Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, died on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87. RBG served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1993 until her death. In her later years on the bench, she became “notorious” for her passionate dissents.Prior to her time as a popular dissenter, RBG was a legal pioneer of gender equality. After graduating at the top of her class at both Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School, she had difficulties securing a job because she was a woman. She eventually became a law professor at Rutgers Law School, teaching civil procedure. During her tenure, she gained notoriety after cofounding the Women’s Rights Law Reporter. In 1972 she cofounded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she was involved in a number of the cases that brought sex discrimination issues to the forefront.
Her most notable cases include
Though these cases individually do not seem like big wins, “[h]er work had helped to usher in a feminist revolution that has changed the face of American families and expanded the possibilities for American women’s lives.”
With her death, there is another vacancy on the Supreme Court. Her replacement will have big shoes to fill.