Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, Sept. 18 at the age of 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Her battle with cancer has been on and off since 1999, taking on multiple rounds of chemotherapy and surgeries during that time, but she continued to serve on the Supreme Court through it all.

Ginsburg was loved and admired by many. Her work and life inspired many books and films, including a biopic titled “On the Basis of Sex” and a documentary called “RBG.”

In 1993, Ginsburg was selected by President Bill Clinton to serve as a Supreme Court justice. The Senate confirmed her position with a 96-3 vote. She was the second female to ever be appointed as a justice.

Before her appointment of judge, her work was nothing but noteworthy.

She graduated at the top of her law school class from Columbia University in 1959, and despite the limited opportunities for women in the world of the law, she worked relentlessly and became a champion for the women’s rights movement.

In the 1970s, she won five of the six cases that she argued before the Supreme Court, all of which fought against gender discrimination.

One such case was Reed v. Reed. Ginsburg represented Sally Reed, who was seeking to be executor on her son’s estate instead of her ex-husband. The question revolved around whether a state could automatically prefer men over women as estate executors. While arguing for Sally Reed’s right, Ginsburg was fighting for all women’s rights.

The court, comprised of all-male justices, sided with Ginsburg and determined that states could not determine an executor by sex. It was the first time the court changed a law because of discrimination based on gender.

For Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, Ginsburg’s male client could not claim survivor’s benefits because the Social Security Act of 1935 only permitted widows to collect these benefits while caring for minor children. The minor language discrepancy of widow and widower was written with the expectation that women would not be able to provide for their family upon the death of their husbands.

In this particular case, Ginsburg proved the law could be discriminatory against men, through the example that her client could not receive benefits because he was a man, a widower. This case was crucial in proving the importance of language use in gender discrimination and, more importantly, in showing that equality of sex is just as much for men as it is for women.

She received tenure at Rutgers Law School in 1969 and was the founder of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which fights for “systemic reform in institutions that perpetuate discrimination against women,” according to the project’s website.

Throughout her career, she also wrote and filed briefs to ensure the 14th Amendment covers the rights and guarantees the equal protection of women and not just racial and ethnic minorities.

Ginsburg’s career and public presence continued to build, and in 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She served the court for 13 years, strengthening her image as a centrist liberal.

All of this led to her appointment as a Supreme Court justice. When she started, she continued with her left-leaning ideology, but as time went on, her liberal voice grew. In the later years of her position, she was seen as the “leader of the liberal wing” for the court.

Just as her career before the court, her time spent as a justice centered on the rights of women and other minorities.

The 1996 case United States v. Virginia, regarding the Virginia Military Institute’s unconstitutional male-only admittance policy, gave Ginsburg her first chance at writing the majority opinion.

She wrote, “(The) reliance on overbroad generalizations … about the way most men or women are will not suffice to deny opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description.”

This case’s majority opinion states that everyone should be given the opportunity to achieve what they are capable of, to strive “outside the average description,” in Ginsburg’s words.

Ginsburg encapsulates this idea better than anyone. Through college and her career, she had to break through discriminatory barriers. She was a woman, eventually a mother, and she was Jewish. Her work was personal in many ways, and that understanding, paired with an unrelenting drive, allowed her to accomplish all that she did.

When asked about her legacy, Ginsburg said, “To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself but for one’s community.”

How could I possibly express the gratitude I have for Ginsburg?

Throughout her life, no matter her position at the time, she fought for all people. Her work in the women’s rights movement was revolutionary. Her time as a justice was progressive and inclusive.

Ginsburg is a model of American justice and politics. Even those who believed and thought differently about the law or controversial topics respected her. She lived and acted with grace, humor and resilience. She worked as she did to make life better, not for the fame or the legacy she would leave.

Yet, she did, indeed, leave an incredible legacy.

The changes she brought about will remain as a reminder of where we once were and as an inspiration of where we could go still.

Here’s to the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. May her memory be a blessing.

Maddie Peters can be reached at pete9542@stthomas.edu.