By Elias Marat | The Mind Unleashed
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday at the age of 87, bringing to an end a long career that saw her rise to the level of a national legal icon who was known to liberal supporters as the “Notorious RBG.”
Ginsburg died at her home after an ongoing battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court announced.
The Brooklyn-born jurist is most well known for her work laying the groundwork for settled case law in relation to women’s rights, specifically through landmark cases argued before the Supreme Court regarding gender discrimination against both women and men.
She was rewarded for her legal achievements in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton, who nominated her to the court, making her only the second woman to serve on the country’s highest legal body. In his announcement, Clinton said that Ginsburg would serve as “a force for consensus-building on the Supreme Court” and would be “too thoughtful” to be tagged either a “liberal” or “conservative.”
In a statement, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts eulogized the late justice as having “historic stature.”
“We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague,” Roberts added. “Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice.”
With November’s presidential elections looming, Ginsburg’s death is sure to light the fuse for a potentially bruising and harsh political battle over her successor, as well as the future of the nation’s highest court.
