Columbians Ahead of Their Time
 Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg "Civil liberties are an essential part of the overall human rights concern -- the equality of all people and the ability to be free."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933- )
Jurist
Law 1959 Faculty 1972-80
LLD 1994 (hon.)

Through her example and her work as a lawyer, law professor, and jurist, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had a tremendous impact on the effort to end gender discrimination in America. As general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s, she argued a series of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that strengthened constitutional safeguards of sexual equality. In 1980, President Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. When President Clinton nominated her to fill the seat vacated by Associate Justice Byron R. White in 1993, Ginsburg became the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

After attending Harvard Law School, Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School and graduated first in her class in 1959. She clerked in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and, from 1963 until 1972, taught at Rutgers Law School. In 1972, she became the first woman full professor at Columbia Law School. Ginsburg held that post until her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals. On her transition to the courtroom she has said, "One of the biggest impacts on the courts is made by law professors who turn judge."


Read more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Columbia Encyclopedia.

COLUMBIA CELEBRATES GINSBURG

Marking ten years on the Supreme Court.

RETURNING TO COLUMBIA

The reopening of Greene Hall.

COLUMBIA AND THE COURT

Two centuries of Columbian constitutionalism.

Write Columbia's History

Columbia's history, as seen by those who have studied, taught, and worked here.

Columbians have changed the world and how we see it.

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