The world lost a true person of character this week when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. Few people probably realize the personal obstacles she faced early in her life as she tried to enter the exclusive “boys’ club,” known as the law profession.
The stage set for what Ginsburg would face during her law career was clearly evident when she entered the prestigious Harvard Law School in 1956 and was asked by the dean to justify why she was taking a seat that would otherwise go to a man. A Harvard law school employee once told her that women were not permitted to enter a room in the library in which she needed to do research.
Ginsburg graduated tied for first in her class at Columbia Law School, to which she had transferred when her husband took a job in New York City. But that wasn’t good enough for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter who refused to interview her for a clerkship because, as he so arrogantly stated, he was “not ready to hire a woman.” This belief constantly followed her throughout her law career where she had to over-excel her male counterparts.
In 1993, she was elevated to icon status by being only the second female Supreme Court justice in American history. In that role she consistently advocated for the equal rights of women. Early on she wrote the majority opinion in a case striking down the Virginia Military Institute's men-only admissions policy, and in her career delved into areas where no other Supreme Court justice had ever gone.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was relentless in her mission as a Supreme Court justice. This devotion to serve could not have been more evident than her continued service in spite of monumental health issues.
In 1999, she had surgery for early-stage colon cancer; ten years later, it was surgery for pancreatic cancer, and in 2018 she had surgery to remove cancerous growths from her left lung. Sadly, these were only a partial list of the health struggles she endured.
However, through them all she continued the demanding work of a Supreme Court justice without relenting or complaining. She did not miss an oral argument until her 2018 surgery and even then worked from her hospital bed while recovering. She seemed unbreakable despite her medical issues.
But sadly, Friday, her health issues finally broke her and she passed away at her home at age 87.
However, what followed her death was absolutely shameful behavior by our esteemed legislators in Washington, D.C.
Forty-nine minutes to the second, after the announcement of Justice Ginsburg’s death, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, with prodding from the press, began espousing how a replacement for her would be immediately proposed by the President and voted upon by the Senate.
Likewise, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, started advocating how that would never be allowed to happen. And the public jumped on the bandwagon; social media lit up.
And the games began, with both party members rallying around their respective leaders.
Couldn’t all of us, and especially members of Congress, at least have given Justice Ginsburg the weekend to think about her as someone who literally gave her life devoted to serving the country. Didn’t she deserve that respect?
How sad we have become as a nation over this thing called ‘politics.’ We have not only elevated it to be more important than family and friends, but now it even supersedes paying respect to those who have earned it.
Kind of makes one disgusted if one of the reasons this occurred was the very thing that Ruth Ginsburg spent her entire career fighting for, equal respect for women.
Maybe the “boys’ club” is still very much alive and well, or perhaps maybe it was because she was not only a “female” judge, but also a “liberal” one, and considered of less value as an individual by those presently in power.
Just think about how the immediate aftermath of her death compared to that of Justice Antonin Scalia and maybe you’ll know the answer; conservative male vs liberal female.
Just where are we heading as a society when we are no longer capable of showing respect for individuals no matter what their sex, party, or political leanings they hold dear?
So pathetically sad!
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