The Supreme Court stated that complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer were the cause of death. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had previously overcome colon cancer in 1999 and early-stage pancreatic cancer a decade later. In 2014, she also received a coronary stent to clear a blocked artery. Despite her small stature and fragile appearance, Ginsburg was known for her toughness and regular workouts with a trainer, who even wrote a book about her challenging exercise routine. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg celebrated her 80th birthday and 20th anniversary on the Supreme Court during President Barack Obama's second term, she ignored calls for her retirement to allow a Democratic president to choose her successor. She intended to continue serving "as long as I can do the job full steam," noting that there would be a president after Obama. When Sandra Day O'Connor retired in 2006, Ginsburg was the only woman on the Supreme Court, which she found disappointing considering her efforts to advance women's legal status. She later welcomed the appointments of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 and Elena Kagan in 2010 by Obama. Following the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens in 2010, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the senior member and unofficial leader of a liberal bloc on the Supreme Court, along with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer. Without a fifth vote, typically provided by Justice Anthony Kennedy before his retirement in 2018, the four justices often found themselves in dissent on the court's increasingly polarized decisions. Ginsburg's strongly-worded dissenting opinions, representing the liberal bloc, gained attention as the court shifted right. A law student, Shana Knizhnik, even dubbed her the "Notorious RBG," a nod to the famous rapper Notorious BIG. The name and image of Ginsburg quickly gained popularity online, with her serene yet severe expression, frilly lace collar, oversized glasses, and unique gold crown becoming iconic. Young women got tattoos of her image, daughters dressed as her for Halloween, and "You Can't Spell Truth Without Ruth" appeared on bumper stickers and T-shirts. Biographies and documentaries about her life became bestsellers and a Hollywood biopic focused on her first sex discrimination court case was released to great success. The praise for Ruth Bader Ginsburg grew significantly after Donald Trump was elected, especially since she had criticized him in a 2016 interview. Scholars tried to understand this surge in admiration for her. Dahlia Lithwick, in a 2019 article for The Atlantic, noted that women, now more than ever, admire Ginsburg as a symbol of hope for a future where female influence, authenticity, dignity, and voice are valued. Back in 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated her at the age of 60, Ginsburg's rise to fame as a beloved figure was unexpected. Despite initial concerns from feminist leaders about her friendship with conservative colleagues, she was confirmed by the Senate in a landslide vote of 96-3, filling a long-standing gap in Democratic appointments to the Supreme Court. The sequence of events was appropriate because Ruth Ginsburg, known for her strategic sense and careful case selection during her time as a litigator and director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s, was sometimes compared to Thurgood Marshall in the civil rights movement. Both worked diligently to persuade the all-male Supreme Court to recognize constitutional barriers against discrimination, one case at a time. When Ginsburg took her seat as a junior justice on the Supreme Court in 1993, it was a familiar setting, despite being on the other side of the bench from where she had previously argued cases that became legal landmarks. She brought six cases to the court between 1973 and 1978, winning five of them. Her aim was to convince the Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee applied to both racial and sex discrimination. This was a challenging task, as the Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, had never previously recognized sex discrimination as a constitutional issue. The Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon in 1969, was not expected to be any more favorable. Ruth Bader Ginsburg oversaw a mock trial of Shylock following a performance of "The Merchant of Venice" at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Italy on July 27, 2016. Ginsburg believed that she needed to educate an audience that was not necessarily hostile, but rather did not understand certain laws that were meant to protect women. She criticized laws that were based on outdated stereotypes of male and female abilities and needs. In a speech from 1988, she mentioned that justices did not see the different treatment of men and women in legal contexts as a burden for women. She also pointed out that a justice's initial reaction to a gender discrimination challenge might be to defend themselves by saying they treat their wife and daughters well. In order to change course, the court had to recognize that laws intended to help or protect women could actually have the opposite effect. This was demonstrated through successful challenges to various laws, such as an Idaho law that favored men over women in estate administration, a military regulation that denied benefits to husbands of female soldiers, and a Social Security provision that assumed wives were secondary breadwinners. In many of these cases, the plaintiff was actually a man seeking justice, such as Stephen Wiesenfeld, who sought benefits in order to care for his child after his wife's death. After the Supreme Court victory, Ginsburg maintained a relationship with the father and child involved, eventually traveling to Florida in 1998 to help officiate at the child's wedding. In 2014, she presided over her former client's second marriage at the Supreme Court, 42 years after the death of Paula Wiesenfeld. While she did not personally argue the case, Ginsburg played a role in the 1976 case of Craig v. Boren, in which the Supreme Court established the rule that distinctions based on sex were subject to heightened scrutiny by the courts. This case involved striking down an Oklahoma law that allowed girls to buy beer at 18 but required boys to wait until they were 21. The specific question addressed in Craig v. Boren may not have seemed significant, but the constitutional implications of the ruling were substantial. Even though the court did not adopt Ginsburg's proposed "strict scrutiny" rule, reserving it only for race discrimination cases, they did agree that the 14th Amendment's equal protection guarantee extended to gender equality. After nearly 20 years since her last argument before the Supreme Court, Ginsburg achieved a personal victory by announcing the court's majority opinion in a 1996 discrimination case involving the Virginia Military Institute. The court ruled 7-1 that the all-male admissions policy of the state-supported military college was unconstitutional, despite Virginia's argument that their adversative education method was not suitable for women. Virginia had established a less rigorous alternative military college for women, which lacked the advantages given to VMI graduates. In United States v. Virginia, Ginsburg criticized the state for not providing a sufficient reason to justify treating men and women differently. She argued that women capable of a VMI-quality education should not be offered anything less than equal protection under the law. Ginsburg emphasized that while there are inherent differences between men and women, these should not be used to restrict opportunities or perpetuate the inferiority of women. She believed her decision would improve VMI and make it a better place. On June 26, 1996, Ginsburg spoke about a significant moment during the VMI case in which she delivered her opinion. She mentioned in a speech the next year to the Women’s Bar Association in Washington, DC how she looked at her colleague, O’Connor, across the bench. O’Connor had also played a crucial role in establishing the legal foundation for the VMI decision by writing a majority opinion in 1982 that required an all-female state nursing school in Mississippi to admit men. Ginsburg’s opinion in the VMI case referenced O’Connor’s previous opinion, highlighting their interconnected legal precedents. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her colleagues Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, and John Paul Stevens left the Supreme Court building to participate in the casket procession for Chief Justice William Rehnquist in Washington on September 6, 2005. The New York Times reported that O'Connor and Ginsburg, who were close in age with O'Connor being the older of the two, were part of the first group of women to break into the male-dominated legal profession. O'Connor faced only secretarial job offers despite being a top student at Stanford University's law school, while Ginsburg, one of nine women in her Harvard Law School class of 552, excelled academically and was recommended for a clerkship by one of her professors. Albert Sacks, a professor who later became dean of the law school, wrote to Frankfurter, a former Harvard law professor, praising a female student's remarkable self-possession and stating that her qualities would make her an ideal law clerk. However, despite this recommendation, Justice Frankfurter, who had never hired a woman before, decided not to interview the student. Despite their differing views on important court issues like affirmative action and federalism, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas shared a bond due to their similar life experiences, coming from very different backgrounds - one the daughter of Southwestern ranchers and the other a Brooklyn-born daughter of Russian Jews. Ruth Bader's father, Nathan Bader, immigrated to New York at a young age, while her mother, Celia Amster, was born shortly after her family's arrival. Ruth, originally named Joan Ruth at birth and known as Kiki during her childhood, was born on March 15, 1933. Growing up in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood, she essentially lived as an only child as her older sister passed away from meningitis when Ruth was just 14 months old. The family owned small retail stores, such as a fur store and a hat shop, but money was always tight. Ruth's mother, Celia Bader, was a woman with intellectual ambitions who graduated from high school at 15 but was unable to attend college. Instead, she was sent to work in Manhattan's garment district so that her brother could study at Cornell University. She held high hopes for her daughter, but unfortunately, she passed away before seeing them come to fruition. Diagnosed with cervical cancer while Ruth was in high school, she died at 47 in 1950, just before her daughter's graduation. Following the ceremony, Ruth's teachers brought her numerous medals and awards to her home. During her nomination announcement to the Supreme Court with President Clinton in the Rose Garden on June 14, 1993, Ginsburg moved the president to tears with a tribute to her mother, expressing her desire to fulfill the dreams her mother had for her in a time when women had more opportunities for success and daughters were valued as much as sons. Ruth Bader received a scholarship to attend Cornell University, where she met Martin Ginsburg during her freshman year. Ruth, who was 17 at the time, was immediately drawn to Martin because he was the only boy she had ever met who valued her intelligence. They became engaged during her junior year and got married after she graduated in 1954. Their relationship was both romantic and intellectual, lasting throughout their lives. Despite their outward differences in personality, with her being reserved and thoughtful in her speech while he was outgoing and humorous, they shared a strong bond and were dedicated to supporting each other in both their family and careers. Martin Ginsburg, a successful tax lawyer, happily gave up his New York practice to move to Washington with his wife in 1980 when she was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Jimmy Carter. Thirteen years later, he strongly advocated for her appointment to the Supreme Court while living in Washington and teaching tax law at Georgetown University. Martin Ginsburg held a chair endowed by Ross Perot in gratitude for saving him millions of dollars in tax advice. He was also a skilled cook who prepared meals for his family and baked treats for his wife to share with colleagues at the court, as Ruth Ginsburg was not a good cook according to her own admission. The Ginsburgs resided in a duplex apartment at the Watergate, located next to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. They frequently enjoyed attending the opera and ballet together. After a 56-year marriage, he passed away from cancer in 2010 at the age of 78. Before his death, he left a handwritten note on a yellow pad by his bedside for his wife to find. The note expressed his deep love and admiration for her, stating that she was the only person he had loved in his life. He also praised her for reaching the pinnacle of the legal world since they first met at Cornell. Their two children, Jane and James, are both successful in their respective fields – Jane is a professor of intellectual property law at Columbia Law School, while James is a producer of classical music recordings in Chicago. They also have four grandchildren. After getting married, Ruth and Martin Ginsburg settled in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Martin had to fulfill his two-year commitment as an Army officer at Fort Sill due to his ROTC service during college. Ruth applied for a job at the local Social Security office and was offered a position as a claims examiner at the Civil Service rank of GS-5. However, when she disclosed her pregnancy with Jane, the offer was rescinded as she couldn't travel for the necessary training. She took on a clerk-typist position at the GS-2 level, which she accepted as the norm. It wasn't until later in life that Ruth Ginsburg began to challenge the societal norms that restricted women's opportunities. During their time at Harvard Law School, Ruth and Martin Ginsburg faced a challenging situation when Martin was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Despite the poor prognosis, he continued his studies with difficulty. Other classmates took notes on his behalf, and Ruth Ginsburg, who was also attending classes and looking after their young daughter, transcribed the notes and assisted him in studying. Despite facing challenges at Harvard Law School, including a lack of female faculty members, Ruth Ginsburg's husband was able to graduate on time thanks to the support he received. In Ruth's first year at the school, Dean Erwin Griswold questioned the presence of the nine women in the class, asking each one why they believed they deserved a spot over a male student. Ruth stumbled over her words as she explained that she wanted to understand her husband's work as a lawyer, leading her to request to spend her final year at Columbia and still receive a Harvard degree. Despite the denial, she transferred to Columbia and tied for first place in her class. In 1972, she became the first woman to receive tenure on the Columbia law faculty. The situation continued to bother her, and years later her husband wrote a letter to the Harvard Law Record sarcastically recalling how the incident had impacted her career. “She simply smiled.” In 2011, Harvard awarded Ruth Ginsburg an honorary degree, where Plácido Domingo serenaded her during the ceremony. Ginsburg, a lover of opera, described it as one of the most incredible moments in her life. Despite not receiving job offers from New York law firms after graduating from Columbia, she spent two years clerking for federal district judge Edmund L Palmieri. This opportunity came after Professor Gerald Gunther threatened not to recommend any more law clerks to the judge if he didn't hire Ginsburg. Following her clerkship, Ginsburg returned to Columbia to work on a comparative law project on civil procedure. The project necessitated her to acquire knowledge of Swedish and to stay in Sweden. This experience was significant. Feminism was thriving in Sweden, and it was common for women to balance work and family responsibilities. Childcare services were easily accessible. Ruth Ginsburg was intrigued by an article written by the editor of a feminist publication. Eva Moberg, the editor, urged for a shift away from focusing on the idea of women having two roles, emphasizing that both men and women ultimately share the same main role of being human beings. During the years 1963 to 1970, Ruth Ginsburg authored a comprehensive study on Swedish civil law, which is still highly regarded in the field, in addition to numerous other publications. However, beyond her academic achievements, her time in Sweden may have had the most significant impact on her, as she was able to witness a different approach to societal organization. Despite facing rejection from prestigious law schools like Columbia and New York University, she eventually found a teaching position at Rutgers Law School, where she was only the second woman on the faculty at the time. At that point, there were fewer than twenty-four women teaching at all law schools in the United States. During this time, her second child, James, who was nine years younger than his sister, was born. Along with her teaching job, she started volunteering to handle discrimination cases for the New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. These cases included complaints from pregnant public-school teachers who had been fired. A childhood friend, Melvin Wulf, who was the national legal director for the ACLU, heard about her work and sent more cases her way. One of these cases was the Idaho estate administrators case, which she eventually won in the Supreme Court as Reed v. Reed. Her 88-page brief in this case, detailing how the law reinforced the oppression of women in society, became known as the "grandmother brief" and was a resource for feminist lawyers for many years. In 1972, the ACLU established a Women's Rights Project and appointed Ruth Ginsburg as its inaugural director. Around the same time, she transitioned from Rutgers to Columbia as a professor. Through the ACLU project, she implemented a legal strategy in the Supreme Court to demonstrate that discrimination based on gender was a violation of the Constitution. The significance of this approach was not immediately evident, even to observers closely following her work. Ruth Ginsburg was clearly taking a unique approach by choosing cases where men were the victims of unequal treatment by the government. She was attempting to present the justices with cases that were easily understood: Why should men receive less favorable treatment than women simply because of their gender? Ruth Ginsburg's goal was to liberate both men and women from societal expectations and to use the Constitution to dismantle the structures that reinforced traditional gender roles. This is why a widowed father seeking social welfare to care for his baby was the ideal plaintiff, as it challenged the notion that childcare was exclusively a woman's responsibility. In a 2013 article, Wendy W Williams, an emeritus professor of law at Georgetown University Law Centre and Ginsburg’s authorised biographer, discussed how Ginsburg’s litigation campaign targeted the legal framework that treated women and men differently based on gender roles. Williams emphasized that Ginsburg believed in dismantling the concept of sex-role pigeonholing, as she recognized that sex discrimination affected both men and women. Ginsburg’s vision of sex equality aimed at achieving equal citizenship stature for all individuals. Despite Ginsburg's reputation as a liberal, she developed a moderate voting record on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often aligning with conservative judges such as Antonin Scalia and Robert H Bork. Ginsburg believed in judicial restraint and working in partnership with other branches of government, rather than imposing definitive rulings that stifled further discussion. This viewpoint led her to criticize the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion. In a speech at New York University Law School in 1993, before her nomination to the Supreme Court, she criticized the ruling for stopping a political process that was moving towards reform, causing more division and delaying a stable resolution. Despite her support for abortion rights, she believed the court should have issued a narrower ruling that allowed states some ability to regulate abortions without banning them. She warned that the court should be cautious about making large decisions that could lead to a strong backlash. While Ginsburg's views were based on the assumption that legislative progress towards revising abortion laws had halted by 1973 due to lobbying by the Roman Catholic Church, there was evidence that the backlash against the decision was orchestrated by Republican strategists seeking support from Catholic voters. Ginsburg later acknowledged questions about the accuracy of her narrative but continued to criticize the decision. Her speech at New York University caused concern among leaders of women's groups and abortion rights organizations, some of whom quietly lobbied against her when White announced his retirement from the court. Clinton, in his first nomination to the court, publicly searched for potential candidates among judges and political figures, such as Mario Cuomo and Bruce Babbitt. Eventually, it seemed that Stephen G. Breyer was the chosen candidate, but a painful interview due to his broken ribs changed the president's mind. Martin Ginsburg encouraged Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to advocate for his wife, Ruth Ginsburg, with Clinton, who was initially hesitant but ultimately decided to nominate her after a private meeting on June 13th. He phoned her at 11:33 that evening to inform her that she was his selection. Clinton mentioned at the announcement ceremony the following day that he believed she would be able to promote consensus-building on the Supreme Court in the future, just as she had on the Court of Appeals. The public widely approved of her appointment, and she was confirmed on Aug. 3, 1993, despite opposition from three of the Senate's most conservative Republicans: Jesse Helms, Don Nickles, and Robert C. Smith. During her address to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ginsburg stated that her judicial approach was not strictly liberal or conservative. She also expressed her unwavering support for the right to abortion, despite her criticisms of Roe v. Wade. In response to a question from Senator Hank Brown, she emphasized the importance of this issue to a woman's life and dignity. The decision regarding abortion is one that a woman should make for herself. When the government interferes with this decision, it diminishes her autonomy as a responsible adult capable of making her own choices. In a Supreme Court case years later, Ginsburg strongly disagreed with the majority opinion upholding a law criminalizing a specific abortion procedure, arguing that it was based on unfounded beliefs about women's regret after abortion. She believed this reasoning reflected outdated views on women's rights and was not supported by evidence. This dissent marked the emergence of Ginsburg's influential voice on the Supreme Court during that term. Another controversial decision resulted in another strong dissent. In the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co, the court voted 5-4 to dismiss Lilly Ledbetter's pay discrimination claim due to her failure to file within the 180-day deadline. Justice Alito's majority opinion stated that the 180-day period began with Ledbetter's first paycheck showing unequal pay, while Justice Ginsburg argued that it should begin when an employee becomes aware of the discrimination. Ginsburg called on Congress to clarify this issue, emphasizing the importance of their intervention. Her dissent was particularly significant as she publicly announced it from the bench. The technical dispute over a statute of limitations turned into a public outcry, leading to Congress overturning the court's restrictive interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill signed into law by Obama on Jan. 29, 2009, was a result of this public pressure. According to Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier, Justice Ginsburg's actions were an attempt to connect with the public. Guinier referred to oral dissent as a way of making judicial speech more accessible to the public. Ginsburg, known for wearing her 'Dissenting Collar,' was meticulous in crafting her opinions, whether for the majority or in dissent. Her writing was clear and free of unnecessary jargon, inspired in part by her study of literature under Vladimir Nabokov. Her dissents, especially those announced in court, garnered the most notice, and she would often switch her collars to match the occasion. She even wore her "dissenting collar," which one observer described as resembling a piece of medieval armor, the day after Trump's election. One of her most well-known dissents occurred in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, when the 5-4 majority significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by striking down the provision that required certain jurisdictions to receive federal permission before changing voting procedures. Ginsburg questioned the court's usual restraint in an ironic nod to conservative calls for judicial restraint. She concluded by quoting a civil rights leader and expressing disappointment in the decision. Among Ginsburg's approximately 200 majority opinions, one of her favorites was in a lesser-known case in 1996 called MLB v. SLJ. The case dealt with whether a parent, whose parental rights had been terminated, had the right to appeal if unable to afford the cost of preparing the official court record. The Supreme Court of Mississippi ruled that the state was not required to pay for the necessary record for an appeal to proceed, as the Constitution does not grant affirmative rights in most cases. Justice Ginsburg's 6-3 decision in a separate line of cases emphasized the importance of protecting family relationships as fundamental, rather than focusing on poverty as a condition deserving special judicial consideration. Professor Martha Minow praised Ginsburg's opinion in MLB v SLJ, noting that it skillfully navigated between unfavourable Supreme Court precedents and more favourable legal authority. In 2017, a decision addressed the differential treatment of unwed mothers and fathers seeking to transmit American citizenship to their children born overseas under federal immigration law. According to the law, mothers were able to pass on their American citizenship if they had lived in the United States for at least one year, while fathers had to have lived in the US for five years. This discrepancy was based on the assumption that it was easier to identify the mother of a child than the father, who was less likely to acknowledge their out-of-wedlock children. In the case of Sessions v. Morales-Santana, Justice Ginsburg, writing for a majority, ruled that the law violated the constitutional principle of equal protection. She criticized the outdated and discriminatory nature of the sex-based distinction, calling it "stunningly anachronistic." Ginsburg emphasized the impact of overgeneralizations in the law, noting how they can restrict people's lives. She also reflected on her successful legal career, attributing it to being in the right place with the right arguments at the right time. In the preface to her compilation of writing "My Own Words" published in 2016, she expressed gratitude for being alive and a lawyer at a time when advocating for equal citizenship for women and men was becoming successful in U.S. history. She acknowledged that she had a significant role in this progress, and reflected on the factors that led to the courts' understanding and acceptance of this principle in an article published in 1997. She believed that judges were influenced by the societal changes happening in the United States, as well as the advocacy efforts of women, including those in their own families and communities. Ginsburg was known for her meticulous approach to her work and appearance. She had her dark hair tied back and preferred well-fitted suits by designer Giorgio Armani, occasionally adding brightly patterned jackets from her travels. She was recognized for her impeccable style and was known for her inquisitive nature on the bench, but was more reserved in social situations. Her husband often spoke on her behalf, giving the impression of shyness to those who didn't know her well. However, when discussing her passion for opera, she became almost poetic. Despite her past as a cheerleader and twirler in high school, she moved with such precision that it was hard to imagine. Her personality did not have two sides, but rather her shyness vanished when she had a task to complete. Before her first Supreme Court argument, she was extremely nervous and couldn't eat lunch due to fear of getting sick. However, during the argument, her fear disappeared as she felt empowered by having the attention of the most influential judges in America.