- Person
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Lived
- 1933–2020
- Field
- Constitutional Law
- From
- American
The story
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn in 1933 to a Jewish family. After a brilliant law school career she was turned away by law firms because she was a woman, became a law professor, and in 1972 co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, becoming its general counsel the next year. By 1974 the project and related ACLU efforts had taken part in more than 300 gender discrimination cases.
In the 1970s she argued six sex discrimination cases before the Supreme Court and won five. The first was Frontiero v. Richardson in 1973, which challenged a rule making it harder for a female service member than a male one to claim a housing allowance for a spouse. She was so nervous that she skipped lunch, but her co-counsel recalled that she argued from memory and that no justice interrupted her with a question. The Court ruled 8 to 1 for Sharron Frontiero, and four justices agreed that sex discrimination deserved the strictest scrutiny.
In Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld in 1975 she represented a widower denied Social Security benefits that were available to widows caring for young children. She argued that the rule shortchanged working women, whose taxes bought less protection for their families, and denied fathers the chance to care for their children. She won. In Craig v. Boren in 1976, where she filed a brief and sat with counsel, the Court adopted intermediate scrutiny, a tougher test for laws that treat men and women differently. Her final argument came in Duren v. Missouri, decided in 1979, which challenged a system that made jury service optional for women.
Rather than ask the Court to end all sex discrimination at once, she took aim at specific laws and built on each victory. She chose plaintiffs carefully, sometimes men, to show that rigid gender roles hurt everyone, and she targeted laws that seemed to favour women but reinforced the idea that women should depend on men.
Legal scholars credit her work with discouraging legislatures from treating women and men differently under the law, and it led directly to the end of gender discrimination in many areas of American law. She went on to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and, from 1993 until her death in 2020, on the Supreme Court itself.
Why it matters
Ginsburg's patient, case-by-case strategy established that the Constitution protects people from discrimination based on sex, opening doors for women and men in work, family and public life.
About Ruth Bader Ginsburg
U.S. Supreme Court Justice; pioneer of gender equality jurisprudence; co-founded the ACLU Women's Rights Project.
More about Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Ginsburg co-founded the ACLU Women's Rights ProjectIn 1972 Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined more than 300 sex discrimination cases by 1974.
- Ginsburg co-founded the first US women's rights law journalIn 1970 Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Law Reporter at Rutgers, the first law journal in the United States to focus exclusively on women's rights.
- Ginsburg was Columbia Law School's first tenured womanIn 1972 Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first woman granted tenure at Columbia Law School, where she co-wrote the first law school casebook on sex discrimination.
- Ginsburg's Ledbetter dissent inspired the Fair Pay ActRuth Bader Ginsburg's 2007 dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear called on Congress to act. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became law in 2009, and she was credited with inspiring it.
- Ginsburg's Olmstead ruling advanced disability rightsIn Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the ADA covers mental illness and that needlessly confining people with disabilities in institutions is discrimination.
- Ginsburg's Reed v. Reed brief won equal protection for womenRuth Bader Ginsburg wrote the brief in Reed v. Reed (1971), the first case in which the Supreme Court extended the Constitution's equal protection guarantee to women.
- Ginsburg won equal pay for women teachers at RutgersAt Rutgers Law School, Ruth Bader Ginsburg discovered she was paid less than male colleagues. She joined an equal pay campaign that won substantial raises for the women.
- Ginsburg's VMI opinion opened a military college to womenIn United States v. Virginia (1996), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion striking down the Virginia Military Institute's male-only admissions policy.
Sources
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wikipedia
- Tribute: The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and WRP Staff American Civil Liberties Union
- Craig v. Boren Wikipedia
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