Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Former Rutgers Law Professor Led the Campaign for Gender Equality

She recognized discriminatory laws hurt women—and men—and sought to revamp them one case at a time.

BY ROYA RAFEI

In the late 1960s, a group of Rutgers Law “Rutgers students sparked my interest and School students in Newark asked their profes- aided in charting the course I then pursued,” sor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to lead a seminar on she says in Our Revolutionary Spirit, a short women and the law. Ginsburg, who was one of film on Rutgers’ 250th anniversary. “Less than only two female law professors at Rutgers and a three years after starting the seminar, I was handful in the country, seemed the right person arguing gender discrimination cases before the to teach the class. Supreme Court.” Around the same time the students sought “I surely would not be in this room today without Ginsburg, the New Jersey chapter of the Amer- the determined efforts of men and women who kept ican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was receiv- ing a new set of complaints. It was a few years dreams of equal citizenship alive in days when few after the Civil Rights Act became law. Women would listen. People like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth were reporting discriminatory practices at their workplaces: a school secretary was told she Cady Stanton, and Harriet Tubman come to mind. I had to leave her job as soon as her pregnancy stand on the shoulders of those brave people.” became apparent; a married factory worker was told the company’s family health insurance was —Ruth Bader Ginsburg, during the 1993 nomination hearings for only offered to male employees. Even girls in her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court public schools were receiving unfair treatment. In preparing for the class, Ginsburg, now A summer engineering program in Princeton for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, quickly learned low-income sixth-graders only permitted boys The U.S. Supreme there wasn’t much to study on the subject— to attend. Court Building was and in fact, there was a large gap in the law on The ACLU chapter, based in Newark, completed in 1935, gender equality. That request from her students turned to Ginsburg to handle the cases. 15 years after began Ginsburg’s journey to becoming a pioneer The turning point for women’s equality came women won the in women’s legal rights. in 1971 when Ginsburg was still at Rutgers. right to vote. In Reed v. Reed, the Supreme Court ruled—for “We had a big influx of women in the ’60s with second careers,” says Professor Frank Askin, a 1966 Rutgers Law School graduate who worked with Ginsburg at the ACLU. A request by her “They needed a mentor and she provided that.” students at Rutgers One of those women was Elizabeth Langer, a Law School sparked 1973 Rutgers Law School graduate, who served Ruth Bader as the coordinating editor of the Women’s Rights Ginsburg’s journey Law Reporter from 1972 to 1973. The publica- to becoming a tion, founded in 1971 by Ann Marie Boylan, pioneer in women’s was the first law journal in the country to focus legal rights. This exclusively on women’s rights. The struggling photo was taken at journal, which published its first issue in New the law school, York before coming to Rutgers, needed a faculty where she taught adviser and Ginsburg seemed the logical choice. from 1963 to 1972. Ginsburg was already on the advisory board for the first issue but serving as its adviser meant she would have a more significant role in the the first time—that an Idaho statute on estate journal’s content and production. administration was unconstitutional because it “I was surprised she was willing to do discriminated based on gender. Ginsburg was it,” Langer recalls. “The Women’s Rights Law the principal author of the brief in the landmark Reporter was nothing. It was dying … We had decision. Soon after Reed, the ACLU created the no money, no faculty, no backing ... She went Women’s Rights Project, dedicated to gender where other people wouldn’t go. She took a leap. discrimination litigation, and named Ginsburg “Once she came on board, everything fell into its codirector. place,” Langer continues. “We felt empowered.” Ginsburg eventually argued six cases before Ginsburg taught at Rutgers from 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court and won five of them. to 1972. She left Rutgers for Columbia Law During the 1960s and 1970s, Rutgers Law School, becoming the first female professor to School, which at the time was known as the earn tenure there. School of Law–Newark, was at the forefront Diane Crothers, a 1974 Rutgers Law School of the social justice movement. It was ahead of graduate, who cofounded the Women’s Rights other schools in admitting women and other Law Reporter with Boylan, says Ginsburg is one minorities and had come to be known affec- of the most analytic and strategic minds she’s tionately as “People’s Electric Law School,” ever known. “She had a 20-year and a 50-year a term representing the counterculture and a plan and did it piece by piece, step by step, to progressive social agenda that was afoot there. figure out the end game. And she wasn’t ‘justice Additionally, tuition was affordable (about for women’ only.” $1,500 for the three years), attracting a diverse Ginsburg’s strategy was to argue against gen- student population, including women. By 1971, der inequality in the law, even when it discrimi- 40 percent of the students entering Rutgers nated against men. Law School were women, the second highest percentage in the country. Ginsburg was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993, becoming the second woman to serve.

In a 1975 case before the U.S. Supreme As a justice, Ginsburg has continued to pro- Court, Ginsburg represented Stephen Wies- tect the legal rights of not only women but also enfeld, a New Jersey man whose wife had died other minorities. during childbirth. Wiesenfeld was denied a “She’s an amazingly smart, dedicated, and Social Security benefit widows received after a focused legal mind,” says Langer. “We see her spouse’s death. The benefit, he was told, was a as a mentor, a heroine, a very strong perseverant mother’s benefit. Ginsburg won the case in a figure in the women’s rights movement. She had unanimous decision. step-by-step strategies to advance the movement.” “We wanted to say the law shouldn’t pigeon- Though she’s known for advancing women’s hole people; that man or woman should be able legal rights, Ginsburg repeatedly has said that to do whatever his or her talents made right for there were many pioneers before her. that person,” she said in a 2015 interview with “I surely would not be in this room today,” the National Portrait Gallery. she told the Senate Judiciary Committee in Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme 1993 during her nomination hearings, “without Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, becom- the determined efforts of men and women who ing only the second woman to serve. During the kept dreams of equal citizenship alive in days hearings, she foresaw a different court. when few would listen. People like Susan B. “In my lifetime, I expect to see three, four, Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet and perhaps even more women on the High Tubman come to mind. I stand on the shoul- Court bench, women not shaped from the same ders of those brave people.” mold, but of different complexions,” she told the senators.