Ruth Bader Ginsburg Columbia Law Review

A few years later, his dear Marty, the love of his life, passed away. 35 35 Bill Mears, Justice Ginsburg`s Husband Dies of Cancer Complications, CNN (June 28, 2010), www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/27/scotus.ginsburg.husband/index.html [perma.cc/2BLG-ZJ5J]. Closing Her absence meant that she could reinvent herself, perhaps she had to reinvent herself. For one, Marty was always wonderful, hilarious the center of attention. He was the diva. Ruth loved it and never wanted to compete. But since he was gone, she now had new roles at his disposal. Congress heeded the message and, after hearing testimony from Ross 59 59 59 Discrimination on the Based of Pregnancy (1977: Subcomm. on Lab. hearings of the S. Comm. on Hum. Res., 95th Cong.

149–60 (1977) (Statement by Susan Deller Ross on behalf of the Campaign to End Discrimination Against Pregnant Workers). Completion and Review of the Findings of a 1973 WRP Report, 60-60 See id., pp. 180, 185 (Statement by the New York State Senator. Carol Bellamy); Trudy Hayden, ACLU Women`s Rights Project, Punishing Pregnancy: Discrimination in Education, Employment and Credit (1973); The ACLU and Women`s Rights: Proud History, Ongoing Struggle, ACLU, www.aclu.org/other/aclu-and-womens-rights-proud-history-continuing-struggle [perma.cc/7B3T-REQY] (last visited March 1, 2021). Close passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978 and amended Title VII to clarify that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex. 61 61 Pub. L. No. 95-555, 92 Stat. 2076 (codified in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.). Close In 1997, when the judge was not yet a cover star of Time 12 magazine 12 See Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Time, April 2015, Sebastian Kim, www.sebastiankim.com/time-april-2015-1 [perma.cc/W85Z-VMMK] (last visited March 20, 2021).

Close and the Supreme Meme Queen, 13 13 Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, How Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Became the Supreme Meme Queen, In These Times (November 4, 2015), inthesetimes.com/article/the-supreme-meme-queen-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg [perma.cc/X84H-VSXS]. Close but only one of the best jurists this country has ever produced, she wrote United States v. O`Hagan. 14 14,521 U.S. 642 (1997). Shortly before O`Hagan, one question had long angered the SEC, federal prosecutors, and lower courts: Can a person who is not subject to SEC rules prohibiting the sale of securities by corporate insiders be held liable for insider trading under Rule 10(b)-5? A few years later, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, 36-36 Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). Close and Ruth`s angry dissent inspired law student Shana Knizhnik to create the Notorious RBG Tumblr meme. 37 37 Nina Totenberg, Notorious RBG: The Supreme Court Justice Turned Cultural Icon, NPR (October 26, 2015), www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/26/450547606/notorious-rbg-the-supreme-court-justice-turned-cultural-icon [perma.cc/7SKG-RGA6]. Close It took off. I can`t say why.

I was as surprised as anyone. But what is even more surprising is that Ruth loved him, kissed him, even the booty. During her public appearances, she began carrying a shopping bag with the inscription “I DISSENT”. 38 38 Jenna Amatulli, Iconic Ruth Bader Ginsburg Carry an “I Dissent” Tote with Her Own Likeness, HuffPost (April 28, 2017), www.huffpost.com/entry/iconic-ruth-bader-ginsburg-carries-an-i-dissent-tote-with-her-own-likeness_n_59038b77e4b02655f83d38c7 [perma.cc/HM3Z-B4WK]. To the delight of her audience, she highlighted it at her feet in interviews. To illustrate his point, Ginsburg imagined how Roe v. Wade could have been decided differently. The Texas law, which struck down the court under the due process clause in Roe, was extreme: it only exempted proceedings aimed at saving a pregnant woman`s life from criminal responsibility, which “unbearable a woman`s autonomy.” 8 8 Id. at 1199. Suppose Ginsburg noted that the court “stopped there” and simply declared “the most extreme type of law in the land” unconstitutional, rather than “creating a regime that covered the issue, a set of rules that superseded virtually all state laws in force at the time.” 9 9 Id.

While the court had focused more on “the idea that women control their destiny and place in society” and refrained from making such a bold attempt to regulate the field, it suggested that Roe “might have been less of a storm center.” 10 10 Id. bei 1199–200. The judiciary believed that narrower rulings — such as the numerous rulings in the 1970s and early 1980s that included unconstitutional state and federal laws that explicitly treated people differently based on their gender — led to more sustained progress because they “did not fully condemn the product of the legislature.” 11 11 Id. to 1204. Instead, the decisions opened “a dialogue with the political branches of government” and “throw” the ball “back into the field of legislators where the political forces of the time could operate.” 12 12 Ibid. Justice Ginsburg made the same point in a different way decades later when asked what advice she would give to her young female fans. She said, “My advice is to fight for the things that are important to you. But do it in a way that others will join you. Irin Carmon, Opinion, Justice Ginsburg`s Cautious Radicalism, N.Y. Times (October 24, 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/opinion/sunday/justice-ginsburgs-cautious-radicalism.html (filed with Columbia Law Review). Close More than a quarter of a century ago, I had the privilege of witnessing Ruth Bader Ginsburg`s reaffirmative trip to the Supreme Court as special counsel to Senator Moynihan and reporting to Marty Ginsburg every day. Marty`s laser mind increased control every day.

He was a strength that all of us who knew him feel very quietly. His wife has done exceptionally well, with senators of all political categories, as evidenced by his confirmation of 96-3. 5 5 See Robert A. Katzmann, Reflections on the Confirmation Journey of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Summer 1993, in The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg 199, 204 (Scott Dodson ed., 2015). Many know his famous quote: “People sometimes ask me when…