Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993, confirmed 96–3. Before joining the Court, she had spent two decades as a litigation strategist for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, systematically building the constitutional case for gender equality through a series of carefully chosen cases that moved the law step by step. She was, by the time of her confirmation, the most consequential gender-equality litigator in American history — 'the Thurgood Marshall of the women's movement,' as President Clinton noted some called her when he nominated her in 1993. On the Court, Ginsburg wrote or joined majority opinions in a series of cases that expanded women's rights (United States v. Virginia, 1996, striking down VMI's male-only admissions policy), clarified workplace harassment law, and later extended civil rights protections to LGBTQ Americans. She also wrote powerful dissents in cases where the majority ruled against gender and LGBTQ equality, and her Ledbetter dissent directly produced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. For the Religious Right, Ginsburg's judicial philosophy represented everything the movement had been fighting since Roe: an expansive reading of constitutional equality that recognized women's autonomy, rejected gender hierarchy, and extended dignity to LGBTQ Americans. The Alliance Defending Freedom's entire litigation strategy — building cases designed to reach the Supreme Court — was constructed around changing the Court's composition and jurisprudence in directions opposite to Ginsburg's. Ginsburg's health became a recurring subject of Religious Right commentary from approximately 2015 onward, as movement leaders and their allied legal organizations calculated what her replacement would mean for abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, and religious exemption law. When she died on September 18, 2020 — 46 days before a presidential election — Religious Right leaders framed the timing as providential. The rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before the election was driven in significant part by Religious Right organizations who had spent years strategizing around precisely this moment. Barrett was confirmed on October 26, 2020. Two years later, the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade. Ginsburg spent her career fighting for the constitutional principle that the law must treat people equally regardless of sex.

Themes this entry appears in

• Opposition / Resistance
• Anti-LGBTQ
• Gender & Patriarchy

Connections from Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• influenced → Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) (2020) — Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020 — 46 days before a presidential election. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed on October 26, 2020, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority; Religious Right organizations pressed hard for the pre-election confirmation. Barrett's confirmation was the direct consequence of Ginsburg's death. Two years later, on June 24, 2022, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling overturned Roe.

Sources

• The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart (2020)