The Life and Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Beyond Your News Feed: Understanding Contemporary Politics

In this episode, Professors Abigail Brooks, Director of PCs Women’s Studies Program, and Paul Herron, the PC Political Science Department’s Supreme Court expert, join Beyond Your News Feed host, William Hudson, to discuss the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s contributions to constitutional law. The discussion reviews Ginsburg’s historic contributions to expanding women’s rights in her career as a litigator beginning in the 1970s. We link these efforts on behalf of women’s equality to her own confrontation with the professional barriers women faced in her generation. These efforts continued after her appointments first to the DC Circuit Appeals Court and then the Supreme Court. Our conversation reviews her major contributions on the Court in her majority opinions but also in several significant dissenting opinions in cases involving women’s employment rights, voting rights, and affirmative action. Ginsburg also became a popular celebrity in her later years, a phenomenon that we also explore.