Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to be a Supreme Court Justice, passed away at the age of 87 on Friday.
The Supreme Court site, SCOTUSblog tweeted, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening of complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 87.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening of complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 87. pic.twitter.com/D4DnIXux0l
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) September 18, 2020
Reacting to the news of her passing, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice.”
The late Supreme Court Justice, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton and took her seat on August 10, 1993, was considered a brilliant legal mind and known to be a staple representative of the liberal movement.
Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933, and married Martin Ginsburg in 1954. They had a daughter, Jane, and a son James. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School and received her LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws) from Columbia Law School.
She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963 to 1972 and Columbia Law School from 1972 to 1980. She was also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California, from 1977 to 1978.
In 1971, she helped launch the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973 to 1980 and was on its National Board of Directors from 1974 to 1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980.
For the first time in her career, Ginsburg missed oral arguments while she was recovering from surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her left lung in January. She participated in the cases by reading transcripts at the time.
On Nov. 23, she was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after experiencing chills and fever. She also had radiation treatment for pancreatic cancer in the last year, surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer in 2009 and treatment for colon cancer in 1999.
The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation announced on Dec. 3 an award named in honor of Ginsburg to recognize “an extraordinary woman who has exercised a positive and notable influence on society and served as an exemplary role model in both principles and practice.”
The four-time cancer survivor had health issues in the final years of her life, which led to speculation she would retire form the Supreme Court in order to let President Barack Obama nominate another Justice so Republicans wouldn’t get to fill the position.
Her death means that President Donald Trump could have another Supreme Court Justice pick, which, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, would give him a third appointee.
