he was “neither left nor conservative.” This is only half the story. In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, the judge moved more and more to the left, eventually making her the spokesperson for the court’s left wing. However, for many years, until her death in 2016, she maintained a close friendship with Antonin Scalia, the unofficial leader of the conservative wing of the Constitutional Court. Thanks to this mix, she also earned respect in right-wing America.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, at the beginning of the Jewish New Year celebrations, Rosh Hashanah, in Washington at the age of 87 as a result of a disease with pancreatic cancer. Her last wish, according to court reporter Nina Totenberg: “My greatest wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is in office.”
