WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday at the age of 87, surrounded by her family.
Only the second woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, she dressed for decisions and dissents. She had a special collar, or jabot, for announcing majority opinions from the bench and another for her frequent, and more celebrated, dissents.
Throughout her career, Ginsburg’s diminutive presence belied her titanic influence on the law, first as the nation’s preeminent litigator for women’s rights, and more recently as the leader of the high court’s liberal bloc, where she served as a bulwark against an increasingly conservative majority.
Here’s a look at some of her memorable opinions:
Decisions
United States v. Virginia (1996):
Struck down Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy as a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The vote was 7-1, with Associate Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting.
Ginsburg described as “presumptively invalid … a law or official policy that denies to women, simply because they are women, equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in, and contribute to society, based upon what they can do.”
