Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes

1869 that Iowa’s Arabella Mansfield became the first female to gain admission to the practice of law in this country.

Belva Ann Lockwood, her birth year, 1830. Lockwood was the first woman ever to gain admission to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bar,

Yet, until 1971, the Court turned away every woman’s complaint that she had been denied equal protection by a state or federal law.

Twenty-one months after her admission, Lockwood became the first woman to participate in oral argument at the Court. She next and last argued before the Court in 1906. She was then seventy-five. Using the skill she had gained over a thirty-year span in her specialty — pressing money claims against the United States — she helped to secure a five-million-dollar award for Eastern Cherokee Indians whose ancestral lands had been taken from them without just compensation.

If she is agile — if she welcomes and responds to questions that may uncover what is in the decisionmakers’ minds, while remaining alert to opportunities to use a question as a springboard to advance a key point.

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken,best tune out.

Ordinarily, our mutual respect is only momentarily touched by our sometimes strong disagreements on what the law is.

The written record is by far the more important component in an appellate court’s decisionmaking, but the oral argument often elicits helpful clarifications and concentrates the judges’ minds on the character of the decision they are called upon to make.

She probably did not think of herself as a feminist, but she had the strong sense that her state’s law was unjust, and faith that the judiciary could redress her grievance. Ultimately, her faith was vindicated. The Supreme Court unanimously declared Idaho’s male preference statute unconstitutional, a plain denial to Sally Reed of the equal protection of the state’s law.

[T]he principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes — the legal subordination of one sex to the other — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; . . . it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. — JOHN STUART MILL,1 The Subjection of Women (1869)

First, a mother who, by her example, made reading a delight and counseled me constantly to “be independent,” able to fend for myself, whatever fortune might have in store for me. Second, teachers who influenced or encouraged me in my growing-up years.

Ruth, if you don’t want to start law school, you have a good reason to resist the undertaking. No one will think the less of you if you make that choice. But if you really want to study law, you will stop worrying and find a way to manage child and school.” And so Marty and I did, by engaging a nanny on school days from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Many times after, when the road was rocky, I thought back to Father’s wisdom, spent no time fretting, and found a way to do what I thought important to get done.

President Carter appointed a barrier-breaking number of women — 40 — to lifetime federal judgeships.45

The way to stop discrimination on race is to stop discriminating on race

Ruth very much admired her mother, who encouraged Ruth to be independent and self-sufficient.