Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who championed women’s rights — first as a trailblazing civil rights attorney who methodically chipped away at discriminatory practices, then as the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and finally as an unlikely pop culture icon — has died at her home in Washington.
Ginsburg’s health had been precarious for more than a decade. She was successfully treated for cancer of the colon, pancreas and lung, but had a recurrence of pancreatic cancer in the spring. But Ginsburg was best known for her impassioned dissents, which she often delivered in court while wearing a special dark, beaded “dissent collar” over her traditional black robe.
A five-member majority had overturned a sex discrimination verdict in favor of Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama woman who was paid far less than the men who held the same job at Goodyear Tire plants. The majority ruled that Ledbetter had waited too long to file her complaint, though that was because she had been unaware of the disparity.Ginsburg, in dissent, said the majority “does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.
There was also friction between Ginsburg and some liberals in 2014, when pressure grew for her to retire while Democrats still held the Senate and the White House, which could guarantee that her seat would be filled by another liberal. Ginsburg brushed aside such concerns and let it be known she was not going anywhere, saying she still had a lot to contribute to the court.
Where Marshall, the nation’s first African American justice, led the legal fight against racial discrimination in the 1940s and ’50s, Ginsburg led the legal fight against sex discrimination in the 1970s.“She helped us read our Constitution to understand that it protects us all,” Yale Law professor Judith Resnik said. “She brought vision, skill, intellect and kindness to the law.”
Ginsburg became a counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, and by 1972 led its Women’s Rights Project. She set out to change the court’s view of gender bias and its impact on women and men. She did not rely on grand pronouncements about inequality or take on hot controversies such as abortion. Instead, she planned a careful, step-by-step approach to undercut sexist laws.
......anyway what did president Obama say?
“led” not “lead”
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