Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the second woman to sit on the high court. This felt like a personal loss to generations of American women, as well as young girls. "For women, she was the most important legal advocate in American history. She changed the way the law sees gender," said Abbe Gluck, a Yale Law School professor and former clerk of Justice Ginsburg. "The United States Supreme Court did not even recognize that the constitution prohibits discrimination based on gender until 1971 -- and that's Justice Ginsburg's case."
She spent much of her career advancing the legal principle that men and women should be equal, and that the law should treat them as such.