She was one of nine women in a class of 500 men. Her husband got cancer. She cared for him, raised a toddler, and still graduated at the top of her class. Yet no law firm would hire her.
In 1956, Ruth Bader Ginsburg arrived at Harvard Law School as one of only nine women in a class of nearly 500 students.
The dean held a dinner for the female students and asked each of them to explain why they deserved a place that could have gone to a man.
Ruth was 23 years old and the mother of a 14-month-old daughter. She was asked to justify her presence.
She answered carefully, saying she wanted to better understand her husband’s work. It was a diplomatic response meant to avoid threatening the men in the room. The deeper truth—that she was exceptionally talented and passionate about the law—would have been seen as too bold at the time.
From the beginning, the environment was difficult for women.
Some professors singled them out in class, often asking them to explain so-called “ladies’ cases” related to domestic matters. Women were not allowed to study in the main reading room of the law library. Many male students made it clear they believed the women did not belong.
While her classmates were assumed to belong there, Ruth had to prove herself every single day.
She sat in the front row. She studied relentlessly. She spoke in class despite the hostile looks around her. She refused to be intimidated.
Then, during her first year, her husband Marty was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Marty, also a law student at Harvard, was a year ahead of her. The diagnosis was frightening—cancer treatment in the 1950s was harsh, and survival rates were uncertain.
Suddenly Ruth was carrying an overwhelming load: her own demanding classes, caring for their toddler daughter Jane, and helping her seriously ill husband.
Marty underwent surgery and radiation. Many days he was too sick to attend class.
So Ruth attended her own classes during the day, then went to Marty’s classes at night to take notes for him.
She returned home, cared for their daughter, prepared meals, helped Marty study using the notes she had taken, and then stayed up late finishing her own work.
For months she slept only four or five hours a night.
Most people might have taken a leave of absence. Many would have broken under the pressure.
Ruth did something remarkable—she excelled.
She kept top grades in her own courses while essentially managing two legal educations. She ran a household, supported her husband through illness, and raised a child without complaint.
Against the odds, Marty recovered. His cancer went into remission. He graduated from Harvard in 1958 and accepted a job at a law firm in New York.
Ruth then faced a difficult decision: remain at Harvard for her final year or transfer to Columbia Law School to join her husband in New York.
She chose her family.
At Columbia she continued to thrive academically. When she graduated in 1959, she tied for first place in her class—an extraordinary achievement from one of the most prestigious law schools in the country.
Her credentials were exceptional. She had studied at two Ivy League law schools, received glowing recommendations, spoke multiple languages, and served as an editor of the Columbia Law Review.
By any objective standard, she was one of the most qualified law graduates in America.
Yet she struggled to find a job.
Law firm after law firm rejected her. The explanations were familiar: she was a woman, she had a child, and clients might not take her seriously.
Even a clerkship opportunity with Felix Frankfurter was closed to her because he simply did not hire women.
Eventually, a Columbia professor intervened, warning that he would stop recommending students if a firm refused to give Ruth a chance.
She finally secured her first legal position as a law clerk.
Later she became a professor at Rutgers Law School, though she was paid less than male colleagues because administrators believed her husband already earned enough.
Instead of letting discrimination defeat her, Ruth turned it into motivation.
In the 1970s she became a leading attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and its Women’s Rights Project.
She argued six gender-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court of the United States—and won five of them.
Her strategy was ingenious. Sometimes she represented men who were victims of gender discrimination, demonstrating that rigid stereotypes harmed everyone.
Case by case, she dismantled laws that treated women as second-class citizens.
She challenged policies that limited women’s roles in juries, property ownership, benefits, and legal status. Through careful arguments and meticulous preparation, she helped reshape American law.
In 1993, Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg became only the second woman ever to serve on the nation’s highest court.
For 27 years she served as a justice—writing influential opinions, issuing powerful dissents, and becoming an unexpected cultural icon known as “The Notorious RBG.”
Even while battling cancer several times over two decades, she rarely slowed down. She maintained a demanding schedule and continued her work with remarkable discipline.
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, at age 87, people across the country mourned. Flowers covered the steps of the Supreme Court as thousands came to honor her life.
But her greatest legacy is not only the opinions she wrote.
It is the doors she opened.
Every woman who attends law school without being asked to justify her place—she helped make that possible.
Every woman hired for her talent and ability—she helped open that path.
Through persistence, brilliance, and quiet determination, Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped transform the law so future generations would face fewer barriers.
She walked through doors that were barely open—and then pushed them wide enough for countless others to follow.
