Currently the Supreme Court hangs in the balance with a 4-4 liberal conservative split. The former tends to view the Constitution as a living document, while the latter sees it as something static and fixed document. Court decisions have huge impacts on society. One contentious issue is gender equality. Simply put it is the belief that everyone should receive equal treatment and not be discriminated against based on their gender or sexual orientation. The Supreme Court made gender discrimination unconstitutional in 1972 in a case successfully argued by then-38 year old attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg. According to the World Economic Forum, Iceland is number one in gender equality, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Rwanda, Philippines, Switzerland, Slovenia, and New Zealand. And where does the U.S. rank, overall? 28th. And Canada? 30th.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She was director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. She argued 5 cases before the Supreme Court, winning four of them. She served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for thirteen years before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993. She turns 84 this month, and in her 24 years on the nation’s highest court she has never missed a day on the bench.
- KBOO