Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a legal, cultural and feminist icon. She passed on September 18th, 2020 from complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 87 but her legacy will never be forgotten. Ruth served as the Associate Supreme Court Justice from 1993 to 2020. Even before her time as Supreme Court Justice she led the fight for gender equality that has forever changed the way American women live. Although we are still fighting for equal rights, Ruth paved the way and has inspired both women and men across the globe.

Early Life and Education
The day before her high school graduation, Ruth’s mother, Celia passed after her own struggles with cancer. Celia played an active role in Ruth’s education, taking her to the library and encouraging her to study further. Ruth recalls her mother saying, “My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.” After graduating high school she took her mother’s advice by continuing her education at Cornell, Columbia and Harvard Law. She was one of 9 women in Harvard Law’s class of 500 men and tied for first in her class at Columbia. After her schooling, she went on to teach law herself at Rutgers University where she was 1 of fewer than 20 female law professors in the United States.

Career in Law
Ruth was intelligent, hard working and highly accomplished but this didn’t mean her legal career did not have a rocky start. She had difficulty finding employment and was rejected from a clerkship position because of her gender even after receiving a recommendation from Albert Martin Stacks, professor and later dean of Harvard Law. Even with the odds against her, Ruth persevered and continued to fight for gender equality. Her perseverance landed Ruth her fist clerkship with Judge Palmieri which led to her first Supreme Court brief Reed v. Reed.  This brief ended with an all male court striking down a state law because it discriminated based on gender which was just the beginning of Ruth’s pioneering career in law. This case was extremely important because it led the Supreme Court to extend the protections of the Equal Protection Clause to women. In 1970, she co-founded the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, which is the first law journal in the U.S. to focus exclusively on women’s rights. Ruth went on to argue six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court between 1973 and 1976, winning five of those six cases. Her successes led her to be chosen as the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton on June 22, 1993. In one of Ruth’s most notable quotes she says “When I’m sometimes asked ‘When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?’ and I say ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”

Impact on US Healthcare
In her 2009 New York Times interview, Ruth discussed her views on abortion and gender equality. She said, “[t]he basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.” She continued to advocate for women’s abortion rights in 2016 when she said, “When a state severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety.”

She also stated that cutting federal Medicaid funds is “a very drastic remedy” that would hurt the people Medicaid was meant to benefit. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, Ruth wrote an opinion for the case Olmstead v. L.C. that stated individuals with mental disabilities should be included in the disabilities act as well.

It is evident that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dedicated her life to the court and was an advocate for people with no voice. Ruth was a force to be reckoned with both in and out of the courtroom. She fought for equality when the law wasn’t on her side and overcame personal struggles to help others. As we remember Ruth, the best way to honor her legacy is to continue the fight for equality. As Ruth says, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”