US Supreme Court Justice and women’s rights supporter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will receive this year's National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal. Eighty-seven-year-old Ginsburg will be awarded the medal on September 17 Constitution Day, "for her efforts to advance liberty and equality for all," the Philadelphia centre announced.
The announcement was made on August 26, Women's Equality Day, which was also the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The amendment granted women the right to vote, CNN reported. Women's Equality Day is celebrated in memory of the hard-fought victory of the women's suffrage movement.
Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, has been serving the country with efforts to advance liberty and equality for long. She has not been keeping well due to her age and other medical issues.
What You Should Know
- US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been named as this year’s recipient of the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be awarded the medal in a video tribute on Sept. 17.
- Previously, many prominent personalities including Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela have got the award.
- Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has also been a recipient of the award.
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Who is Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Ginsburg was the second woman ever to be nominated to the US Supreme Court and is known for her sharp legal opinions. She has been advocating for women’s rights and has had to deal with a fair share of gender discrimination herself. Ginsburg is the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She was inducted late last year into the "Only in America" Hall of Fame at Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History and was the subject of the popular “Notorious RBG” exhibition there.
Ginsburg went to Harvard Law School where she faced sexism, as per a report by aclu.org. She has spoken about how the then Dean Erwin Griswold had constantly reminded the nine women in her class that their places should have been taken by men. The whole environment was sexist, Ginsburg has said. But she still managed to excel and became the first-ever female member of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
Even after Harvard, Ginsburg was rejected by many law firms and the reason was the fact that she was a Jew and a woman, an unconventional choice in the 1950s.
She became a clerk to US District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri. The wage gap between men and women bothered her deeply so she moved to Sweden where gender equality was better. She co-founded the first American Law Review that focused only on women’s issues. It was called the Women’s Rights Law Reporter.
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She has argued many cases for gender equality and founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1972. She has been fighting many battles for women’s rights and on the issues surrounding gender discrimination, abortion and reproductive rights.
In July, she told reporters that she was undergoing chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer and that the treatment was "positive" adding that she remains "fully able" to continue serving on the court. She said she has no plans to retire.
“She’s doing really great actually. My sister is with her now, we’ve had a little family rotation pretty much since the COVID crisis started,” said James Ginsburg, Ginsburg’s son. “The good news is the chemotherapy is doing what it’s supposed to do, so tumors are shrinking, cancer cell numbers are going down, which is all we could hope for,” he said.
On August 12 this year, Ginsburg celebrated 27 years of her reign as the Supreme Court justice.
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Feature Image Credit: CNN
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