Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent a lifetime flourishing in the face of adversity before being appointed a Supreme Court justice where she successfully fought against gender discrimination and unified the liberal block of the court. She is the second female justice (after Sandra Day O'Connor) of four to be confirmed to the court (along with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan who are still serving). Ruth completed her legal education at Columbia Law School serving on the law review and graduating in a tie for first place in her class in 1959.
Despite her excellent credentials she struggled to find employment as a lawyer because of her gender and the fact that she was a mother. At the time only a very small percentage of lawyers in the United States were women and only two women had ever served as federal judges. However one of her Columbia law professors advocated on her behalf.
Hired by the Rutgers School of Law as an assistant professor she was asked by the dean of the school to accept a low salary because of her husband’s well-paying job. After she became pregnant with the couple’s second child Ginsburg wore oversized clothes for fear that her contract would not be renewed.
In 1970 Ginsburg became professionally involved in the issue of gender equality when she was asked to introduce and moderate a law student panel discussion on the topic of “women’s liberation.” During the remainder of the 1970s Ginsburg was a leading figure in gender-discrimination litigation. In 1972 she became founding counselof the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and coauthored a law-school casebook on gender discrimination. In the same year she became the first tenured female faculty member at Columbia Law School. She authored dozens of law review articles and drafted or contributed to many Supreme Court briefs on the issue of gender discrimination. During the decade she argued before the Supreme Court six times winning five cases.
Ruth has been and continues to be the American ideal of power and authority for millions of women and girls.