Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dead at 87,
who was she and what did she do? What is her legacy for women? What is the significance of her death just prior to the US election?
These were some of the questions I have heard, thought about and observed on social media. From Canada, Justice Ginsburg did not become a household name as compared to our American neighbours. Her career has spanned many decades first as a lawyer, Judge and in 1993 as Justice on the Supreme Court.
From the new CNN article;
Ginsburg was appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and in recent years served as the most senior member of the court’s liberal wing, consistently delivering progressive votes on the most divisive social issues of the day, including abortion rights, same-sex marriage, voting rights, immigration, health care and affirmative action.
Her concern for the future of America was evident in her conversation with her granddaughter.
But Ginsburg told her granddaughter she wanted her replacement to be appointed by the next president, NPR reported. “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” she dictated to granddaughter Clara Spera days before her death
From a statement honouring the life of Justice Ginsburg President Obama voiced his sentiments;
He added, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That’s how we remember her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be honored. Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in.
A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.”
In the article by the New York Times
Her years as the solitary female justice were “the worst times,” she recalled in a 2014 interview. “The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.” Eventually she was joined by two other women, both named by Mr. Obama: Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 and Elena Kagan in 2010.
Anytime women break male barriers, there is push back and for Justice Ginsburg, she must have had many less than supportive male counterparts. This is something I can relate to, the lone female working amongst men in power. It must have been challenging to speak up and continue to speak up on decisions and rulings that went against the status quo.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has changed the archaic thinking that women have to settle in life but to reach beyond and fulfill their dreams in their choice of profession and in government. As the second woman to serve on United States Supreme Court and a pioneer advocating for women’s rights she had achieved so much in advancing women’s rights. Having the experience from both sides of the legal bench her experience was exemplary. There is a distinction in ideology in appointing liberal and conservative Judges to the Supreme Court. The balance of power in making crucial nation altering rulings such as the abortion ruling, Roe vs Wade in 1973.
The impact of her death as discussed in the Washington Post
For those on the left, the passing of the revered justice is a potentially cataclysmic event, opening up the possibility that her seat on the court could be filled by someone who would cement a conservative majority for years. For those on the right, the vacancy to be filled presents the rarest of opportunities to fulfill a decades-long drive to change the court for a generation or more.
The coming battle over Ginsburg’s successor will have all the drama, procedural maneuvering and bare politics to match any of the most controversial of court nominations. But the impact of this particular vacancy could ripple far beyond what takes place on Capitol Hill. The issues that surround the vacancy encompass the broader culture war that divides red and blue America, from abortion to marriage equality to health care to the very structure of government
Her contribution as a lawyer and Judge is a role model, an advocate for women’s rights, equality and justice.
The history of the abortion debate suggests that when the right to an abortion is truly threatened, proponents of that right suddenly become hyperactive. Given Ginsburg’s status and the role she played in empowering women and fighting for women’s rights, her loss will add octane to the fuel on the left.
With the upcoming US election, President Trump will do what he usually does which is ignoring the law and quickly appointing a Trump-supporting Justice. Am I being biased? Depends on which side of the fence you decide to sit, personally, it is the law that must be upheld. The safety and security of all Americans not just a few of the privileged. This is what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had dedicated her life in support of and ensuring that the law did not pick whom to protect.
Something that I did not know was that she fought against forced sterilization.
Apart from her legendary dissents on the Supreme Court of the United States, Ginsburg is perhaps best known for the six cases she argued before the court as director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, a position I’m privileged to hold now. In 1973, the year Ginsburg had her first argument before the high court, she and the Women’s Rights Project co-founder, Brenda Feigen, filed a federal lawsuit in North Carolina on behalf of Nial Ruth Cox, a Black woman who had been forcibly sterilized in 1965 as part of a gruesome state eugenics program targeted at people with mental disabilities.
This is of course my own opinion. She was a totally awesome woman, role model and to whom I aspire to do my lifetime. Is is not great to look beyond ourselves and see great women who have stood up for us to achieve equality, safety and justice?
As people celebrate and honour this great woman, let us remember all the women through history who have had to break down barriers to get the right to attend school, university, to become doctors, lawyers, judges, the right to vote and to participate in government as equals. On a personal note and my years of dealing with sexual harassment, I must thank another trailblazer in the fight for women, Dianna Evangeline, and taking her case of sexual harassment in the workplace all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. I could never have been successful in my fight against the RCMP for sexual harassment as a form of discrimination had Dianna not gone the distance. Today in Canada sexual harassment is discrimination because of her courage because of this “watershed moment in the battle against sexual harassment”
Still, she’s glad she spoke up. Each year, Evangeline speaks at conferences held by the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, who funded her legal battle, assuring harassed women that it is worth it to come forward. In the past two weeks, as prominent voices have echoed her decades-long call to action, her faith in her convictions has swelled. “We’ve seen some change in my time,” she says, “but I’m hoping there’ll be a lot more before I leave this world. We’ve only just begun.”
…Dianna Evangeline, who 25 years ago won a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision defining sexual harassment as a form of discrimination prohibited under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
There continues to be work in achieving this goal.
We must strive to do our best with the legacy she has left us on both sides of the border. To keep the conversations going on important topics, to be open and be willing to listen and learn from others and to encourage others to believe in the power of their voice.