The Clinton Administration sued to force the Commonwealth of Virginia to open up their doors to female cadets. Up until that point, the Virginia Military Institute, an elite school with a storied history, incredible facilities and powerful alumni, had only accepted male applicants. VMI involved the question of whether a state-run military institution could exclude women. Maybe most memorably in the VMI (Vermont Military Institute) opinion. On the Court, Justice Ginsburg worked towards this ideal in many cases. After her appointment to the Court, she continued to work toward this ideal, this idea that we should have an ever more inclusive Constitution and we should make sure that our laws are not structured in a way that they hold people back from achievement of their full human potential. Please make that case for us.īy the time President Clinton nominated then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, she had already spent decades working tirelessly for a more just society, a society in which the Constitution works for all the people, a society in which the Constitution leaves no one behind.

Foreign Policy & International Relationsįormer Berkeley Law dean Herma Hill Kay testified at her confirmation hearings that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would become “a justice worthy of the title.” I presume you believe this prediction was borne out.

End matter includes a longer and more detailed overview of Ginsburg’s life, notes in her cases, a selected bibliography, and a list of sources for quotations. There’s opportunity here for some unusually early discussion of Supreme Court conventions as well as a history of women who have helped shape our nation. Digitally enhanced line and watercolor illustrations serviceably map out her life their liveliest component is the emblazoned interpolation of the dissents in big Barnum-worthy ballyhoo font. However, the focus on dissents provides an interesting lens given Ginsburg’s huge legacy in that area legally, and it provides a well-modeled point about the value of holding and speaking up for a minority opinion details about her friendship with Scalia and her ceremonial collars add character.

This is an unchallengingly adulatory outing that largely skims across the surface, and its overview of Ginsburg’s landmark Supreme Court dissents goes beyond simple to reductive.

Levy casts the Supreme Court justice as somebody who was raised to challenge established wisdom from the start, who was shaped by the sexist and anti-Semitic prejudice she encountered and fought back against, and who created a career and family balance that was unusual in its time. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s current cult following, it’s not surprising that she’d get the picture-book treatment.

I Dissent by Debbie Levy