176-534: Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( / ˈ b eɪ d ər ˈ ɡ ɪ n z b ɜːr ɡ / BAY -dər GHINZ -burg ; née Bader ; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice Byron White , and at
352-518: A Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23, 1954. While at Cornell, Bader studied under Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov , and she later identified Nabokov as a major influence on her development as a writer. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the highest-ranking female student in her graduating class. Bader married Ginsburg a month after her graduation from Cornell. The couple moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma , where Martin Ginsburg,
528-639: A Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduate, was stationed as a called-up active duty United States Army Reserve officer during the Korean War . At age 21, Ruth Bader Ginsburg worked for the Social Security Administration office in Oklahoma, where she was demoted after becoming pregnant with her first child. She gave birth to a daughter in 1955. In the fall of 1956, Ruth Bader Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School , where she
704-884: A visiting judge on the Second Circuit for a week in January 1992, and he received the American Bar Association 's highest award in August of that year. His health continued to deteriorate, and, on January 24, 1993, at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center , he died of heart failure . He was 84 years old. Marshall lay in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, and thousands thronged there to pay their respects; more than four thousand attended his funeral service at
880-562: A "relentlessly formalistic catechism" that failed to take account of the amendment's "crushing burden on indigent women". Although Marshall's sliding-scale approach was never adopted by the Court as a whole, the legal scholar Susan Low Bloch comments that "his consistent criticism seems to have prodded the Court to somewhat greater flexibility". Marshall supported the Warren Court's constitutional decisions on criminal law, and he wrote
1056-550: A "vestigial savagery" that was immoral and violative of the Eighth Amendment. Afterwards, Marshall and Brennan dissented in every instance in which the Court declined to review a death sentence, filing more than 1,400 dissents that read: "Adhering to our views that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, we would grant certiorari and vacate
1232-485: A 96–3 vote on August 3, 1993. She received her commission on August 5, 1993 and took her judicial oath on August 10, 1993. Ginsburg's name was later invoked during the confirmation process of John Roberts . Ginsburg was not the first nominee to avoid answering certain specific questions before Congress, and as a young attorney in 1981 Roberts had advised against Supreme Court nominees' giving specific responses. Nevertheless, some conservative commentators and senators invoked
1408-578: A Democratic-controlled Senate could appoint and confirm her successor. Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., in September 2020, at the age of 87, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer . The vacancy created by her death was filled 39 days later by Amy Coney Barrett . The result was one of three major rightward shifts in the Court since 1953, following the appointment of Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall in 1991 and
1584-510: A Harvard law degree at Columbia Law School , so Ginsburg transferred to Columbia and became the first woman to be on two major law reviews : the Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review . In 1959, she earned her law degree at Columbia and tied for first in her class. At the start of her legal career, Ginsburg encountered difficulty in finding employment. In 1960, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected Ginsburg for
1760-524: A book with Anders Bruzelius on civil procedure in Sweden. Ginsburg conducted extensive research for her book at Lund University in Sweden. Ginsburg's time in Sweden and her association with the Swedish Bruzelius family of jurists also influenced her thinking on gender equality. She was inspired when she observed the changes in Sweden, where women were 20 to 25 percent of all law students; one of
1936-568: A camper from the age of four, she attended Camp Che-Na-Wah, a Jewish summer program at Lake Balfour near Minerva, New York , where she was later a camp counselor until the age of eighteen. Celia took an active role in her daughter's education, often taking her to the library. Celia had been a good student in her youth, graduating from high school at age 15, yet she could not further her own education because her family instead chose to send her brother to college. Celia wanted her daughter to get more education, which she thought would allow Ruth to become
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#17328023333942112-631: A case in which the Court ruled that the government could forbid homeless individuals from protesting poverty by sleeping overnight in Lafayette Park ; although Burger decried their claims as "frivolous" attempts to "trivialize" the Constitution, Marshall argued that the protesters were engaged in constitutionally protected symbolic speech . Marshall joined the majority in Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman , two cases in which
2288-556: A case which struck down parts of a 2013 Texas law regulating abortion providers, Ginsburg also authored a short concurring opinion which was even more critical of the legislation at issue. She asserted the legislation was not aimed at protecting women's health, as Texas had said, but rather to impede women's access to abortions. On May 31, 2005, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Cutter v. Wilkinson that facilities utilizing federal funds cannot deny prisoners accommodations necessary for
2464-569: A classification based on sex. VMI proposed a separate institute for women, but Ginsburg found this solution reminiscent of the effort by Texas decades earlier to preserve the University of Texas Law School for Whites by establishing a separate school for Blacks. Ginsburg dissented in the Court's decision on Ledbetter v. Goodyear , 550 U.S. 618 (2007), in which plaintiff Lilly Ledbetter sued her employer, claiming pay discrimination based on her gender, in violation of Title VII of
2640-565: A clerkship because of her gender. He did so despite a strong recommendation from Albert Martin Sacks , who was a professor and later dean of Harvard Law School. Columbia law professor Gerald Gunther also pushed for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to hire Ginsburg as a law clerk , threatening to never recommend another Columbia student to Palmieri if he did not give Ginsburg
2816-423: A concrete deadline came as a disappointment to Marshall, who had argued for total integration to be completed by September 1956. In the years following the Court's decision, Marshall coordinated challenges to Virginia's " massive resistance " to Brown , and he returned to the Court to successfully argue Cooper v. Aaron (1958), involving Little Rock 's attempt to delay integration. Marshall, who according to
2992-425: A detection dog or any action not related to the initial traffic stop could not be used in suspicion of a separate crime. Ginsburg additionally contended that such an action would only be permissible by the officer provided the officer had "independently supported reasonable suspicion" that a separate crime had occurred at the time of the initial traffic violation and that the action taken would not add additional time to
3168-527: A different lifestyle and legal position than what they had in the United States." Ginsburg's first position as a professor was at Rutgers Law School in 1963. She was paid less than her male colleagues because, she was told, "your husband has a very good job." At the time Ginsburg entered academia, she was one of fewer than twenty female law professors in the United States. She was a professor of law at Rutgers from 1963 to 1972, teaching mainly civil procedure and receiving tenure in 1969. In 1970, she co-founded
3344-406: A follow-up interview with Ginsburg in 2012 at a joint appearance at Yale University , where Ginsburg claimed her 2009 quote was vastly misinterpreted and clarified her stance. Ginsburg filed an amicus brief and sat with counsel at oral argument for Craig v. Boren , 429 U.S. 190 (1976), which challenged an Oklahoma statute that set different minimum drinking ages for men and women. For
3520-461: A hearing before a Senate subcommittee lasted only fifteen minutes; the full Senate confirmed him on August 11, 1965. As Solicitor General, Marshall won fourteen of the nineteen Supreme Court cases he argued. He later characterized the position as "the most effective job" and "maybe the best" job he ever had. Marshall argued in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966) that conditioning
3696-516: A high school history teacher. Ruth attended James Madison High School , whose law program later dedicated a courtroom in her honor. Celia struggled with cancer throughout Ruth's high school years and died the day before Ruth's high school graduation. Ruth Bader attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York , where she was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. While at Cornell, she met Martin D. Ginsburg at age 17. She graduated from Cornell with
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#17328023333943872-456: A lack of resolve to implement desegregation even when faced with difficulties and public resistance. In a dissent in City of Memphis v. Greene that according to Tushnet "demonstrated his sense of the practical reality that formed the context for abstract legal issues", he argued that a street closure that made it more difficult for residents of an African-American neighborhood to reach a city park
4048-620: A law practice in Baltimore, but it was not financially successful, partially because he spent much of his time working for the benefit of the community. He volunteered with the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP). In 1935, Marshall and Houston brought suit against the University of Maryland on behalf of Donald Gaines Murray , an African American whose application to
4224-601: A like-minded successor, particularly while the Democratic Party held control of the U.S. Senate. Ginsburg reaffirmed her wish to remain a justice as long as she was mentally sharp enough to perform her duties. In 2013, Obama met with her in the White House to point out that Democrats might soon lose control of the Senate and nudge her toward stepping down, but she again refused. She opined that Republicans would use
4400-410: A little ironic that, after several hundred years of class-based discrimination against Negroes, the Court is unwilling to hold that a class-based remedy for that discrimination is permissible". Dissenting in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. , he rejected the majority's decision to strike down an affirmative-action program for government contractors, stating that he did "not believe that this Nation
4576-488: A moderate. Her service ended on August 9, 1993, due to her elevation to the United States Supreme Court, and she was replaced by Judge David S. Tatel . President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on June 22, 1993, to fill the seat vacated by retiring justice Byron White . She was recommended to Clinton by then–U.S. attorney general Janet Reno , after
4752-409: A more liberal successor for her than Obama would, or so that her successor could be nominated by the first female president. After Trump's victory in 2016 and the election of a Republican Senate, she would have had to wait until at least 2021 for a Democrat to be president, but died in office in September 2020 at age 87. Birth name#Maiden and married names A birth name is the name given to
4928-539: A mother before starting law school at Harvard, where she was one of the few women in her class. Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School , where she graduated joint first in her class. During the early 1960s she worked with the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, learned Swedish, and co-authored a book with Swedish jurist Anders Bruzelius ; her work in Sweden profoundly influenced her thinking on gender equality. She then became
5104-485: A person upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname , the given name , or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth register may by that fact alone become the person's legal name . The assumption in the Western world is often that the name from birth (or perhaps from baptism or brit milah ) will persist to adulthood in
5280-513: A professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School, teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field. Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women's rights , winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsel in
5456-487: A remedy to preserve judicial integrity and respect civil rights. She also rejected Roberts's assertion that suppression would not deter mistakes, contending making police pay a high price for mistakes would encourage them to take greater care. On January 26, 2009, Ginsburg wrote for a unanimous court in Arizona v. Johnson that a police officer may pat down an individual at a traffic stop provided reasonable suspicion by
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5632-499: A ruling upholding the convictions of civil rights protesters at the New York World's Fair . Marshall's dissents indicated that he favored broader interpretations of constitutional protections than did his colleagues. Marshall's nomination to the office of Solicitor General was widely viewed as a stepping stone to a Supreme Court appointment. Johnson pressured Southern senators not to obstruct Marshall's confirmation, and
5808-602: A seat on the DC Circuit vacated by Judge Harold Leventhal upon his death. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 18, 1980, and received her commission later that day. During her time as a judge on the DC Circuit, Ginsburg often found consensus with her colleagues including conservatives Robert H. Bork and Antonin Scalia. Her time on the court earned her a reputation as a "cautious jurist" and
5984-465: A significant role in giving meaning to the notion of constitutional rights." Marshall's jurisprudence was pragmatic and relied on his real-world experience as a lawyer and as an African American. He disagreed with the notion (favored by some of his conservative colleagues) that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the Founders' original understandings ; in a 1987 speech commemorating
6160-707: A starkly contrasting approach to Native American law. In December 2005, Ginsburg dissented in Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation , arguing that a state tax on fuel sold to Potawatomi retailers would impermissibly nullify the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation 's own tax authority. In 2008, when Ginsburg's precedent in Strate was used in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle Co. , she dissented in part and argued that
6336-563: A statute making it more difficult for a female service member (Frontiero) to claim an increased housing allowance for her husband than for a male service member seeking the same allowance for his wife. Ginsburg argued that the statute treated women as inferior, and the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 in Frontiero's favor. The court again ruled in Ginsburg's favor in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld , 420 U.S. 636 (1975), where Ginsburg represented
6512-471: A suggestion by Utah Republican senator Orrin Hatch . At the time of her nomination, Ginsburg was viewed as having been a moderate and a consensus-builder in her time on the appeals court. Clinton was reportedly looking to increase the Court's diversity, which Ginsburg did as the first Jewish justice since the 1969 resignation of Justice Abe Fortas . She was the second female and the first Jewish female justice of
6688-519: A system in which local schools were funded mainly through property taxes, arguing that the policy (which meant that poorer school districts obtained less money than richer ones) resulted in unconstitutional discrimination. His dissent in Harris v. McRae , in which the Court upheld the Hyde Amendment 's ban on the use of Medicaid funds to pay for abortions , rebuked the majority for applying
6864-582: A unified approach to which all the dissenting justices can agree. During Ginsburg's entire Supreme Court tenure from 1993 to 2020, she only hired one African-American clerk ( Paul J. Watford ). During her 13 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit , she never hired an African-American clerk, intern, or secretary. The lack of diversity was briefly an issue during her 1993 confirmation hearing. When this issue
7040-466: A waiter in hotels, in clubs, and on railroad cars, and his mother was an elementary school teacher. The family moved to New York City in search of better employment opportunities not long after Thurgood's birth; they returned to Baltimore when he was six years old. He was an energetic and boisterous child who frequently found himself in trouble. Following legal cases was one of William's hobbies, and Thurgood oftentimes went to court with him to observe
7216-443: A widower denied survivor benefits under Social Security, which permitted widows but not widowers to collect special benefits while caring for minor children. She argued that the statute discriminated against male survivors of workers by denying them the same protection as their female counterparts. In 1973, the same year Roe v. Wade was decided, Ginsburg filed a federal case to challenge involuntary sterilization , suing members of
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7392-537: Is anywhere close to eradicating racial discrimination or its vestiges". Marshall's most influential contribution to constitutional doctrine was his "sliding-scale" approach to the Equal Protection Clause, which posited that the judiciary should assess a law's constitutionality by balancing its goals against its impact on groups and rights. Dissenting in Dandridge v. Williams , a case in which
7568-495: Is named in his honor. Buildings named for Marshall include New York's 590-foot-high Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse (renamed in 2001), where he heard cases as an appellate judge, and the federal judicial center in Washington. He is the namesake of streets and schools throughout the nation. Marshall posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1993, and
7744-461: Is the masculine form. The term née , having feminine grammatical gender , can be used to denote a woman's surname at birth that has been replaced or changed. In most English-speaking cultures, it is specifically applied to a woman's maiden name after her surname has changed due to marriage. The term né can be used to denote a man's surname at birth that has subsequently been replaced or changed. The diacritic mark (the acute accent ) over
7920-614: The Miranda doctrine should be expanded and fully enforced. In cases involving the Sixth Amendment , he argued that defendants must have competent attorneys; dissenting in Strickland v. Washington , Marshall (parting ways with Brennan) rejected the majority's conclusion that defendants must prove prejudice in ineffective assistance of counsel cases. Marshall fervently opposed capital punishment throughout his time on
8096-626: The Women's Rights Law Reporter , the first law journal in the U.S. to focus exclusively on women's rights. From 1972 to 1980, she taught at Columbia Law School, where she became the first tenured woman and co-authored the first law school casebook on sex discrimination . She also spent a year as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 1977 to 1978. In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded
8272-646: The Bill of Rights . He joined the majority in Eisenstadt v. Baird to strike down a statute that prohibited the distribution or sale of contraceptives to unmarried persons, dissented when the Court in Bowers v. Hardwick upheld an anti-sodomy law , and dissented from the majority's decision in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health that the Constitution did not protect an unconditional right to die . On
8448-467: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 . In a 5–4 decision, the majority interpreted the statute of limitations as starting to run at the time of every pay period, even if a woman did not know she was being paid less than her male colleague until later. Ginsburg found the result absurd, pointing out that women often do not know they are being paid less, and therefore it was unfair to expect them to act at
8624-578: The Eugenics Board of North Carolina on behalf of Nial Ruth Cox, a mother who had been coercively sterilized under North Carolina's Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective program on penalty of her family losing welfare benefits. During a 2009 interview with Emily Bazelon of The New York Times , Ginsburg stated: "I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." Bazelon conducted
8800-533: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims, became law. Ginsburg was credited with helping to inspire the law. Ginsburg discussed her views on abortion and gender equality in a 2009 New York Times interview, in which she said, "[t]he basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman." Although Ginsburg consistently supported abortion rights and joined in
8976-507: The National Cathedral . The civil rights leader Vernon E. Jordan said that Marshall had "demonstrat[ed] that the law could be an instrument of liberation", while Chief Justice William Rehnquist gave a eulogy in which he said: "Inscribed above the front entrance to the Supreme Court building are the words 'Equal justice under law'. Surely no one individual did more to make these words a reality than Thurgood Marshall." Marshall
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#17328023333949152-457: The University of Missouri's law school was rejected on account of his race, he filed suit, arguing that his equal-protection rights had been violated because he had not been provided with a legal education substantially equivalent to that which white students received. After Missouri courts rejected Gaines's claims, Houston—joined by Marshall, who helped to prepare the brief—sought review in
9328-646: The Virginia Military Institute 's (VMI) male-only admissions policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . For Ginsburg, a state actor could not use gender to deny women equal protection; therefore VMI must allow women the opportunity to attend VMI with its unique educational methods. Ginsburg emphasized that the government must show an "exceedingly persuasive justification" to use
9504-510: The death penalty as it was an issue she might have to vote on if it came before the Court. At the same time, Ginsburg did answer questions about some potentially controversial issues. For instance, she affirmed her belief in a constitutional right to privacy and explained at some length her personal judicial philosophy and thoughts regarding gender equality. Ginsburg was more forthright in discussing her views on topics about which she had previously written. The United States Senate confirmed her by
9680-483: The doctrine of discovery in the majority opinion of City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York and concluded that the Oneida Indian Nation could not revive its ancient sovereignty over its historic land. The discovery doctrine has been used to grant ownership of Native American lands to colonial governments. The Oneida had lived in towns, grew extensive crops, and maintained trade routes to
9856-456: The e is considered significant to its spelling, and ultimately its meaning, but is sometimes omitted. According to Oxford University 's Dictionary of Modern English Usage , the terms are typically placed after the current surname (e.g., " Margaret Thatcher , née Roberts" or " Bill Clinton , né Blythe"). Since they are terms adopted into English (from French), they do not have to be italicized , but they often are. In Polish tradition ,
10032-571: The exclusionary rule applied to the states) did not apply retroactively, writing that the judiciary was "not free to circumscribe the application of a declared constitutional right". In United States v. Wilkins (1964), he concluded that the Fifth Amendment 's protection against double jeopardy applied to the states; in People of the State of New York v. Galamison (1965), he dissented from
10208-637: The separate but equal doctrine and held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. A staunch liberal, he frequently dissented as the Court became increasingly conservative. Born in Baltimore , Maryland, Marshall attended Lincoln University and the Howard University School of Law . At Howard, he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston , who taught his students to be "social engineers" willing to use
10384-635: The 1970s. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit , where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993. Between O'Connor's retirement in 2006 and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, she was the only female justice on the Supreme Court. During that time, Ginsburg became more forceful with her dissents, such as with Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007). Despite two bouts with cancer and public pleas from liberal law scholars, she decided not to retire in 2013 or 2014 when President Barack Obama and
10560-662: The Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights. As the Court became increasingly conservative, Marshall found himself dissenting in numerous cases regarding racial discrimination. When the majority held in Milliken v. Bradley that a lower court had gone too far in ordering busing to reduce racial imbalances between schools in Detroit, he dissented, criticizing his colleagues for what he viewed as
10736-501: The Constitution's bicentennial, he said: ... I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain
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#173280233339410912-645: The Court held that the First Amendment protected the right to burn the American flag. He favored the total separation of church and state , dissenting when the Court upheld in Lynch v. Donnelly a city's display of a nativity scene and joining the majority in Wallace v. Jaffree to strike down an Alabama law regarding prayer in schools. On the issue of the free exercise of religion , Marshall voted with
11088-586: The Court held unconstitutional the part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requiring federal preclearance before changing voting practices. Ginsburg wrote, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." Besides Grutter , Ginsburg wrote in favor of affirmative action in her dissent in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), in which
11264-487: The Court ruled an affirmative action policy unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored to the state's interest in diversity. She argued that "government decisionmakers may properly distinguish between policies of exclusion and inclusion...Actions designed to burden groups long denied full citizenship stature are not sensibly ranked with measures taken to hasten the day when entrenched discrimination and its after effects have been extirpated." In 1997, Ginsburg wrote
11440-466: The Court that "[m]easured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication. Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable." Legal scholar Cass Sunstein characterized Ginsburg as a "rational minimalist", a jurist who seeks to build cautiously on precedent rather than pushing the Constitution towards her own vision. The retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006 left Ginsburg as
11616-433: The Court to end all gender discrimination at once, Ginsburg charted a strategic course, taking aim at specific discriminatory statutes and building on each successive victory. She chose plaintiffs carefully, at times picking male plaintiffs to demonstrate that gender discrimination was harmful to both men and women. The laws Ginsburg targeted included those that on the surface appeared beneficial to women, but in fact reinforced
11792-437: The Court's decision not to suppress evidence due to a police officer's failure to update a computer system. In contrast to Roberts's emphasis on suppression as a means to deter police misconduct, Ginsburg took a more robust view on the use of suppression as a remedy for a violation of a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. Ginsburg viewed suppression as a way to prevent the government from profiting from mistakes, and therefore as
11968-527: The Court's opinion striking down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law in Stenberg v. Carhart , 530 U.S. 914 (2000), on the 40th anniversary of the Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113 (1973), she criticized the decision in Roe as terminating a nascent democratic movement to liberalize abortion laws which might have built a more durable consensus in support of abortion rights. Ginsburg
12144-639: The Court, Reed v. Reed , 404 U.S. 71 (1971), she cited two German cases. In her concurring opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger , 539 U.S. 306 (2003), a decision upholding Michigan Law School 's affirmative action admissions policy, Ginsburg noted there was accord between the notion that affirmative action admissions policies would have an end point and agrees with international treaties designed to combat racial and gender-based discrimination. In 2013, Ginsburg dissented in Shelby County v. Holder , in which
12320-486: The Court, arguing that it was cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment . He was the only justice with considerable experience defending those charged with capital crimes, and he expressed concern about the fact that injustices in death-penalty cases could not be remedied, often commenting: "Death is so lasting." In Furman v. Georgia , a case in which the Court struck down
12496-515: The Court. The 82-year-old justice announced on June 27, 1991, that he would retire. When asked at a press conference what was wrong with him that would cause him to leave the Court, he replied: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and coming apart!" President George H. W. Bush (whom Marshall loathed) nominated Clarence Thomas , a conservative who had served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, to replace Marshall. His retirement took effect on October 1. Marshall served as
12672-681: The Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Taken together, Ginsburg's legal victories discouraged legislatures from treating women and men differently under the law. She continued to work on the ACLU's Women's Rights Project until her appointment to the Federal Bench in 1980. Later, colleague Antonin Scalia praised Ginsburg's skills as an advocate. "She became the leading (and very successful) litigator on behalf of women's rights—the Thurgood Marshall of that cause, so to speak." This
12848-512: The Gulf of Mexico. In her opinion for the Court, Ginsburg reasoned that the historic Oneida land had been "converted from wilderness" ever since it was dislodged from the Oneidas' possession. She also reasoned that "the longstanding, distinctly non-Indian character of the area and its inhabitants" and "the regulatory authority constantly exercised by New York State and its counties and towns" justified
13024-530: The Supreme Court for a decade, wrote that "it was rare during our conference deliberations that he would not share an anecdote, a joke or a story"; although O'Connor initially treated the stories as "welcome diversions", she later "realized that behind most of the anecdotes was a relevant legal point". Marshall did not wish to retire—he frequently said "I was appointed to a life term, and I intend to serve it"—but he had been in ill health for many years, and Brennan's retirement in 1990 left him unhappy and isolated on
13200-453: The Supreme Court have not rated Marshall as highly as some of his colleagues: although his pre–Supreme Court legal career and his staunch liberalism have met with broad approval, a perception that he lacked substantial influence over his fellow justices has harmed his reputation. In Abraham's view, "he was one of America's greatest public lawyers, but he was not a great Supreme Court justice". A 1993 survey of legal scholars found that Marshall
13376-410: The Supreme Court's liberal bloc. According to the scholar William J. Daniels: "His approach to justice was Warren Court–style legal realism ... In his dissenting opinions he emphasized individual rights, fundamental fairness, equal opportunity and protection under the law, the supremacy of the Constitution as the embodiment of rights and privileges, and the Supreme Court's responsibility to play
13552-691: The Supreme Court, Marshall participated in over 3,400 cases and authored 322 majority opinions. He was a member of the unanimous majority in United States v. Nixon that rejected President Nixon's claims of absolute executive privilege . Marshall wrote several influential decisions in the fields of corporate law and securities law , including a frequently-cited opinion regarding materiality in TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc. His opinions involving personal jurisdiction , such as Shaffer v. Heitner , were pragmatic and de-emphasized
13728-475: The Supreme Court. He took the constitutional oath of office on October 2, 1967, becoming the first African American to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall remained on the Supreme Court for nearly twenty-four years, serving until his retirement in 1991. The Court to which he was appointed—the Warren Court —had a consistent liberal majority, and Marshall's jurisprudence
13904-550: The Supreme Court. Of the thirty-two civil rights cases that Marshall argued before the Supreme Court, he won twenty-nine. He and W. J. Durham wrote the brief in Smith v. Allwright (1944), in which the Court ruled the white primary unconstitutional, and he successfully argued both Morgan v. Virginia (1946), involving segregation on interstate buses, and a companion case to Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), involving racially restrictive covenants . From 1939 to 1947, Marshall
14080-587: The Supreme Court. She eventually became the longest-serving Jewish justice. The American Bar Association 's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary rated Ginsburg as "well qualified", its highest rating for a prospective justice. During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the confirmation hearings , Ginsburg refused to answer questions about her view on the constitutionality of some issues such as
14256-405: The Supreme Court; despite opposition from Southern senators , he was confirmed by a vote of 69 to 11. He was often in the majority during the consistently liberal Warren Court period, but after appointments by President Richard Nixon made the Court more conservative, Marshall frequently found himself in dissent. His closest ally on the Court was Justice William J. Brennan Jr. , and the two voted
14432-451: The U.S. Supreme Court. They did not challenge the Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had accepted the " separate but equal " doctrine; instead, they argued that Gaines had been denied an equal education. In an opinion by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes , the Court held that if Missouri gave whites the opportunity to attend law school in-state, it was required to do
14608-607: The United States and therefore did not apply nationwide, but it pleased Marshall, who later said that he had filed the lawsuit "to get even with the bastards" who had kept him from attending the school himself. In 1936, Marshall joined Houston, who had been appointed as the NAACP's special counsel, in New York City, serving as his assistant. They worked together on the landmark case of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) . When Lloyd Lionel Gaines 's application to
14784-534: The Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and in 1973, she became the Project's general counsel. The Women's Rights Project and related ACLU projects participated in more than 300 gender discrimination cases by 1974. As the director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court between 1973 and 1976, winning five. Rather than asking
14960-606: The ability to vote on the payment of a poll tax was unlawful; in a companion case to Miranda v. Arizona (1966), he unsuccessfully maintained on behalf of the government that federal agents were not always required to inform arrested individuals of their rights. He defended the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966) and Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966), winning both cases. In February 1967, Johnson nominated Ramsey Clark to be Attorney General . The nominee's father
15136-434: The activities of nonmembers who have a relationship with the tribe. Ginsburg noted that the driver's employer did have a relationship with the tribe, but she reasoned that the tribe could not regulate their activities because the victim had no relationship to the tribe. Ginsburg concluded that although "those who drive carelessly on a public highway running through a reservation endanger all in the vicinity, and surely jeopardize
15312-558: The all-white University of Maryland Law School —applied to Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and was admitted. At Howard, he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston , who taught his students to be "social engineers" willing to use the law as a vehicle to fight for civil rights. Marshall graduated in June 1933 ranked first in his class, and he passed the Maryland bar examination later that year. Marshall started
15488-514: The application of such a policy when the district had failed to identify either a significant drug risk among the students or in the school. In doing so, Ginsburg contrasted the case with Vernonia School District v. Acton which had permitted drug testing due to 'special needs' of athlete participation , acknowledging her prior agreement with the verdict but stating that such an opinion "cannot be read to endorse invasive and suspicionless drug testing of all students". Although Ginsburg did not author
15664-582: The appointment of Warren Burger to replace Earl Warren in 1969. Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933, at Beth Moses Hospital in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the second daughter of Celia (née Amster) and Nathan Bader, who lived in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood. Her father was a Jewish emigrant from Odesa , Ukraine , at that time part of the Russian Empire , and her mother
15840-628: The brief for Reed v. Reed , 404 U.S. 71 (1971), in which the Supreme Court extended the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to women. In 1972, she argued before the 10th Circuit in Moritz v. Commissioner on behalf of a man who had been denied a caregiver deduction because of his gender. As amicus she argued in Frontiero v. Richardson , 411 U.S. 677 (1973), which challenged
16016-471: The campus. Such a public forum was thus legally obligated to provide equal access via open membership and was determined to not be required to officially recognize a student group at odds with it. On June 27, 2002, Ginsburg dissented in Board of Education v. Earls which permitted schools to enact mandatory drug testing on students partaking in extracurricular activities . In her dissent, Ginsburg criticized
16192-533: The capital-punishment statutes that were in force at the time, Marshall wrote that the death penalty was "morally unacceptable to the people of the United States at this time in their history" and that it "falls upon the poor, the ignorant, and the underprivileged members of society". When the Court in Gregg v. Georgia upheld new death-penalty laws that required juries to consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances , he dissented, describing capital punishment as
16368-455: The conditions of segregation exist". The five cases eventually reached the Supreme Court and were argued in December 1952. In contrast to the oratorical rhetoric of his adversary— John W. Davis , a former solicitor general and presidential candidate—Marshall spoke plainly and conversationally. He stated that the only possible justification for segregation "is an inherent determination that
16544-417: The conviction of a Georgia man charged with possessing pornography, writing: "If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch." In Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 400 v. Logan Valley Plaza , he wrote for the Court that protesters had the right to picket on private property that
16720-523: The death of her husband, she denied she was planning to step down. In an interview in August 2010, Ginsburg said her work on the Court was helping her cope with the death of her husband. She also expressed a wish to emulate Justice Louis Brandeis 's service of nearly 23 years, which she achieved in April 2016. Several times during the presidency of Barack Obama , progressive attorneys and activists called for Ginsburg to retire so that Obama could appoint
16896-527: The death sentence in this case." According to Ball, Marshall felt that the rights protected by the First Amendment were the Constitution's most important principles and that they could be restricted only for extremely compelling reasons. In a 1969 opinion in Stanley v. Georgia , he held that it was unconstitutional to criminalize the possession of obscene material . For the Court, he reversed
17072-526: The effect of a strip search on a 13-year-old girl. As she said, "They have never been a 13-year-old girl." In an 8–1 decision, the Court agreed that the school's search violated the Fourth Amendment and allowed the student's lawsuit against the school to go forward. Only Ginsburg and Stevens would have allowed the student to sue individual school officials as well. In Herring v. United States , 555 U.S. 135 (2009), Ginsburg dissented from
17248-454: The encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, so long as those inquiries do not measurably extend the duration of the stop". On April 21, 2015, Ginsburg authored the majority opinion in Rodriguez v. United States stating that an officer may not extend the length of a standard traffic stop to conduct a search with a detection dog . In her opinion, Ginsburg stated that the use of
17424-406: The end of Ginsburg's oral argument, then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist asked Ginsburg, "You won't settle for putting Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar , then?" Ginsburg said she considered responding, "We won't settle for tokens," but instead opted not to answer the question. Legal scholars and advocates credit Ginsburg's body of work with making significant legal advances for women under
17600-601: The field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." When Marshall heard Warren read those words, he later said, "I was so happy I was numb". The Court in Brown ordered additional arguments on the proper remedy for the constitutional violation that it had identified; in Brown II , decided in 1955, the justices ordered that desegregation proceed "with all deliberate speed". Their refusal to set
17776-480: The first time, the court imposed what is known as intermediate scrutiny on laws discriminating based on gender, a heightened standard of Constitutional review. Her last case as an attorney before the Supreme Court was Duren v. Missouri , 439 U.S. 357 (1979), which challenged the validity of voluntary jury duty for women, on the ground that participation in jury duty was a citizen's vital governmental service and therefore should not be optional for women. At
17952-468: The full Senate confirmed him by a 56–14 vote on September 11, 1962. On the Second Circuit, Marshall authored 98 majority opinions, none of which was reversed by the Supreme Court, as well as 8 concurrences and 12 dissents. He dissented when a majority held in the Fourth Amendment case of United States ex rel. Angelet v. Fay (1964) that the Supreme Court's 1961 decision in Mapp v. Ohio (which held that
18128-445: The idea that he "was a lazy Justice uninterested in the Court's work ... is wrong and perhaps racist". Marshall's closest colleague and friend on the Court was Brennan, and the two justices agreed so often that their clerks privately referred to them as "Justice Brennanmarshall". He also had a high regard for Warren, whom he described as "probably the greatest Chief Justice who ever lived". Marshall consistently sided with
18304-921: The importance of state boundaries. According to Tushnet, Marshall was "the Court's liberal specialist in Native American law "; he endeavored to protect Native Americans from regulatory action on the part of the states. He favored a rigid interpretation of procedural requirements, saying in one case that "rules mean what they say"—a position that in Tushnet's view was motivated by the justice's "traditionalist streak". Like most Supreme Court justices, many of Marshall's law clerks went on to become prominent lawyers and legal scholars. His clerks included future Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan , U.S. circuit judge Douglas H. Ginsburg , and legal scholars Cass Sunstein , Mark Tushnet , and Martha Minow . Marshall wed Vivian "Buster" Burey on September 4, 1929, while he
18480-411: The interests of African Americans without incurring enormous political costs", nominated Marshall to be a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on September 23, 1961. The Second Circuit, which spanned New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, was at the time the nation's prominent appellate court. When Congress adjourned, Kennedy gave Marshall a recess appointment , and he took
18656-689: The issue of abortion rights, the author Carl T. Rowan comments that "no justice ever supported a woman's right to choice as uncompromisingly as Marshall did". He joined Blackmun's opinion for the Court in Roe v. Wade , which held that the Constitution protected a woman's right to have an abortion, and he consistently voted against state laws that sought to limit that right in cases such as Maher v. Roe , H. L. v. Matheson , Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health , Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists , and Webster v. Reproductive Health Services . During his service on
18832-464: The judges included women and minority groups, a matter that was important to President Jimmy Carter who had been elected two years before. The bill also required that the nomination process consider the character and experience of the candidates. Ginsburg was considering a change in career as soon as Carter was elected. She was interviewed by the Department of Justice to become Solicitor General ,
19008-496: The judges whom Ginsburg observed for her research was eight months pregnant and still working. Bruzelius' daughter, Norwegian supreme court justice and president of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights , Karin M. Bruzelius , herself a law student when Ginsburg worked with her father, said that "by getting close to my family, Ruth realized that one could live in a completely different way, that women could have
19184-486: The judicial filibuster to prevent Obama from appointing a jurist like herself. She stated that she had a new model to emulate in her former colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at the age of 90 after nearly 35 years on the bench. Lawyer and author Linda Hirshman believed that, in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election , Ginsburg was waiting for candidate Hillary Clinton to beat candidate Donald Trump before retiring, because Clinton would nominate
19360-452: The justice was "an unyielding supporter of civil liberties", whose "commitment to the values of the First Amendment was enhanced from actually realizing the historical consequences of being on the weaker and poorer side of power". In Marshall's view, the Constitution guaranteed to all citizens the right to privacy ; he felt that although the Constitution nowhere mentioned such a right expressly, it could be inferred from various provisions of
19536-472: The law . She was popularly dubbed " the Notorious R.B.G. ", a moniker she later embraced. Ginsburg was born and grew up in Brooklyn , New York. Just over a year later her older sister and only sibling, Marilyn, died of meningitis at the age of six. Her mother died shortly before she graduated from high school. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University and married Martin D. Ginsburg , becoming
19712-819: The law to fight for civil rights. Marshall opened a law practice in Baltimore but soon joined Houston at the NAACP in New York. They worked together on the segregation case of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada ; after Houston returned to Washington, Marshall took his place as special counsel of the NAACP, and he became director-counsel of the newly formed NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He participated in numerous landmark Supreme Court cases involving civil rights, including Smith v. Allwright , Morgan v. Virginia , Shelley v. Kraemer , McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , Sweatt v. Painter , Brown , and Cooper v. Aaron . His approach to desegregation cases emphasized
19888-465: The legal scholar Mark Tushnet "gradually became a civil rights leader more than a civil rights lawyer", spent substantial amounts of time giving speeches and fundraising; in 1960, he accepted an invitation from Tom Mboya to help draft Kenya's constitution . By that year, Tushnet writes, he had become "the country's most prominent Supreme Court advocate". President John F. Kennedy , who according to Tushnet "wanted to demonstrate his commitment to
20064-578: The majority in Wisconsin v. Yoder to hold that a school attendance law could not be constitutionally applied to the Amish , and he joined Justice Harry Blackmun 's dissent when the Court in Employment Division v. Smith upheld a restriction on religious uses of peyote and curtailed Sherbert v. Verner 's strict scrutiny standard. In the view of J. Clay Smith Jr. and Scott Burrell,
20240-544: The majority opinion in Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. , in which the Court held that residents have standing to seek fines for an industrial polluter that affected their interests and that is able to continue doing so. When John Paul Stevens retired in 2010, Ginsburg became the oldest justice on the court at age 77. Despite rumors that she would retire because of advancing age, poor health, and
20416-611: The majority opinion in Strate v. A-1 Contractors against tribal jurisdiction over tribal-owned land in a reservation. The case involved a nonmember who caused a car crash in the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation . Ginsburg reasoned that the state right-of-way on which the crash occurred rendered the tribal-owned land equivalent to non-Indian land. She then considered the rule set in Montana v. United States , which allows tribes to regulate
20592-477: The majority opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez relating to a campus policy of acceptance of all students, regardless of status or belief, in becoming an officially recognized student group . Ginsburg ruled that a religious-based group stood at odds with an "all-comers" campus policy by singling out a religious group for exclusion in a manner at odds with the "limited public forum" of
20768-445: The majority opinion, she was credited with influencing her colleagues on Safford Unified School District v. Redding , 557 U.S. 364 (2009), which held that a school went too far in ordering a 13-year-old female student to strip to her bra and underpants so female officials could search for drugs. In an interview published prior to the Court's decision, Ginsburg shared her view that some of her colleagues did not fully appreciate
20944-473: The majority refused to review a death sentence. He favored a robust interpretation of the First Amendment in decisions such as Stanley v. Georgia , and he supported abortion rights in Roe v. Wade and other cases. Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991 and was replaced by Clarence Thomas . He died in 1993. Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore , Maryland, to Norma and William Canfield Marshall. His father held various jobs as
21120-529: The majority upheld Maryland's $ 250-a-month cap on welfare payments against claims that it was insufficient for large families, he argued that rational basis review was not appropriate in cases involving "the literally vital interests of a powerless minority". In what Cass Sunstein described as the justice's greatest opinion, Marshall dissented when the Court in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez upheld
21296-403: The nominee's liberal jurisprudence. In what Time magazine characterized as a "Yahoo-type hazing", Thurmond asked Marshall over sixty questions about various minor aspects of the history of certain constitutional provisions. By an 11–5 vote on August 3, the committee recommended that Marshall be confirmed. On August 30, after six hours of debate, senators voted 69–11 to confirm Marshall to
21472-405: The normal course of affairs—either throughout life or until marriage. Some reasons for changes of a person's name include middle names , diminutive forms, changes relating to parental status (due to one's parents' divorce or adoption by different parents), and gender transition . The French and English-adopted née is the feminine past participle of naître , which means "to be born". Né
21648-406: The notion that women needed to be dependent on men. Her strategic advocacy extended to word choice, favoring the use of "gender" instead of "sex", after her secretary suggested the word "sex" would serve as a distraction to judges. She attained a reputation as a skilled oral advocate, and her work led directly to the end of gender discrimination in many areas of the law. Ginsburg volunteered to write
21824-415: The oath of office on October 23. Even after his recess appointment, Southern senators continued to delay Marshall's full confirmation for more than eight months. A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed his hearing several times, leading Senator Kenneth Keating , a New York Republican, to charge that the three-member subcommittee, which included two pro-segregation Southern Democrats,
22000-411: The officer the individual was armed and dangerous. In her opinion, Ginsburg concluded that the "combined thrust" of past opinions such as Terry v. Ohio and Pennsylvania v. Mimms provided officers the authority to conduct such a search provided reasonable suspicion of danger by the individual. Additionally, Ginsburg noted that comments made by the officer unrelated to the traffic stop "do not convert
22176-446: The oldest college for African Americans in the United States. The mischievous Marshall was suspended for two weeks in the wake of a hazing incident, but he earned good grades in his classes and led the school's debating team to numerous victories. His classmates included the poet Langston Hughes . Upon his graduation with honors in 1930 with a bachelor's degree in American literature and philosophy, Marshall—being unable to attend
22352-407: The only woman on the Court. Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times referred to the subsequent 2006–2007 term of the Court as "the time when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found her voice, and used it". The term also marked the first time in Ginsburg's history with the Court where she read multiple dissents from the bench, a tactic employed to signal more intense disagreement with the majority. With
22528-519: The opinion of the Court in Benton v. Maryland , which held that the Constitution's prohibition of double jeopardy applied to the states. After the retirements of Warren and Justice Hugo Black , however, "Marshall was continually shocked at the refusal" of the Burger and Rehnquist Courts "to hold police and those involved in the criminal justice system responsible for acting according to the language and
22704-438: The opportunity and guaranteeing to provide the judge with a replacement clerk should Ginsburg not succeed. Later that year, Ginsburg began her clerkship for Judge Palmieri, and she held the position for two years. From 1961 to 1963, Ginsburg was a research associate and then an associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, working alongside director Hans Smit ; she learned Swedish to co-author
22880-506: The people who were formerly in slavery, regardless of anything else, shall be kept as near that stage as possible. And now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for." On May 17, 1954, after internal disagreements and a 1953 reargument, the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education , holding in an opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren that: "in
23056-403: The phrase "Ginsburg precedent" to defend his demurrers . In a September 28, 2005, speech at Wake Forest University , Ginsburg said Roberts's refusal to answer questions during his Senate confirmation hearings on some cases was "unquestionably right". Ginsburg characterized her performance on the Court as a cautious approach to adjudication. She argued in a speech shortly before her nomination to
23232-533: The position she most desired, but knew that she and the African-American candidate who was interviewed the same day had little chance of being appointed by Attorney General Griffin Bell . At the time, Ginsburg was a fellow at Stanford University where she was working on a written account of her work in litigation and advocacy for equal rights. Her husband was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and
23408-426: The practice of their religious beliefs. In doing so, Ginsburg held that RLUIPA was a valid accommodation permitted by the First Amendment's Establishment Clause . In addition, Ginsburg acknowledged that the free exercise of religion encompasses both belief and action but noted that accommodation of a religious belief did not predispose equal accommodation for a non-secular preference. On June 28, 2010, Ginsburg wrote
23584-623: The proceedings. Marshall later said that his father "never told me to become a lawyer, but he turned me into one ... He taught me how to argue, challenged my logic on every point, by making me prove every statement I made, even if we were discussing the weather." Marshall attended the Colored High and Training School (later Frederick Douglass High School ) in Baltimore, graduating in 1925 with honors. He then enrolled at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania ,
23760-493: The prosecution of thirty-two right wing opponents of Roosevelt's pre-war foreign policy in the Sedition Trial of 1944 violated the First Amendment. In the years after 1945, Marshall resumed his offensive against racial segregation in schools. Together with his Inc Fund colleagues, he devised a strategy that emphasized the inherent educational disparities caused by segregation rather than the physical differences between
23936-487: The provisions of schools for blacks that were inferior to those provided for whites. Marshall next turned to the issue of segregation in primary and secondary schools. The NAACP brought suit to challenge segregated schools in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia, arguing both that there were disparities between the physical facilities provided for blacks and whites and that segregation
24112-461: The retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens , Ginsburg became the senior member of what was sometimes referred to as the Court's "liberal wing". When the Court split 5–4 along ideological lines and the liberal justices were in the minority, Ginsburg often had the authority to assign authorship of the dissenting opinion because of her seniority. Ginsburg was a proponent of the liberal dissenters speaking "with one voice" and, where practicable, presenting
24288-561: The right time to do it, the right man and the right place." The public received the nomination favorably, and Marshall was praised by prominent senators from both parties. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings for five days in July. Marshall faced harsh criticism from such senators as Mississippi's James O. Eastland , North Carolina's Sam Ervin Jr. , Arkansas's John McClellan , and South Carolina's Strom Thurmond , all of whom opposed
24464-507: The ruling. Ginsburg also invoked, sua sponte , the doctrine of laches , reasoning that the Oneidas took a "long delay in seeking judicial relief". She also reasoned that the dispossession of the Oneidas' land was "ancient". Lower courts later relied on Sherrill as precedent to extinguish Native American land claims, including in Cayuga Indian Nation of New York v. Pataki . Less than a year after Sherrill , Ginsburg offered
24640-495: The safety of tribal members", having a nonmember go before an "unfamiliar court" was "not crucial to the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the Three Affiliated Tribes" (internal quotations and brackets omitted). The decision, by a unanimous Court, was generally criticized by scholars of Indian law, such as David Getches and Frank Pommersheim . Later in 2005, Ginsburg cited
24816-527: The same for blacks. Houston returned to Washington in 1938, and Marshall assumed his position as special counsel the following year. He also became the director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. (the Inc Fund), which had been established as a separate organization for tax purposes. In addition to litigating cases and arguing matters before the Supreme Court, he
24992-496: The same way in most cases. Marshall's jurisprudence was pragmatic and drew on his real-world experience. His most influential contribution to constitutional doctrine, the "sliding-scale" approach to the Equal Protection Clause , called on courts to apply a flexible balancing test instead of a more rigid tier-based analysis . He fervently opposed the death penalty , which in his view constituted cruel and unusual punishment ; he and Brennan dissented in more than 1,400 cases in which
25168-532: The scholar Henry J. Abraham . Although the President briefly considered selecting William H. Hastie (an African-American appellate judge from Philadelphia) or a female candidate, he decided to choose Marshall. Johnson announced the nomination in the White House Rose Garden on June 13, declaring that Marshall "deserves the appointment ... I believe that it is the right thing to do,
25344-615: The schools provided for blacks and whites. The Court ruled in Marshall's favor in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma (1948), ordering that Oklahoma provide Ada Lois Sipuel with a legal education, although the justices declined to order that she be admitted to the state's law school for whites. In 1950, Marshall brought two cases involving education to the Court: McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , which
25520-532: The spirit of fundamental procedural guarantees", according to Ball. He favored a strict interpretation of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and opposed rulings that made exceptions to that provision; in United States v. Ross , for instance, he indignantly dissented when the Court upheld a conviction that was based on evidence discovered during a warrantless search of containers that had been found in an automobile. Marshall felt strongly that
25696-470: The system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, that we hold as fundamental today ... "We the People" no longer enslave, but the credit does not belong to the framers. It belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of "liberty", "justice", and "equality", and who strived to better them ... I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of
25872-638: The teacher call her daughter by her second name, Ruth, to avoid confusion. Although not devout, the Bader family belonged to East Midwood Jewish Center , a Conservative synagogue, where Ruth learned tenets of the Jewish faith and gained familiarity with the Hebrew language . Ruth was not allowed to have a bat mitzvah ceremony because of Orthodox restrictions on women reading from the Torah, which upset her. Starting as
26048-452: The term z domu (literally meaning "of the house", de domo in Latin ) may be used, with rare exceptions, meaning the same as née . Thurgood Marshall Thoroughgood " Thurgood " Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He
26224-408: The time of each paycheck. She also called attention to the reluctance women may have in male-dominated fields to making waves by filing lawsuits over small amounts, choosing instead to wait until the disparity accumulates. As part of her dissent, Ginsburg called on Congress to amend Title VII to undo the Court's decision with legislation. Following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008,
26400-586: The time was viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor . During her tenure, Ginsburg authored the majority opinions in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005). Later in her tenure, Ginsburg received attention for passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of
26576-592: The traffic stop. Ginsburg advocated the use of foreign law and norms to shape U.S. law in judicial opinions, a view rejected by some of her conservative colleagues. Ginsburg supported using foreign interpretations of law for persuasive value and possible wisdom, not as binding precedent. Ginsburg expressed the view that consulting international law is a well-ingrained tradition in American law, counting John Henry Wigmore and President John Adams as internationalists. Ginsburg's own reliance on international law dated back to her time as an attorney; in her first argument before
26752-652: The tribal court of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation had jurisdiction over the case. In 2020, Ginsburg joined the ruling of McGirt v. Oklahoma , which affirmed Native American jurisdictions over reservations in much of Oklahoma. In 1999, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Olmstead v. L.C. , in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 . In 2000, Ginsburg wrote
26928-533: The university's law school had been rejected on account of his race. In that case— Murray v. Pearson —Judge Eugene O'Dunne ordered that Murray be admitted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it violated equal protection to admit white students to the law school while keeping blacks from being educated in-state. The decision was never appealed to the Supreme Court of
27104-407: The use of sociological data to show that segregation was inherently unequal. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit , where he favored a broad interpretation of constitutional protections. Four years later, Johnson appointed him as the U.S. Solicitor General . In 1967, Johnson nominated Marshall to replace Justice Tom C. Clark on
27280-523: Was George W. McLaurin 's challenge to unequal treatment at the University of Oklahoma 's graduate school, and Sweatt v. Painter , which was Heman Sweatt 's challenge to his being required to attend a blacks-only law school in Texas. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of both McLaurin and Sweatt on the same day; although the justices did not overrule Plessy and the separate but equal doctrine, they rejected discrimination against African-American students and
27456-403: Was Tom C. Clark , an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Fearing that his son's appointment would create substantial conflicts of interest for him, the elder Clark announced his resignation from the Court. For Johnson, who had long desired to nominate a non-white justice, the choice of a nominee to fill the ensuing vacancy "was as easy as it was obvious", according to
27632-422: Was "one of the greatest leaders in the history of the African-American struggle for freedom and equality". A 1999 survey of black political scientists listed Marshall as one of the ten greatest African-American leaders in history; panelists described him as the "greatest jurist of the twentieth century" and stated that he "spearheaded the creation of the legal foundations of the civil rights movement". Scholars of
27808-578: Was a comparison that had first been made by former solicitor general Erwin Griswold who was also her former professor and dean at Harvard Law School, in a speech given in 1985. In light of the mounting backlog in the federal judiciary, Congress passed the Omnibus Judgeship Act of 1978 increasing the number of federal judges by 117 in district courts and another 35 to be added to the circuit courts. The law placed an emphasis on ensuring that
27984-483: Was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union . During that period, he aligned with the faction which favored a more absolutist defense of civil liberties. Most notably, unlike the majority of the Board, he was consistent in his opposition to Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 , which put Japanese Americans into concentration camps. Also, in contrast to most of the Board, Marshall charged that
28160-477: Was a student at Lincoln University. They remained married until her death from cancer in 1955. Marshall married Cecilia "Cissy" Suyat , an NAACP secretary, eleven months later; they had two children: Thurgood Jr. and John . Thurgood Jr. became an attorney and worked in the Clinton administration , and John directed the U.S. Marshals Service and served as Virginia's secretary of public safety . Marshall
28336-544: Was an active member of the Episcopal Church and served as a delegate to its 1964 convention, walking out after a resolution to recognize a right to disobey immoral segregation laws was voted down. He was a Prince Hall Mason , attending meetings and participating in rituals. He refused to attend the Supreme Court's annual Christmas party believing that it infringed upon the separation of church and state. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor , who served with Marshall on
28512-519: Was biased against Marshall and engaged in unjustifiable delay. The subcommittee held several hearings between May and August 1962; Marshall faced harsh questioning from the Southerners over what the scholar Howard Ball described as "marginal issues at best". After further delays from the subcommittee, the full Judiciary Committee bypassed it and, by an 11–4 vote on September 7, endorsed Marshall's nomination. Following five hours of floor debate,
28688-445: Was born in New York to Jewish parents who came from Kraków , Poland , at that time part of Austria-Hungary . The Baders' elder daughter Marylin died of meningitis at age six. Joan, who was 14 months old when Marylin died, was known to the family as "Kiki", a nickname Marylin had given her for being "a kicky baby". When Joan started school, Celia discovered that her daughter's class had several other girls named Joan, so Celia suggested
28864-414: Was buried at Arlington National Cemetery . According to the scholar Daniel Moak, Marshall "profoundly shaped the political direction of the United States", "transformed constitutional law", and "opened up new facets of citizenship to black Americans". For Tushnet, he was "probably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century"; in the view of the political scientist Robert C. Smith , he
29040-463: Was in the minority for Gonzales v. Carhart , 550 U.S. 124 (2007), a 5–4 decision upholding restrictions on partial birth abortion. In her dissent, Ginsburg opposed the majority's decision to defer to legislative findings that the procedure was not safe for women. Ginsburg focused her ire on the way Congress reached its findings and with their veracity. Joining the majority for Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt , 579 U.S. 582 (2016),
29216-488: Was inherently harmful to African-American children. Marshall helped to try the South Carolina case. He called numerous social scientists and other expert witnesses to testify regarding the harms of segregation; these included the psychology professor Ken Clark , who testified that segregation in schools caused self-hatred among African-American students and inflicted damage that was "likely to endure as long as
29392-555: Was not as conservative as some observers had anticipated, but the task of constructing liberal majorities case-by-case was left primarily to Brennan; Marshall's most consequential contributions to constitutional law came in dissent. The justice left much of his work to his law clerks , preferring to determine the outcome of the case and then allow the clerks to draft the opinion themselves. He took umbrage at frequent claims that he did no work and spent his time watching daytime soap operas ; according to Tushnet, who clerked for Marshall,
29568-414: Was one of only 9 women in a class of about 500 men. The dean of Harvard Law , Erwin Griswold , reportedly invited all the female law students to dinner at his family home and asked the female law students, including Ginsburg, "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?" When her husband took a job in New York City, that same dean denied Ginsburg's request to complete her third year towards
29744-739: Was open to the public—a decision that was effectively overruled (over Marshall's dissent) four years later in Lloyd Corporation v. Tanner . He emphasized equality in his free speech opinions, writing in Chicago Police Dept. v. Mosley that "above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its messages, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content". Making comparisons to earlier civil rights protests, Marshall vigorously dissented in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence ,
29920-499: Was raised by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ginsburg stated that "If you confirm me for this job, my attractiveness to black candidates is going to improve." This issue received renewed attention after more than a hundred of her former legal clerks served as pallbearers during her funeral . Ginsburg authored the Court's opinion in United States v. Virginia , 518 U.S. 515 (1996), which struck down
30096-608: Was ranked as the seventeenth-greatest justice of the Supreme Court—a rating that, while still lower than that of his fellow liberal justices, was substantially higher than was recorded in an earlier survey. Marshall has received numerous tributes. The state of Maryland renamed Baltimore's airport the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in 2005, and the University of Maryland's law library
30272-411: Was ready to leave his firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges , for a tenured position. He was at the same time working hard to promote a possible judgeship for his wife. In January 1979, she filled out the questionnaire for possible nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit , and another for the District of Columbia Circuit . Ginsburg was nominated by President Carter on April 14, 1980, to
30448-447: Was responsible for raising money, managing the Inc Fund, and conducting public-relations work. Marshall litigated a number of cases involving unequal salaries for African Americans, winning nearly all of them; by 1945, he had ended salary disparities in major Southern cities and earned a reputation as a prominent figure in the civil rights movement. He also defended individuals who had been charged with crimes before both trial courts and
30624-406: Was similar to that of its leaders, Chief Justice Warren and Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Although he wrote few major opinions during this period due to his lack of seniority, he was typically in the majority. As a result of four Supreme Court appointments by President Richard Nixon , however, the liberal coalition vanished. The Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger (the Burger Court )
30800-472: Was the Supreme Court's first African-American justice. Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund . Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education , which rejected
30976-408: Was unconstitutional because it sent "a plain and powerful symbolic message" to blacks "that because of their race, they are to stay out of the all-white enclave ... and should instead take the long way around". Marshall felt that affirmative action was both necessary and constitutional; in an opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke , he commented that it was "more than
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