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Equal Protection Clause
In 1971, Ginsburg used the 14th amendment to overturn a ruling that favored men over women. Sally and Cecil Reed (separated at the time of the case) both applied to be the administrator of their recently deceased son's estate. Due to a discriminatory law, Cecil was automatically granted the administrator role. Sally challenged this ruling. This was the first time the Supreme Court applied the Equal Protection Clause to a gender-based discriminatory law. -
Gender Inequality Hurts Men Too
In 1973, Lieutenant Frontiero requested a dependent's allowance for her husband. At the time, the Federal law automatically considered the wive's of military men as dependents, however, they did not automatically consider husbands of military women as dependents, so the allowance was denied. Ginsburg argued that "...a person's sex bears no necessary relationship to ability." This helped push forward the gender equality movement by showing how men can be affected when discriminating by gender. -
Equality in Juries
In 1979, Missouri allowed jury duty to be optional for women. At this time, Ginsburg represented Duren, a Missouri man accused of murder. Ginsburg argued that Duren would not be given a fair trial if women were able to opt-out of jury duty. In addition, a law allowing women a special exception devalues a women's contribution to a jury. Ginsburg's efforts continue to push the idea that society must view women as equal to men. -
RBG Appointed to Associate Justice
President Bill Clinton appointed Ginsburg as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1993. While Ginsburg made waves as an attorney, she would go on to do even greater things from behind the bench for the gender equality movement. -
Equal Work, Equal Pay
In 2007, the Court saw a case where a woman had worked at Goodyear Tire for over 19 years, but saw smaller raises, lower salary, and received lower annual performance rankings than any of her male coworkers. She filed these were due to Goodyear discriminating against her based on gender. While the court favored Goodyear, Ginsburg read her disagreement of the court's decision at the time of ruling, which is rare for any justice. This pushed Pres. Obama to sign the Fair Pay Act in 2009.
