Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (born March 15, 1933) is a United States jurist. Since 1993, she has served as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. She is considered to be part of the "liberal wing" in the current court.

Early life

Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader in Brooklyn, New York, the second daughter of Nathan and Celia Bader. Ginsburg's older sister died when she was very young; the neighborhood where she grew up was made up of working-class immigrants, most of them Jewish, Italian and Irish.

Related Topics:
Brooklyn - New York - Jewish - Italian - Irish

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Ginsburg's mother called her "Kiki" (which her father found objectionable) and took an active role in Ruth's education, taking her to the library often and applying for scholarships that would allow her to attend college. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruth's high school years and died the day before graduation, forcing Ginsburg to withdraw from giving the salutatorian speech she had planned for months. In school, classmates recalled Ginsburg as highly popular and competitive; she joined the twirling squad in high school.

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She married Martin D. Ginsburg, later a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University in 1954 and attended Harvard Law School (before moving on to Columbia). At that time few women attended law school; Ginsburg said, "if you gave a poor answer in class, you felt like it would be viewed as indicative of all female students." When her husband, Martin, developed testicular cancer, in addition to her own classes and law review duties, she attended class for him, taking notes and then reading them to him so he could keep up. Upon graduating, he accepted a job in New York City, and she transferred to Columbia Law School, where she won a spot on the law review, becoming the only person ever to have been on law review at both Harvard and Columbia; she earned her LL.B. degree at Columbia. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959-1961. From 1961-1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963-1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972-1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford University, California from 1977-1978.

Related Topics:
Georgetown University Law Center - Cornell University - 1954 - Harvard Law School - Columbia Law School - Law clerk - Edmund L. Palmieri - United States District Court - 1959 - 1961 - 1963 - Rutgers University - 1972 - 1980 - Stanford University - 1977 - 1978

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