US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senior liberal voice on the high court and a lifelong advocate of women’s equality, has died. She was 87.

The court said she died of metastatic pancreatic cancer Friday evening at her home in Washington, D.C., where she was surrounded by her family. Ginsburg had announced over the summer that she had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment, but she said that she would “remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.”

According to NPR, just days before her death, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter that read in part, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

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 tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

Ginsburg long had been a champion for equal rights, dating to the days when she graduated at the top of her law school class but then couldn’t find work at a law firm because the places she applied would hire a woman for the job. She was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1993, the first of President Bill Clinton’s two nominees. The confirmation vote was a staggering 96-3. Among the causes she championed from the bench were health care for low- and middle-income families, marriage rights and discrimination against LGBTQ Americans in the workplace.

“Justice Ginsburg paved the way for so many women, including me,” Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter. “There will never be another like her. Thank you RBG.”

In recent years, Ginsburg, the second woman on the court after Sandra Day O’Connor, had obtained an iconic stature, the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, RBG, and a feature film last year. She cooperated in the making of both. She also obtained an iconic nickname, “Notorious RBG,” which reflected her status as a career-long champion of women’s equality.

Her death likely will set up another confirmation battle on the eve of an election or during the lame-duck session later in the year.

Ginsburg was the senior liberal justice on the court and, if President Donald Trump is able to fill the vacancy, it would solidify the court’s 6-3 conservative majority. Trump already has named two justices to the court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Tributes from friends, colleagues, fans and Hollywood figures have been flooding social media since the news of her death broke.

Both President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden have commented on the justice’s death. The news broke as Trump was addressing a rally in Bemidji, MN. He found out when reporters asked him for a reaction, to which the president said, “She just died? Wow. I didn’t know that. She led an amazing life.”

Biden also reflected shortly after the news broke telling reporters that Ginsburg, “stood for all of us” as she pursued “the highest American ideas of equality and justice under the law.”

Presidential historian John Meacham said on MSNBC Friday night, “The country, I think, should rightly pause and mourn this remarkably pioneering life, which was given to a realization that what Thomas Jefferson wrote in a different era could mean real change and real possibility from era to era to era.”

The Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin tweeted and issued a statement saying, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg exemplified the best in America.” He called her, “a champion for equality, a fierce defender of free speech, and a passionate supporter of the arts” and a “towering figure in the world of copyright.”

“Most notably,” wrote Rivkin, “Justice Ginsburg proved the power of the dissenting voice. It has and will continue to inspire countless storytellers. And, while her life has been celebrated on screen in films like RBG and On the Basis of Sex, her true legacy is inspiring all creators to tell their own stories.”

 

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  1. Mandy
    September 19, 10:27 Reply

    Rest in peace, RBG. You have fought well and laid down a great legacy. Hopefully, someone with your vision and drive and fire for equality will step into your shoes. And I do mean, your seat at the Supreme Court. 🤞🤞

  2. Olutayo
    September 19, 10:29 Reply

    Kobe Bryant. Chadwick Boseman. Naya Rivera. Diana Rigg. now Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

    Nawa o. 2020, you’re really the grim reaper, aren’t you? Taking the best of us with you. Please, be done. Please.

    RIP RBG.

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