Ruth Bader Ginsburg

On March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born into a family that valued education, discipline, and female accomplishment. She studied at Cornell, Harvard Law School, and Columbia Law School, finishing at the top of her class while confronting open gender exclusion in the profession. Teaching and litigation soon turned academic excellence into a public campaign for constitutional equality.

Ginsburg helped build the ACLU Women's Rights Project in the 1970s and argued landmark sex-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court before joining the D.C. Circuit. Appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993, she became a central liberal voice on gender equality, reproductive rights, voting rights, and civil procedure. Her dissents in later years, especially after the Court's rightward turn, made her a popular icon well beyond legal circles.

Ginsburg's litigation strategy shaped equal protection law and the legal status of women in workplaces, schools, and families. Later battles over the Supreme Court's ideological balance, reproductive rights, and the memory of liberal jurisprudence remained closely tied to her legacy.