"One generation..."
Like many, I entered the weekend saddened by the news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday from complications due to cancer. Justice Ginsburg was an Associate Justice of the highest court in the land from 1993 until her dying day, a feminist icon who paved the path for equality during her time at the ACLU.
She was born in 1933 to Jewish parents in an area of Flatbush, Brooklyn. Her mother prioritized Ginsburg’s education because she herself had been unable to attend school after high school – Ginsburg’s grandparents prioritized their son’s education over her mother’s. Ginsburg attended James Madison High School, less than ten miles from my own home. She went on to Cornell University, where she met her husband, Marty Ginsburg. She later enrolled at Harvard Law School, and transferred to Columbia Law School where she tied for first in her class. Upon graduation, she found it hard to get a job – she was discriminated against for being pregnant, she was turned down because of her gender frequently, and when she did get a job, she was paid less than her male colleagues. She held a variety of positions in academia before moving on to co-found the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU in 1972.
It was at the ACLU that her brilliance was finally in full view – she strategized carefully, taking aim at discriminatory laws and winning small victories. The Women’s Rights Project participated in more than 300 gender discrimination cases in the first two years, and Ginsburg argued six cases in front of the Supreme Court. She was careful in her selection of cases, often choosing men to make the point that gender discrimination can harm both genders. She went on to be appointed to the Federal Bench in 1980 and then the Supreme Court in 1993. Interestingly to me, she was considered a moderate at the time, but went on to be considered the leader of the “liberal wing”. In her time on the Supreme Court, she’s remembered for her dissenting opinions, earning her the moniker “Notorious R.B.G.” and a pop culture icon status.
It’s hard to put into words how fundamentally Ginsburg shifted the world as I experience it now, especially as a woman. She was not just a trailblazer – she was the blaze, a fiery woman known for her statement “I Dissent” and a classic dissenting collar she donned over her robe when she disagreed with the majority of her fellow justices. Small in stature at barely over five feet, she worked out with a personal trainer twice a week, and she knew how to take up space as sometimes the only woman on the Supreme Court. I read over the weekend that in the Jewish faith, one who dies on Rosh Hashanah is known as a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness. As Rosh Hashanah marks the new Jewish year, a tzaddik is someone who God held back until the last possible day of the year because their service was so critical, so needed. And thus it is fitting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on the last night of the Hebrew year 5780.
In one of her dissents, she quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous line “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” She added her own qualifier, “if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.” Her last words recorded by her granddaughter were “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” And so it is up to us now, to be that steadfast commitment. As many have said, may her memory be a revolution.
As we reopen schools in Zambia tomorrow, Justice Ginsburg weighs heavily on my mind and my heart. That her mother ensured she got an education is not by happenstance – Celia Bader knew the value of education to progress a society and wanted to make sure her daughter had the choices and options that she herself did not. It’s something we still face in Zambia, and one of the reasons that Impact Network schools are 58% female. And it’s something that Ginsberg held dearly – she often repeated this question to audiences “What’s the difference between a bookkeeper in the garment district and a Supreme Court justice? One generation.” Each of our staff members, teachers, and scholars honors this statement each and every day we show up to our schools, ready to engage and do the work to educate a generation. Let’s get to it.
-Reshma