The Supreme Court stated that complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer were the cause of death. In December 2018, two small tumors were discovered in one of her lungs during a follow-up scan for broken ribs from a fall. Ginsburg had previously overcome colon cancer in 1999 and early-stage pancreatic cancer 10 years later. In 2014, she received a coronary stent for a blocked artery. Despite her small stature and weight, Ginsburg was known for her toughness and dedication to 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 suggestions for retirement in order to allow a Democratic president to choose her successor. She intended to remain in her position as long as she could perform her duties effectively, expressing optimism for the future. Ginsburg became the only woman on the Supreme Court after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired in 2006, which she found challenging and not reflective of the progress she had fought for in her career. However, she was later joined by two other female justices appointed by Obama: Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 and Elena Kagan in 2010. After Justice John Paul Stevens retired in 2010, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the senior member and de facto leader of a four-justice liberal bloc, which included the three female justices and Justice Stephen Breyer. Without a fifth vote, usually provided by Justice Anthony Kennedy before his retirement in 2018, the four justices were frequently in dissent on the highly polarized court. Ginsburg's strong and pointed dissenting opinions, often representing the views of all four justices, gained attention as the court shifted further to the right. A law student named Shana Knizhnik dubbed her the Notorious RBG, a nod to the rapper Notorious BIG, who was also from Brooklyn. Soon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name and image, with her peaceful yet stern expression, lace collar, oversized glasses, and gold crown askew on her head, became popular on the internet. Young women got tattoos of her image, daughters dressed up as her for Halloween, and her famous quote "You Can't Spell Truth Without Ruth" appeared on bumper stickers and T-shirts. Biographies about her, such as "Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg," by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, and a children's book titled "I Dissent," were bestsellers. A documentary about her life was a surprise hit in 2018, and a Hollywood movie about her first sex discrimination case was released on Christmas Day that same year. The admiration for Ruth Bader Ginsburg increased significantly after Donald Trump's election, during which she had controversially referred to him as "a faker." Scholars tried to understand this phenomenon, with Dahlia Lithwick suggesting that women were looking up to Ginsburg as a model of female influence, authenticity, dignity, and voice in a time when they needed hope for an empowered future. Ginsburg's unexpected popularity in her later years was a stark contrast to the doubts some feminist leaders had when President Bill Clinton nominated her in 1993. Despite her reputation for collegiality and friendship with conservative colleagues, Ginsburg's Senate confirmation ended a long period without Democratic appointments to the Supreme Court. There was a certain appropriateness to that series of events, as Ruth Ginsburg was sometimes referred to as the Thurgood Marshall of the women’s rights movement due to her work as a litigator and director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s. This comparison was made because of her strategic approach and careful selection of cases in order to persuade the all-male Supreme Court to recognize the constitutional prohibition against sex discrimination, much like how Thurgood Marshall built the case against racial segregation as the chief legal strategist of the civil rights movement. When Ruth Ginsburg took her seat as a junior justice on the Supreme Court in October 1993, it was a familiar setting for her, despite the change in perspective, as she had previously argued cases that became legal milestones. From 1973 to 1978, she brought six cases before the court and won five of them. Her daunting objective was to convince the Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection extended to both racial and gender discrimination. While the Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren had a reputation for liberal rulings, it had never addressed gender discrimination as a constitutional issue. The Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by President Nixon, was not expected to be any more sympathetic. Ginsburg believed that it was important to educate an audience that may not have been hostile but simply did not understand certain issues. She criticized laws that aimed to protect women but were based on stereotypes about male and female abilities and needs. In a 1988 speech, she expressed that justices did not see the differential treatment of men and women in legal contexts as a burden for women, as they may have viewed their treatment of their wives and daughters as indulgent and fair. In order to change course, the court needed to recognize that laws supposedly intended to benefit or protect women could actually have the opposite effect. This was demonstrated through successful legal challenges, such as one in Idaho where a law giving men preference over women to administer estates was overturned. Another case involved a military regulation denying benefits to husbands of female soldiers, assuming they were not dependent spouses. Similarly, a Social Security provision assumed wives were secondary breadwinners, depriving widowers of survivor benefits. In many of these cases, the plaintiff was a man, like Stephen Wiesenfeld who sought benefits to care for his child after his wife's death. Following her victory in the Supreme Court case, Ginsburg maintained contact with the father and child involved. In 1998, she traveled to Florida to help officiate at the child's wedding. Years later, in 2014, Ginsburg presided over her former client's second marriage at the Supreme Court, marking 42 years since the death of Paula Wiesenfeld. One of Ginsburg's notable cases was Craig v. Boren in 1976, where she contributed but did not personally argue. This case resulted in the Supreme Court formally adopting the rule that official distinctions based on sex were subject to "heightened scrutiny" from the courts. The court struck down an Oklahoma law that allowed girls to buy beer at 18 but required boys to wait until they were 21. While the question in Craig v. Boren may not have seemed significant, the constitutional implications of the ruling were profound. Even though the court did not adopt Ginsburg's proposed "strict scrutiny" rule in her early cases, they did recognize that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection encompassed gender equality. This was a personal victory for Ginsburg when she delivered the 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 education method was not suitable for women. Virginia had established a separate military college for women under legal pressure, which was less rigorous and lacked the advantages of VMI's alumni network. Ginsburg criticized the state of Virginia for not providing a convincing reason for treating men and women differently in the United States v. Virginia case. She argued that women deserving 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 create inequality. She believed her decision would improve VMI and create a more equal environment for all students. On June 26, 1996, Ginsburg spoke about a moment during her opinion in the VMI case where she looked at her colleague, O'Connor, who had previously contributed to the legal foundation for the decision. O'Connor had written a majority opinion in 1982 that influenced Ginsburg's cases, and Ginsburg's opinion in the VMI case referenced O'Connor's earlier opinion. The group of justices including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, and John Paul Stevens gathered at the Supreme Court building to honor the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, marking the completion of the constitutional circle. O'Connor and Ginsburg, two justices who were three years apart in age, were pioneers in breaking barriers for women in the legal profession, facing obstacles in their careers despite their impressive academic achievements. The professor, Albert Sacks, who later became dean of the law school, wrote to Frankfurter, a former Harvard law professor, expressing that “the lady possesses extraordinary self-possession” and that “her qualities of mind and person would make her highly appealing to you as a law clerk.” Despite never having hired a woman before, the justice declined to interview the star student. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her fellow justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, and John Paul Stevens left the Supreme Court building for the casket procession of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist in Washington on Sept 6, 2005. Despite their differing views on important court matters such as affirmative action and federalism, the two women shared a bond due to their similar life experiences, despite their different backgrounds - one being the daughter of Southwestern ranchers and the other being the Brooklyn-born daughter of Russian Jews. Ruth Bader's father, Nathan Bader, immigrated to New York with his family when he was 13, while her mother, the former Celia Amster, was born four months after her family's own 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 grew up as an only child, as her older sister passed away from meningitis at the age of 6 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. Celia Bader, Ruth's mother, was a highly ambitious woman who graduated from high school at 15 but was unable to attend college. Instead, her family sent her to work in Manhattan's garment district so her brother could attend Cornell University. She had great aspirations for her daughter, but unfortunately, she did not live long enough to see them come to fruition. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer when Ruth was a freshman at James Madison High School and passed away at the age of 47 in 1950, the day before her daughter's high school graduation. Following the ceremony, where Ruth was unable to attend, her teachers brought her numerous medals and awards to the house. On June 14, 1993, when Ginsburg stood alongside Clinton in the Rose Garden for the announcement of her Supreme Court nomination, she moved the president to tears with a heartfelt tribute to her mother. "I hope to achieve all that she would have achieved had she lived in a time when women could aspire and succeed, and daughters were valued as much as sons," she expressed. Ruth Bader received a scholarship to attend Cornell University where she met Martin Ginsburg during her freshman year. Ruth was immediately attracted to Martin because he was the only boy who appreciated her intelligence. They got engaged during her junior year and got married in 1954 after her graduation. Their romantic and intellectual partnership lasted a lifetime. Despite their differences in personality - she was reserved and thoughtful in her speech, while he was outgoing and humorous - their strong bond and shared dedication to their family and careers were evident to everyone who knew them. Martin Ginsburg, a successful tax lawyer, wholeheartedly supported his wife, giving up his own thriving law practice in New York to move with her to Washington when she was appointed to the US Court of Appeals in 1980. Thirteen years later, he worked hard behind the scenes to support her nomination to the Supreme Court. Moving to Washington, Martin Ginsburg taught tax law at Georgetown University's law school. He held a chair endowed for him by Ross Perot, a longtime client, in appreciation for saving him millions in taxes. Additionally, he was a skilled cook who prepared meals for the family and baked treats for his wife to share with her colleagues at the court. (Ruth Ginsburg admitted she was a terrible cook and was banned from the kitchen by her children.) The Ginsburgs resided in a duplex apartment at the Watergate, located next to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where they regularly attended the opera and ballet. After 56 years of 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 for his wife to discover by his bedside. The note began with "My dearest Ruth," expressing his deep love and admiration for her throughout their relationship. He praised her for reaching the pinnacle of the legal world and reflected on their time together since their first meeting at Cornell. Their two children, Jane and James, along with four grandchildren, survive. After marrying, the couple moved to Lawton, Oklahoma, where Martin Ginsburg was stationed as an Army officer at Fort Sill. Ruth Ginsburg applied for a job at the local Social Security office, but the offer was rescinded when she informed them she was pregnant with Jane. She took on a clerk-typist position at the GS-2 level, which she saw as just the way things were at the time. It wasn't until later that Ruth Ginsburg dedicated herself to challenging the societal norms that restricted women's opportunities. Early in their marriage, both Ruth and Martin Ginsburg faced a difficult situation when Martin was diagnosed with testicular cancer during his third year of law school. His prognosis was grim, and he struggled to attend classes. Other classmates helped him by taking notes, while Ruth Ginsburg, who was also attending class and looking after their young daughter, typed up the notes and assisted him with studying. Despite the challenges women faced at Harvard Law School, he managed to recover and graduate on time. The school had no female faculty members, and during Ruth Ginsburg's first year, the dean, Erwin Griswold, questioned the nine women in the class about why they believed they deserved to be there instead of a man. Ruth struggled to explain that she wanted to understand her husband's work as he pursued a career in law. When her husband got a job offer in New York, Ruth requested to finish her studies at Columbia and still obtain a Harvard degree, but her request was denied. She then transferred to Columbia, where she tied for first place in her class. In 1972, she became the first woman to receive tenure at Columbia Law School. Years later, after Harvard changed its policy to award degrees to students in similar situations, Ruth's husband jokingly suggested she trade in her Columbia degree for a Harvard one, reflecting on how the incident had affected her career. "She simply smiled." In 2011, Harvard University awarded Ruth Ginsburg an honorary degree during a ceremony where Plácido Domingo serenaded her. Ginsburg, a lover of opera, considered it one of the most significant moments in her life. Following her graduation from Columbia, Ginsburg struggled to find employment at New York law firms and instead worked as a clerk for federal district judge Edmund L Palmieri. Only after a threat from her mentor, Professor Gerald Gunther, did Palmieri agree to hire her. After her clerkship, Ginsburg returned to Columbia to work on a project related to comparative law on civil procedure. The project necessitated her to acquire knowledge of Swedish and to stay in Sweden, which turned out to be influential. Feminism was thriving in Sweden, and it was common for women to juggle both work and family responsibilities with ease. Childcare was easily accessible, and an article written by the editor of a feminist magazine caught Ruth Ginsburg's interest. "We should stop focusing on the idea of women having two roles," stated editor Eva Moberg. She believed that both men and women primarily have the role of being people. Ruth Ginsburg wrote a significant treatise on Swedish civil law between 1963 and 1970, along with numerous other articles and books. Beyond her academic achievements, her time in Sweden may have had the most impact by exposing her to a different societal structure. Despite being rejected by prestigious law schools, Ginsburg found a teaching position at Rutgers Law School, where she was only the second woman on the faculty. At that time, there were fewer than twenty-four women teaching at all American law schools combined. During this time, she gave birth to her second child, James, who was nine years younger than his sister. Alongside her teaching job, she started volunteering to handle discrimination cases for the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. These cases included complaints from pregnant public-school teachers who had lost their jobs. A childhood friend, Melvin Wulf, who was the national legal director for the ACLU, learned about her work and started sending more cases her way. One of these cases, the Idaho estate administrators case which she won in the Supreme Court as Reed v. Reed, became her first major victory. Her 88-page brief in this case, highlighting how the law reinforced the oppression of women in society, became known as the "grandmother brief" in legal history and served as a reference for feminist lawyers for many years. In 1972, the ACLU established the Women's Rights Project and appointed Ruth Ginsburg as its inaugural director. She also began teaching at Columbia University after leaving Rutgers. Through the ACLU project, she developed a legal strategy to challenge official discrimination based on sex in front of the Supreme Court. The significance of her approach was not immediately evident, even to observers closely following her work. Ruth Ginsburg stood out by choosing cases where men were the victims of unequal treatment by the government. She was not just trying to present cases in a way that would be easy for the justices to understand and agree with, but she had a deeper goal of freeing both men and women from societal roles and using the Constitution to dismantle the structures that enforced those roles. This is why she saw a widowed father seeking welfare benefits to care for his child as the perfect plaintiff, as it could challenge the idea that childcare was solely a woman's responsibility. Wendy W Williams, a retired professor of law at Georgetown University Law Centre and Ginsburg's authorized biographer, wrote in a 2013 article that Ginsburg's legal campaign successfully targeted the intricate and widespread legal system that portrayed women as yin and men as yang, either rewarding them for conforming to gender-specific roles or punishing them for deviating from them. Williams explained that Ginsburg recognized the legal and societal perception of male and female as natural opposites interconnected by nature or divine design, and she realized that one could not separate the two. Male plaintiffs were crucial in dismantling what Ginsburg called "sex-role pigeonholing," as sex discrimination affected both men and women, and both could benefit from Ginsburg's idea of sex equality. Professor Neil S Siegel of Duke Law School described this idea as one of "equal citizenship stature." Despite Ginsburg's reputation as a liberal, she surprised many with her moderate voting record on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she often appeared more at ease with conservative colleagues than with liberal ones. Her perspective as a judicial-restraint liberal stemmed from her belief that the judicial branch should collaborate with the other branches in a healthy democracy, rather than impose a final decision that allowed no room for further discussion. This viewpoint was evident in her criticism of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling on abortion rights. In a speech at New York University Law School in 1993, shortly before her nomination to the Supreme Court, she criticized the ruling for stopping a political process that was moving towards reform and causing prolonged division. She expressed her support for abortion rights but suggested that the court should have issued a more limited ruling, allowing states to regulate abortions without banning them completely. She warned against the court making drastic decisions that could lead to a strong backlash. Despite some questioning the accuracy of her narrative, she continued to criticize the decision. Her speech caused concern among some women's groups and abortion rights organizations, leading to quiet lobbying against her nomination. Clinton, in his first nomination to the court, publicly searched for potential candidates among judges and political figures, including Mario Cuomo and Bruce Babbitt. It seemed that Stephen G. Breyer was the chosen candidate, but his interview did not go smoothly due to his recent bicycle accident. Martin Ginsburg encouraged Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to advocate for his wife, Ruth Ginsburg, with the president. Initially hesitant, Clinton ultimately decided to nominate Ruth Ginsburg after a private meeting with her on June 13th. He phoned her at 11:33 that evening to inform her that she was his selection. Clinton stated at the announcement ceremony the following day that he believed she would promote consensus-building on the Supreme Court as she had on the Court of Appeals. The public strongly supported her appointment, and she was confirmed on Aug. 3, 1993, despite dissenting votes from three conservative Republicans in the Senate. Ginsburg addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that her judicial approach was not strictly liberal or conservative. She did, however, express her unwavering support for the right to abortion, despite her criticism of Roe v. Wade. When questioned by Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., she emphasized the importance of this issue to a woman's life and dignity. The decision regarding abortion should be made by the woman herself, and when the government interferes with that decision, it diminishes her autonomy as a responsible adult. In a dissenting opinion during the 2006-07 Supreme Court term, Ginsburg criticized the majority's rationale in upholding a federal law criminalizing a certain abortion procedure, arguing that it was based on outdated beliefs about women and lacked reliable evidence. Another controversial decision led to another strong disagreement among the judges. 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. The majority opinion, written by Alito, stated that the clock started ticking from Ledbetter's first paycheck showing the unequal pay. Ginsburg disagreed, arguing that the period should begin when the employee becomes aware of the discrimination. She urged Congress to clarify this issue, emphasizing the importance of their involvement. Notably, Ginsburg made her dissent known from the bench, which added weight to her message. The situation, which initially appeared to be a technical disagreement regarding a statute of limitations, evolved into a widely-publicized rallying cry. This approach was successful, leading Congress to reverse what Ginsburg criticized as a narrow interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The outcome was the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Jan. 29, 2009, which became the first bill signed into law by President Obama. According to Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier in a 2013 essay, Ginsburg was actively engaging with the public in her efforts. Guinier praised oral dissent as a way to make judicial speech more accessible to the public, while Ginsburg carefully crafted her opinions, both majority and dissenting, with clear language and minimal jargon. She credited her attention to writing to studying literature under Vladimir Nabokov at Cornell. Her dissenting opinions, especially those announced from the bench, garnered the most attention, and she even playfully switched her decorative collars on dissenting days. She continued to wear her "dissenting collar," described as resembling medieval armor, the day after Trump's election. One of her notable dissents occurred in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, where she criticized the majority for dismantling the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Ginsburg questioned the court's usual restraint and ended with a quote about the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice. Another favorite opinion of hers was in the 1996 case MLB v. SLJ, which dealt with the right of a parent to appeal a court decision even if unable to afford the cost of preparing the official court record. The Supreme Court of Mississippi determined that the state was not required to cover the cost of the necessary record for an appeal to proceed. The Constitution does not typically grant affirmative rights, except for certain exceptions such as the right to a lawyer for an indigent criminal defendant. Justice Ginsburg based her decision on cases that emphasized the importance of protecting family relationships. This decision was praised by legal experts as extraordinary. In 2017, a decision was made regarding the unequal treatment imposed by federal immigration law on unwed mothers and fathers seeking to pass on their American citizenship to children born overseas. According to the law, mothers who had lived in the United States for at least one year could pass on their American citizenship, while fathers had to have lived in the US for five years. The law assumed that it was easier to identify the mother as a parent compared to the father, who may be less likely to assume parental responsibility for their out-of-wedlock children. In the case of Sessions v. Morales-Santana, Ginsburg, writing for a 6-2 majority, declared the law unconstitutional due to its sex-based distinction, which she described as outdated and reflective of past generalizations about men and women. She emphasized the importance of avoiding such broad generalizations, which can limit people's opportunities and choices. Ginsburg often attributed the success of her 1970s legal battles to being in the right place with the right arguments at the right time. In the preface to her book "My Own Words," published in 2016, she expressed gratitude for being alive and a lawyer during a time when it was possible to advocate successfully for gender equality in the U.S. She acknowledged that she had a significant impact on the court's understanding of this issue and believed that judges were influenced by the changing societal climate. Ginsburg was known for her meticulous approach to both her work and her appearance. She wore her dark hair pulled back and preferred finely tailored suits by designer Giorgio Armani, occasionally mixing in flamboyantly patterned jackets from her travels. Despite being recognized as one of the best-dressed women, she was quiet in social settings and often let her outgoing husband speak for her. Those who didn't know her well saw her as shy and reserved, but she could become passionate when discussing her love for opera. Despite her reserved nature, it was hard to imagine she was once a high school cheerleader and twirler due to her precise and deliberate movements. There wasn't a clear distinction between the two sides of her personality, rather her shyness disappeared when she was focused on a task. She remembered feeling extremely nervous before her first Supreme Court argument, to the point where she couldn't eat lunch for fear of getting sick. However, once she began the argument, her fear vanished and she felt empowered by the attention of the powerful judges.