Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away at the age of 87. Justice Ginsburg was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. In 1980, President Carter nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and she was confirmed later that year beginning a 40-year tenure as a federal judge. After teaching law at Rutgers University and Columbia University, she became a founding counsel of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Women’s Rights Project and argued six cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s, winning five. Justice Ginsburg battled cancer repeatedly over the past two decades, beginning with an initial colon cancer diagnosis in 1999. Her death resulted from complications of recurring bouts with pancreatic cancer. She was married for 56 years until her husband’s death in 2010, and had two children.