Ruth Bader Ginsburg

1933 - 2020

Ginsburg’s mother, a garment factory worker named Celia Amster instilled a strong appreciation for education in Ruth. Despite her mother and biggest supporter dying from cancer right before her High School graduation, Ruth completed her degree at Cornell University- graduating at the top of her class in 1954. Shortly after graduating, she married and started a family with her husband Martin Ginsburg. 

She started at Harvard Law School shortly after having a child in 1955. As one of nine females in a class of over 500, Ruth faced gender-based discrimination from her peers and faculty, who were frustrated that she took “a man’s spot” at Harvard Law. After her husband graduated from Harvard, Ruth moved to New York City where she accepted a position at a law firm all while finishing her last year of law school at Columbia University. She graduated first in her class at Columbia Law in 1959. As a young woman in the 1960s looking for work, she had a difficult time finding work until her former professor insisted that U.S.District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri hired her as a clerk. After two years Ruth moved on to study Swedish Civil Procedure practices and Swedish Culture for a year before being recruited to teach at Rutgers University Law School in 1963.

In 1972, Ruth became the first female professor to earn tenure at Columbia School of Law. In conjunction with teaching, she led several Women’s Rights projects of the American Civil Liberties Union during the 1970s. Ruth was a different kind of feminist of her time, not only did she fight for women in gender discrimination in the workplace, but she also fought for the men who were also discriminated against. In 1980, Ruth accepted Jimmy Carter’s appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Ruth served on the Court of Appeals for thirteen years until she was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States beginning in August of 1993 she passed in September of 2020.