On Friday night, September 18th, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away in her home in Washington D.C. surrounded by friends and family. The three-time cancer survivor announced she was cancer-free in January of this year, but she began facing issues again in early July when a lesion was found in a liver and died of complications with metastatic pancreas cancer on Friday according to the Supreme Court.
Known to her fans as the “notorious RBG,” Bader Ginsburg was a true Brooklynite born to a working-class Jewish family. She excelled as a young student in James Madison High School; a home to other political alums like Bernie Sanders, Judy Sheidlen, and Chuck Schumer. She continued her studies at Cornell, where she met husband Martin Ginsburg and went on to Harvard Law School where she was one of eight women in her class of 500. There she argued for gender equality and eventually became the first female member of the prestigious Harvard Law Review while being a mother to her daughter Jane. She continued to advocate for women while she was director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union where she argued six major landmark cases on gender equality before the Supreme Court. She served on the U.S. Court of Appeals until 1993 when she was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Clinton to bring the intellect and political skills to work with the conservative members in the SCOTUS.
As the country deals with the loss of a feminist icon, a woman who was the overturning vote to make same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, helped strike down the H.B.2 anti-abortion laws in Texas, gave women the right to enter university without discrimination; what better way to honor RBG than by using her own powerful statements. From interviews to college conversations and her mother's advice, we can all learn from these amazing quotes by Queen Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
1. "People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine." - A 2015 conversation at Georgetown University Law School
2. “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” - A 2009 interview with USA Today
3. "I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world. If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers." - A 2009 New York Times interview
4. "Just as buildings in California have a greater need to be earthquake proofed, places where there is greater racial polarization in voting have a greater need for prophylactic measures to prevent purposeful race discrimination." - Dissenting Opinion In The Court's 2013 Decision To roll back some protections from the Voting Rights Act.
5. "If I had any talent in the world, any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva." - A 2015 conversation at Georgetown University Law School
6. "Every now and then it helps to be a little deaf. ... That advice has stood me in good stead. Not simply in dealing with my marriage, but in dealing with my colleagues." - A 2006 op-ed in the New York Times
7. “In my life, what I find most satisfying is that I was part of a movement that made life better, not just for women … gender discrimination is bad for everyone.” -Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2015
8. "I tell law students… if you are going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, you have a skill—very much like a plumber. But if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you." — Stanford Memorial Church, 2012
9. "So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune." — Makers interview, 2012
10. "Don't be distracted by emotions like anger, envy, resentment. These just zap energy and waste time." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg shares advice from her mother.
11. "Someday there will be great people, great elected representatives who will say, ‘enough of this nonsense, let’s be the kind of legislature the United States should have.' I hope that day will come when I’m still alive." — RBG at Stanford Law School, 2017
12. "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices." — 1993 Senate Confirmation Hearings
13. I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off out necks. - RBG quoting Sarah Grimké.
14. "Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability and to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. Because I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid." — On how she'd like to be remembered, MSNBC interview, 2015
15. "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed." — Ginsburg told her granddaughter , Clara Spera in the days before her death.
On that note, sign this petition to keep RBG's seat open until after Inauguration Day. We can not afford another judge appointed by Donal Trump — if he is willing to appoint a rapist as a Supreme Court Justice who knows what he will do with the empty seat.
RBG forever. 👑